Unit 11 Freelance work

My Core Skills and possible career choices

Requirements for a freelance business

Setting up as a sole trader or becoming a freelancer is probably the easiest and quickest way to start a business. It doesn't require paying a registration fee and I believe it is lighter on paper work than becoming an employee for another business. However, you must register yourself as self-employed within 3 months of working or starting to trade, if not you may find a penalty of up to £100 plus interest on any taxes due.

Pretty much anyone can set up as a sole trader. Although, there are certain types of work that require obtaining a licence or permit from your local authority, such as childminding, taxi driving or street trading. Personally, I want to become a counselor, and luckily anyone can become a counselor really. However I wouldn't recommend trying to do it without any previous training as: Nobody would want to hire you; you may get a client with an issue(s) that are too challenging for you to help them with; you may end up mentally harming your client; etc.

If you're planning on running your business from your own home, you may have to pay business rates for the part of your home that is used for business purposes, depending on whether or not you use that part for domestic purposes also. For example, if you work from a computer in your bedroom it is unlikely you'll have to pay business rates, but if you work from a separate office, this may entail paying business rates. As I'm thinking of becoming a counselor, I may or may not have to pay business rates, it really could be done either way. If, say, I chose to hold my sessions in the living room of my home it would mean I avoid business rates. This has positives and negatives to it, it may possibly seem more peaceful and homely for the client but possibly somewhat unprofessional? Whereas an office sort of environment would seem more professional but may not be as comfortable for a client. "Another thing to bear in mind if you’re working from home is whether or not you need planning permission. If you propose to make any changes to your house for business purposes, such as building an extension, or if you’re likely to cause disturbance to your neighbours, it will probably be necessary to get planning permission. Contact the planning department of your local authority for more details." - http://startups.co.uk/how-to-register-as-a-self-employed-sole-trader-or-freelancer/ - 04/12/2013.

Anyone who becomes a freelancer must register for income tax and national insurance contributions with HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC). This can be done online, by phone, or by post. When registering you'll need to provide your national insurance number - if you don't have one, contact Jobcentre Plus. Luckily for me, I have one.


As a self-employed sole trader, you’ll have to complete a self assessment tax return to HMRC. This involves filling in a tax return form, either online or paper, in which you inform HMRC of your income and capital gains, or in which you may claim tax allowances or reliefs. Usually, HMRC will send you your self assessment tax return in April. The list of instructions to register yourself as a sole trader continue but you get the jist of it.
Primarily I think any freelancer needs to start off with the resources and materials they'd need to start off their business. Every freelancer would benefit from having their own website to advertise themselves, their business, and what they can offer to society. Whereas some businesses (thinking of art/design orientated business as an example) would need equipment to be able to produce their products, for me, I'd just need a location to practice my trade. That is, once I become a qualified counselor.
I'm thinking to get myself out there and to form some sort of network I'd probably have to start off joining a counseling business (they hire counselors and send them to locations for clients e.g. colleges/schools). From doing this, I'd get to know the business aspects of becoming a counselor better, as well as making myself known amongst colleagues within that business. Say for example one counsellor may be able to recommend myself and vise versa. The only problem with joining a company like this is that you'd have to follow their policies. I know of one called Off the Record which has a policy in place that doesn't allow the counselor to be hired by a client they've previously had through being sent in to counsel (if that makes sense). Basically, I am seeing a counselor at college, because of his policy with Off the Record I cannot hire him, so I am limited to the 6 sessions that are offered to me at college.
Once I have some experience under my belt and more knowledge on the business I'd most likely work as a freelancer. I'd have some sort of network in place from working with previous companies and have my own website to advertise myself.
At the moment I am planning to do a Level 5 counseling course at college. I am still to decide which of the 2 courses I'll do and which college I will go to (either Bristol or somewhere closer to home). I will be getting an interview in place for the near future and from then I can apply to them.

Unit 51 3D Computer Modelling

Cinema 4D

• First, I added some primitive shapes, a cube, sphere and cone.
• I then played around with the shape positioning. Altered the sizes, placement, and rotation.
• I added a floor and then added a texture to it. Making it black/white checkered and adding a reflection effect to it.
• Texture and colouring was then added to the shapes. Adding reflection to them also, and lowering the brightness of that reflection to roughly 20% then applied it to each shape (this process was done three times but with different colours for each individual shape).
• I then added a light source (Omni Light Object).
• I increased the intensity of the light and positioned it to create long-drawn shadows.
• Once all work had been done, I rendered it, resulting in this.

• Fist I added a cube, I altered the size and fillet of the cube to give the main body of the ipod.
• Then added a plane and changed the position of it to create the screen.
• Then added a tube shape, flattened it and changed its size. This was to make the menu buttons.
• After that I grouped all the shapes and named the group "ipod".
• Put in another plane to create the floor, changing its height and width.
• Then started making some different materials that will then later be added.
• Made the green colouring, added reflection and changed brightness.
• Made another material with reflection, altered brightness and then put in the image for the menu.
• Same process again but inserted a screen image.
• Then applied these new materials to the necessary shapes and rendered it to finish.

Practicing with the Extrude tool:

First off I just placed some primitive shapes. A sphere, ring, and a cube. I used the extrude tool to stretch the cube and to cause one end to be narrower than the other. I duplicated that cube to make the second one.

Here I had started with a cube again, stretched it with the extrude tool and then using inner extrude, I pulled more cuboids out the sides of the original one. I then added some cubes to stick onto the ends of them.

Using the extrude tool again I had altered some little bits of those shapes. Such as making some of the shape faces sink into the rest of the shape.

After that I used the hypernurbs tool which rounds off all edges and sort of morphs all those shapes together into one piece (so it looks). With some slight moving of shapes and adding in a light source I ended up with this.

• First I switched the perspective view mode to front front view mode.
• I changed the move tool axis setting to Point.
• Then with the Bezier Spline drawing tool I plotted a profile/outline of a wine glass.
• Within the Front View, I plotted the first point onto the X and Y axis position "0".
• Then I plotted the next point to the right/above the previous point and form the curve by dragging the handle upwards.
• Then I had to hold down the shift key and clicked on the top handle, dragging the handle to the right to change the direction of the next part of the path.
• I then plotted another line following the same curvature below the first and then held the shift key to change the direction of the handle downwards.
• I then made a straight line downwards for the stem of the wine glass and made a curve for the base.
• Finishing the plots with a straight line from the curved base to the centre of the Y axis.
• Then I selected the Lathe Nurb objective and placed the spline into the Lathe Nurb. This changed it from a half-drawn wine glass in 2D to a full 3D model.
• In the lathe nurb I increased the subdivision up to 50 from 24. This increases the amount of polygons used to create it. Resulting in smoother edges.
• Then I made a cube and increased it's size until the wine glass and light source were inside it, forming a "room".
• Finally I made some textures and applied them to the cube and wine glass.

• Within the front view, I opened the edit menu and selected Configure.
• Within Attributes manager for the front view I went into the "Back" tab and inserted an image of the perfume bottle above.
• Then I went into the Spline menu and selected the Akima spline tool.
• Using that, I outlined the right side of the perfume bottle from top to bottom (while holding down the cmd key), making sure my points touched Y axis at both ends.
• I then continued the line around almost parallel to the the first, this is to form the thickness of the glass body.
• I then used the Lathe nurbs and put the spline inside it to turn it into a 3D model.
• Finally, I added a floor and textures.

Here was the basis of creating a humanoid form. By downloading a side and front view bluepoint of a character I had some guide lines to follow when creating a character. I cut the side view from the image to result in two separate images. Dividing the screen to view different perspectives, I could then insert shapes and start forming them to mimic the shape of the character from all angles. To create it I originally started with a cube and made it the same width as the hips on the front view of the character. Then I divided the cube down the middle with the knife tool so we could mirror each side but there were technical issues with that so instead with lots of extruding of polygons and pulling around certain points, I had made a torso with arms and the beginning of the legs.

We were then tasked with creating our own character model to then create in Cinema4D. I was heavily influenced by "Flanimals". Here are a few pictures of what inspired my design:

Here I have designed a character which I will attempt to make in Cinema4D:

I started making the feet first. Using a cube to begin, I altered it into a rectangle. Then using the extrude tool I made one end of the rectangle smaller than the other. Using hyper nurbs on the rectangle, it rounded off the edges. I then added spheres for the heel and toes. Finally, I altered the foot shape with the extrude tool.

The body was simple. I created a sphere, I squashed it a little bit with the scaling tool and then selecting a couple of polygons on the side, made the initial beginnings of the arms.

The arms were just throwing some cylinders and spheres together. The fingers were using the matrix extrude tool on certain polygons on the sphere that is the hand. I'm unhappy with how this turned out so I'm going to re-make them trying out some other methods.

Using the extrude tool again, I had sunk the mouth into the body. I selected a number of polygons on the body to shape the mouth. I also added some more spheres for the eyes.

Adding even more spheres, I had created eyelids. The mouth had been changed, instead I added a capsule which is going to be the sort of bulge of the lower lip. After everything else is done I plan to draw a sort of "slit" to give the impression of the crevice of the mouth.

I changed the arms by using spheres and the tool metaball. Once one arm was made I used the symmetry tool to mirror it to the other side. I then added in the landscape shape and enlarged it for a my character to stand on top of it. After that I used another cube to box everything in, also becoming the sky. Next, I made the textures. Looking at the Flanimals that inspired my design, I felt they looked somewhat like playdough. So, I searched for a playdough texture and took it into photoshop to change the colour to purple. I then tweaked some bits of the texture (adding a bump-map) so the texture wasn't flat and smooth.

Evaluation

As you can see, I have been 3D modelling. Our task was to design and create a character, and then to place that character in to a 3D environment. My character looks more like an unusual creature than, let's say, a main character. So, I thought maybe adding a few of these creatures to make a little group would look better than just a stand alone creature in a barren environment. I wanted the character to look somewhat out of place in this environment. The creature is round and blobby for the "rocky" environment in which they traverse.

I have learned how to use many different tools in Cinema 4D. Before starting this unit I had no idea at all how 3D model. Thanks to the tutorials and tasks we were set, I have learned how to create this without the need of instructions and what not (although I did need some assistance when using new tools I'd not used before). As I've previously known, my abilities with computer software seem fairly limited, nor am I much of an artist. After I had created the creatures, I made "materials" to apply to them. From the look of their "blobby" physique, it reminded me of Playdough. So I searched the web for a Playdough texture which I then changed the colour of in Photoshop for each one of the creatures.

I created this for this Unit of the course. But what I have learned will definitely come in handy for future modelling, which would be needed for continuing a career in games design.

I quite like how the cartoon-look came out, with the bright colours and the fairly smooth textures. But I feel the lack of detail makes it look some what amateurish and un-professional, again with the simple shape of the creatures, it looks pretty simplistic. However, I did achieve the look I wanted to create. If I had spent more time on it, I think I could have made the arms a bit better and made the environment a bit less empty by adding in a few things, trees maybe?

I think if I had done more tutorials and learned the software better (that being a greater knowledge in using different tools). I think the concept is good and I'm happy with it, but the execution could have been better. Maybe putting more time into trying different tools and maybe some environment sketches to develop a more elaborate scene.

Unit 68

Comparison between Modern games and Retro games

I have researched a number of games, of course both modern ones and some retro ones. briefly summarising a few key points. In terms of "retro games" I'm talking about those that were made in the 80's and early 90's. Modern games being from late 90's to the present. Now, I'm going to look at two of those games in more depth, making comparisons between them.

Here is a table of the numerous games I researched:

Title

Genre

Release Date

Structure

Platform

Realistic/ Abstract

Dimension 2D/3D ?

Perspective

Goals

Objectives

Secrets/ Achievements

Narrative structure

Sprites or Polygons

Player Role

Overall Rating 0-100% (Rating for retro games is high because they were good in their time)

Kotor 1  (Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic

Adventure RPG

15th July 2003

Character development, story driven, exploration/adventuring

Original Xbox (later released on PC)

Sci-fi (abstract)

3D

3rd person

Save the galaxy.

Visit multiple planets to complete tasks/quests as character develops and story continues.

You could say certain bits of dialogue are secret as they’re not simple to reach.

Open-ended. Multiple options. A Branching Narrative.

Polygons

Saviour of the Galaxy.

95%

Kotor 2

Adventure RPG

6th December 2004

Character development, story driven, exploration/adventuring

Orginal Xbox (later released on PC)

Sci-fi (abstract)

3D

3rd person

Save the galaxy.

Visit multiple planets to complete tasks/quests as character develops and story continues.

You could say certain bits of dialogue are secret as they’re not simple to reach.

Open-ended. Multiple options. A Branching Narrative.

Polygons

Saviour the Galaxy.

95%

Mass Effect Series (1,2,3)

Adventure RPG

20th November 2007 (ME1) 26th January 26th 2010 (ME2) 6th March 2012 (ME3)

Character development, story driven, exploration/adventuring

Xbox 360 and PS3 (later on PC and Wii U)

Sci-fi (abstract)

3D

3rd person (over the shoulder)

Save the galaxy.

Visit multiple planets to complete tasks/quests as character develops and story continues.

You could say certain bits of dialogue are secret as they’re not simple to reach.

Open-ended. Multiple options. A Branching Narrative.

Polygons

Saviour of the galaxy

80%

World of Warcraft

MMORPG

23th November 2004

Online role-playing, adventuring, completing quests, character development

PC

Fantasy (abstract)

3D

3rd person (can zoom in for 1st person but made for 3rd person)

Develop your character.

Enjoy the world.. of warcraft. Adventure, role play, do whatever you like.

None

Linear (told through written out quests and cutscenes). There’s no strict story as you do what you please.

Polygons.

Be a hero/ Heroine

90%

Zork

Single player adventure

1980

Text-Based adventure

Atari and Commodore

Fantasy (abstract)

2D

No perspective (it’s all in your imagination!)

Become dungeon master.

Return from “Great Underground Empire” with treasures.

Secret words/commands/ codes

Non-linear

None

Dungeon crawler

Not tried myself but hear it’s around 8/10 (80%)

Pac-man

Arcade game

May 22nd 1980

Maze navigation/collecting (later released on smart phones and xbox live arcade)

Namco Pac-man arcade machine

Abstract

2D

Flat 2D view onto the whole “game board” as it were. Could even say bird’s eye view looking down onto the level. Side-on platformer.

Beat all the levels and get a high score!

Collect as many items as you can while avoiding the ghosts.

None (I believe)

None. Although I hear the narrative is supposedly told through intermissions between levels (Also wondering why the ghosts have names).

Sprites

A hungry Pac-Man?

50%

Space Invaders

Fixed Shooter

June 1978

Arcade game. Moving side to side, shooting space invaders.

Arcade machine

Abstract

2D

Flat 2D view. Monochrome raster, vertical orientation. Side-on platformer.

Beat all the levels and get a high score!

Shoot down as many space invaders as you can, including special ones that give bonus points.

Secret codes and unlockables.

None really.

Sprites

Planetary defence laser cannon!

50% in Modern standards. Probably atleast 70% in its time.

Asteroids

Mutli-directional shooter.

November 1979

Arcade game. Flying around and shooting.

Arcade machine

Abstract

2D

Flat 2D view. Could possibly say bird’s eye view (similarly to pac-man). Side on platformer.

Beat all the levels and get a high score!

Shoot as many asteroids and flying saucers as you can while avoid crashing.

Level codes and codes for secret effects.

None really.

Sprites

Triangular space ship

Around 50- 80% (Not played it personally).

Pokemon (game series)

Role-playing game

First ones released in 1996. Latest in 2013.

Adventuring with pokemon (pocket monsters), battling them and gaining levels.

More or less all Nintendo hand-held consoles.

Abstract

2D up until the latest verisons X and Y which are now 3D

Flat 2D view (bird’s eye view/side on platformer?) Excluding X and Y which are a 3D side-on platformer.

Become a pokemon master.

Adventure through numerous places battling wild pokemon. Battle other trainers in towns and beat gym leaders to advance in the pokemon league.

Some pokemon cannot be obtained in-game but rather required by personally attending special events. Secret locations and pokemon (there’s a sign implying about a particular pokemon somewhere in one of the games).

Linear

Sprites originally, polygons in Pokemon X and Y.

A young pokemon trainer.

80%

Quake Live

FPS

August 6th 2010

First person shooter, multiplayer arena.

PC and Mac

Abstract

3D

First person

Win the match

Frag enemy players, race, capture the flag, carry skulls to enemy flag stand, capture domination points, attack/defend.

I hear there’s a Secret room? Rocket Jumping challenge?

None really.

Polygons

Arena competitor

55%

War Thunder

MMO combat flight simulator (will later expand into ground vehicles and fleets, currently just aviation)

November 1st 2012 (open beta). PS4 release 15th November 2013. Mac open beta started 10th September 2013

Multiplayer Combat flight simulation (will later expand into ground vehicles and fleets, currently just aviation).

PC (later releases for PS4 and Mac)

Realistic

3D

First or third person (depending on game mode/personal choice).

Win the match

Defeat the enemy planes, deplete their resources by destroying ground/sea targets and capturing landing strips.

None

There’s not really a narrative but it does tell you little facts about the history of certain battles that took place. So I guess you could say it has a narrative and thus it would be linear.

Polygons

Aircraft pilot

80%

Super Mario Bros.

Platformer

September 13th 1985

Side-scroller

NES

Abstract

2D

Flat 2D view, side-on platformer

Save Princess Peach from Bowser

Reach the end of each level, collect coins along the way and defeat/avoid the bad guys.

More points depending on how you kill enemies, score with the flagpole and fireworks, warp zone, mazes, new game+ (sort of), the minus world, weird bullet bill, little firey Mario, alternate method to the 4-2 warp zone, game genie codes.

Linear.

Sprites

Mario (Luigi in multiplayer)

60% (not played it personally)

Fallout: New Vegas

Action role-playing

October 19th 2010

Post-apocalyptic open world environment adventuring

PC, PS4, Xbox 360

Abstract (but believable, not too far-fetched)

3D

First person typically, can go third person.

Main story is to find the guy who shot you in the head but you can do as you wish really.

Adventure the Mojave wasteland, complete quests for folks, randomly go around killing people, whatever you fancy.

Cheat codes, in-game exploits.

Linear

Polygons

Courier

75%

Left 4 Dead 2

FPS survival horror

17th November 2009

First person shooter with heavy emphasis on cooperative gameplay.

Linux and Windows (PC), Mac, xbox 360

Abstract (but believable, not too far-fetched)

3D

First person

Survive the zombie pandemic.

Fight your way through campaigns interspersed with safe houses that act as checkpoints, with the goal of escaping at each campaign’s finale.

Cheat codes

Linear

Polygons

Selectable survivor. Can choose one of the survivors or be a zombie in multiplayer

65%

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Action role-playing

11th November 2011

Character development. Exploration/adventuring.

PC, PS3, Xbox 360

Abstract (fantasy)

3D

First person typically, can go third person.

Save Skyrim

Defeat dragon named Alduin, prophesised to destroy the world. Take part in other important quest lines such as the Skyrim civil war.

In-game exploits

Hard to say, the main story line is linear but your personal journey/story is non-linear. Depends what you make of it I think.

Polygons

Dragonborn

80%

Team Fortress 2

FPS

9th October 2007

Team based first person shooter, teams compete for a combat-based principal objective.

Linux, Windows (PC), xbox 360, PS3, Mac

Abstract

3D

First person

Win the match

Complete the objectives in the match to win (capture the flag, control points, territorial control, king of the hill, payload, etc)

None

None

Polygons

One of the selectable classes.

65%

Minecraft

Sandbox, survival

18th November 2011 for Linux and Windows later releases on other platforms such as Android and Xbox 360

Explore, build, craft, gather resources, combat.

Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, Xbox 360 arcade and retail disk, Raspberry Pi, PS4

Abstract

3D

First person typically but can go third person.

None really

Survive generally, but you can do whatever you want.

None

None

Polygons

You start off with a default skin known as “Steve” but you can change it to whatever you want.

75%

Dota 2

Mutliplayer online battle arena

9th July 2013

Session-based multiplayer online matches, controlling a hero.

Windows and Linux (PC)

Abstract

3D

Bird’s eye view.

Win the match

Focus on improving your hero’s abilities, acquire items and fight against the enemy team until you can push to their base and destroy it.

None

None

Polygons

Whichever one (of many) heroes you want to play that match.

60%

First off, I'll look at one of my favorite games ever (modern game). Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is a role-playing video game developed by BioWare and published by LucasArts. It was first released on the 15th of July, 2003. The first platform is was released for was the original Xbox (a couple of months later on PC and about a year after that released on Mac).

As with all Star Wars games, it is a sci-fi game, so I'd be inclined to say it is abstract (realistic in theStar Wars universe but unfortunately that is not a universe we live in).


The target audience of this game would simply be those who are fans of Star Wars or story-driven role-playing games.

 "‘Ant-farming’ is when you design with a gods-eye view in mind - it’s when you throw around concepts which are ‘interesting’ or ‘provide fascinating social dynamics’ or ‘would really feel like a virtual world’ - but fail the basic ‘fun’ test. This is when the designers are designing a game that’s more fun to observe than to actually live in." (Schubert 2004). I sometimes fear this game suffers from a case of "Ant-farming" as (after many playthroughs) I begin to get a little bored of the gameplay. I never get bored of the dialogue parts, but sometimes feel like I'd like to skip through the gameplay just for an interactive story (blasphemous for a gamer, I know). I think BioWare successfully made the players feel attachment to the characters in the game. Each 'companion' has their own interesting back-story until they tag along with you on your adventure. The way you interact with these companions effects dialogue options with them, making them either like/dislike you (more so in Kotor 2 than this game but it still applies). I remember playing it multiple times trying to get a better relationship with certain companions to see what more they have to say and how they'd react in certain situations. There's a difficult decision towards the end of the game where you must choose a number of companions that will stick with you and others that you must kill.

I think the back story is pretty self explanatory for Star Wars games for those that are familiar with it (in a galaxy far far away.. etc). The scrolling text at the start (as with all Star Wars games and films) sets the scene for you but doesn't quite explain who you are or what your role in the universe is. I like that in this game, you discover that later on. The back story must be uncovered. As mentioned before, there is also a back story to the main characters, giving them personality and what not.

As far as I can remember, the game is balanced as there doesn't seem to be anything particularly over-powered. There of course are better strategies and abilities than others, but nothing that will let you just walk through the game simply (although I do think it could have been a bit more challenging).

I believe there are some cheat codes and some in-game exploits that will allow you to break the rules, as it were.

The game has a few cut-scenes. Most of which play out just like a normal dialogue conversation but instead are between two NPC's rather than yourself, excluding the dialogue options (making the cut-scenes linear I guess).

I think this is an emergent game (I wouldn't want to play it multiple times if it weren't). Of course there are only a number of dialogue options each time but there are so many different combinations of ways you can approach interaction with other characters it can sometimes surprise you to what you may find, the reactions from these character and the consequences of things you may say. The combat however, I find is pretty straight forward, nothing new after the first few fights you have. But at least there are different ways you can build your character, resulting in combat to vary depending on that. I'd describe the story to be a branching narrative. It seems to have checkpoints at certain stages throughout the game, but there are multiple ways as to reach these checkpoints, which I believe helps with emergence. Although contradicting with what I've just said, the game does have some sort of progression system. You progress through the story by hitting these checkpoints in the story, as well as character progression where you gain your Jedi powers (you don't start with them). In that case, surely all games with a narrative have progression? I wonder.

A certain amount of effort has to be put in to achieve certain dialogue outcomes. As for combat, of course you have to try and actually think about it, but there is a fair amount of randomness to it as.. "The game's system is based on Wizards of the Coast's Star Wars Roleplaying Game, which is based on the d20 role-playing game system derived from the Third Edition Dungeons & Dragons (DnD) rules.". Of course if you make the effort to increase certain character statistics, those dice rolls will be in your favor accordingly.

"While fun is an elusive concept, the most popular school of thought claims that video game fun comes primarily from the enjoyment of problem solving.". "A second school of thought describes video games as a combination of a number of different types of fun, where different games emphasize different types of fun.". Personally, I do find this game to be fun. I very much enjoy the story and I enjoy playing a role in the Star Wars universe. As mentioned before, I admit the gameplay can sometimes get a little bit dull. The problem solving can become a little bit tedious. But I think I just say that because I've played the game too many times. I know for sure the first time I played this game, there was not a single moment I did not find to be fun.

The game only features one game mode, that being a Story Mode (single player). It would have been interesting to have some sort of co-op feature but then I'm not too sure how the story would play out if your partner did/said something that you didn't want to. Maybe some sort of roll system like they've done in the more recent Star Wars game: The Old Republic (not to be confused with this game Star Wars: KNIGHTS of the Old Republic).

Some of the level designs are fairly basic and others can be a bit more complicated, almost like a maze. The game was made 10 years ago so I can understand why but a lot of the levels seem rather empty. I may not be doing the game justice but I seem to recall on a few occasions there will be paths and directions that you can take, but there's not really anything on those paths (other than some people to fight or interact with). One in particular comes to mind. You crash on a forest moon and while there are lots of trees and what not around you, the path of which you can actually venture is pretty empty. There's a high use of the colour grey as well, but that's understandable as you're on space ships or on space stations.. it would be silly if they were stupidly colourful and flamboyant.

I may have been "bashing" the gameplay combat system a bit, I should mention that it is typically turn-based. You pause to choose what abilities to use and on whom, then the dice roll system begins and the actions play out.

The game does give you a brief tutorial to begin with. It explains how to do certain actions and tells you what your interface does/means/where to find things.

The overall goal of this game is more or less to save the galaxy. The outcome being whether you choose to defeat the Sith and save the Republic or defeat the Sith and take their place, either way you eliminate the immediate threat. There are numerous objectives on the way, most of which require you visit certain planets to complete tasks and unravel the story further. I don't think you can really "lose" in this game. If you die, to revert to your last save. There is an auto-save system in the game but I'm sure you can turn that off and if you weren't to manually save the game yourself, I guess that you can lose the game and have to start over. Thinking about that though seems silly as you'd have to complete the whole game in one sitting without taking a break (unless you were to keep it running while you weren't playing).


The second game I'm going to look at (retro game) shall be Zork. I fear this comparison of two games is going to be much more like me analysing just one game, as I've played the previous one many times but never played this. Still, I hope research can provide me with enough information.

Zork was one of the earliest interactive fiction computer games. It's a text-based adventure RPG. I believe it was released im 1980 and could be played on: Atari 8-bit family, Commodore 64, Commodore Plus/4, CP/M, TRS-80, IBM PC and Apple lle (what are these crazy machines?). 

"Zork distinguished itself in its genre as an especially rich game, in terms of both the quality of the storytelling and the sophistication of its text parser, which was not limited to simple verb-noun commands ("hit troll"), but recognized some prepositions and conjunctions ("hit the troll with the Elvish sword").".





 It is an abstract fantasy game. As with most retro games, I don't think this really had a specific target audience. Video games were new back then so there wasn't really much of a target market to focus on, I assume it was just for anybody that took interest? However, I'd say the target audience for this game would be anyone with one of the machines able to play it (of course) and those with an interest in story-telling.

"Aesthetic goal - In game design, the method of designing a game with a specific player experience in mind. (Hunicke, LeBlanc, Zubek 2004.)". The creators of Zork want the player to experience being a nameless adventurer who is venturing into this dangerous land in search of wealth and adventure.

I'm not sure if, back in the day, Zork would have been victim of "Ant-farming". I think you're pretty limited to the amount of enjoyment you can get out of just text. Not to say that it isn't the best form of something enjoyable, books after all are very enjoyable to read. But as for video games, I'm wondering how long someone could play before getting a bit bored of reading. Regardless of the quality of writing.

I would assume that players would form some kind of attachment with the game (it's very hard to say without having played it myself). I'd imagine it would be just like a book really, you can feel attachment with characters in books, books can still pull on your emotions, I can't see why Zork wouldn't be able to do the same. If anything, I'd say it would be rather likely to form attachments with Zork as it's an interactive story where you're in control of what happens, making it more personal than something pre-set.

I don't know if there is any back-story to Zork. Surely the scene would be set within the first bit of gameplay where it describes the current situation (if that makes sense).

"In the Zork games, the player is not limited to verb-noun commands, such as "take lamp", "open mailbox", and so forth. Instead, the parser supports more sophisticated sentences such as "put the lamp and sword in the case", "look under the rug", and "drop all except lantern". The game understands many common verbs, including "take", "drop", "examine", "attack", "climb", "open", "close", "count", and many more. The games also support commands to the game directly (rather than taking actions within the fictional setting of the game) such as "save" and "restore", "script" and "unscript" (which begin and end a text transcript of the game text), "restart", and "quit".". With that in mind, I don't believe there would be any balancing issues. It's not like whenever you come across a problem you can simply say "solve problem" every time.

I don't know if there are any cheat codes or commands for Zork but I hear there are the odd in-game exploits you can take advantage of.

As Zork is purely text-based, there are no cut-scenes. Possibly parts where there's a lot to read but you don't need to key in any particular commands, it just continues onto the next screen of reading?

I would think Zork is fairly emergent. As there are multiple commands to enter, I imagine there's a decent amount of possibilities that could happen.

In terms of effort, I'm not sure how much would really need to be applied. I'd have thought it would mostly be a matter of "trial and error" until you keyed in the correct command. Of course you'd have to make some effort not to enter a command that may end in some undesirable consequences.

"Hunicke, LeBlanc, and Zubek (2004) list 8 types of fun: Sensation, Fantasy, Narrative, Challenge, Fellowship, Discovery, Expression, and Submission.". In this case, Zork would be mainly be about narrative fun. That's not to say that it could include all of these. Seeing as there doesn't seem to be a type of "visual fun", I guess you could say Zork is fun.

As there are no visuals other than text, there is no level design. I find it quite interesting though as it's all dependent on your imagination. You could make it out to be as good as you want. During it's time, I think I would have found this game to be amazing.

Time to look at some similarities between these two games: They are both single player adventure RPG's; Both have a very similar structure (heavily story driven with adventuring); They're abstract games; both have a non-linear narrative structure.

Some differences are: They are both played on different platforms (but that's kind of obvious as technology has advanced a long way since Zork to when Kotor 1 was released); Kotor 1 has 3D dimensions whereas Zork is 2D; They have different perspectives, Kotor 1 is in third person but Zork has no perspective really; they have different objectives and goals; Kotor uses polygons as opposed to sprites, Zork uses neither; Kotor 1 you play as saviour of the galaxy but in Zork play as a dungeon crawler.

Super Block Group Project

To begin with, our group started coming up with ideas for the prototype of Super Block. I helped in the process of giving ideas about how the game should be improved, this included level design, art style, music, etc.

Originally, I was set with the task to create the presentation. This would show images and videos of all our work and notes we had made, including the parts for each of us to read out. Here are pictures of some of the slides (keep in mind it wasn't a final version or completed as our plan to present our work changed):

We then decided we wanted to film ourselves giving personal interviews on our input to the project. Personally, my part was monetization. While chipping in giving my opinion and ideas for the rest of the guys in all aspects of the project, I had come up with the ways to monetize the game. Here is the script I created:

Monetization:

"Why hello there. Initially, Super Block can be downloaded for free. But to monetize the game we want to include multiple packages of content which the player shall pay for. These packages will include things like:

Custom character skins: Customize Super Block with a number of unique looks. Choose the look of the opposing objects.

Map packs: Originally the start off “classic pack” has at least one level utilizing each game mode. But, you can buy more maps for all game modes that will follow a particular theme. For example, using elements like water, lava, air. Other themes like cyberpunk, digital, sci-fi, etc.

Music Packs: Although music tracks are created to fit with each level, you can buy packages that will include more music tracks. So you can customize your Super Block experience by picking which track you wish to listen to playing.

Game mode packs: Instead of buying a package with a map for each game mode. You could purchase a number of maps for your favorite game mode, for example: side-scroller."

After receiving some feedback, our pitch wasn't as professional as one would have hoped. We only had 5 minutes to deliver this pitch, but ours was roughly 9 minutes long. We had to do lots of editing to reduce it as much as possible and to remove the stuttering, the "umms" and "ahhhs" and what not. Considering the monetization part of the pitch is arguably the most important, it was challenging to shorten it without removing key bits of information, however, this is what I had come up with.

Monetization:

"To monetize the game we came up with some DLC packages:

Custom character skins: Customize Super Block with a number of unique looks. Choose the look of the opposing objects.

Map packs: Originally the start off “classic pack” has at least one level utilizing each game mode. But, you can buy more maps for all game modes that will follow a particular theme. For example, using elements like water and fire.

Music Packs: Although music tracks are created to fit with each level, you can buy packages that will include additional music tracks.

Game mode packs: Instead of buying a package with a map for each game mode. You could purchase a number of maps for your favorite game mode, for example: side-scroller."

Unfortunately, time was running out. I had intended to re-film my part to be more enthusiastic but having to edit as well, there just wasn't time.