RESEARCH - WEEK TWO

For my task in audience research, I am going to research the cost of the game. While our game will be free based on it being a demo, I wanted to get a grasp on the cost once finished. For this, I aim to look in a few different places at both indie and mainstream games. I will aim to look at both a console and an online PC store to get a thorough look at the games.

For the stores, I will look at XBOX for the console store, looking at their console library. For the PC store, I will look at Steam, as it has a large monopoly on the PC game market. When it comes to indie games, I will look at Itch.io as it has a large library of indie games, and I will look at Steam for the same reason.

For the games, I will look at games in our genre and the games that we are most inspired by. Even if we choose to look at mainstream games, we will keep in mind that ours is an indie title. For the end of this, I aim to get two prices, one mainstream game price assuming we made a fully finished polished game, and one indie price for the complete game at the end of our plans.

For each platform, I will look at six games. I aim to look at three mainstream game titles from Steam and XBOX and three indie titles from Steam and Itch.io. For the big titles, I will look at the games we are the most inspired by, both stylistically and gameplay-wise. The mainstream games I decided to look into are Counter-Strike 2, The Finals, and Call of Duty.

PC - Steam:

Now when it comes to Call of Duty, there is a range of games throughout the history of the franchise, all with different prices as of today. While some franchises are incredibly well-loved games, some newer ones have been touted for their over-expensive nature compared to the quality of the games.

An example of this is the 2023 Call of Duty Modern Warfare Three. On Steam, this game has a mostly negative review score from over seven thousand reviews. This contrasts Call of Duty Black Ops two, with over eighteen thousand reviews scoring a very positive on Steam.

The base price of these games is not too far off with Modern Warfare Three being £59.99 and Black Ops Two being £39.99 with the price disparity mostly due to the age of Black Ops Two. While there are some negative reviews on black ops talking about the price, it is not comparable to the negative reviews on Modern Warfare Three. There are numerous negative reviews, and lots of them display negative opinions about the price.

Cam_182 said, “Just Don't buy it. The campaign takes no time at all. We don't even get revenge. Yeah it's kinda fun if you squint, but it's not worth what it costs. overall really dissapointed with activision on this one.” Doomsday473 says “Crashes literally every single time I launch the game How is a brand new 120 dollar game this broken every 2 seconds error 0×00001338(12488)N” This to me shows an overwhelming negative opinion not only on the game but its price.

From this comparison, I have learned that the biggest aspect that determines price is the enjoyment of a player. The more a player enjoys the experience of the game, the more likely they are to be happy with the price of the game. AS Modern Warfare Three is a buggy and uncompleted game, the £60 price tag seems unjustified, whereas for Black Ops Two the £40 price tag feels reasonable. Going forward, I will use black ops two as my Call of Duty of choice for research on prices.

For Call of Duty, a large part of the price comes from the established franchise, meaning that 10-30% of their decided price probably comes from this fact. Going from this, the base prices before this would be around £50.88 - £38.16. Another large chunk of this cost comes from the added features that our game will miss. Our game will only have two multiplayer modes, limited weapons and no single-player, assuming that we don't expand later.

From this, I can expect a further price drop from the unestablished drive, although it is hard to get an accurate price as companies don't have a science for how much more expansive an established title would be. It is almost impossible to quantify the price difference in features, but I can be expected to take at least £10 - 20 off. As our game is still a demo and won't be fully finished, this puts it around £16-18 in my mind, but I will deliberate with my team.

Two of our biggest inspirations from the mainstream games (Counter-Strike 2 and The Finals) are both free-to-play games. Both these games are similar in gameplay and style to our idea, showing me that our idea aligns with these free games. I think the biggest difference between these two free games and Call of Duty Black Ops Two is the expanse of content. While all these games have similar modes and playtimes, Call of Duty offers a wider variety of play modes and offers a fleshed-out single-player campaign.

From this, I believe that if we keep our games similar to these with the limited modes, free is not a bad price, but there is a catch. Both of these games use ways in the game and out to make money. In Counter-Strike, this is through keys and cases providing in-game rewards for spending real money. The finals use systems like battle passes to make money from people wanting the in-game rewards from the battle passes. Before 2018, the original Counter-Strike was also a paid game until it was switched over.

This to me shows that if we wanted to, a good way to make money from the game is to add these types of systems. While personally, I prefer buying a game once to get it rather than spending money on in-game rewards, it is still an option for this game.

Console - XBOX:

On the XBOX, the cheapest version of Call of Duty Modern Warfare Three is £69.99 as it is a cross-gen bundle edition. This is the cheapest one as they do as they do not have the same on the web store version. For the finals, the game is still free, showing the same results as on Steam. This means the XBOX version of Modern Warfare Three is £10 more expensive for a similar experience.

To me, this shows not only a slight increase for consoles but a more unfair deal in comparison. While it is a common practice to increase the console price, especially for different editions, it is not a practice I enjoy. I believe if a game is a price it should be that price everywhere other than for different editions that add content. There is no counterstrike on consoles currently as it has been switched to the sequel of the game.

Indie - Itch.io:

To start looking at indie games, I had to choose three titles to look at. While we did not really use indie tiles while coming up with the idea, I found a few that match the kind of mechanics or visuals we are going for. The list of games that I chose are Ultrakill, Exodemon, and Zortch.

The most expensive game on this list is ultra kill as the others are £5 - 10 while ultra kill is £20. This is based on the game size because it is a bigger game, the game was a demo on itch but was released fully on Steam. another reason for this is the polish and content in Ultrakill compared to the other games.

In my opinion, thew game is more comparable with the other games in price but if expanded it could reach. Exodemon and Zortch are both in a cheaper range which matches more of what we are going for. None of these above games have bad reviews comparing the cost, which shows me that these prices are good for the product.

For question one, I asked what shooter games the respondents had played to look at their experience in the genre. I also did it to get more information from later questions. The most played games on the list were Counter-Strike: Global Offence and Call of Duty. I will be able to use these as research later on when looking at the mechanics plan to make. The rest of the responses were in the 4-6 range, meaning they are good choices to look at. There were a few responses at one each, with them being Team Fortress 2, Helldivers 2, Borderlands and Star Wars Battlefront. These low scores indicate that they may not be the best choices to research.

To follow up on the first question, I next asked what mechanics from these games stood out. From this question, I wanted to look at the mechanics I should look out for and research. It will also give me many games and examples of mechanics to look at and research when trying to perfect mechanics. Any mechanics mentioned that don't fit the areas I am developing will be passed on to the team member making that area.

To start, I separated all the responses on movement and sent them to Mitchell. These responses were sliding, movement, crouching, and prone. Left from that are the gameplay/shooting-related answers. 

Most of the responses involved different or customizable weapons in the game. This concept fits well with our plan, as we plan to have a selection of weapons in the game. The idea of customizable weapons is an idea we brought up in planning, but we left it out due to time restrictions. We feel that getting the models of each part and adding the mechanics would not be possible in the time but could be an added feature after the project deadline. Some responses brought up fast-paced gameplay and skill-based gameplay. These are all intended features and topics that I will research. Lastly, the mechanics that were only brought up a minimal amount of times, like abilities and the environment. I am not handling the environment, so I will pass that on to my team. The ability idea does not fit with the idea we have.

Next, I asked what mechanics are essential for games like ours. From this question, I wanted to look at the mechanics that missing would be a big problem. It will also give me many games and examples of mechanics to look at and research when trying to perfect mechanics. Any mechanics mentioned that don't fit the areas I am developing will be passed on to the team member making that area.

To start, I separated all the responses on movement and sent them to Mitchell. These responses were sliding, sprinting, and mantling. Left from that are the gameplay/shooting-related answers. 

Again, lots of the responses were about different guns and gun mechanics like reloading, aiming and firing. These will all be in the games as they are essential to the game. Someone mentioned good hit detection, which is a great point. I will ensure our game has good hit detection, making sure to balance accuracy and fairness. One person brought up making sure the guns are balanced, which will be a big part of my work. The other responses were mostly about other aspects already planned, including scoped aiming, easy-to-understand and responsive controls and straightforward gameplay, which are all intended.

Next, I asked what non-shooter aspect stood out to them as a player. This was a risky question to go with as I knew there would be more movement suggestions. But this question is going to allow me to get a grasp on the mechanics other than shooting they expect to see.

To start, I again removed the answers about movement, so I could send them to my team members tackling that aspect. There were some about the level design and graphics, which I did the same with.

Now, I am left with answers only about aspects I am or could handle. First, there were two suggestions for different game modes. This is already a planned feature as we are going to have Player vs Player and Team vs team modes. Next, someone suggested abilities which I have already covered the reason for not including. Lastly, someone suggested healing as an option, which got me thinking about this topic. As I thought this was a good idea, I asked my team whether we should include healing and amour, to which they agreed. This idea gives me two mechanics to research in the following weeks.

Next, I asked what would draw the player in to play a shooter game if they had never played one before. I asked this question to get a grasp on what features of a shooter game could add to gain an audience. Again, like the last question, I knew that there would be some answers pertaining to the aspects I was not covering. For this question, these were the level design and style, a fast-paced/challenging environment, character design, popularity, fun movement, and customization.

One of the answers was about having a single-player mode. This, while not being a bad idea, is not a fit for our game. Three people brought up team gameplay and the play styles that go with them, including strategic, cooperative and competitive styles. These are all intended parts of gameplay over the modes we plan to add, including the team gameplay and competitive PVP. Though it sounds unserious, the suggestion of feeling cool while killing enemies is a good point, as the player should have feedback when killing other players so they know they are succeeding. These are areas I will look into, including adding particle effects and rag dolls. The last two suggestions go hand in hand with being unique gameplay loop and balanced gameplay. I will ensure these by playtesting the game and checking the balance.

Next, I asked what aspects of a first-person shooter incentivized them to play longer. I asked this to get information on what mechanics I should work on to get players playing for time in our game. Some answers are things I already covered and why they do not work, including attachments and customization. There were a few responses on areas I am not working on, like the look of the game and level design.

A majority of the left responses were about rewards for playing. Now, while this is not a bad idea, we want to focus on developing the basics of the game rather than adding a complex system like rewards. There were a few others in this same category, including in-game currency and purchases. Next, there were a few suggestions for rankings. Now this is a feature we had planned, where we want to add an in-game leaderboard for the players to increase competitiveness. The last two answers cover other aspects I have talked about before, like killing enemies and game modes, which are both intended features.

Next, I asked about the expected team mechanics for a game like this. From this, I hope to get a list of the features we need to add for the team mode.

The most common suggested answers were a communication wheel, pinging and text chat. There was voice chat proposed once, but I believe this does not fit with our plan and gameplay style. Pings and the communication wheel are great ideas and something we had planned for the idea. This would allow teams to communicate in the game without having to disturb the gameplay too much. The idea of a chat is smart as it allows another level of communication with more control over it. The only problem is that it could disrupt gameplay, but it is still in consideration. 

Two of the responses were clear and friendly communication and clear and effective communication, which, while both valid, do not specify any mechanics, so I could not use them. I will keep them in mind while creating the actual mechanics. One of the ideas suggested was teamwork like reloading big weapons, 2 people required areas. This is an interesting Idea, but it does not fit with our game idea. It could be a fun mechanic to add in the future when expanding on this game. The last suggestion was healing and buffs. This idea is smart, but I do not think it fits with the idea we have for how a healing system should work.

Lastly, I asked how long each of the responders played shooter games. This question had two purposes, with the main one being to get information on how long our game should be. The other reason was to get a grasp on how experienced they were at the game.

The most common response to this question was one to two hours. This showed me that most of the survey results came from mostly average to experienced players. The second most was half to a full hour, showing the slightly more casual audience. All but one of the rest of the responses all had one result, showing a much more diverse range. The only option with no results was less than 15 minutes.

For this segment, I found that respondents' answers nearly always matched their playtime. This can be evidenced by looking at the responses from the individual with the least time played. First, they had a short list of played games, showing low experience. They left out the second question, showing again that their experience and knowledge may not be that developed. They also had a more questioning tone through the questions.

For the first question, I asked the respondents what games had good UI. From this, I aimed to gather some references for when I move on to creating mood boards for menu looks. These will be communicated to Zak as he will be creating the menu functionality. This ensures that his base can fit the design I plan to make. The only game that appeared a few times, but the others only appeared once. The full list goes Call of Duty black ops 1, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, Minecraft, Persona 5 Royal, Persona 3 Reload, Helldivers 2, Cyberpunk 2077, Celeste, F1 23, Forza Horizon 5, Apex Legends, Dishonoured 2, Destiny 2, Call of Duty, Overwatch, Risk of Rain 2, Left 4 Dead, Valorant and Half-Life.

Next, to get a bit more thorough feedback, I asked what aspects stood out from these UIs and what makes them good. I asked this to find out what aspect the audience likes from menus in games.

The most common theme among the responses was a clean and intuitive layout. This will be the main goal of our game's menu, as we want to just display the necessary information. The menu being simple and uncluttered is another common theme throughout the responses. Someone pointed out the sounds of the menu, which will be another area I focus on perfecting. Someone mentioned the fluidity of a menu, which is a great point. This will be something I look into when getting ready to plan my menu designs.

Next, I asked what features they expected to see in a game's UI. I gave them the proposal of a simple menu to make sure they understood what type of game we were going for. I added an all of the above option so I could see if all the options were the best idea to go for. By far this was the most popular option with seven responses picking that as their option. There were other options selected but not nearly at that level. This to me indicated that all these would work on a menu in a game like ours.

Next, I asked about the feedback the audience will expect from UI elements. This was to get a grasp on the expected feedback, so I did not miss any when creating the menu feedback.

The overall answers break down into a few categories with them being sounds (clicking and hovering), animations (presses, slides, and transitions), and visuals (colour and styles). Gathering this has shown me what areas matter and what aspects are needed that I may not have known. Most of these were already planned, with features like animations and sounds already written down on my list of mechanics to research. It did shine a light on scene transition, as this was not something I had planned. I will not make sure to research transitions to ensure they look good and work efficiently.

Next, I asked what colours work well for a game's UI. I asked this to get a grasp on what sort of colours our menu should consist of. When asking this question, I specified the genre of our games to avoid colour suggestions that would not fit the idea.

For an overview, we had a lot of dark grey and desaturated colour answers. Out of the ten responses, six included the use of dark colours. To contrast this, bright colours were only brought up five times, with most of them in a context unlike the darker colours. This to me signifies that for our game's UI, a blend of nice contrasting colours would work well, with most of them being darker and desaturated. The results also show me that I can use brighter colours to contest or to bring attention to crucial parts of the UI.

For the next part of the survey, I decided to move on to the sound questions. The first question I asked was what games had good sounds, both in gameplay and in menus. I asked this to gather inspiration and find examples of games to use as research when creating the sounds. 

Out of the games, three appeared more than one time, being Hell Divers 2, Call of Duty and Doom Eternal. This shows me that these are important games to look into. While all these games are good to research for menu audio, I believe some of them have music that does not fit our game.

First, there is Doom, which, while having an incredible soundtrack, is more focused on high energy with the use of rock and metal music. While these are great choices for energy, it does not fit in with the game concept we have. The second example is Dead by Daylight as its music prioritizes suspense and scares as it is a horror game. These are still useable for research, as they both have great music that influences moods and great menu music.

For this next question, I asked if a shooter game should include in-game audio in each game mode. I asked this to get a grasp on whether players liked having in-game music while playing games of this genre. I asked for the specific genre as a lot of games have in-round music but not shooters. From this question I aimed to know if I should include music in rounds and if so what games to look at for research. Overall, most of the responses were no. There were a few more complex answers, which I will break down more. Out of the ten responses, only three said a definite yes meaning the overwhelming consensus was that there should be no in-round music.

Someone said “For menus yes but for in-game PvP it should be silent if considered a serious game like R6S” In their response they brought up that if it is a PvP and a serious game then it should be silent. This fits our game as it will be a more tactical experience. Next, someone said “Ye to you feel cool and strong, eg Helldivers 2 and Doom” These are games with music in the levels. Rounds, but they do not align with our game's style and feel. This is the same for the person who said, “Definitely! It builds tension and feels great to play with music, Payday 2's Razormind track is a great example.” as it is another game unlike ours. Lastly, someone said “Only to signal when the match is coming to an end” This is a good point, but we will likely use a timer with sound effects to notice the players of the round end.

Next for sounds, I asked what type of sounds get annoying to the player. For this question, I aimed to form a list of sounds and noises to avoid in the game. If it is an integral part of the game, I will later do a test to find if it is annoying to a player. Another aim of this question was to know what to avoid techniques with aspects like bit crushed audio etc… 

From this question, I got ten responses covering a wide variety of sounds. I will break down some answers and create a list of the annoying ones we do not need. Overall, the most common answer was loud and respective noises. There were some more specifics like high pitch repetitive noises and the repetitive nature of menu buttons, but they all into one of the above categories. The outliers in the equation are the noises when hit or dyeing and voice lines.

For the voice lines our game will not include these anyway so we are fine when it comes to that. When it comes to the repetitive button noises and in-game action noises, these are necessary for a game to not be dreary and cold. A way to help avoid annoying the player with these is a lot of playtesting with random audiences and picking quiet and unoffensive noises. Someone said the OST being repetitive is annoying, while our game will not have music in rounds as talked about in the last question, there will be music in the menu. I will try to avoid repetitive or loaded music.

For the next sound question, I asked in what areas multiplayer shooters should have music. From this, I hoped to find out where and when in game should have music. Now in hindsight, this is the same as one of the other questions in results, but I will go over this more in the reflection. I aimed to get a note of all the areas that should include audio and where it should not. Most of the answers like a before question said that mainly menus and lobbies should have music. This aligns with my experience and plans, but there were a few other answers I will break down.

One person said “Friendly areas (calm) boss rooms (loud hectic)” This does not apply to our game as it does not halve boss rooms or quiet areas. Following this someone said “Most points in the game should have music, only a few exceptions like stealth should have quiet or no music” This again does not fit our game as it does not have stealth. Lastly, someone said “Lobby and environments” It is hard to get what environments mean in this context but talking about the in-game levels does not fit our game.

To begin researching mechanics, I went to YouTube to start searching for videos. There are a few reasons I am finding videos on this topic and not going with online documentation. First is the generality of the topic as I am just looking for a general playlist and series on a similar type of game. Second, I am much more of a visual learner and prefer going along with a person to ensure I avoid mistakes and be efficient.

On YouTube, I searched for how to make a Multiplayer FPS in Unity to ensure I found videos where the mechanics were working on multiplayer. I found three video series on how to make a game like this in Unity, but not all of them were equal. First, there is a video from Brackeys on how to make a Multiplayer FPS in Unity using uNet. Now, this video may be useful, but I doubt I would use it. Firstly, it is over 8 years old, meaning new tools and new techniques have become available. And we know of tools like Proton which can make it much easier than uNet.

Next, I found two videos using the same tools to create the game's multiplayer systems. Both of these videos use photon two and pun two to create the multiplayer logic. If our team's multiplayer coder decided to go this route, then these would be the best videos to use. Not only so they both use up-to-date tools with both photon and pun being used. Both videos are under four years old, with one being only one year old. They both have both near 20-episode runs and cover a variety of mechanics that I will want to add.

Video one covers movement, improving movement, weapons, weapon sway, respawning and connection, reloading system, weapon recoil, nicknames, spawn points, weapon switching, synced leaderboards, wall clipping fixes, kills and death/leader board improvements, health system, and synced third person weapon switching. Video two covers movement, weapons, weapon switching, synced weapon switching, shooting and damage, spawn points, post-processing, bullet, impacts, health system, username, and scoreboard.

This means both video series covers a ton of aspects I am researching like weapons, weapon switching, reloading, wall clipping fixes and more. This will allow me to implement the basic mechanics I aim to do in the early production weeks. The playlist does not cover all the mechanics I am doing, which I will cover later.

To start with the throwables mechanics, I am using the video by Dave / Game Development, that I outlined in my research. I am using the flowcharts I made in the research and planning weeks as well to help me create them. For this part there will be two underlying mechanics, first, there is the throwing mechanics which will work on any weapon we desire to have throwables. Then there is the effect, which is what happens to the throwables after exploding for going off, either an explosion for the grenade or a blinding light for the flashbang. After combining them, the throwables can each have their unique effect and throwing parameters.

For the throwables, I found a few series On making grenades in Unity. First was a video on making throwing weapons by Dave / Game Development. Here he covers making a script for throwing a range of objects. Next is a video by Brackeys on making a grenade/bomb, where he makes a script for the throwing and exploding of a thrown projectile. Lastly, I found a video by FPS Builder on making a grenade in 6 steps. This video is similar to the last as he makes a projectile that explodes. The format of this video is good as it breaks down the steps well.

For the one I will go with, I have decided on the video by Dave / Game Development. The first reason why is that it is one of the few systems I found for making a general throwables system. This will along me to add the other weapons I plan to make throwables. Second, he also includes the grenade portion, although it is online on a script, so I need to read through it to understand. Lastly, is that because it is a general system, it should align with the systems in multiplayer if made correctly.

Next, I did a bit more research to finish this area by looking at the flash bang. I found two videos on this topic, both using a very similar system and having a very similar outcome. They both flash the screen to white when exploding, using code to track the explosion of the flashbang. The systems would both work well and can be incorporated into the prior systems. For the video I will go with, I am deciding to use the one by  Game Dev Geeks as it goes a bit more in-depth, which can be seen in the slightly longer video length.

Next, I wanted to look into the pickup and drop mechanics and look at a way to make loot boxes and weapon drops. These are some of the mechanics we plan to have in the game, so it is a good idea to research. First I found a forum post from Satirical Snake where he asked about coding a pick-up, and drop system using Unity and code. While this is the area I am researching, we are not using net code, so I will continue to research.

Next, I found a forum post from Computer Fido where he went over his trouble adding item pickups in a multiplayer game using UNet. Again like the last forum post I am not using UNet however the comments added a bit of insight on how you would go about adding these mechanics in a multiplayer space. From the comment by Two Ten, he outlined a process on the mechanics in a more general scene, which could be helpful when I attempt to implement this mechanic. First, he suggests checking for the client input, then once it is detected send out a ray cast to detect a hit object. He then says you send a request to the server to test if the player hit an item with the ray cast. He then suggests some safety features to ensure the system works as intended in the worst cases. This can all be seen in the image below.