King Mobile Brief
I have received a brief from the Mobile game development company named King Mobile. The specifications say it for a new 2D platformer that has a working HUD (Heads-Up-Display) and interaction between the characters. There also needed to be a website where customers can download the game and any possible extra content available.
The reason it is important to read the brief when starting a new project is so that you can identify which type of brief you will be working to and what your client is expecting you to produce at the end of the project. If you dived into a project without reading through the brief then it would result in you producing something which you thought the client wanted but not actually what they asked for and then you most likely wouldn’t be paid for your work, gaining a bad reputation in the industry stopping future possible employment opportunities.
Below is research I did to get familiar with what content I can put in my game and what is suitable for my games genre.
Primary Research
I did some research on the contents of 3 Children’s Story Books to see what my game should feature.
The Gruffalo’s Child
In this book, a narrator talks over the characters as a father tells his child not to run off where it is dangerous however the child does so and then is scared to run back home. The child in this story is the protagonist and the antagonist is what the child believes to be a mouse. The moral of this story is that parents are protecting their children and that you should not believe everything you are told.
Tough Trucks
By reading this narrative, children can learn about mechanics and see which different parts of the truck do what role. A narrative such as this works well because it can educate the children as they enjoy their reading.
Commotion In The Ocean
This is a third person narrative that follows the different ocean creatures and how human waste is polluting their habitat and killing them. This teaches children the importance of recycling and disposing of waste properly.
PEGI
The differences between rating 3-7 against 12 are that while some violence is acceptable to a comical nature, however, any fantasy character and/or human and animal resembling creatures will move the rating up to a PEGI 12.
Sonic & Mario
To make sure my design fits the PEGI rating and to be aware of the content I can include or exclude from my designs, I have analyzed two of the most popular and successful platform games Sonic The Hedgehog
In the game Sonic The Hedgehog the protagonist Sonic must use their shoes to run as fast as he can and stop an evil scientist named Dr Robotnic (The Antagonist) from enslaving animals.
In Super Mario Bros the antagonist, King Bowser kidnaps a princess named Princess Peach and the protagonist Mario takes up the heroic role of saving the princess.
Toddlers Using Mobile Devices
In our class, we have discussed the ethical reason for and against allowing young children to use mobile devices such as tablets and Ipads.
Above you can see reasons such as the responsibility a parent gives when the child has to take care of the device or how it can damage some parts of their development.
I have done some research using the internet and found this quote “that digital games, which are interactive and can foster creativity”. I agree with this quote and think that children should be more creative so having these games is definitely beneficial.
(Source: https://www.whattoexpect.com/toddler/ask-heidi/kids-and-ipads-the-pros-and-cons)
Online Game Research
I went onto the boomerang website to do some research into what games developers make for children.
Scooby-Doo
As I tested this game I realized that gameplay such as this can nurture a child’s creativity and develop their artistic skills further.
Wacky Races
A game like this while seemingly is just a game it can still teach a child to cope with a loss and stop them from expecting people to give them things in the future, for example some teenagers think that job interviews will come to them if they wait long enough whereas the truth is they need to go out and find that interview.
Tom & Jerry
Presence of Racism in video games
there are many different ways racism has been seen in video games, for example, some games like grand theft auto have characters which project racist views in both negative and positive ways without any subtlety or a game like call of duty where once the player hits a milestone the playable character plays a dialog involving racist comments which cannot always be heard over the other game sounds and microphone chatter.
I think video games can be used positively and still have a presence of racism for example although grand theft auto has no censorship or subtle way of bringing things to the player’s attention, it still managed to use insensitive racist comments through the characters to bring attention to the discrimination and racism that continues to take place in the real world no matter how modern the environment is.
However, after saying this I also take into account the negative uses of racism and the effects it’s presence in a video game can cause. When talking about these effects I am referring to the influence video games can have, for example, even in adults a repetitive action such as continuous racist comments can result in the player repeating those comments without realizing it or without thinking about the consequences of the real world since there are no direct consequences of characters using such language inside the video game.
Presence of Sexism in video games
Including sexist views or implying sexist opinions through the characters and environments in video games is almost a completely negative thing to do, however, if you did add any sexist opinions into your video game then it would bring this difficult topic to the players attention and help them spot sexist people and sexism in general when walking around in the real world.
Sexism and sexist views have always been present in the entirety of the video game industry because of the stereotypes and actual demographics of the consumers in this industry. Over time many developers and publishers have included characters of both sexes and given the important roles within the gameplay. Unfortunately, a small presence still exists within the community’s inside this industry and can result in online abuse (example image below), manufacturers have taken notice of this and made it much easier and quicker to report online bullying and harassment situations like this one.
My Concept
I have quickly drawn up 3 different plot lines using the rough guidelines of the seven basic plots.
After considering it I decided to go with the Quest plotline and came up with a few extra ideas throughout the rest of the game such as more characters to engage in dialogue and an antagonist.
Story Treatment
My protagonist
Fox with a kind heart and welcoming nature who has been mistreated due to fox’s reputation. He finally finds a friend in a household dog that cannot go past the fence of his owner’s house, the fox talks to the dog through the fence and tells him about what the forest is like.
The Antagonist
Mean Mole that is large than most mole who uses fear to terrify other animals both below and above ground into stopping the fox. This mole is abnormally large and attacks both the above ground and underground creatures so that it can feed. When the fox gets past a certain stage the mole digs above the ground and tells the fox he won’t give him the dog’s ball.
Sketches & Development
The principles of interactive media
Interactive media is the integration of digital media structured into a digital environment which allows people to interact with the data such as text, graphics and sound.
Interactive Media Authoring
An example of this is its many uses for advertising, a business can advertise new products and news about themselves via social media sites where the general public can show support, ask questions and share the post or page.
There are many authoring tools you can use to create different forms of interactive media and the content featured within them. Adobe Dreamweaver is one of the more popular web development tools which allows you to create a website and has content such as images which move when the cursor hovers over them or an interactive banner which moves the images contained in its space relevant to the mouse position. There are many different things you can do with interactive media and some programs such as Adobe Authorware include the tools needed to create the many different types of interactivity.
Planning
By planning your project you can decide the layout, graphics, videos and other assets early on meaning you will make less drastic changes and can stick to a solid structured timeline as you produce your media assets and develop your interactive media.
Design
Majority of Media and Interactive Media is organised very professionally as it draws in a wider audience and earns there trust as consumers. You will want to probably do the same however adding your own creative twist to stand out from your competitors. The reasons why designing a professional looking interactive media asset is because when a consumer sees the media assets it tells them about what your business is and the things it does, if you advertise a computer parts using clever colour grading and a simplistic design than more customers will trust and buy that part from you however if you are a video developer and your advertisement is off colour and messy than many customers will not trust your video editing skills.
Development
To develop any type of media and assets you need to work as a team and communicate clearly with each other. Each member of the team needs to be capable of doing a certain aspect of the project be it asset creation, animation, web design or product promotion, having employees capable of doing their assigned job/skill set and knowledge in such areas allows to smoothly create and manage almost any form of media, an example of this is if you started broadcasting advertisements for your product on social media once you have created the advertisements you will still need someone monitoring those posts to check for questions and product promotion. Once you have a team of people and a basic management scheme in place you can create and manage any form of interactive media and grow your business to a more profitable business.
Applications
The many different applications of interactive media forms have various effects and set of advantages and disadvantages which are listed below:
- Entertainment: creating an animation or short advertisement can intrigue and entertain your potential customers which will bring in more business for your company, service or product. This works because if you can entertain your target audience in one way or another then they will be more motivated to make purchases with your company showing you some success.
- Marketing: The way you market your product/service can affect the business it brings to you for example too much low-quality advertising and people will become fed up of seeing your business advertised and therefore will not get involved with it. When marketing your business and/or your products you must create a suitable advertisement that is entirely dependant on the platform and product, if you want to advertise the same product on both a bus stop poster and a TV advertisement then you need to make sure the post design fits the product and the way you are trying to sell the product however for the TV then you cannot use the exact same design.
- Education: Using interactive media or teaching interactive media authoring inside education engages students and can improve their grades with website and apps that contain the information they need in tests and delivering it through an engaging media format such as videos or games.
- Computer Orientated Programming: Adding interactive media as part of your business can prove challenging as well as rewarding since the electronic methods can increase popularity and marketing drastically.
- Assessment: I would recommend that you take the time to assess your future steps and the public response to your last announcement, advertisement, product line, service adjustments because assessing these things can provide you with important facts that can determine the success or failure of your next announcement. If you can assess these things you should be able to avoid major mistakes in the future when trying to gain business and keep your company making a profit.
Format
Before you can start designing any interactive media you must first decide what format you are going to use in the planning stage since this can complicate things in the future or affect your designs. Below is a set of popular media formats:
- Website – creating a website is a brilliant way to advertise your business and post news about updates however it can cost money and labour to host and maintain a website address. Not all devices can view websites which also limits how many people will see your website.
- Disc – The many disc formats such as CD’s, DVD’s and DVD ROM’s allow you to carry information in a somewhat interactive fashion after the consumer has paid for the product, for example, if you make a film and want to sell merchandise for that film you can include either a DVD ROM containing a website link to a digital store or a special feature informing the consumer where to buy the merchandise from.
- Presentations – Presenting the things you are doing at your business and the things you are planning to do will increase popularity among consumers when you announce changes and can persuade sponsors to continue sponsoring in your business.
- Interactive TV – With the increasing development of technology now business can use interactive TV features and combine them with their advertisements and increasing growth of the business. When certain adverts are broadcast from TV channels some will have a featurette button (the red button or other colour) which can provide further information to the consumer or take them to the related form of media, an example is if you were advertising a new show featured exclusively on a particular service like Netflix, then you can press the (red) button to view the subscription prices and other content.
- Social media – Posting your companies news on social media proves to be very successful as it informs your customers of any changes you might make as well as increasing your online presence which can bring in more customers. The different networking sites that you can use each have something different to them so it is a good idea to have a business account on multiple social networks to increase your online presence bt the maximum possible.
Assets
- Sound – creating a sound asset or two can help improve customer service and brand recognition for example if you create a certain sound that plays when a customer finishes signing up to your website they will forever think of your business when they next hear that sound.
- Text – Adding text to your media assets is probably the most important thing you can do when creating all your media as it can convey almost any information to your customers
- Video – adding a video of people using your product or service can prove as a great advertisement or you could create a short video asset to show off a new product or introduce new features.
- Vector Graphics – Graphics assets such as vector images allow you to re-use the same media ass for different purposes and in different formats
- Animations – An animation can be a friendly and enjoyable way to advertise new products and feature announcements or just as a way to promote business and advertise your company.
- Images – without any images your business will most certainly never be recognized or taken seriously while creating certain forms of interactive media without images is possible your website or social media posts will be ignored if it does not have any images to show the customer the product or service.
Limitations
- Size – Depending on the format your file size can change and the larger the file the longer it will take for your information or media to show up on screen or download for offline usage. If it takes too long to download or load the web page than most customers will stop the process and do something else which would take up less of their time.
- Load Speed – Again the larger the file the longer things can take and vice versa but this is important because you will have to publish all your media and it can be very difficult to publish some larger forms of media in everyday life and if you are late for a meeting but must finish uploading a post or attaching a file inside an e-mail it can be very frustrating or hold up the production process of another project.
- Type of Content – Whenever you publish a form of media there are usually some term & conditions as to what you are publishing and
- Plug-Ins – Plugins allow people to develop and distribute many different features and tools into other programs, for example, there are numerous extensions for Maya to help with rendering, people use these because the default Maya rendering software has its limitations and is not very helpful or user-friendly. If you were a business owner plugins could help your employees communicate better and faster or allow them to individually complete tasks at a faster pace then using the default version of whatever program you use. While this is great and can benefit users greatly adding and managing add-ons can prove to be more difficult than you think and it might require further knowledge depending on the program and/or the addon you are trying to install.
Interactivity
- Buttons – Buttons are the best functionally because they can be simple and are easy to use when you load an app or a web page on your phone you know to click the button to say ‘add item to cart’ or ‘check out’ or even ‘submit’ a form. it would be a great idea to include buttons on a website for your business or to keep in mind what buttons a customer would need to press on their TV or phone to access your business.
- Slideshows – The most common perception of slideshows is to be used for analytics and presentations which is great and they are very useful in those situations but you can use them for other things such as explaining how something works to a sponsor or customer interested in your business, maybe even to communicate clearly within your employee teams. Even though slideshows are just sets of images or text they can be very interactive and illustrative as the people you are showing it too can physically see some of what you are talking about and even ask you questions during or after the presentation.
- Events – Hosting an event is a brilliant way to increase the presence of your business and your reputation, it lets the public know what activities your company gets involved with and shows how organized your business is. Events can bring in more customers or even in some cases more investors/sponsors ready to engage with your business. It would be a great idea to keep updating any social media related to your business with any information about upcoming/finished events or how to take part in the event. During an event, your employees can interact with the public and gather information at the same time as answering any questions your customers may have. Many customers have come home in a better mood with a different opinion of some business’ before and it is a great idea while costly to host an event.
- Hotspots – hotspots are a place where you gain access to information about a company and their new offers and/or receive an internet connection that contains more information about said company and share with your friends on social media. From a business perspective although you will need staff to maintain a hotspot it is much more luring to customers to ask for the password to the hotspot and it is a great opportunity to promote business and expand an online presence.
Cory Robinson <_o-o_> 