Origami Kami - Alpha and Open House Update

Today was our official Alpha deadline. I'm incredibly proud of the work our team was able to accomplish in the past couple months and the current state of our game. We're really in a great position for Spring and I think we can make some serious waves with this project (that pun was completely intentional)

Before the Open House this week, I created a survey form for people to fill out after they played our build at the event. Here is some direct feedback from the EAE attendants:

Gameplay - Describe what you enjoyed:

Art is great and the objective is simple very nice casual game, really enjoyable

The pressure sensitivity was excellent; I also enjoyed the peaceful ambience of the game.

I enjoyed the feel of the movement of the water. I also liked the different challenges, and diversity between levels.

Gameplay - Describe one area of improvement or idea to develop:

Something that encourages more movement. I had the most fun when the origami was moving the fastest.

I think the game should have the boat move, when you move the consol around

Build the narrative into the game. Provide a reason to collect origami cranes. Feedback on the controller could be more intuitive; whatever makes sense.

Art - Describe what you enjoyed:

The water looked nice. Once the reflections are added it will be really good.

The colors, I think vivid colors make this look great

I loved the origami theme and the stylistic water.

Art - Describe one area of improvement or idea to develop:

Initially hard to recognize the geysers for what they were.

Contrast between the obstacles and water might be increased to help indicate the goal. The outer edge of the lane is plain.

the boat could be more detailed

What are your overall thoughts on the game:

Relaxing. A good time killer. The right meditative soundtrack will really bring it to life.

Fun little game, should be on mobile!

Well done. I like the simplicity of the interaction between player and device. The user currently clicks a lot to solve puzzles. Balance the touch mechanic to ensure the game isn't too tedious.

I really like it!

It's really important to me as a producer/developer to get feedback from other gamers about my current projects. Gamers are great at figuring out exactly what they don't like and just telling you. I'm glad that many people have positive things to say about Origami Kami, but I'll be keeping a closer eye on the areas of improvement so I know what to prioritize and share with the team over this winter break.

I'm also working on trailer for the game which I will post soon.

Origami Kami - Project Update #2

We're one week away from Alpha! It seems like this semester has flew by, but I can't wait to show of our current game at the Open House. I worked this whole week to create a media packet for the event that we could use for our promotional materials at the event as well as our future game events.

This past summer, I interned at Ubisoft San Francisco in their Marketing/Promotions Department. I learned a lot about the process and groundwork that large triple-A publishers go through to show off their games before they release to the public. While some of the strategies don't translate to our game and group (as independent or student respectively), I have some great ideas and networks our team can use when we're closer to release.

I talked to the team about the idea of Promotions and what it can mean to our game. We can be disruptive and different while still using some mainstream channels to show our game off to the largest audience. I'm so excited to get started in the Spring when we can plan out our game plan for GDC and other local game events. I want to take my experiences from this summer and last year and make Origami Kami one of the most talked about games the undergrad capstone has ever seen.

Here's a picture of our game courtesy of Eric's Blog:

I also had the team practice an exercise where we pretend talked about our game to someone who had never seen it. It's something that I'm tried using this semester to refine our presentation skills while also getting everyone more connected on the spirit and core of the game.

Origami Kami - The Paper (Boat) God + Alpha Prioritized List

Kami is Japanese for Spirit or God which works with our new theme and rhymes with Origami so now we're collectively calling our game Origami Kami. I'm not sure of whoever came up with the name, but I like it a lot and so does the group so now it's our game's name!

It's Thanksgiving Break so we're working around the Holidays to get the game ready for Alpha which is December 12th. I've planned out the last sprint so we're feature complete for the EAE Open House which is the same day.

Here is my Alpha Prioritized List that I put together last week, but forgot to include:

Alpha Prioritized To Do List

1.     Multi Level System - eric

2.     Save Game - tyler

a.     Collecting System – counter for collected, dictionaries

b.     Levels Unlocked

3.     Mechanics - ellis

a.     Current

b.     Geysers

c.     Cherry Blossom/Touchables

d.     Driftwood

4.     Particle Effects System -eric

a.     Waterfalls, geysers

5.     Realistic Water - eric

6.     Animations - dore

a.     Flower Bloom

7.     UI - matt

8.     Sound Design - ellis

a.     Background Music

b.     Sound effects

9.     Purchasing System - tyler

10.  Social/Leaderboards - tyler

I worked with the Engineering Team to prioritize the core features we needed and coordinate work load. The art team worked separately to iterate on their current art and assets.

Origami Boat - New Name, New Game

As you can see by the new title, things have changed. Many things. Let's discuss!

1. We decided to change the theme of the game from most peaceful, zen game ever to a more engaging puzzle boat game. We decided that the concept of making a relaxing game conflicted too much with solving puzzles and working with the environment. A game that we used as reference/inspiration is called Pocket God and even that contrasts with the theme we were working on. 
2. With a new theme comes a new name. We're now Origami Boat. I thought it was important that we change the name in class with the whole team since the old name made everyone think of peacefulness which is what we want to avoid.
3. The future of B2B is currently up in the air. I did a lot of research and work to get us registered and prepared for the competition, but if we drop it because our game no longer meets the criteria/overall objective of the medical world, it'll be an understandable loss.

Here is the latest build courtesy of Dore's Blog!

Zen Boat - Project Update #4

We've had several sprint reviews this semester, but I decided to take notes and keep track of this week's progress. We're all working to develop mechanics, levels, and new art for the game. I should spend more time blogging, but I'm glad I have this to include.

Sprint Review 11/14/13

Completed:

·      Crane

·      Rocks

·      Boat

-       Camera/POV angle: How much angle do we need?

-       Rock drop location:

o   Not grabbing and dropping

o   Where to drop – How much boats move

-       Scaling objects into level editor

-       Improved Workflow

o   Mechanic -> Testing -> Iteration -> Updates

To-Do List

-       Current

-       Terrain

-       Lily pad 

-       Whirlpool

Thursday’s Build

·      Rock you can drop

·      Current that moves

·      Collectible to pick up

·      Whirlpool that is a risk

·      End objective (tori gate)

·      Drift Wood
- Stretch Goal – Lily Pad with risk/reward

Angled POV

Cherry Blossom

Lantern

Windmill

Bank

Terrain

Here's another image courtesy of Eric Hurst's Blog

As you can see, we've implemented a basic water environment as well as a whirlpool which represents the end goal.

Zen Boat - Project Update #3

We're going all out in the pursuit of Zen. The question remains what exactly is Zen and how do you create an experience that enforces that to the player and gives a Zen experience.

One of the biggest challenges I think we have right now is the somewhat loose interpretation of what Zen means. It really breaks down to two trains of thought/definitions:

ZEN (Z-eh-n); noun

1. Japanese school of thought emphasizing meditation and peacefulness
2. Total state of focus and togetherness of mind and body.

It's not these definitions are two sides of a coin, but rather they seem to occupy different zones of gameplay experiences.

For example: I would consider Proteus to be a game of meditation and peacefulness. The experience of exploration without objectives creates an environment of serenity and calmness.

The problem I have with Proteus is it really isn't a game. 

Not that there is anything wrong with that, it just becomes a challenge to develop a product that is still engaging, interactive, and most importantly fun while passively/discreetly including goals and purpose.

Looks like we have our work cut out for us :)

Also, here's a picture of our first build: (credit to Eric Hurst's Blog)

Zen Boat - Project Update #2

So many changes to document and discuss! We've settled on a theme or rather a Unique Selling Point:

Zen Boat will focus on reducing stress. We want to make a game that is peaceful and relaxes the player with both gameplay and aesthetic choices.

I think we have a big task ahead of us because the realities of creating an experience that is intentionally peaceful seems outside the experience or background of anyone on our team, but I'm optimistic we can accomplish it. One benefit of making a game that is beneficial is we can submit our project into the Bench 2 Bedside competition. I know that there will be stiff competition in the EAE category, but I think we have a strong product that can help many different groups (audience) such as recovering patients or PTSD veterans.

I spent a lot of time last week communicating and working individually with members of our team to understand everyone's work load. Some prefer many tasks and responsibilities while other have expressed a need to reduce their assignments or tasks. I'm grateful that everyone feels comfortable enough with me to have them share their current work load so I can better plan and scope.

Another that I worked on this past weekend was creating a Capstone Timeline. One of the biggest things I learned last year was scope and the important of planning ahead. Even though the main focus right now is Alpha at the end of the semester, it's still necessary to plan out the week to week milestones and sprints to determine what's possible from an engineering and art production viewpoint.

My plan over the weekend is to research B2B and plan the logistics of what being in the competition will be in regards to our team process.

Zen Boat - Project Update #1

We've shared our "research" (read: gaming during the break) and outlined some characteristics of what we want from Zen Boat as we shoot for the alpha deadline:

• Our game will be casual and for all audiences.
• Our main gameplay will focus on the interaction between the player and the environment. Your actions will affect the boat or the objects in contact with the boat. Your objective is to always get from Point A (left side of the screen) to Point B
• Art style will feature paper craft or origami art. Would like to shoot for realistic water as well.

Over the break, I helped set up some of the project management tools for the group. We have everyone in a Zen Boat google group (for mass team communication) and ASANA (for task assignment / small group work). The other big developments are we have a simple level builder (thanks Engineering Team) and a directory for our art assets on copy.com (thanks Art Team). I've communicated with the Design team (myself, Ellis, Rebecca) to develop the gameplay mechanics and features.

I'm really surprised by how quickly we've gotten started and are in the zone right now. I'd be discounting my own contributions if I didn't mention we have a strong project outline, but the execution has been just fantastic from everyone on this team. We're really on the ball and working to make this game happen.

Problem Areas: We need team direction on the overall why and what of this game. What is Zen Boat and Why should you (audience) play it.  

My favorite exercise that we touched on in class this semester was the idea of a Design Box (link here) I think it's really important to find the parameters of your project quickly so you can define the scope and challenges early. 

I believe that working through the box exercise again with the team next week will be beneficial so we can all be on the same page - a collective shared vision

New Beginnings - Zen Boat

Here we go. Final teams are in place and while Maze Junkies didn't survive into the top 4 this year, I'm optimistic for the future. I had a great time being with everyone else on the MJ prototype team, to everyone who I worked with to get our prototype and presentation organized, thank you.

I'm very grateful to announce I am the Team Lead for the Zen Boat team. There are a number of reasons I'm thankful to be a part of this group and I'll list a few of them below:

• I get to be a Team Lead again: 
• As I stated in one of my blog posts before, my goal after I graduate is to get a job as a Producer or Lead in the game or tech industry. One of the largest reasons I came back to do the capstone again was because of the experience I had being a Team Lead. I'm so thankful that I was selected for this project and I'm eager to use my skills to make this game the best it can be.
• The group I'm working with is awesome:
• I got a really good feeling from my first impression with the group. There is a good balance of skills and past experiences, but the one thing that connected us all immediately was everyone's eagerness to work on this project. I'm not sure I've ever seen a team translate so quickly from the final selection process to pre-production on a new project, but I'm very optimistic.
• The Zen Boat game:
• Zen Boat was in my top three choices for several reasons. I think that the concept is simple, but open for strong design and development. The pitch was unique with strong direction from Ellis who I'm excited is going to be the Lead Designer on the game. I just think that the boat idea is really easy to understand and has a lot of room for creativity moving forward.

My first step as producer was to get everyone's information and backgrounds. Then, as a group, we decided that we needed to research and play games similar to Zen Boat we could design out our current game. 

New Team - Team Pitch

I'm feeling really good with the progress we've made in the past couple weeks. There is a lot of new information to share and including slides from my presentation that better communicate our theme:

Our game is now called Mouse Junkies:

Our Razor is Labyrinth maze meets pharmaceutical and recreational drugs.

Challenge the player to adapt to the game while under the influence of various treatments.

Example Treatments - Visual, Vita Hardware Effects

LSD - Screen texturized and control shakes, Slow Rumble

Alcohol - Stuttering and stumbling movement, Use Vita gyroscope to stay centered



From a game design standpoint, the new theming really has some fun potential for how we design the player experiences. I like the possibility of using multiple stimulations or substances to change the way the player experiences the game. It also meets Roger's 'Juicy' criteria*

*Roger's 'Juicy' criteria refers to the interesting, bold, or different thing your game/project does that makes it press worthy. I made it up to refer to his preference  recommendation that every game include something unique that makes people want to talk about it. I think he has a valid point, especially from a student perspective. Even though we have a promotional edge where people are more inclined to hear/help student projects, getting a product or game that tries something different is really important to the larger audience. If you have an elevator pitch to sell your game, you need to have something that's so juicy, you just have to have more information.  Sorry, that was a long tangent.

I'm optimistic with our current project. Let's see how we do in front of the jury (or game dev professional panel)

New Team - To Alpha Stage

My pitch was not selected for the Final 10 so I'm now apart of the Ninja Mouse team.

Interestingly enough, the first and most important feedback we got was that we needed to get rid of the Ninja theme (so no, no Ninja Mouse Trials in the near future for me) and find a way to theme the game.

Theme is an a part of development that has always challenged me. Not that I'm unfamiliar with theming or different themes, but that creating an original theme is difficult to initiate and communicate. It's hard to get everyone on the same page when there isn't anything to base off of.

I'm improving and I feel like I'm more prepared than I was a year ago for the task then I was a year ago, but I need to create some guidelines for how I approach thematic questions.

Capstone 2013 Intro and Pitch

And here we are again. I'm back in the Capstone class after my very positive experience last year. When I originally asked to be in the senior course in the Spring of 2012, I remember thinking that if I finished a game as a junior, I'd probably want to come back for my actual senior year and work on one more game.

A lot of people both in and out of the program ask me why I'm doing it twice so I'll explain it with bullets.

• Project Experience: Having two published titles under my belt by the time I've graduated will be incredibly valuable when I'm applying for jobs.
• Process Experience: I learned so so SO much last year working on a game. Getting the chance to work as a producer which is my career goal was eye opening and helped me to learn a lot about my strengths and areas of improvement. I'm optimistic that having the opportunity to work on a new platform and with a new team will help me develop new skills and refine the processes I learned last year.
• FUN: To be completely honest, being in the capstone class was one of the funnest experiences I had last year. Sometimes it's tiring, inconvenient work and meetings, but a lot more of the capstone is incredibly fun and engaging. 

I know I have several more reasons for why I'm back, but this summarizes the major points.

As for my pitch:

Aperture is a FPS. You change the depth of field and focus of your camera weapon to fight enemies and interact with the environment. The game will take in information about the area you are in to create maps for you to battle.

I still need to figure out theming and the hook, but I like the idea of a game that changes the way you play from a first person angle.

Thoughts - Day Before Release

Well then.

I've really done a poor job of updating this blog this semester. There's not really any excuse either: I spend practically half my day in front of my computer so I can't really say I didn't have the opportunity. It's not like I didn't have the content either which is why I'm slightly disappointed I didn't do a better job keeping this blog up to date. Really, I think if we get down to the bare bones of it, I just don't care much for blogging.

Like a real life journal, it seems tedious for me to sit down and just record my thoughts. Let me explain. When I sit down in front of a computer, I go through a mini-series of tasks before I even surf or do anything spontaneous. It goes a little something like this:

1. Unlock computer
2. Hotmail (professional email) - Immediately read or reply back to work emails. 
3. Hotmail (old email) - Check for social media activity.
4. Gmail (main work) - Immediately read and reply back to any non-scheduled emails. Click the refresh inbox button a few times because it's lied to me before.
5. Hotmail (company email) - Check for any pressing messages. 
6. Facebook - Open every new notification in tabs. Alt + Tab, Ctrl + W, Repeat. Open Avatar Trials page and check analytics. Open Ubisoft page and check analytics. Create post for personal, game, or work. 
7. Umail - Scan for important emails from students or professors.
8. Twitter (personal) - Check for anything in Connect from interactions to new followers
9. Twitter (Avatar Trials) - Check Connect. Immediately follow back anyone not following us.

Repeat this all day, shuffling around the programs and channels. Also occasionally going on r/dodgers or the front page, and normal facebook and twitter activity. But also a lot of work. Especially when I make a post or check analytics.

Most of the time, I go through each of those 9 steps before I do anything else. Now, you might be thinking - "Ross, why don't you use hootsuite to manage your social interactions" and the answer is I have it, but it's missing some things I feel are important to my social network experiences. The lack of search on both facebook (while generally less useful) and twitter (kinda crucial) is what makes the site unfriendly for me. I also dislike that I'm limited to 5 areas with a free account. I could easily link many more social media or web platforms to it, but with five I have to really focus on what I'm sending from it. This might just be a problem of me having too many responsibilities for one website.

Oh, and I don't like web forwarding because while I know it's very reliable, I don't like the idea of losing any files. I also like keeping my email accounts logged in on different browsers so I can quickly shuffle between personal, old, work, and company accounts. It makes it so I can just focus on one task when I'm in a certain browser. Chrome is for personal and some entertainment, firefox is just business, and IE is...the company email. They've definitely made IE better, but I just supremely dislike how the preview screens show up when your mouse is hovering over the taskbar icon. On Chrome and Firefox, it shows one preview per window, but IE shows one preview per tab. This becomes a huge annoyance when I open more than three tabs in IE then go to Firefox to do stuff then come back to IE and I have to do a lot of unnecessary work to get to the right tab. /tangent

Anyway.

When I'm going through my previously mentioned steps, my goal is generally Lead Generation. What does that mean? Well, for my purposes, a lead is either a person who will buy our game or is a member of the press who would be interested in reviewing it. Wiki says: "lead generation is the generation of consumer interest or inquiry into products or services of a business" 

 Lead Generation is finding those people who will be a net sum for the future of Avatar Trials. They may talk about it with their friends or even just interact with us online, but as long as their is activity surrounding the game, I'm doing my job. Right now, we're almost to 80 followers and we just hit 100 likes on facebook. I want to continue to grow and with the game coming out tomorrow, bust out my marketing budget so we can get hundreds of people to see our game the first day.

So I guess my answer to the my question on why I suck at blogging so much is because I love to work. I'm pretty driven to see this game succeed and while I'm not counting on any mindblowing "Indie Breakthrough" success or press, there is a strong possibility this game is big seller.

Oh, and here's my work schedule for today and tomorrow. Fun times ahead, for sure.

My goal is top 20 downloads on Friday, but I think we can do better.
My lifetime goal is 1000 downloads, but I truly believe we can and will exceed that.
My personal goal is to beat Minions! lifetime sales. Let the games begin.

Late Night Design Thoughts

I recently had dinner with a group of old friends. As we caught up on the current state of our lives and the whatnot, my friend Lindsey inquired, "What's new with you Ross?"

I answered that I'm working on a team project and we're making a game on Xbox Live. I try to keep my response to that question brief because it can become quite lengthy to describe the scale of the project.

She responded that it sounded interesting and asked what my role was on the team.

I answered that I'm the project lead on the game now. I serve as the facilitator and designer for the game as well as fill into other roles when I'm needed. I said that the most important thing that I do is communicate.

"Communicate? Why's that?

This is when it generally becomes complicated. Over the dozen times that I've seemed to encounter that question over the past few weeks, I never seem to give the same answer.

Sometimes, I'll relay how much I value keeping up with each different developers progress during a sprint and making sure they don't feel too overworked or even worse underutilized. Other times, I give an account of how everyone needs to be on the same page in terms of the overall design of the game and how that means creating quest outlines, sending out extra emails, and publishing design documents. On other occasions, I emphasize deadlines and set up reminders so that we're always pushing forward toward the release of the title. Recently, I've stated that I've just finished the task of creating a business and the additional steps that need to be taken in order to maintain the finances for the studio as well as working to form a legal contract for the team. And during the last few weeks, I've added the supplementary task of promoting the game through social outlets and trying to create and maintain a website that's proven to be far more time consuming than I'd like to admit.

"There's just a lot more to being a project lead than you'd think about"

And damn, if I didn't love every minute of it.