Possible Synopsis (12/1/2014)

* This morning I made a list of things I could possibly do in order to further help the project. One such thing was the possible synopsis for the game itself, the blurb, as it were that would sell it to those looking for a fun sounding Tower Defence Game.
I came up with…

"Fire! Help! There's a fire!"
Ever wanted to know what it was like to be a fire fighter? Now you can with this brand new and exciting firefighting tower defence game!

• Prevent dangerous fires from burning down buildings in a whole range of challenging, yet fun to play, levels.
• Use a whole range of real firefighting equipment including water hoses, foam, fire blankets and even your trusty fire axe!
• Learn lifesaving skills within the game thanks to accurate safety information and quizzes that will test your safety know how!
• Thought there was only one type of fire? Think again! Some threats, you may never have heard of, include electrical and gas fires so you best keep your wits about you!

Having started the synopsis I realised I should really have asked my team leader first if this was ok. Therefore, I contacted Jon to see if it was to which he said it would be fine, just bring it in during the next session.

I am glad I did this as, I have now learnt to keep in touch with the rest of the group about my developments and ideas, therefore maintaining a professional approach to my role in the group. 

Research on writing for Tower Defence Games (10/1/2014)

* Today I decided to research numerous examples of existing tower defence games, in order to see how they are written. More importantly I hoped to get a better understanding on how they address important details without becoming boring, something essential for our younger audience who unfortunately often have shorter attention spans.

As a friend of mine recommended one of the most popular examples, 'Plants vs. Zombies' I decided to see how that game did things.

• It keeps its dialogue short but simple, making sure to explain things whilst also making them slightly odd and/or funny.
• Text is hardly used during gameplay, so it doesn't distract the player's concentration. When it is used however, it tends to be cartoon-like sound effects. 
• Item descriptions and objections are clear cut. 
• Spoken dialogue during cutscenes is nonsensical, therefore I guess this adds to the overall bizarreness of the game and cuts down on the amount of recorded lines needed. Sometimes the random things the characters say are also quite funny. 
• The only clearly spoken dialogue appears to be when the wave of attackers are about to show up. Thus, this is a good way of preparing players by clearly telling them what is about to happen. We could do this ourselves or achieve the same by making it a fire alarm. 
• Has descriptions of all the encountered enemy types. This could be quite useful to include in our game as another means of our players finding out more information about the types of fires and how they are started. After all, we often learn better if we decide to research subjects ourselves.

I also tried playing a 'Mario' themed tower defence game which was made by a fan. Overall, I am glad I did as it proved to be a good example of how NOT to do a tower defence game.

• Despite having instructions that you can look at, they didn't make the game clear. The screen is so tiny that it was difficult to find what I was looking for and how to access other options available to me such as upgrading or destroying.
• It also has three symbols at the top which are all meant to represent certain things, but I never discovered what they were meant to mean. Coins were obviously currency, but I hadn't a clue about the others. 
• Whenever you try and do something you don't have access to, it wouldn't tell you why (or at least I couldn't see an indication explaining it). When trying to place defences, only for them not to spawn can be really annoying. Thus having something to tell you that you don't have enough ??? would have been more useful and less frustrating.
• Sounds were useful in telling you that you were hitting enemies or an indication of what was next, but otherwise the music was incredibly repetitive.

Harvard Referencing: 

• Pop Cap (Unknown) Plants vs. Zombies [Online Image]. Available at: http://www.popcap.com/plants-vs-zombies-1 (Accessed: 10/1/2014).
• PKcoolgames (Unknown) Mario And Friends Tower Defense [Online Image]. Available at: http://www.playtowerdefensegames.com/games/1074/play.html (Accessed: 10/1/2014).

Starting to create the GDD (9/1/2014)

* Today we were asked by our new lecturer to start putting together a GDD (Game Design Document) as an entire team before going off into our set teams to work on our specific areas.

* We were also shown the GDD that our lecturer had worked on, 'The Adventures of Snorkel the Turtle'. It was a game about the story of a new born turtle making his way to sea. This proved to be useful as our new lecturer was a previous student and therefore his work gave us all an idea of how to make our own GDD.
These ideas included...

• Research. 
• Images.
• Sprites.
• Level design.
• Notes.
• Animation. 
• Assets. 
• Resources.

* Making sure to speak to the team leader Jon about my role in the group, we came to conclusion that I should work closely on the GDD and writing within the game.
Therefore, during this session I decided to write some of the possible text seen in item descriptions. Making sure to keep it fun and informative. 
Such descriptions could include...

• Blanket: A fire blanket is meant for putting fires out. Not for bed!
• Axe: A tool still used to this day for chopping stuff down! Pretty cool hey? Therefore there's no need to AXE anymore questions...
• Hose: Used for putting out fires, its also great at keeping flowers and people happy in the summer.
• Foam: Used for putting out electrical fires. I'm afraid they may not be enough left to clean the dishes with.

Jon also told me that he is keen on giving me the opportunity to do some voice acting within the game. After all, I have always shown an interest in this area and many children are far more engaged and learn better through spoken dialogue than text. This is great as it increases the number of things I can help my group with.

Despite voice acting being something we wouldn't think about until after the initial GDD, I decided to come up with some possible phrases that could be included. Making sure not to talk down to our audience who are children in year six and above, whilst also thinking of ways of making it come across as both fun and informative.
Any of the below can be edited if it doesn't suit the overall feel of the game.

• "Get ready... GO!" (Start of the level begins)
• "Here comes the next round!" (Next round begins)
• "Upgrade complete!" (an upgrade is complete)
• "Fire incoming!" (Enemy reinforcements arrive)
• "Burn, baby burn! Disco Inferno!" (Enemy reinforcements arrive)
• "Wow! You did it!" (Round is completed)
• "I think it's time for them to COOL off!" (When fire is being estitiguised)
• "Err... things are getting a little hot in here..." (When base is being damaged)
• "Hot! Hot! HOT!" (When base is at critical health)
• "Alright! You saved the day!" (Level complete)

* Overall, it has been fun to come up with the above dialogue as it has allowed me to think outside the box since a tower defence game doesn't include much, if any story. It's also improving my skill at writing through writing a new genre, especially since I plan to make it stand out as much as possible.   

* Jon also asked all of us to email him if we ever can't make it into sessions, thus making sure not to disappoint the group and to let them know what is going on. We can always ask in our emails if we can help in any other way? 

* To help the group, and take some stress off the team leader, I decided to produce the Facebook page for Professional Team Brief that will consist of all our members. This allows all of us to keep in contact with one another during the process and development of our fire fighting game. 

* In general I will do further research on the dialogue seen and heard in tower defence games so as to make sure I am writing for the genre correctly. This will help provide a greater variety of text which is useful as I do not want it to get repetitive. 

Presenting (12/12/2013)

* For this session I watched and criticized the practice presentation which Ryan and Jim will be presenting to the associates from the Fire Service and Remode on our groups behalf. 

As for the actual presentation itself, the panel really liked the idea and Ryan and Jim's presentation skills. They also felt that they did well to relate it back to child safety which was our key message for our selected age group e.g. play as a fire fighter to reinforce that children shouldn't fight fires themselves.

We were also given tips by Remode when pitching any game idea which included the following...

• Don't use gamer terminology e.g. AOE (Area of Effect). 
• Keep it simple so as to give a clearer understanding.  
• Don't crowd your screen with text, use straight to the point explanations so that the audience watching can pick up what they are saying more easily. 
• Include visual images that are relevant to your work.
• Try and include rough designs for how the game would look when played (more visual evidence). 

* All the presentations themselves were very good and demonstrated a lot of hard effort.

* Overall, the panel decided to choose the tower defence game idea. However, they liked all our ideas so much that they wanted to include our game idea's educational aspects and the mini game one's humour, thus a new presentation will be put together which is a mix of all our ideas.

Guest Speaker Richard Fletcher (5/12/2013)

* Today we had a guest speaker, Richard Fletcher who talked to us about monetising games as he has done so with many of his own flash games. Granted, this doesn't have anything to do with our current project, but our lecturer thought it would help in the future.
I notes I made are as follows...

• There are many websites that accept flash based games, therefore try and make deals with them in order to get your games our there.
• Four main types of deal include...
• Exclusive
• Primary
• Non Exclusive/Secondary 
• Entire Rights
• Many other sub conditions also exist including...
• Branding
• Distribution
• Performance Bonus
• Revenue Share
• API Integration
• Game play Adjustments
• As with anything make sure you always read the small print! Otherwise, they could not only own your current work, but also ALL your FUTURE work!
• You may be asked to add API integration into your game which you shouldn't worry about as it is very common to have in games now. After all, companies like to keep track on what their players are doing, thus allowing them to alter and fix things far more easily.
• Advertising in flash games is how you generate revenue. How much you earn depends on your contract and the number of views the ads in your game get.
• Tons of useful websites were also provided on his power point so I should look those up when I get the chance.
• If there is a new technology out then jump at the chance to be one of the first to make a game for it! After all, 'Angry Birds' is huge because it was one of the first touch screen games to come out and luckily was popular.

* Today I also received from Chris the concept designs for some of the enemies in our fire fighting game. I added these to my team's presentation. Each one represents a different type of fire hazard including (in order) boiler, electric, fire and gas.

* Finally, I worked on editing the presentation to make it look more professional. 

*Graeme our lecturer, who will sadly be leaving us soon, said he would gladly answer any questions we have on the industry if we ever emailed him on Facebook. After all, he wants to continue to help us.

Scripting (28/11/2013)

Sadly our guest from Remode was sick this week as well as the lecturer's emergency guest. Thus the rest of the session was spent thinking about our ideas and working out how to present our presentations to the best possible industry standard, ready for the 12th of December when our lecturer also leaves us.

We also decided to go away and come back next week with what we decided to focus on. For example...

• Myself and Amanda: Will design a rough version of the opening cut scene with me focusing on the script.
• Ed and Chris: Will design the objects and enemy types.
• Ryan and Jim: Will go away and research how professional presentations are presented ready to practice in front of the rest of us.  

I then spent the rest of the session coming up with a rough script for the opening cut scene that would include the following real questions.  

• What emergency service do you require?
• What is the number you are dialing from?
• Please stay on the line as we connect you to your nearest fire and rescue service.
• What is on fire?
• What is the address?
• What is the nearest main road?
• What town are you in?
• Don't put the telephone down until we have taken all the details!

With the above in mind I then started to put together a script that can be seen below.
It follows a child seeing a fire in a distance, dialing 999 in the next scene, an operator asking what emergency service they require, the child then responds and is then asked what number they are dialing from. Finally the operator will ask them to stay on the line and that is the end of our example cut scene, though the actually thing will be longer. 

Panel 1:
Child: "Huh? What's that in the distance? ... Oh no! A fire! I better call the fire brigade quick!"

Panel 2:
(Finger can be seen pressing 9, the words 'Press', 'Press', 'Press' appearing in the air to show the audience visually that they are pressing that number).  

Panel 3:
Operator: "Thank you for calling emergency services. Which one do you require today?" 

Panel 4:
Child: "I really need the fire department. A block of flats is on fire! 

Panel 5:
Operator: "Ok, may I ask what number you are dialing from?"

Panel 6:
Child: "Err... ok. I'm calling from my mobile. My number is 0759 0993 9660759 0993 966"

Panel 7:
Operator: "Thank you, you are doing very well. Please stay on the line as we connect you to your nearest fire and rescue service".

* Amanda also emailed us a bunch of notes on Moodle that I will need to look at and then email her back with the script I have so far. Thus we can add it to the cut scene example.

Harvard Referencing:

• Fire Service (Unknown) Dialling 999 or 112 [Online Image]. Available at: http://www.fireservice.co.uk/safety/dialling999 (Accessed: 28/11/2013).

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Tweaking our ideas (21/11/2013)

* Having formed three groups based on the three most popular ideas, today we looked over them and decided to tweak them where we could.

Firstly, we got a load of sticky notes, pins and paper and put up on the wall a ton of ideas. I drew three different layouts that the game could look like on paper with the fire fighter and fire monster on separate sticky notes, thus we could use these to visually demonstrate our game idea to our client. The layouts included the intended layout of isometric as well as top down and 3rd person.
I also drew some character sprites as well as some projectiles and potential upgrades.
The rest of the group sorted out where the life, radar, items and water supply would be seen on screen.
We also wrote down enemy types, obstacles and the types of questions we wanted to ask our players.

* Afterwards, I thought that if this idea were chosen, I could include narrative in the form of how the fire bosses were formed e.g. someone fell asleep when using the oven that then caught alight etc.
I don't think the main fire fighter should be characterised as they will have a full uniform on that covers their features, so that the player can better imagine the character to be them, plus it would not be gender specific.
I sopose more narrative could be included in the responses made during the scripted 999 call that will feature in the opening and perhaps the end when the player finally puts out all the fires and saves the day.

* The rest of the group made the following note.

Isometric 2D Top Down, Advanced Sprites

Learning:

• Initial cut scene shows the player what to expect when calling 999
• Between levels – The game teaches fire safety
• Quizzes will be introduced to test a player's knowledge which will be tested in between levels
• Incorrect answers – Comic strip is used to re iterate when the user answers incorrectly

Mechanics:

1.            Get loot from enemies

2.            Stronger hose as levels increase

3.            Axes to chop down doors

4.            Air Tanks increase throughout the levels

5.            Wet blanket Smoke Detector

6.            Fire coats to increase health

Obstacles:

• Holes in the floor
• Furniture
• Gas Pipe
• Plug Sockets

Fire Types:

• Electric – Blankets, Plugs, PC, Games console, Phone chargers, Hair straighteners
• Gas – Boilers, central heating
• Regular – Paper, Clothes, Fabrics
• Wood – Furniture
• Oil – Heaters and Chip pans

Extinguisher types:

• Red
• Yellow
• Blue
• Black

* Overall, today's session was a lot of fun as it felt as if we were in a real work environment coming up with ideas and focusing on how to produce a prototype for our game.

* Next week we should be having a meeting with someone from 'Remode' in order to share our ideas with them and therefore get a better idea on what we should do before presenting our ideas to the client.