Week 13

     Today was the official day for our pitching presentation and as a team we rehearsed our own chosen pitching session for this presentation. As a group of three we divided the pitching contents in to three so each group member get an opportunity to talk about the game in front of crowd. The pitching session i was agreed to talk about the game world

     In game world i introduced the cities where the game take place and the city where the game starts with. I mentioned the old and current outlook of the modern cities. Then i moved on to the game play where the character is manipulated whether the character is free of restrictions or not. I wanted to speak about the weapons and sound tracks used within this game but because of lack of time i couldn't complete it all.
     At the end of the presentation we had to face some questions from the lectures and some of the crew members. overall they said our presentation was excellent and we did it very confidently also was very defensive.

Week 12

     This is the first week we back from the Xmas and new year holidays so obviously the first time we sat in a team for our games pitching session. Our team member Ross who nailed this game idea decided to split the pitching topics for each member. But for the elevator pitch we all thought the same amount i guess to identify the unique selling point.

     The pitching session we were all agreed to present are as follows.

Ross - Story line and the motive of the missions
Michael - Character settings and abilities
Justin (myself) -Game world

Week 6

Been to the lecture and todays topic was about "Creating the user experience"

     Now we have a strong story line to build on our game design. Our main task today was to write down a game introduction scene. Based on our story we thought to begin the game using a cut scene which features the thief's infiltration in to the government office and stealing the memory chip.

CUT SCENE 1

• Scene opens in a dark where a masked person executing a silent take down on a security guard.
• He bypassed the security camera's and enters in to the building.
• He taking down another guard and enters in to the control room to disable all the security cameras.
• Now he back to the office room, destroys one of the digital security locker and steals a memory chip.
• He escapes through the corridor and reaches outside the building getting in to a vehicle.
• One of the security camera outside wasn't deactivated and it beeped while he was escaping and captures an image of the suspect & vehicle clearly showing the registration number.
• Government officials having a meeting in the morning discussing about this theft and the after effects.
• One of the government staff informing the vehicle used by the thief found destroyed in Germany.
• Its silent every where and the cut scene ends

CUT SCENE 2

• A scene opens somewhere in Germany where a group of people speaking Russian.
• The subtitles shows they are Russian mafias and they are working behind this thievery.
• They watching the news in television that one masked guy (detective) attacking the American governmental office and stealing the remaining memory chip.
• One of the reporter said this masked thief escaped to Germany.
• One of the Russian guy phoning someone and the recipient answering on the other end somewhere in Germany.
• He telling him to find and meet the thief (detective) who stole the other memory chip and make a deal with him.
• Scene ends

CUT SCENE 3

• One of the American government official contacting the detective (fake thief) in Germany
• He answers in Russian accent, subtitles are on
• Government staff asking him to find and meet the original thief as soon as possible.
• Scene ends

     We called off the lab today after we planned to develop an opening mission next week

Week 5

Been to the lecture and todays topic was about "Game play"

     For todays lab we meant to share our individual game storyline. i referred through couple of PC games like "Project IGI: I am Going In" & "Covert Strike"; two of the best stealthy games i ever played so far. I really loved the way they introduce the lead character in those games and i wanted to do something like that in my game too. So i decided to introduce my version of story.

STORY

     A nuclear war going to happen between Russia and America when America came to know that Russia had stolen a memory chip that stored half of countries defense confidential data's including details about new building nuclear war weapons. The memory chip with other half of confidential data's are still located secure in American governmental office. But still with that one memory chip Russia could get an idea of building their own weapons exactly same as like America's. If they do so Russia will become the greatest power in this world and that will question America's authority and it also become hard for them to survive.

     At this situation American officials only knows that the thief escaped to Germany because they traced the vehicle using the registration later on which found destroyed in Germany. They don't have any other source or information about the thief so they decided to hire a professional detective who having a Russian background to undertake this mission to back up their memory chip. But they wanted to keep his identity secret and revealed to the world that a Russian militant (actually the detective) stole their other memory chip and escaped to Germany. The reason behind this fake story is, if the mafia gang who stole the 1st memory chip hear about this news then they surely wanted to meet this detective with fake identity because they may make a deal with him to get the other half of the confidential data. If this happen the detective can make a deal with them as he says he wants to work for them and then only he will provide them the other memory chip. If the mafia agreed to his deal then its easy for him to get into their group and steal all the information about them also retrieve the stolen memory chip. But the only thing he must make sure that is never give the enemies a chance to identify his real identity and his purpose. This strategy makes the game play more stealthy. The game play begins right after the mafia guy and detective makes a deal.

     My colleague Ross was pretty happy with this story line and he said that we can continue with this story and nail a good introduction using the cut scenes. We called off the lab today

Week 4

Been to the lecture and todays topic was about "Story telling and narrative".

     Unfortunately I'd been transfered again to a different group by my lecturer. Now it's a group of two only , myself and my colleague Ross Lotte. Now again change of ideas and we started all over again from the scratch. Within quick time we took a decision of designing a stealthy action game which was actually one of my idea that i wanted to proceed along with the first project group.

     We started discussing about the game settings first up all and it arose some questions such as

1. Does the game has to be single player or multi player or both? 
2. Even if the game build for multi players does it has to be self mode or co-operative mode or both?
3. Does the game has to be stealthy all the time or give the player an option to disable stealth when the game play is tough? 
4. How much hard can be this game for a player if he is a complete beginner of playing a stealthy action game? So the game does need an option for difficulty mode?
5. Is it possible to change the screen resolution of the game while on a game play or does it need to be  set prior to the game play

     After a discussion within the team and with one of our project leader Daniel Livingstone we made a conclusion. We decided to do a single player game but there is an opportunity later on to play multi player in a co-operative mode when its requires for a side missions. The game has to be stealthy all the time and it increases the standard of the game plus it wont be so easy for the player to finish the levels. The game itself takes 9 hours to finish all the levels without any side missions. There will be a free roaming session before each levels so the player can get used with the character and the environment. There are only two difficulty levels available- medium & insane but it cannot be preset before the games start. As a default game starts with medium mode and the insane mode is obviously locked. It will be unlocked only when a game completes with the medium difficulty mode. In the case of screen resolution, it cannot be changed while on a game play (single player) but it can be changed in a multi player mode when playing any side or bonus missions.

     We were happy so far with our concept and Daniel asked us to begin with a story line and an opening mission. we both agreed to think about an opening mission individually for the next week to choose between the best outlook. We called off the lab today.

Week 3

Been to the lecture and todays topic was about "The game settings and characters".

     The current team was abandoned because my other two fellow group members shifted to 3rd year of the Computer Games Development course. So i am moved to another group by my Lecturer. That team was already consist of 3 members and i became the 4th member. My new team mates are Kalid, Jonathan and Ian.

     Now within this team they were already decided to do a game concept and it was an adventurous puzzle game. It was totally different to my game concept so i really struggled in the beginning to cope with their game concept.  One of the team member explained me the general concepts of the game, the character, story, plot and the game world. He had a detailed explanation about this game in his personal blog and it helped me to reach the new group members standards.

     As i mentioned above this is a puzzle game and the lead character is a hybrid (half alien/half human). The game take place in a different planet where the character trying to reveal his/her identity by solving many puzzles and riddles on each level in order to progress the game.

     On next week we planned to nail down an opening level in three difficulty mode (easy, medium & hard) as an individual so we can choose an outstanding one. Called off the lab today.

Week 2

Been to the lecture and todays topic was about "games design concept and tools of the trade".

     We went to the lab officially for the first time as the lab back in to action after the refurbishment. We sat down as a group and created an individual blog per person to keep record of our weekly project activities.

     Today we were suppose to think about some game concepts regarding to our group project. We discussed about the genre of games which we wish to develop. Each member came up with different ideas such as
     Sports Games - Racing or Football
     Puzzle Games
     Action Games - Stealthy or Adventure (This was my idea)

     We discussed the advantage and drawbacks of each game genre concepts and at the end we all decided to go up with a stealthy action game, simply because this is where we needed more knowledge and skills. And also we didn't wanted to develop any silly games plus we wanted a variety with a strong story base.

We called off the lab..