Evaluation

Introduction

As part of the FEP, this evaluation aims to critically assess the effectiveness of my contributions to the “Project: Whiteout” pitch demo, made along with how we worked as a team to reach an end product. Within this evaluation, I will provide an analysis of my planning, the effectiveness of my research, and how my research led me to the designs for my production stage and the group's overall teamwork and collaboration in our final submission. Project: Whiteout is a survival crafting game set in the present day, where scientists have developed a simulation to test people’s survival skills as a form of punishment.

It was always going to be ambitious to make a survival game, I was responsible for level design as my main focus while helping out with models in the earlier weeks. Knowing I preferred level design to modelling and not having much modelling experience was going to challenge me, and therefore, it was a suitable challenge for me to overcome. With my place in the game industry decided, I wanted to build a product that would reflect my learning of my desired industry milestone. 

Proposal

Reflecting on my Proposal, I would say I made the correct decision with not just the roles I took on but also working in a team. This will help in developing my teamwork skills, a key transferable skill for the industry, along with practice in roles I hadn’t acquired much experience in. While I had plenty of 2D level design experience, I had only designed one 3D level before, using Unreal Engine, so I wasn’t as familiar with Unreal as I would have liked. Despite this, I’m pleased I was able to develop my skills and learn more about what it takes to become a level designer. Having the least experience with modelling and texturing, they first provided a challenge, but once I was more familiar, I enjoyed the process.

Developing the idea early, we could narrow down what we wanted until we came across some games we found inspiring, letting us decide on our concept quickly to save extra time that would have been spent on additional idea generation. This had a knock-on effect where we were more prepared through the proposal as our ideas developed faster. The proposal was useful to document our project concept and reflect on past units, as this amounted to time saved reflecting on units instead of doing unnecessary research. This meant jumping from phase to phase of the project; the time that was spent on the production was what I had planned to use, so I didn’t end up falling behind. To me, this is a personal upgrade as during my final project last year, I ended up having to cut content in order to reach an end product whereas here, I was able to complete everything I set out to achieve along with being able to take my time more with designing my level, which turned out to be a great educational experience.

Research

Putting two weeks into research, I did what I believed to be necessary to achieve my target grade for this project. Aiming for a Distinction, I covered each area in as much detail as I could while it was still useful. My weeks of research ended up being productive to the point where most of the content served as an aid to my production or planning. For the last few projects, I have always split my research into different fields, which combine to make one large mind map. This method has worked best for me on numerous occasions, which has helped me to gather what I need in a way I find easier to read. If I hadn’t done this, I believe my research may have been more cluttered, and the message I attempted to convey with my research would not have been as clear.

Primary research involved writing a form for some initial feedback on the concept we had developed over the first three weeks. I found the feedback I received insightful, as it helped me look at each aspect from a different angle. The styles of questions used allowed me to see what respondents would want from a level and what I can do to please that audience. I discovered that while I’ve used forms, sometimes they don’t always generate the best responses. At the end of my secondary research, I tried using a focus group to help generate some feedback on my research and the results were much better, meaning I may be more inclined to lean towards focus groups in future as having the peers all in one space gives them opportunity to bounce off of each other’s comments which may generate concepts that are more desirable than if each peer was to respond one by one. Playtesting at the end of production went well, showing

Studying the target audience and appeal is a practice I have made use of for the last few projects of mine, and it has continued to be for the best. Starting off small helps me develop my ideas and provides me with a motive to look into other aspects more closely that appeal to this instance of research. This is a very positive aspect of my research that continues to help me work more productively. While short, this section was useful for setting up my later research, which would be more useful. For this reason, I spent more time researching topics that were of greater interest, so I could get the most out of the two weeks I had given myself.

My “Games Inspiration” was without a doubt my most critical point of research. I’ve found that I learn best by applying instances of theory I’m aware of and seeing how they’re used in existing games, as it helps inspire me to explore ways I can embed the same practice into mine using a different approach. “Minecraft” was a key inspiration for our game, with some other titles, including “Dragon Quest Builders 2” and “The Survivalists” helping me decide on game balancing. This included crafting items and item deposit drops, which I was responsible for assigning. For the level design structure itself, “Pokémon Legends: Arceus” proved invaluable, as by using the core concept from one of its levels, I could flip the dynamic on its head to create the opposite effect. This helped me gain confidence in my level ideas due to how the level turned out, having the player explore all around the level and then end up in the middle. In juxtaposition to this, the Alabaster Icelands has a few points of interest that the player goes to, but the rest of the map is left alone in the main story. Playing a lot of these games myself also ended up making the research better, as I was able to explore the content in greater depth due to my background level of understanding.

With research regarding my main production, I found that I wanted to put more time into level design than modelling, due to it being a more important focus and the thing that I wanted to learn the most about. From what I can infer, this was the right decision, as I used mood boards and call-backs to previous units to help me with my modelling, which was plenty of assistance to get my modelling completed on time. This gave me more time to focus on my level, which I ended up being very proud of the end result. While I do believe a few of my models fell short of my expectations, this could’ve been due to less time spent researching modelling. Perhaps spending more time on modelling would have given me more knowledge on what I can do to improve my existing modelling skills. Despite this, I’m pleased with most of my models and that I put more time into the very helpful theories like breadcrumbing and level beats, as these really helped shape my level in a way that wouldn’t have occurred without.

Since I expected to do more UI for this project, I had researched UI to freshen up on what I knew. Because I only did a little UI, this meant most of this section I didn’t need to reach my end product although not needing to append as much of my time on UI meant I wasn’t spreading myself too thin, a problem with an earlier project where I became too stressed having to worry about too many different roles. This time, I was able to avoid that problem by focusing on one task at any given time. Although I think not researching this would’ve saved me time without much of a loss, the project ran smoother than I expected, given our challenging goal we ended up reaching.

Planning

Planning was crucial to piecing my level together as without a greybox, I wouldn’t have known where to begin designing my level. I found the greyboxing process helpful as I could use some placeholders to establish important areas that could be worked upon later. I also used Photoshop and sketched out maps of my level, showing multiple key ideas like places of interest and critical paths. This helped me develop how the player would be guided through the level while delivering that sense of freedom I was after, making breadcrumbing research useful as I made use of it subtly to lead the player while purposefully avoiding it in places to have the player be as immersed in the space as they can be. 

One of my most fundamental parts of pre-production was helping Andrew with the design of the shark. Displaying teamwork throughout the project meant we all helped to speed each other up with problem-solving or pipeline continuation. Making the concept for his shark model will have saved him time and helped all of us to further envision how the encounter with this boss would play out.

The GDD we all pitched in with helped us all to narrow down the concept going into production, so Reece’s level and mine could be more relative. It helped the three of us to define the project clearly and make good practice, should I need to make another one in the future.

Production

When starting production, I knew that I would be challenged by this project. While not wanting to specialise in modelling, it provided useful information that I can retain for later, being useful if I end up working for a smaller company that needs me to make models additionally. While I have a long way to go in learning how to model at a professional standard, the project built up what I knew and got me to think about the topology of a variety of objects, encouraging me to think about the best way I could go about each model. If it turns out I need to model again, I won’t be starting from scratch and will act as a good point from which I can learn from my mistakes.

While there were a few models I could have done better with like the Sharp Rock’s topology or the UVs of the Workbench, each mistake acts as a point to learn from and use to better my modelling skills should I end up using Maya again in the future. While these were cons, I had a lot of positive turnouts of this, being most pleased with my Basic and Advanced Pickaxe, and Berry Juice, despite the trouble in the early phase. Overall, I enjoyed the modelling process, and despite knowing that I could have improved some going back, I did the best I could to make something fit for purpose and succeeded.

Making level textures for both Reece’s level and my own was a concept new to me going into the project. From attempting this, however, I ended up with a quality of textures I was very pleased with, and it has encouraged me to try out Substance Designer in my own time. My favourite texture has to be the ice texture due to the work I put into getting the frosted effect I wanted to look just right. As for the least effective texture in my opinion, I think I could’ve done something to the grass to make it stand out more than the bumps I included. Using Designer allowed me to familiarise myself with some key nodes that can impact the quality of the final result.

While I’m happier than I expected to be with these, I’m most pleased with my level. As someone with little experience in 3D level design in Unreal, I believe I couldn’t have done better with my level. For my first fleshed-out level made in 3D, I made use of all the research I conducted to achieve the best end product I could. Not only do I like my level, but I think level design as a whole went well in this project, as I’m happy with how Reece’s level turned out differently from mine, showing different layouts made for a put-together game where the way each environment was approached was unique. I believe I made good use of the theory I had looked into, and having experience making 2D levels translated occasionally to aid me when piecing the level together. I was able to keep on track up to this stage due to all my planning methods adopted midway or from the beginning of the project. A personal Trello was useful to help me keep track of my progress, being a suitable way to monitor my workflow throughout this project. I found this was more helpful than my time plan due to the methods I employ while working. At the end of my production, I found that I had overcome a very tough challenge and was even more pleased with the result of all my production aspects than I had initially anticipated. Next time, I could try applying different methods of level design to see where I can take my designs next, using the strategy laid out by existing level designers and applying my own to give the player the most enjoyable experience. Showing my work in different ways gave me a lot of confidence in getting my work and any other future projects out there in hopes of advice, so I can constantly improve and adapt my skills into the best they can be.

Teamwork

Working in a group allowed me to stick to my strengths while gaining confidence in the practices I intend to pursue. Working in a group was definitely the right decision for me, as it assured me that I could get an experience of how teamwork will function within the industry. The project helped improve my time management as I learn different ways of handling my time to see what works for me in the best interest of my productivity. Working in a small team meant there wasn't too much to keep track of, and our selected roles were all useful and realistic goals that helped us develop our skills for the better. By working closely with my peers and receiving feedback, I could better my own production to work to the best of my ability, and we each contributed effectively, managing our time to continue our pipeline, resulting in a tremendous success. 

Conclusion

From the beginning, we set out to achieve an ambitious project of making a survival game that ended as a huge payoff for all of us. The project helped me understand how I prefer to work and make games, and what strategies I can use in future to be as productive as possible as quickly as possible. Being able to achieve everything I set out to do was a really big accomplishment as I experienced my fair share of challenges through the project. I was able to overcome the obstacles without letting any of them prohibit me from my work, building my confidence and perseverance moving onward. I’ve been encouraged to look more into level design as the role I would like to pursue, partly due to how much I’ve enjoyed this project and what I can do next to advance in the future.