FMP

Brief

This is my project proposal. This is essentially my idea for the project and any difficulties I may have with it.

PECHA KUCHA

Retro.pptx

This is my Pecha Kucha, which displays my initial thoughts and ideas on the retro theme.

GAME IDEAS

RACING GAME

An F-Zero-style game inspired by the pod racing level in Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga, in the sense that it will have terrain hazards like falling rocks, laser cannons, and explosions.

Any collisions will cause your car to explode. If your vehicle is in the blast radius of an explosion, it will also explode. It will have a 2-player co-op mode where player one uses WASD and the other uses the arrow keys to move.

I would also want this to have some sort of item system like in Mario Kart; however, if I did have that, I think that I would be overscoping a bit for this project.

The vehicles would be constantly accelerating, so the longer the race goes on, the harder it will be to race. The graphics would be 8-bit like F-Zero is, and it would be a semi-3D track to make the game in a 3D environment. Still, in a 2.5D environment I would also have assorted items which you will select your items you can select randomly, like in the arcade. The main task with this idea is that I would have to figure out how to code an AI.

RPG GAME

Summary

It would be a game, a bit like D&D, inspired by the A Bard's Tale trilogy. (Published on August 14th 2018, by Krome Studios.) It would have multiple different classes you could play. Each class would have a different starting stat spread—for example, strength, constitution, and intelligence. Different spreads will mean different things for combat and stuff; the Ui would be very similar to A Bard's Tale. Also, with a game area, a stat tracker with health, an inventory and a note screen which displays your current goals and side missions.

Inspirations

This game would be heavily inspired by dungeons and dragons a table top rpg game set in a fantasy world where friends come together to tell a story with characters they came up with together.

Main idea

The main point of this idea would be a magic system with different creatures being able to cast different spells and having different magic immunities, and different spells will interact with each other to cause effects on the environment. These could be used to solve problems.

Starting points for research

It would be quite text-based, so it might be a good idea to look at old text RPGs like Zork.

Arcade Games

This would be a game about spending time having fun in an arcade with friends it would play like carnival games for the ds in the sense you go around playing carnival games it would basically be a minigame collection with lots of different games within a hub world which you would move around in a 3D environment as you play games more and more games might get added to the arcade this would be retro in the sense of the setting and also the game its based off of you would also be able to earn rewards and credits for prises the arcade games would be a 2.5D environment I would use simplistic models to work more on code the issues for this idea would be making the arcade environment engaging for the player if also like to make this multiplayer but I feel that this could be kind of difficult to work and test.

puzzle game

Set in a breaking down arcade in a mall the player will have to solve puzzles using clues and secrets hidden in this broken down arcade that was shut down in the early 2000s, while something is lurking in the darkness watching them the player would see everything through a battery powered recording camera with a torch on it and when the battery dies they will be in utter darkness where the creature in the darkness would jump scare you this game would try to weaponize nostalgia by mixing them with different childhood fears for example the common childhood fear of what is lurking in the dark issues with this is I don't really know how I'd want to do this.

The idea I've gone with.

The idea I've gone with is the RPG game; this is because it's a genre I'm passionate about. I'm excited to build a magic system around runes. I also think I have the most ideas for this project out of the few I have.

veseavch

Target audiance

So, to research my target audience base, I wanted to see what people wanted in my game.21The first thing I wanted to see was how many people had played the Bard's Tale trilogy.

I also wanted to see what people wanted to see in my game.

Zork

Zork is a text RPG inspired by Colossal Cave Adventure, one of the first well-known examples of interactive fiction, according to Wikipedia. The original game was developed inside of masachuisits institute of Technology (MIT) between 1977 and 1979. The franchise has 3 titles Zork1 the great underground empire, Zork 2 the wizard of Frobozz and Zork 3 the dungeon master

games like mine and how they have performed

This is the player records for the game im baseing mine off of over its lifespa so far and it hasent done amazingly and i think that might be because the marketing for it was never too good as when you look at reviews online and on steam for it the reviwies are overwelmingly positive which makes sense cause it is a decently made game without too much issues but the fact that its never had that high of a player count which could be because it was just overshadowed by other games around at the time.

chants of sennaar

Summary of the game.

Chants of Sennaar is a puzzle and adventure game developed by Rundisc. You explore a civilisation in a tower where no one speaks to each other, and each society is living in fear or distrust of the others. You explore these environments, discovering new languages and learning runic symbols to understand people and eventually break down these barriers of isolation and mistrust between the societies.

Gameplay:

The gameplay of this game is interesting to me; while it does not have any combat like mine, it is a puzzle solver, and there are stealth sections where you must sneak around. For most of this game, you will be exploring and discovering runes while trying to figure out what they mean from landmarks nearby and other context clues.

Awards:

Winner of Best Indie Game of 2024 at the New York Game Awards; nominated multiple times at other ceremonies, including the BAFTAs and the Game Awards.

Sources:
Chants of Sennaar on Steam

Witch Hat Atelier

In Witch Hat Atelier, the magic system is done through using special ink to draw precise glyphs. The show explores the ideas of forbidden magic and the dangers of it, where the main character Coco discovers that drawing a glyph caused her mother to be turned to stone from a petrification spell that was forbidden. Each glyph is made of different runes for different elements and other properties of the spell. The series follows Coco in her journey to learn magic and save her mother from petrification

D&D

Summary of the game

D&D: is a tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) which you play with friends. It is also a collaborative storytelling device; this means that everyone has the power to change the direction of the story by choosing actions that they make on their journey. All but 1 of the people playing plays as a player, and the other plays as the game master (GM), sometimes referred to as the dungeon master (DM); it is their job to set the scene for the player characters and create the story. Whereas the players create their own characters to explore this world as a group the GM plays as every other character in the world other than the player characters and it is their job to set out a plot that will inevitably get derailed by the player characters doing something unexpected a lot of people see this as the GM against the party where as it isn’t really the GM works with the party to tell a story in this world that they have created.

gameplay

Every result for actions in this game is decided by dice roll usualy a 20 sided die (D20) For example player a might say "my charecter does a backflip into the cart to try and impres the tounsfolk of the vilage" the GM would the say "ok roll for perforance or dexterity" Player a will then roll their D20 and use iether their charecters dexterity modifgyer or their performance modifyer to add to the roll and the higher the number is the better it went so if the rolled a 10 with a +2 modifyer that would be 12 and they made the flip but didnt quite stick the landingbut if the got a 15 in total Player a would have made it and stuck the landing. If Player A rolled a 1, this is what is called a critical fail, where the action goes incredibly wrong. On the other end of this, you have critical successes where you roll a natural 20, and you do the action flawlessly.

The image above is sources i will use for research

The images above are a timeline of my work that I aim to follow if all goes according to plan.

SWOT

Strengths

Strengths of this idea are that it's a relatively creative idea with the ability to experiment with different ideas for magic spells, as well as that I can be inspired by it from dnd campains

Weaknesses

Weaknesses for this idea are that I'm not used to working in 3D environments for games, so it's out of my comfort zone, and I'll need to learn new ways of doing things on the fly, as well as learn how to model well, which may take some time

Opportunities

Opportunities with this idea include the opportunity to broaden my skills and improve my 3D modelling skills to help me work on more projects in the future. It will also allow me to practise my skills with code n 3d as well, where some things are slightly different from code in 2D.

Threats

Threats for this idea include time as i wont have much time to get alot done and my time management will be a verry important factor with this project as well as the worry of overscoping with a rune basewd magic system there is alot of spells to work on and i need to come up withy ideas on what they will do and how they will work which may be an issue with the amount of them

GDD

This is a link to my GDD (Game Design Document) for my game Zarwid. This will help me plan out my project in the pre-production GDD (1).docx

work diary

week 1 (04/03/26)

This week, I have been working on my Pecha Kucha on my initial thoughts, and to start thinking about the project itself, I am going to record this on Thursday, hopefully, once I've written down some notes for each slide, as I have a funeral on Friday this week.

week 2

(09/03/26)

This week is about generating some ideas that I can develop and form into projects, and figuring out how they would look for a few-week-long project. I already have a few first ideas, one of which is a type of racing game in the style of F-Zero or like the Lego Star Wars Complete Saga. I am also thinking a bit about games like Zelda and the indie horror genres of games.

week 2

(12/03/26)

I have four ideas down now, and I am really liking my second idea of an RPG game inspired by the A Bard's Tale trilogy. So, I am going to develop it more tomorrow while I prepare to make my pitch for next week. Hopefully, it all goes well, and I should have a decent amount of progress made by Monday next week.

Week 3

(19/03/26)

This week I have been ill this week, and my pitch is tomorrow, so I have got to focus on it now to be ready to present. I am going to focus on my most developed idea, which is the wizard RPG game, where I will use a rune-based magic system.

For this, I needed to do some research on what people would want to see in an RPG wizard game, where each spell you cast can interact with another.

The above image is a screemshot of my first in my pitch the link to my pitch is here PITCH # (1) (1).pptx

week 3

(20/03/26)

After my pitch today, I have set some goals for the next two weeks. I want to research magic systems and how I can use code to recognise symbols drawn by a player, or, if not, another way to implement a rune-based magic system in my game. I also want to research the adventure of Monkey Island, as it would help with some research for my game.

week 4

(23/03/26)

Today is the start of pre-production, so for the next two weeks, I'm going to be researching everything I need to research for my project.

This image is an image of my first draft of a logo or title image for my game

week 4

(27/03/26)

So today I am creating a high concept/ gdd, not sure what it will end up as, a GDD. I designed a logo for my game yesterday, and it is coming along nicely so far this week. I have researched a lot of runes and also different magic systems in games and media, as well as how to build languages, and I have realised that rather than making a whole language to rediscover, I’m going to use different symbols instead of letters and have them in English, but with symbols instead of letters.

This is an image of the teir list with the alphabet on it

week 5 (30/03/2026)

In today’s session, I designed my alphabet and then showed it to some of my friends. They then decided to rank the letters of the alphabet to see which were the most interesting and best. They decided that S was the worst, but F was the best, as S did not really fit with the others, whereas F, however, tied in nicely with the other letters in the alphabet.

this is another version of a logo idea for zarwid that will be put into a

I also worked on a logo today, where I made a few designs and submitted them to a Google Form to see what people liked the most. The logo to the left is a design inspired by another RPG game, The Legend of Zelda series, a game I have been strongly inspired by when thinking about retro games.

Image of survey results for which logo people liked the most

This image shows the options for logos that the survey included

survey results

So, I let the results sit for a while and developed them, and this is the result after a few hours. While a lot of people like options 3 and 4, option two seems to be the most popular.

Production

From here on out is the start of the production phase of my game. Each week I shall set targets to complete, and I will reflect on them the following week. This will ensure that I record all progress I make in this project. The first few weeks will be about getting the base stuff set up, for example, movement and some buildings. After this, I will work on the magic system, and after that I'll work on more polish, so dialog and more 3d models.

Week 6 Targets

This week I have 3 targets to complete.

Create a grid-based movement system.
Create a starting Ui and 2 menus.
Start designing some of the houses and buildings.

This is an image of the player stand-in model, which uses a capsule, which is commonly used as a stand in moddle for a character. The 3 by 3 grid is made in a checker pattern so I can tell if the player model turns and moves properly in the test environment.

This is an image of code that rotates the charecter when you click D and A.

week 6

Day 1

start of production

(20/04/2026)

This was the first session back after our break and the first session of production on the game. I wanted to get my movement system working for this session with an environment to walk around before I got to the complicated magic bit. I would do some of the simple stuff.

I have started by making a grid system for my character to move around by turning 90 degrees, and I have begun to work on how they will move. Next session, I will start to make the moving-forward part of the system, where they move a set amount each time.

week 6

Day 2

start of production

(21/04/26)

After my first session of the day, I have made a movement system based on a grid; however, I have an issue where the player can go inside solid objects, which causes them to start drifting around. Next session, I will aim to solve this issue by figuring out how raycasting works and seeing if I can use it to detect when a wall is in front of a player, preventing them from going through it.

Screen Recording 2026-04-21 114359.mp4

The video above highlights the issue I have with the movement now, with the player's screen on the bottom left. The centre is the editing space where I can see the whole environment of the scene. I intend to fix this using raycast, which is when the object that the code is attached to sends out a beam of data to tell the code if anything is in front of it and what that might be. It is most used in games when a character shoots a projectile like an arrow or a gun. However, if this works the way I intend, then I will be able to use this system to stop the player from walking into walls but still allow the player to use doorways and other passageways.

Fixing the issue

This session, I tweaked my code and learned how to use raycasting, a method I will use later for projectiles if I need them, and doors and pathways to different areas. Such as inside buildings and moving from the city to fields or woodland.

The raycast starts from the player's location, which is set using the line "transform.position" This parameter gets the location of the player and uses it as the starting point.

The second parameter, "transform.TransformDirection(Vector3.forward)" dictates the direction of the raycast. In this case, the direction the player is facing.

The third parameter, "out RaycastHit hitInfo", dictates where the raycast outputs the information into what variable. In this case creates a variable called hitInfo, which uses the naming convention of camel case. However, I will change this to Pascal case to match the rest of my code.

The last parameter "5f" decides how far the raycast will go. I used 5f as my tiles are five by and the player moves 5f forward each time.

I used debug.log as a kind of checkpoint to make sure that it is working when it gets there. In case the code does not work properly, this will help me find where the code went wrong in future.

Mid-week review

This week, as I stated before, I have three goals:

Create a movement system on a grid.
Create a base Ui for the game with two menus.
Start to 3D model some of the buildings.

So far this week, I have managed to create my movement system and have made it so I cannot go through walls and solid objects, which is good. I am happy to say I have finished my first goal of the week so far; as for the other two, I have yet to start to 3d model any buildings, nor have I started on any Ui interface yet. My next focus is to work on. I have started to map out areas of the first scene. So far, I am using colour-coded gold and red tiles to start to create a map of roadways and buildings, with red being buildings and gold being paths or "movable space". Overall, I think I have made a good amount of progress so far, with one goal down and the other two soon to be on their way. I should hopefully be ready to begin work on my magic system next week.

week 6

Day 3

start of production

(23/04/26)

Session 1:

This session, I started to work on the UI for the game. I'm going to have the player navigate the game through buttons; this will make it intuitive for the different menus. I'm using the space at the bottom of the screen to display the buttons, which will be used to get to the different menus of the UI. Next session, I will work on 3D modelling some of the buildings for the city.

week 6

Day 4

start of production

(24/04/26)

Today im focusing on some 3d modelling so im desighning some buildings the image to my right is my reference for the model which didnt go well at first as i forgopt to add in the suport beams so i had to scrap it and restart as a result my progress isnt as much as id hope for the day while the first model looked ok the one im working on at the moment is much better even though it isnt finished yet the depth of the beams allready adds alot to the model itself and i cant wait for it to be finished and textured. For this house so far, I've used the connect tool, extrude tool and the inset tool to create the exterior beams. These create depth in the model and make it feel higher quality

Week 6 review

Goals progress

At the start of this week, I set myself three goals, which were.

Create a movement system on a grid.
Create a base Ui for the game with two menus.
Start to 3D model some of the buildings.

The progress I have made this week has been mostly successful; my movement system is working, and I am happy with it. The base UI for the game is there and ready to be built on, and I'm mostly happy with it, although it isn't fully finished yet as a base. The third goal so far was left.

Week 7

midpoint review

27/04/2026

Goals

So this week I have my midpoint review, which is going to be a check-in on how my blog work is looking at the moment. This will tell me what I need to work on going forward, and if there is anything I need to go back on and what that is. So my goals for this week until I get my review are these.

Spellcheck everything in the blog
Add what I can
Write more of my GDD and put it on my blog

These goals might not all get finished, but hopefully most of them work out.

Week 8

04/05/2026

so I'm at a referall lets fix that

The first thing and most important thing I need to do now to fix my blog is my project proposal and timeline, which I missed while I was ill at the start of the project. This is what I'll be working on first today; after this I'll need to work on the second most important thing that needs doing, which is annotating my screenshots more and doing more reflection. This will help me start to boost my assessment out of a referral and hopefully into a merit, if not a pass, so I can go for the distinction at the end.

THE PLAN

Finish project proposal and timeline.
Review previous work and annotate everything, adding captions to photos and recording more footage in future.
Do research into games like Hogwarts Legacy and other games that use runes to assess a cultural impact on my audience and understand any issues that may come out of this.

This plan for today should help me get the ball moving in the right direction; hopefully I'll review after.

Week 8 day 3

06/05/2026

Today I worked on importing the 3d building into the game. This caused an issue where the building began to float around. To fix this, I had to reduce the size of the hitbox on the house, and once I fixed this, it looked really nice inside the project.

Final Evaluation

What Went Well

What went well was the 3D model of the houses, and the texturing of that model went really well.

What didn't go as well

What didn't go as well was finishing the combat system, as I implemented the casting into the combat system, but I didn't get damage and stuff written out in time or at least not as much as I wanted to do with the spells, as I only got a few of them to do anything, and i didnt get what the enemies could do implemented in the game so.

what I need to finish to publish the game

To publish this game or get this game into a publishable state, the first few things that need to be done.

combat system

The combat system needs finishing; this would mean getting each spell to do something in combat and also getting it so that different enemies have actions they can make (this also includes artwork for the creatures' sprites as well as the player)

What is needed for the UI is that the casting menu doesn't look very nice. I would like to make it look much better and implement a proper map in the ui menu, health bars, and a mana bar indicator.

NPC characters

I need to add NPC characters to the game, which will give you quests and guidance on your journey. These will also flesh out the world of Zarwid and make the land feel more lived in.

The map

The map needs finishing; This includes creating different areas like dungeons and texturing and modelling the whole city, and also figuring out how to get more areas like inside houses and dungeons.

What I would do differently.

If I were to do this project again, I would focus more on the combat system and implementing it before I worry about modelling the buildings and environment.

Problems I encountered and how I fixed them

One problem I encountered with this project was when I imported the model for the house, it glitched out and started to fly around. Which didn't work out very well to fix this, I had to have its geometry fixed on all axes and also shrink the hitbox of the building. This prevented the building from flying around

Another problem i takled duing this project was with the movement system. The player would phase into buildings and would start to spin out of control. To fix this, I added a raycast to the move script so whenever you moved forward, it would send out a raycast to check if there was a building in the way, and if there was, it wouldn't let you phase into it.

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse