Thursday, August 27, 2009

Malina Landreth Post Mortem – Time Blunders

Malina Landreth Post Mortem – Time Blunders

Team Summary
The game Time Blunders was a great experience. Everyone provided their share of the project and even though we faltered at times the end product was worth the time and dedication. With everyone taking on a job from concept art to programming we came together to produce two levels of our game.
Overall as a team we produced two playable game levels that included interfaces, animations, artwork, programming and sounds. Beyond the game we also managed to do marketing and produce posters, t-shirts, website, banners, flyers, and a CD case. With all the different parts of the game we managed to also put together a 300+ page design document that showed just how much work we put into this project.
Looking back I now see all the work we put into our project and I can say that I am proud to have been a part of this team. All of us have learned a great deal through this project.

Self Summary
I was involved with the Interface and Marketing Design with Adrianna Dimech. Together we managed to do hundreds of thumbnails and several digital compositions. My work for the games interface included doing flowcharts, font charts, thumbnails, and digital flash compositions (main menu, instructions, quit, in-game pause, in-game instructions, in-game volume, in-game quit, and the games game interface).
I also worked on the games marketing which included the website (main menu, about us, characters, story and play game), posters, banners and t-shirts. These required me to do some more flowcharts, thumbnails and digital compositions.

Project Introduction
In this project our goal was to produce a playable two level game. After a rough start the games story took place and we came up with our main character, Zalien. With this in mind our game seemed to best fit the market for flash games. Our target market went through many changes and after testing we found that the game actually fit an older target market.

Background Research
Since our games story was based on the prehistoric period we had to do some research on both the creatures and plants at that time. We also had to compare our game to its competition and we ended up with the SNES Metal Warriors, Adventure Island, and Congo’s Caper.
Other research had to be done for each part of the game. For me I had to do individual research for the games interface, website, website banners, game posters, and even for the t-shirts. The process was extensive and required a lot of research online and in books.

Proposed Solution
The games interface went through many revisions and I had difficulties with replicating the art style and with the layout. The solution to these difficulties was to communicate with the both the team and instructors.
Another proposed difficulty was for the games website which required some action script programming. I had to do some research and get help from both instructors and students. After several attempts the issue with getting the game to load online was solved by having the website call the swf file through programming.

Project plan
Our game required me (us) to hold weekly reviews, meet weekly deadlines, blog updates online, do revisions, continue with new parts of the game and most of all communicate and work with team members.

Production Team

Team Superfluous
o Justin MacAuley – Team Lead & Programmer
o Tom Stankavich – Documentation & Programmer
o Joseph Serra – Level Design & Audio
o Kristina Brown – Environment Artist & Animation Artist
o Shelby Flagg – Character Design & Animation
o Todd Dinius – Environment Artist & Animation Artist
o Daniel Cunningham – Audio & Environment Artist
o Adrianna Dimech – Interface Design & Marketing
o Malina Landreth – Interface Design & Marketing

Success evaluation
Our game has met its deadline and we have succeeded with producing a two level game called Time Blunders. The team at times made milestones without issues and other times we faltered. As a team I believe that we have learned some great lessons. Some of us learned or relearned programs while others had to overcome weaknesses in their parts of the game. In the end we overcame weaknesses and developed a playable game.

My References

Game Interface References
Unknown, Unknown. "Flash Games ". FNC games . 07/2009 .
Unknown, Donna. "Photoshop & Flash Tutorials". Pixel 2 Life "Learning made simple" . 07/2009 .
Unknown, Unknown. "Play Games - Free Online Games". MTV Networks Company. 07/2009 .
Page, Larry. "Google Images". Google. 07/2009 - 08/2009 .
Unknown, Unknown. "Flowcharts". EHow Inc - Demand Media Property. 07/2009 .
Unknown, Unknown. "Top 50 Flash Games". Gadgetphilia. 07/2009 .
Saunders, Kevin, and Novak Jeannie. Game Interface Design. Delmar Cengage Learning, 11/02/2006.

T-Shirt References
Unknown, Unknown. "Black T-Shirt Template". aaa enterprise in corporated. 08/2009 .
Page, Larry. "Google Images". Google. 07/2009 - 08/2009 .
Poster References
Benjamin , Yobie Benjamin . "Video Game Posters". Zazzle. 07/2009 .
Unknown, Unknown. "AllPosters.com-The Worlds Largest Poster and Print Store". AllPosters. 07/2009 .

Website References
Unknown, Unknown. "Top 50 Flash Games". Gadgetphilia. 07/2009 .
Ensha, Azadeh. "10 Ways to Design a Good Website". New York Times. 08/2009 .
Unknown, Unknown. "10 Principles of Effective Web Design". Smashing Magazine. 08/2009 .
Unknown, Unknown. "Game Website Design: Going Beyond the Usual Game Entertainment". Net Recon. 08/2009 .
Unknown, Unknown. "Video Game Design Showcase". Elements of Design. 08/2009 .

Banner References
Unknown, Unknown. "Flash Tutorial - Banner". Tizag. 08/2009 .
Secusender, Tarnaka. "Standard Banner Sizes". Simply Graphix. 08/2009 .
Arun, Steve. "Make A Video Game Website Banner". Adobe Person. 08/2009 .

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