Learning Reflection:

Throughout the course, I learned a lot of practices to become a better game developer but the biggest takeaway for me for this class is the definition of the inscribed, dynamic, and cultural layer that in video games.

INSCRIBED LAYER

The objectives and player relationships have been my start point when I start a new project. What are the players trying to accomplish? What can and can’t the players do to achieve their objective? Those questions will help me get a clear vision of the game structure.

DYNAMIC MECHANICS

When it comes to dynamic layer, the dynamic mechanics will always be in my consideration. With the dynamic mechanics in mind, the game that I made throughout the course was always different and each player that tests my game would have a different experience from the game. Some may get deep into the game and some may feel frustrated because they didn’t know the optimal strategy for the game.

BEYOND PLAY

The cultural layer, however, is a little less obvious. The cultural layer exists at the intersection of the game and society. Players of a game become a community united by their shared experience of play, and that community takes the concepts and intellectual property of the game out into the world.Adding specific cultrual elements will make the game special and appealing to the game community. Building a game community was also my dream. With all the knowledge that I gathered in this course, I think it is time for me to do something I have always wanted to.

A fun Journey with RPGMaker MV:

Our team decided to use RPGMaker for our final project. I’ve heard RPGMaker before but never used it so RPGMaker is very new to me. Learning how to use RPGMaker has been a long but fun experience. I’m impressed by how simple and function complete the RPGMaker is. All versions include initial premade tilesets, characters, and events that can be used in creating our games.

Our game is a horror puzzle game and that is a great fit for the RPGMaker.

I’m able to add player interactions to those objects that I placed in the level to grant instructions and important quest items to the player.

I can also add cutscenes and dialogues to the game and further immerse the player into the horror experience that we’ve created.

Discuss mechanics and your experience with your peers in the game.

In the first JackBox game that I played, the mechanics that I noticed are:

Voting, I Cut, You Choose, Player Elimination

The noticed the voting mechanic at the start of the game. Every player need to vote between other two players answer.

I think there is a I cut, you choose mechanic in this game because one players choice is being judged by other player.

There is also player elimination in this game because one player is eliminated base on how many votes they got each round.

How does playing with an audience affect the game?

The audience in the second JackBox affect the game a lot more than the first JackBox game that I played. The second JackBox is kind like “I draw and you guess" but a little bit different. The audience have a significant role in this game because they can vote for the best guess. One plyer’s vote is worth 500 points towards the player’s guess. 50% of the audience also worth 500 points towards the player’s guess. That means if one player gets all the audience’s votes then it’s plus 1000 points on top of all the points that he got in this round. At the end of the game the highest score was about 8000. 1000 points that are controled by the audience are very significant in my opinion. I think the audience have a big impact in who win the game at the end.

A Screenshot：

Title of the game：Slime Jump!!

It is a very challenging platform game. Go as high as you can! Try if you can finish the first level. After you beat the first level there is a second level you can try out but be careful. It is insanely hard. It took me about 30 minutes to beat the game. All the levels have been tested by both of us and our friends. It is very challenging but doable.

Game credits:

I used some of the tilemap from the 108 game demo and also the Slipper C script from the 108 game demo.

Known Issue:

Crouch Animation dose not work properly.

Use → and ← to move left and right just ↑ to jump and ↓ to crouch. The slime will bounce on the platform.If you hit the jump key right when he touches the floor, you can jump higher and higher. This is the key to beat the game!

Briefly discuss the game as it exists now:

I have improved the game’s animation only left the crouch animation is left. All the core mechanics are working nicely. I’ve finished the first level and the second level of the game. The most difficult part of alpha is the creation of the second level. It is very hard to balance the game to be challenging but fun to play at the same time but I manage to find the middle point that I’m happy with.

Name: Lin Zhu

Role: programmer and Producer

I choose the role of programmer and producer because I know code and handle the unity project implementation.

Two playtest sessions:

Player one: Jack Zhu

Jack Zhu is my CS108 classmate and we met at the board game lab. I’m very glad to have him to playtest our game. He was using a desktop PC running the Windows operating system.
He set the game’s resolution to 2560* 1440 on the windowed mode and start to play the game.
He tested the first level which is a bit challenging for the most player. He spends about 20 minutes and completed the first level. He said that the game is a little hard at the beginning but after he understands the core jumping mechanic the game becomes more fun to play because the first level heavily relies on the core mechanic. He said if we add some background music and sound effect for the slime animation would be perfect for our game.

Player two: Masae Yamazaki

Masae Yamazaki is my girlfriend and we live in the same apartment. With the current COVID-19 situation, I feel so lucky to have her around to test my game.
She tested the game on a MacBook laptop. The game was running on the windowed mode.
After 35 minutes of playtesting, she was not able to complete the first l; level but this totally in my expectation because my goal is to design a hard and challenging game for most players who love to have a bit challenge in their play session. In the end, she mentions that the animation could be worked on more to have a smoother transition. She also mentions the background music and sound effect that we will be working on.

I will work on the background music and add some sound effects to the character animation but I will keep the game flow and difficulty.

Three games I played: QWOP, This is the only level, A Dance of Fire and Ice.

Two game with critial connection.

QWOP:

The name of the game pretty much explained how the play is played. The player uses Q, W, O, P to control the runner on the screen. Unlike other games that I’ve played, this game completely changed how I view player movement in a game. Q and W were used to control the runner’s thighs. O and P were used to control the runner’s calves. The simple move action becomes insanely difficult to perform. In the middle of the play section, new obstacles will appear on the runway. The dynamic gameplay is what makes this game so fun to play. Speak of dynamic gameplay, there is another game that I played in the Lab I have to talk about and its name is This is the only level.

This is the only level.

Just like the game’s name saids. The game only have one level but with different stages. The objective of the game is to move the in-game character to the other side of the map. Sounds pretty easy right? No. After every stage start, there will be new rules added to the game such as “Player can only jump once per life” or  “Player can only move to the right” to make the game sometime super difficult to play. Those surprising and confusing moment is what makes me wonder what’s keeping me playing the game. I would try my best to beat the stage and looking forward to the new changes to the game when I go to the next stage. This game and QWOP use their dynamic gameplay to make a pretty simple looking game with so much depth.

The Rhythm game: A Dance of Fire and Ice

Mechanic: I like the mechanic of this game. The mechanic of this game is easy and very straight forward: hit the kay when the bit dorp. The game becomes very challanging but rewarding at the same time after the first few level. I played this game for about 20 minutes and it is very hard to let go once I got the han of it. Super fun and challenging game.

This board game is base on the soccer game in real life. Each player need to control one team of 11 soccer players. The board is divided into 4 areas: frontcourt，midfield1，midfield2，backcourt. Player role dice to pass and shot the soccer ball. Which ever team scores 5 points first wins the game.

Rules:

1: Each player has 10 soccer players and 1 guard.
2: Role dice to start the game(Lower role goes first).
3: Chance to pass:(1/2 change to successfully pass the ball to the next area)
Backcourt to midfield1: 1-6
Backcourt to midfield2: 1-4
Backcourt to frontcourt: 1-2
4: Chance to score:(shooting the ball from the middle has the biggest change to score)
middle: 1-8
middle to left or middle to right: 1-6
far left or far right: 1-4
Chance + 2 if the soccer player is standing in his team’s area.
Chance – 2 if the soccer player is standing with one or more opponent’s player.
5: Chance to guard:
same as shooter’s score chance but role upset number
ex: shooter role 1-6 to score, then guar role 7-12 to guard
6: Defence player can move one soccer player once within the same area.
7: Guarding successfully let the player keep possession.
8: Scoring successfully let the other player keep possession.

A play log:

Very first prototype:

Science there are no grids on our board. We decided the board into 4 areas: frontcourt，midfield1，midfield2，backcourt and we kept that through all the iteration. We started with 3 soccer players and two simple rules: roll dice to pass the ball and roll dice to shot. After one play section, we realize the game was too rng based and needed too little player decision and skill to play. First, we added 7more soccer players to the board which made the game closer to a real-life soccer game. Then we added a player movement mechanic which let you move the soccer player and block the other player’s passing way.

We add a couple of new rules for the soccer player placement:

Each player can put 2-4 players in their backcourt for defense.

Each player can put 2-4 players in their midfield for passing.

Each player can put up to 2 players in their frontcourt for attacking.

The game now requires the player to put their soccer player carefully and more decision making. The game was more fun to play with now but we encounter a new issue. Without a grid is hard to know where to put all those player and keep track of all them was impossible so we added areas.

Those yellow areas and red areas are for the soccer player. We removed the old player placement rule and add the new one: Player place their soccer player into the colored area at the start of the game. When we were testing the game, we quickly realized that one player could take advantage of the other player by slowly put their soccer team. So we change the rule: Player roll dice to start the game. The player with a smaller role starts the first soccer player placement form backcourt his. Then the other player start the same process. Once a player finishes with one area he can’t go back and make changes to the player placement. That way no one has the placement advantage from the dice roll.

After I went home I played this version of the game with my girfiend. As we play, I add more rule for the in-game movement that let the player have more decisions to make. I also added the rule that let player pass the ball over two and more areas. That way players can try to push their luck and win an easy point. She gets rules pretty fast and even wins the game at the end. The simple board game turns out supper fun to play. You can try to play it with a close friend to see if you like it or not.

Core Mechanic:

Dice Rolling:
A game mechanism dice rolling in a game can be used for many things, randomness being the most obvious. This is the core of the game. I try to make a simple and fun game at first so I pick dice. Dice are simple and easy to use. It workes very well with the game so I sicked with it to the end.

Push Your Luck:
Players must decide between settling for existing gains, or risking them all for further rewards. Push-Your-Luck is also known as press-your-luck. Toward the end, I was playing the game and want to bring to the excitement to the game. The first mechanic that came to my mind was “push your luck”. I would never forget the feeling of escape Tokyo with 1 hp left that I played last week with my classmate. I decided to add this mechanic into the game. It fit the game nicely. A player can pass the ball safely with a greater chance of a successful pass and he can also pass the ball to a shooter and take the risk of losing the soccer ball.