Task 1

1. Think of a game Idea, it has to be your own! Document this idea in your sites under task 1.1

2. On a piece of paper I want you to make a draft of a game environment (make sure to take a picture of this and put it in your sites). You can do this digitally as well if you wish using Piskel, photoshop or any other software you desire.

You are not allowed to look at any research tor external material, everything that you put down needs to come from your own brain!

3. You need to talk about your design intentions here, these are your thought processes.

You might not be the best artist here however, you can use your words to describe what you were aiming for.

4. Beside it I need you to list the following things about the environment.

• What genre is the your game idea?

• What is the environment? for example is this a city, cyber city, space station etc.

• What is the purpose of this environment in your games? So what is the player supposed to do here?

Here are some examples of the some environment design and concept.

There are 2 types of environment designs.

1. The concept of an environment

2. Level Design- Maps

What is the difference?

Environment concepts are more visual based and are aimed to provide the general look of an area within the game.

Level Design/ Maps are more functional as they are used by developers to design the game as the designers intended it to be. So, we are talking about layout of the level, enemy positions, bonuses etc.

Check list for task 1.1 in your sites.

- A brief synopsis of your game idea

- Inserted a screen shot/ Picture of the Level map/ Environment concept

- A paragraph on your design process thoughts

- Stated the following about your level map/ environment

. What genre is the your game idea?

. What is the environment? for example is this a city, cyber city, space station etc.

. What is the purpose of this environment in your games?

So what is the player supposed to do here?

You might have encountered it to be somewhat hard in terms of generating an idea without any inspiration or without any research.

So for the purposes of flourishing our ideas we need to take part into research.

Now there are two types of research:

1. Primary Research: it is research that is conducted first hand meaning, that you made something to help you answer a question or a problem.

2. Secondary Research: It is research that is second hand and already exists that you find and access.

In the padlet bellow share as many Primary and Secondary research types you can think of! I have given you a few to get you started...

Remember in task 1.1 I asked you to define the genre of your game and the setting of your environment.

In this task you are taking the genre and setting of your game and finding 3 similar games.

• I need you to list 3 games that have the same genre or setting as your idea

• For each game you will write in your sites:

  • Why have you chosen this game

  • What is this game

  • How has looking at and researching this game help influence your own idea.

If you need more help regarding analysing and writing here is a detailed breakdown of how you need to be analysing.

Now that your idea has been flourished through contextual research, we need to look at visual research.

In the UI project you guys learned how to make mood boards.

Task 1.4 is all about making a visual bank of research material.

• You will make 2 mood boards for your game idea

1. First needs to be a primary research mood board, meaning you will need to take these pictures.

2. Second needs to be a secondary research mood board.

• Each of these mood boards needs to have 9 images

• Each of these mood boards needs to have 3 annotation of your thought processes.

Through engaging within all the elements of task one you have experienced primary and secondary research.

You might not realise how often and how much you guys conduct these over this course.

So by the end of this task you should have:

2 Primary research sources;

• Your draft design

• Your Primary mood board and annotations

2 Secondary Research sources;

• Your game research

• Your Secondary mood board