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BA2a- Evaluation
This project without a
doubt has been the hardest out of all others so far, for a variety of reasons,
one obviously being the fact it’s been the longest. I tried hard early on to
gain as much as I could about UE4, spending too much time experimenting with 3D
despite knowing I was going for 2D. I really struggled to understand blueprints
and if there was a node that existed for what I wanted, but having spent the
time I have, I can now fairly autonomously blueprint a range of basic
mechanics, having a toolbox of sorts. I left my Pitch Document right up until
the end when both should have been done together, all my time spent away from
home where I could access UE4- when I could have been working on my Pitch Doc.
I did organise my time
a lot better with the help of Trello and despite my struggles with
blueprinting, sought out ways of using what I learned from tutorials, like all
the mechanics behind UE4s 2D platformer default., building my own from scratch.
I then applied this knowledge with newfound information on animation, learning
in my own time to create a walking sprite and have it turn like the default
sprite does.
I chose to create a
game that was deeply personal, which straight-off I had reservations about, not
wanting to go to deep. However I decided to go along with it, as it was more
unique and appealed to me more than my other, more ludic ideas. This was a
mistake. Whilst I’ve created a prototype I’m incredibly proud of, almost every
interaction and mechanic being a metaphor, players entertained by my game for
large lengths of time as of the flow I’ve created, the price has been
absolutely massive. Perhaps too personal for an evaluation, but I as a human
being create this work, I’m the key component to it. My mental health has been
the worst its ever been, accentuated by the dilemma of so much new information
to learn and deadlines, every day I was focusing on my problems that fed into
the game. Every day I really focused on large maladies, living and breathing my
problems, I was mentally far too focused on the negative. This led to me being very
ill and having to miss out on the games jam week, but I'm grateful I did as I
needed that brief week of respite to be able to continue into specialism.
I Intend to catch-up
and gain some games jam experience very soon. I’m very proud of my specialism
work, whilst aware I need to practice environments and materials, they were the
most fun I’ve had studying thus far. I was told to perhaps create an animatic
for my eel gun, simple 2D animation communicating design. Having an interest
and brief experience with animation on my game, 2D as well as 3D animation are
things I’ll explore during personal study.
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