The Prototype - Retrospective

Just some quick reflections on Wednesday's prototype presentation session.

I think, overall, it went pretty well. Everyone had something to show that answered some of the questions raised by the pitches, and the feedback and criticism given was generally constructive and meaningful.

The presentation of Fishman didn't go too poorly. I was of course disappointed that I wasn't able to demonstrate it clearly, but the reception of my explanation was not received as harshly as I might have expected. I think a large part of the problems that occurred with the prototype of Fishman was that Henrik and I were trying to tackle the prototyping of two games with just the two of us, while other teams were focussing on a single game or spreading the workload to more team members (the work for Lantern and Islands, collectively, was split between four people).

The key problem, however, was the inability of ordinary keyboard interaction to accurately demonstrate the gameplay mechanic. Fishman is something of an input gimmick game (this is not strictly a bad thing), and it really doesn't work without the mic input. I had put together a very simple demonstration in processing of how the volume information from the input could be used to raise and lower the height of a bar, but unfortunately the microphones on the lab computers weren't working.

The net result is that Henrik and I have decided to put Fishman on the backburner at this point. We are not giving up completely on the idea, and I for one still think it has the potential to be an interesting game, but I don't want to sink time solely into trying to get the code the input analysis to work properly when I could be developing something that I know we have already proven.

The presentation of Horse, on the other hand, was fairly successful. I think the prototype helped us towards answering the question about timing - there was some pertinent feedback given on this, particularly that the game should continue running when the player gets an alert that the gameplay is about to change. It was also recommended that we make the different stages more distinct, which I know was something Henrik had been planning on anyway. Over the weekend, I will be working on passing the game information between the gameplay states so that the player's experience of the game doesn't get put on hold when the state changes, while Henrik will be developing more art and designs.

We'll also both be tinkering around with writing some silly dinky 8bit music to put into the prototype, with musagi (I will probably also faff around with midi data in Pro Tools).

With regard to other people's prototypes, there was some really nice work demonstrated - some in particular that I would like to be involved in the initial design and writing stages of, as long as the core team members are willing to have me on board. I'll probably be sending out a few emails with more detail to this effect.

That's all I can think of that needs to be addressed for now. I am of course working out my individual contract to deliver to Matt by the end of the day.

The Pitch - Retrospective

I've put a bit of thought into the outcomes of this session and my reactions to it, and haven't been able to come to a satisfactory conclusion.

I think the net outcome was successful, but the process was incredibly wearing, and perhaps this is because it was not entirely what I expected. I felt that we had all worked too individually, and I think the game ideas we were pitching were, on the whole, too complete. The result was what I like to think of as the ownership problem - there was a sense that each pitch idea belonged specifically to the person who had pitched it.

The following session of picking and choosing the games we were going to prototype was therefore very difficult, because the language we were using lent itself to the description of the games by the name of the originator. It was difficult to separate which game we wanted to make from the idea of whose game we wanted to make. That said, I think the whole class managed this quite well in the end, and I think we have a good range of interesting and diverse prototypes to work on at this stage.

Vis-a-vis my individual experience of the pitch, I will say that I wasn't happy with it. In my impeccable 20/20 hindsight, it may have better not to include Threadsuns in my pitch. In my head, it was a very malleable idea that I just wanted to put out there for kicks, and I was hoping for maybe a little more interaction and back-and-forth during the pitch session (see above re: possession problem). Again, I think everyone was too shy to put their own spin on something that was being presented as 'my' idea and 'my' game.

Alternatively, they thought it was a stupid idea (never ever rule this out. Everyone has stupid ideas. The important part is always seeking feedback so you can tell the difference).

I also don't think I really managed to accurately convey of my ideas with the possible exception of the fisherman and the moon, because it was dead simple (an interesting note: Henrik correctly cottoned on that I had been thinking of Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. Nobody, however, managed to pick up the loose parallels to Terry Pratchett's Nation.)

So, hm. I suppose all of this adds up to the fact that I would have preferred a more open pitching session - something with a little more trading of ideas, and less fully-formed concepts coming from each individual. This point, of course, is moot, because that process will inevitably take place over the semester as development progresses.

My thoughts on the whole thing, anyway. I think we're doing pretty well though.