BTEC Extended Diploma in Computer Games Design

BTEC Extended Diploma in Computer Games Design

Liam Roche                                                                                                                                       Unit 1: Pre-Production Techniques for the Creative Media Industries

     Pre-Production and Planning for a Computer Game 

The pre-production elements which you have to consider before actually making something consists of a few different areas, you have the type of production, finance, personnel, facilities, materials, time constraints, contributors, and codes of practice.

Type of Production

Types of production is extremely simple, it's basically the foundation of the idea that you've came up with, is it a film, television programme, a short video, radio show, an audio clip, website, computer game etc.  You can't have an idea without knowing what it's going to be, in my case my type of production is a computer game, therefore this is my foundation, which will carry me to the end, so my finished project is going to be a video game.

Finance

Because I'm creating an Indie game I have to consider multiple factors,  the hardware, software, and publishing. Lets start with Hardware and the most obvious item in this category is a computer, in order to design a game and then create it, I'm going to need a good powerful computer which can handle a lot of hassle, a computer that cost around £100 and is second hand, probably wont do the trick, whereas if you had a £2000 top of the range computer, I'm positive that'd handle it, however you don't need to go over the top, the computer that I'm using to design my game is a Lenovo C260 which cost roughly £500 at the time. For the peripherals you'll have the obvious mouse and keyboard, you might have a headset to listen to some music whilst creating this game, however these are really the only peripherals you need, and you don't need to buy a £60 to make a better game, a simple £20 would do the trick as it is only used to typing, the mouse isn't a big deal either. SDK (Software Development Kits) are usually free, as people want you to use their development and not rival companies etc. However in some cases this is NOT true, there is a program called Gamemaker Studios which is what I use to create my games, this application has one downside, you don't get a free SDK for the following - Apple, Android or Windows, you have to pay, and it's not like £30, its $299.99 which is £196.44, for each of them, however Gamemaker has given these SDK names and these are referred to as "Modules" which also let you export the game to one of the platforms listed above, depending on which Modules you own. 

Now lets move onto Software, now most software is free with add-on's which you can purchase that gives you more benefits within the program, Gamemaker is one of these programs and I mentioned this earlier, the software itself is free if you buy the normal studio version, it does have a Professional version (which I own) and then it was a Master version which has all of the benefits and add-on's, as I also stated you need to purchase the better versions or buy the modules separately. Unity is also another software which you can use, it is the same as Gamemaker in the perspective that it has add-on's which are overpriced, but the software itself a lot more complicated than Gamemaker, one of the main reasons is because Gamemaker is a program that focuses more on 2D based game that follow pixel art, or very simplistic art styles such as non-photorealism, whereas Unity focuses more on 3D games and photo-realistic art or exaggerated art which can also be linked to the anime art style, this is not to say you cannot make a 2D game on Unity because you can, its just the software itself is a lot more advanced than Gamemaker and would be able to make a better 3D game. Before I drop software, lets have a quick look at animation programs which can assist 3D games greatly and are needed for more advanced games such as the game "Until Dawn" lets talk about Maya,  Maya is an advanced 3D sculpture animation software possibly used by professionals, the software itself has a nice free trial, however after that you'll be spending £97 a month to use the software, I will not be using this, therefore i'll be sticking to my nice and easy 2D games which don't require all this fancy animation.

Now lets talk about Publishing, now my opinion on this is that it is 'stupidly overpriced' apparently publishing a game on the Xbox One costs $5000 "Total Cost of Publishing One Indie Game.

Last week Sixty Second Shooter developer Jamie Fristrom released the total cost for publishing on the Xbox One at $5,143. That figure may be daunting to some, but it's also close to the absolute minimum to publish on a console." if you didn't know, that is £3369.03. However you can publish a game on Android for $25 which is a lovely amount because I can afford that (£16.38), Steam costs $100 which I too can afford.

Personnel

So in game development there are multiple roles, thanks to this link, it has each role and explains them thoroughly in detail.

http://creativeskillset.org/creative_industries/games/job_roles

Well, the team consists of me, a one man army, I say army because I'm the level editor, lead artist, game programmer, game designer, creative director, audio engineer, and animator. My skills consist of creating spontaneous ideas on the spot, or can come up with incredible games surrounding a particular object or theme. I have very little experience when it comes to creating a game, I've only made a few platformers in Gamemaker, however the more I try the more experience I'll get so I'll level up faster and eventually become an expert games designer. Because I have no social life I'll have all the time I need to create the game, however I'll need to dedicate various amount of time to each factor of the game, so perhaps one hour on audio a day, and two hours on animating etc. Fortunately because this is a personal project I do not have others working with me, therefore I do not have to pay for employees.

Equipment & Facilities

I briefly mentioned my equipment earlier on, but I'll tell you again anyway, in slightly more detail. The software that I use is Gamemaker and I have the Professional version with the Android Module. The hardware that I use is the Lenovo C260. The peripherals that I own are the keyboard and mouse that came with the Lenovo, and Razer headphones to listen to music which helps me come up with ideas, in total it roughly cost me £560 in total. Now the facility where I do my work costs me nothing because its all done from my bedroom.

Materials

Before you do a professional animation, you'd probably have to do a storyboard before hand to give you a rough outline of the whole animation from start to finish, if your game also has a deep story and a meaning behind it, you'll have to have a good script, which means trial and error, the first script will suck, but you'll make so many improvements to make it meaningful that it'll add emotion into the lifeless game. Fortunately my game is super simple and doesn't need big animations or a script, because the game idea itself is so stupid that it defies the laws of logic, you're supposed to play my game for the enjoyment, nothing more. However my game does have some very simplistic concept art that I'm in the process of creating, although I cannot show you a picture I can give you a rough idea of what it'll look like when its finished, it is a trolley full of potato's going down a hill, collecting even more potato's, whilst an old lady is chasing the trolley. The art that I am using is all made by me, because this'll be my first ever proper game that I've actually tried to make by myself, therefore I want everything to be done by me, however on the other hand the music that I'm using is NOT made by me, I found the tune originally on youtube, the following link will show you my games main theme song, or at least the current theme that I have in mind https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTRXOnbuJVM. My graphics are going to be low quality because I'm making my game for the Android and iOS, however I will also make a PC version, the game will be 8 bit and use pixel art.

Time Constraints

Before I even started designing my game, after coming up with my foundation idea, I instantly realized that this could get quite messy and I may end up rushing things that I need to spend more time on, so what I did was pick 4 days to work, and 3 days to rest, the days that I work on my game are Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, the reason why I chose these days are because I want to have a break in-between, however I only work 3-4 hours on each of these days, this is my timetable as listed below

Monday - 1 Hour Animation, 1 Hour Editing / Creating levels, 2 Hours Audio

Tuesday - 2 Hours on Art, 1 Hour on Creating levels

Thursday - 2 1/2 Hours Audio, 1 1/2 Hours Editing Sprites

Saturday - 3 Hours Programming, 1 Hour on Art

Because I have this list that I have to follow I never get confused on what I'm supposed to be doing and when I'm supposed to be doing it, this makes life a lot easier for me, and on the days that I don't add to my game, I usually come up with a few ideas when doing something else, which I always make sure to take note of because they might become apart of my game.

Contributors

Although this doesn't apply to my game I feel the need to talk about it anyway. Contributors can basically mean anyone as long as they contribute to your game, so if you were making a 3D photo-realistic dating simulator or whatever, you might hire professional voice actors to play the part of the nerdy girl, however this doesn't just apply to professional voice actors, perhaps your female on this dating simulator has a very shy voice, and you don't have the money to pay for a professional, but you might have a female friend with a naturally quiet voice and she might play the role perfectly, if you managed to get her to help, she would be a contributor to your game. Your main character of this dating simulator game might be a singer in a boy band, obviously you're not going to get Harry Styles out of One Direction to help you out, but you might know a group of friends who you believe are incredibly talented, and although they might not have a knack for voice acting, you could get them to play the boy band because of their singing talent, and then just tell them to act natural when saying the script in other scenes of the game that doesn't require them to sing, they might not be good at acting but these would also be classed as contributors to your game. For an example I mentioned a game called "Until Dawn" earlier on, basically they use real actors to voice their characters, and the characters look just like the voice actors because its a photo-realistic game and the game designers want the game to seem even more real, so they had the characters designed after the voice actors, these actors / voice actors are contributors to the game "Until Dawn".

Codes of Practice

My game has no health and safety issues because there are no strobe effects which could affect people with Epilepsy, although if you have an extreme fear of trolleys and potato's then you probably shouldn't play the game. I will end up copy righting my ingenious game, because I don't want people stealing it, however I don't mind people taking inspiration from it and perhaps making their own game, that'd be pretty cool to know that I inspired someone. The game itself will be rated 4+, however I'm not entirely sure that a 4 year old could actually play the game on their own until the very end and actually complete it, because the levels gradually get harder and harder, so although my game will be rated 4+ I'd probably recommend being at least 7+ to play it, although I guess you can start it at the age of 4 and then 3 years later go back to it and finish the game off. My game will NOT give children bad vibes such as making them potential murderers like GTA could, (although I personally disagree with this people are entitled to their own opinions therefore I feel obligated to add it in), because my games target audience is aimed at children it will not promote violence in any way or form, and if they still become a murderer, then that was their destiny which they couldn't escape. I personally do not think that I will insure my game because I do not see it becoming massive as it will be my first ever serious game, however if it does magically kick off somehow then I may end up insuring it just for safety purposes. 

To summaries this up beautifully the type of production, is my video game, that is the foundation of my idea. My finance is my set-up and the software that I use to create my games, which cost me roughly £560 not including snack breaks. I have already went into detail about my time constraints and the schedule that I follow each week to get the job done. The personnel is me on my own for this specific game because it is a personal project that I'm working on, however for games in the future I do have a group of friends, and we go by the name of Four Foxes Studio, which consists of me, Sam, Regan, and Charlie. The facility where I do my work is my house and to be more specific my bedroom, the reason why I do my work from my bedroom is because the sort of games I make are Indie Games, meaning that I do not need a professional work space, I can make it from the comfort of my own bedroom. I've told you about the materials that I'm using and creating such as my concept art and the audio that I'm using. I've told you that contributors are people who have someway contributed to the game, perhaps by voicing a certain character, however this doesn't apply to my game because it is not too advanced and has a very simplistic form. I have also told you about my games Codes of Practice.