building alliances: week 6

Presentation Feedback, UI Concepts and Feedback/Development

This blog includes:

- Our Presentation and Feedback

- UI Work 

- Feedback and Development

Our Presentation + Feedback

Last week, we had our group presentation where we displayed the work we had done so far and presented it to the class while pitching our game idea so far. We were recorded and given feedback by Sam on this, which we all reflected on as a group Afterwards. 

Some of the notes we were given that we discussed:

 - Time setting of the game - our game is set 500 years in the future, but the diving suit our character wears is quite outdated, the style of diving suit worn by our mc is commonly seen dating back to the 18th century, and Sam wanted us to explore and explain why the fashion might've been outdated, as well as technological developments due to our game being set in the future. As a group we discussed this, and came up with the explanation that because our game is set deep underwater and in an apocalyptic setting, this being the only type of suit available made sense, and the suit is also equipped with more advanced technology.

- How 3D fits into our game - our game is a 2D Platformer style game, so trying to fit 3D into our game was difficult. together, we decided we would create models in 3D to showcase 3D work too just as a concept idea. we also came up with the idea that we would have puzzle mini games within our game. For inspiration for this, we looked into similar games such as Inscription. These would be low poly 3D scenes that would still fit the vibe of our game. 

- Linking to Nottingham/Designs feeling realistic - Another point that was brought up was how we were going to link our game to Nottingham, and if we could maybe include things such as Sealife and creatures native to Nottingham and the midlands within our game, or take inspiration from them. Our game is more fantasy based and follows the plot that something has corrupted the wildlife, so it makes sense for us to take creative liberties with things such as designs and colours. But still, we decided we should do some research on native sealife/wildlife to nottingham too as that is something we hadn't looked at yet. as the research lead, i decided that would be the task i would complete in the following week.

UI Concept Sketches

We were each assigned tasks to work on, and I decided to work on some of the in-game UIs. This is for example the type of Interface that will be seen throughout the main gameplay of the game. I created a selection of 6 different UI concepts based upon some ideas and inspiration I gathered of other games from Pinterest. Each one was slightly different, and I asked my group for their opinions and feedback on which they liked the most and what they thought would work best.

I asked my group for feedback on my designs, as this is what i received.  I was told that 6 and 1 were the best looking, and will begin to experiment more with these two ideas. I quite like the text box design from design 1, though i am not sure if we will actually be adding dialogue in our game, other than the mc talking/thinking to himself which could also be portrayed by things like thought bubbles coming off the actual character which we could experiment with too. I also quite like the clean ook of 6, i think it is the easiest on the eyes and won't be too distracting from the actual gameplay. I also like 5, but i think the icon of the diver would be too distracting and would probably take up too much of the screen.