Assignment Trends and Future Trends

Current Trends:

Amiibo:

Amiibos are made by the company of Nintendo and they are made for Nintendo platforms. Connecting figurines or cards to the Nintendo 3DS/Wii U and using them characters in games, collecting special items, customising the characters and unlocking “new adventures”. Amiibo uses NFC and RFID (Near-field communications and Radio-frequency identification) The Amiibos are there for the players to enjoy collecting figurines and to add more content to certain games. Before the name “Amiibo” was used, they were originally called the “Nintendo figurine platform”. They were released in Novemeber 2014, tying in with the release of Super smash Bros. for the Wii U. What makes the Amiibo idea so great is that you can use the Amiibos across Nintendo platforms. These being 3DS, 2DS and Wii U. It is not just dedicated to one game either. You can get Amiibos for a variety of different games.


Competition:
I guess you could say the competitors in the market with Amiibos are the Disney Infinity figurines and the Skylanders figurines. All 3 have some appeal to everyone. Amiibos are considered to be great for kids and adults, the reason for this is that everyone can recognise the Nintendo characters. Furthermore, the Amiibo line has figurines which are fit for a variety of games. Skylanders is very different to the recognisable figurines Disney infinity and Amiibo has, especially to the adults. Skylanders would be more fun for the kids to play with due to it being marketed for kids and the interesting troll-like designs the characters are featured as. Disney Infinity on the other hand is very similar to Amiibos but different from Skylanders figurines. Disney Infinity uses figurines which are very recognisable to adults and children however, the game actually is marketed for children so it has a very easy play mode that it lives by.

Sales:
It is said that Nintendo sold up to approximately 21 million units being shipped worldwide since when the Amiibos were released in 2014. Apparently the US accounted for over 60% of the Amiibo sales, Europe accounted for 20% of the sales and then japan only accounting for 11% of the sales. These two charts show which Amiibos are most popular in the market in certain places and the other shows where most of the Amiibos have been shipped to. All of the figures which come in individual packs sell for $12.99.



IP:
Nintendo have said that they “respect the intellectual property of other” and what they will do is that if they see anything which appears to “infringe the intellectual property rights of others” they will be able to remove it due to the policy. They have also made themselves contactable in case you see anything that infringes on any “intellectual property right” that you own or control.



Secondary Screens:

A great example of second screen play would be the Wii U GamePad. The Wii U GamePad features a built-in touchscreen. As quoted by Nintendo, the Wii U GamePad “removes the traditional barriers between games, players and the TV”. The Wii U sold up to 9.2 million units in 2015. As the Wii U is a Nintendo product, the IP is the same as what it would be for the Amiibos.



Products and Services:

Nintendo overall offer great support and services to customers. One of their services is “Club Nintendo”. Being a part of club Nintendo allows you to stay up to date with all of the latest Nintendo news, reviews, release dates of games and consoles and more. They help with any error codes that you may have been experiencing, give out parents’ info, have tech support forums and help with repairs (such as give you Warranty Info and Repair Order FAQ). They also offer many other products such as 3DS and 2DS, Wii , Wii U and Wii U GamePad and more.



Financial Problems:

According to Nintendo’s earnings report, it demonstrates that Nintendo had an annual operating loss of £268.9 million towards March 31st 2014. The year before, they had an expected loss of £202.8 million. When the Wii U was released, it moved from 2.72 million units to 6.17 million units sold since its launch in 2012. Compared to Sony, PlayStation sold more than 7 million PS4 consoles just after its release. To conclude, since the Wii U has been out, along with the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One, the Wii U selling performance was still poor.

Competition:
The competition that the Wii U GamePad has got is the PlayStation 3 and the PS vita secondary screen. However, PlayStation has used the secondary screen in a different way. What Sony has done has introduced the “Cross-Play” feature. This feature allows the gamer to stop playing on one of the devices and allows them to continue playing on the same game on a different device. Compared to the Wii U GamePad, it doesn’t interact with the game at the same time you are playing it on the PlayStation.

Outsourcing:
When it comes to outsourcing, Nintendo plans to outsource Wii components so they can increase the output of the Wii U. The two companies in which Nintendo has approached are SunPlus Technology and Wistron Corp. Wistron will report idly assemble the console whilst SunPlus Technology will concentrate on the controller chips.





Next Generation Consoles:

Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Wii U are all considered as next generation consoles and they are all competing against one another. However, it seems that PlayStation 4 and Xbox One pull the lead a lot stronger than the Wii U does. As previously talking, I have already compared the sales between the PlayStation 4 and the Wii U, the PlayStation pulled a strong lead from the start.
Next generation consoles have a lot to offer. They offer higher end graphics, bigger hard drives such a 1TB, better connectivity with applications and software such as Twitch TV (Live streaming now available), cross game chat (Skype and Party Chat with the Xbox One) and much more. It was said that after a certain amount of time the Xbox One had been released, they reduced the price of the console due to the sales of the product.

Financial Trends:

The Xbox One sold up to 11,638,701 units, the PlayStation 4 sold 20,215,802 units and the Wii U sold 9,329,635 units in February 2015. You can see that the PlayStation came out on top in February 2015 and the Wii U was at the bottom of the list. It also said that the PlayStation 4 was able to be purchased by up to 72 different countries and regions whereas the Xbox One was only available in 13 countries.



GeoDemographics and Demographics:
It is said that Sony looks to attract women and casual gamers with the PlayStation 4, “I think the key is to have people — and increasingly women — with different sensibilities creating different games. It is not all about shoot ’em up games”. However, in the image below, you can see that more females are interested in purchasing the Xbox One more than purchasing the PlayStation 4.





Augmented Reality:

The technology for augmented reality has been around for a while now. Augmented reality is where computer-generated images interact with your physical surroundings. AR seems most popular with mobile apps. A great example of an enchanting AR mobile app is Google Ingress (which is free to download on Android phones). This app is a MMO game that puts the player into two factions. What happens is both factions fight against one another and you have to control them, the AR kicks in when you have gain a material called Exotic Matter and you do this by simply walking around with your device. The more matter you have the more portals are created and the game progresses and so on. An AR app which you have to pay for (£2.50) is called SpecTrek. What this game is, is a AR game in which brings ghostbusters to life really. It populates your physical surroundings with ghosts you have to capture.

People believe that AR apps may affect the way that mobiles are advertised. AR apps makes the phones more interactive with your surroundings. There are many AR apps which interact with your surroundings by you using your camera and labels begin to pop up telling you what the buildings are or how far away a certain building is. These AR apps are very useful, if android for example had more of these apps they may be seen more popular due to the availability of the apps.

Players are the designers:

A classic example of this would be the game “Super Mario Maker”. This is a game which is available on the Wii U and allows the players to create their own Mario levels. The players can also interact with the game by using Amiibo’s. The Amiibo’s allow Mario to change character. Nintendo announced that the game Super Mario Maker had sold over 1 million units since its release, over 2.2 million courses have been created and the game has approximately been played nearly over 75 million times.

Organisations Plans:
It was part of Nintendo’s plan to release Super Mario Maker in 2015 due to it being the 30th anniversary of Mario. It was also their intention that, from the Nintendo development team to inspire the player’s creations.

Financial Trends:
Nintendo have said that Super Mario Maker has boosted the sales of the Wii U by over 110% compared to august sales. Nintendo have also made the claim of the game selling more than 500,000 combined units over the past month (so over the month of September 2015). Since then, Super Mario Maker has reached its 1 million units sold milestone.

Industry Trends:
Due to how successful Mario is and it being the 30th anniversary, they released Super Mario Maker. It is said that the Super Mario franchise has sold more than 310 million units and counting, so with the Super Mario Maker release, this would sure push the series units sold number even higher.
Nintendo have said that they “respect the intellectual property of other” and what they will do is that if they see anything which appears to “infringe the intellectual property rights of others” they will be able to remove it due to the policy. They have also made themselves contactable in case you see anything that infringes on any “intellectual property right” that you own or control.

Future Trends:

The Oculus Rift
Palmer Luckey was the man who came up with the idea of the Oculus Rift. Apparently the Oculus Rift was a Kickstarter project with an intension of only creating and selling 100 Oculus Rifts. In one of the VR forums a man named John Carmack asked if he could have a prototype and so Palmer agreed to give him one. John then announced the Oculus Rift at an E3 event and from then on, a lot more people were interested in the Oculus Rift Kickstarter Project. When it came to the Kickstarter’s project end, they had raised up to $2,437,429.
In 2014, Oculus VR was bought by Mark Zuckerberg for 2 billion dollars. Both companies believed that they were sharing the same vision and that by combining with one another meant a higher success rate for VR.

Background information of two main people:
Palmer Luckey: VR enthusiast, self-taught engineer and an electronics enthusiast. Palmer lucky was very interested in virtual reality from a young age. It was said that he had his own personal collection of VR headsets. He managed to obtain a variety of different VR headsets by attending industry liquidation sales and government auctions. When Palmer Luckey was 16, he had an interest of building his own headsets.

John Carmack: American game programmer and the co-founder of ID Software. He now works with Occulus VR. He was also the lead programmers for ID video games such as Wolfenstein 3D and Doom.

Customers:
Customers can currently buy the Oculus Rift developers version for around $350/£400 however, they will need to continually update their headset with the new updates Oculus VR send out.

Competition:
HTC Vive: Created by the company Valve which teamed up with the mobile company HTC. This HTC Vive will be shipped when the Oculus Rift and the PlayStation VR are shipped.

PlayStation VR: Created by the company Sony. What makes this good contender is that Sony already have tons of loyal gamers to its name and a lot of money which means they won’t find it difficult being able to fund for hardware.

Microsoft HoloLens: Created by the company Microsoft. What makes this a good contender is that Microsoft could pair this up with its console making the headset incredibly versatile with non-gaming and gaming apps. (AR)

Gear VR: Created by Samsung but powered by Oculus. Costs only $99 and is compatible with the 2015 Samsung GALAXY flagship smartphones. This has recently been released and is now available to buy from places such as Amazon and BestBuy.com.




Risks:

The organisations attitude towards the risks are rather positive. Especially towards the VR sickness. On the Oculus Rift website there is a section which is dedicated to how they are going to try and solve VR sickness. What the developers have done have shown and explained different ways of how they are going to change some of the hardware/software to make sure that the customers who are purchasing the Oculus VR will have an enjoyable experience.




VR Sickness: This VR sickness is basically motion sickness and it can occur when the brain is not use to the VR experience. However, developers have said that if you expose your brain to VR quite frequently and over a long period of time then the brain will begin to ignore the previous unusual visuals.

Wasting Money: Facebook paid $2 billion for Occulus VR and its project of Occulus Rift. Considering that this project is still in development they are unsure of its success. If people do not use the products in which Occulus VR are selling then Facebook would essentially be losing out on money.

Behavioural Risks:
The Oculus Rift comes with an avatar. However, people believe that people using the Oculus Rift will treat the avatar as a mask and use the avatar to “channel more destructive behaviours”. The VR environment in which people will be involved in will offer “the same potential rudeness, harassment and stalking as any other communication channel, whilst also making the interaction seem even more real and personal”. In my opinion I find this rather troubling if the interaction would seem a lot more “real and personal” but then again, most platforms which involve communication includes rudeness towards other players/people so I guess it is hard to steer away from rudeness and harassment when the device offers communication.
http://www.rmmagazine.com/2014/10/01/the-real-risks-of-virtual-reality/



License Agreement:
You can currently buy the development kit for $350. There is a license agreement which comes with the development kit that you buy from Oculus VR. Oculus VR have gave developers the license agreement for them to agree to under terms and conditions. The license includes a non-exclusive license with the right to use the RIFTSDK to make the desired applications, games, content and demos to run on the Oculus Rift. You are able to “use, modify, and distribute the Oculus VR Rift SDK in source and binary form with your applications/software”. However there are a few restrictions to what you can do.
“You can only distribute or re-distribute the source code to LibOVR in whole, not in part.
Modifications to the Oculus VR Rift SDK in source or binary form must be shared with Oculus VR.
If your applications cause health and safety issues, you may lose your right to use the Oculus VR Rift SDK, including LibOVR.
The Oculus VR Rift SDK may not be used to interface with unapproved commercial virtual reality mobile or non-mobile products or hardware.”



Microsoft Illumiroom

“RoomAlive builds on the familiar concepts of IllumiRoom, but pushes things a lot further by extending an Xbox gaming environment to an entire living room. It’s a proof-of-concept demo, just like IllumiRoom, and it combines Kinect and projectors to create an augmented reality experience that is interactive inside a room. You can reach out and hit objects from a game, or interact with games through any surfaces of a room. RoomAlive tracks the position of a gamers head across all six Kinect sensors, to render content appropriately”

http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/5/6912979/microsoft-roomalive-research-projector-system

The IllumiRoom works with AR (Augmented Reality) and it basically highlights the edges of games beyond the TV. What happens is it will project game footage on the areas around your TV. So if you have just passed something in game, you will see it pass on your wall too. The best example I have seen so far of the Microsoft IllumiRoom is the bounce feature, snow feature and the star field feature. This bounce feature is where you see a ball rolling towards you on the screen and then it drops off the screen and is projected to fall from your TV and onto the floor. The snow feature works well when playing driving games. When you drive forward, the snowflakes that fall are pushed against the objects in your room and when reversing, the snow is moving away from you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2w-XqW7bF4



Financial Problems, visions, objects and plans of organisation:
It is said that this project would be too expensive for an average customer to afford. According to the head of product planning for Xbox, Albert Penello, he says that “It’s super-neat if you’re in the lab and you’ve got Microsoft money and you could totally set up this awesome lab, but… we looked at, but for an average customer it’s, like, thousands of dollars”. So their problem would be that this projects is just too expensive to put on the market and it will unlikely be released soon. This also proves as a risk to the company. Placing too much money into working in the project and then not being able to sell the product due to the sheer amount of money you need to purchase it. This is probably the reason why this project is seen as just “research” and a “proof-of-concept” project. The Xbox One was one of Microsoft’s next-generation plans which came to life. The IllumiRoom is one of Microsoft’s projects which work with AR. Although, Microsoft do stress that this is a “proof-of-concept project”.


http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/2/4685178/microsoft-illumiroom-xbox-projector-unlikely-to-be-released

Cloud-Gaming:



http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/future-of-gaming/

Cloud Gaming helps reduce the wait for gamers to get updates for newer, high-quality games. “It’s all in the cloud and all we have to do is connect to it with a stable Internet connection and play to our heart’s content. Games will also be cheaper and more easily accessible via computers and even tablets. How much longer need we wait for this? In August 2012, Sony has purchased Gaikai the world’s largest and most widespread cloud gaming service for $380 million and is expected to incorporate it into PlayStation 4. So, not long, fingers crossed.”

Background Knowledge on Gaikai (includes funding and milestones):

Gaikai was founded in November 2008 by Andrew Gault and Rui Pereria. Then in February 2009, David Perry gives a speech to the industry leadership about instant access games. In June 2009, Gaikai presents a live demo of the instant access AAA games at the E3 2009. Towards the end of 2009, Gaikai raided $5 million in a Series A funding, then in Series B funding they raided $10 million in May 2010. They finally launch a live service on the internet of open gaming cloud in February 2011. In July 2011, they raised up to $30 million in Series C funding. A year after they were awarded the “most widespread cloud gaming network” by Guinness World Record and a month after Sony buys Gaikai for $380 million.

Organisations vision and plans:

Gaikai had a vision of solving difficult problems “to create exceptional experiences”. They wanted to achieve what people thought was impossible. An example of this would be, people believed it was impossible to stream a game at high quality with low latency, Gaikai managed to solve that problem and now you can stream games at high quality with low latency. There plans now are to focus on future game streaming and working with PlayStation on the PlayStationTM Now project.



360 Gameplay:

360 Gameplay is where someone plays a game which involves interaction across many platforms. This include a game which is also conceived simultaneously as movies, animated TV series. A game which sort of blurs the line between gameplay and movie cinematics is a game called Quantum Break. This game is yet to be released in April 2016 however it is one of Microsoft’s experimental TV/game titles. This game allows you to manipulate the cinematics to save people and kill the enemies within the game. Other types of 360 play are games such as Angry Birds. Angry birds is a game which includes digital gameplay, board games, toys to play with and other types of merchandise.



The Angry Birds company is worth 5.5 billion (2012). Angry Birds first started out as just a make or break project. After 2 years of the game idea coming to mind, Angry Birds became the iPhones most popular app. After the success of Angry Birds on all phones, Rovio no longer described itself as a games developer, but instead saw itself as a media company. With that in mind, the soft toys, phone case and comics were already considered from the beginning.



The game Quantum Break in which includes manipulative cinematics has that movie-like appeal and feel. The difference between this being a game and being a movie is that, you can change what has happened in the cinematic if you feel fit to change it, whereas if it was a movie, you don’t get the chance to decide what has just happened to the character and you have to accept what has happened.



Sensory Technology:

EEG headsets like the NeuroSky and Emotiv’s headset can detect player’s emotions and facial expressions already. The CEO of neuroengineering company Emotiv, Tan Le already has future visions for what he wants to achieve. What he wants to achieve is, the players currently facial expression translates into their avatars facial expression and other in game avatars expressions are recognised by other players and respond accordingly. They believe that being able to convert facial expressions in a game would create a level of game immersion that doesn’t exist yet.

Emotiv is a bioformatics company which offers a platform for crowd-sourced brain research. There are two headsets which are for sale, there is the Emotiv Insight Brainwear $358.95 and the Emotiv EPOC neuroheadset which starts at a selling price of $399.00. At the moment, the insight headset can interpret basic metal commands such as push, pull, levitate and rotate certain objects, it can also detect facial expressions such as blinking, winking, surprise and smile and monitor your performance by measuring and tracking your focus, engagement interest, and excitement, affinity, relaxation and stress levels.

Emotiv is the market leader within this field (neuroengineering) and have won numerous of awards for its products. They also have a community of developers and researchers whom span over 100 countries. According to Emotiv, they may use contractors and third part service providers but they reassure that they are required to protect any information given.





A competitor against Emotiv would be NeuroSky who apparently has the world’s smallest ECG chip within its wearables.

Assignment 2: Unit 1/Unit 72/Unit 22: Computer Games Design

Task 1 (1.1): Initial Sketch

Task 1 (1.2): Sprites 

My sprites consist of the shapes that are involved within the game, the invisible walls which let the enemies out, the moving walls, the shop animation, walls, collectible and background. The screenshots above show the editor that I have used to create the sprites and they contain a number of tools in which I have used. Tools such as the circle tool, the pen tool, the fill tool etc. The screenshots which show the image index of the sprite shows how the animation works. Each image has something different about it. This could be a changing glow colour or blinking eyes or it rotates and so on. The other sprites such as wall, wallmove, push, wall invisible all have only one image in their image index. 

Task 1 (1.3) Objects:

Object Player (obj_player):

The object player has a lot of events in. The keyboard events “Left”, “Right”, “Up” and “Down” all control how the player moves the object player in the room. There are many collision events associated with the main player. Within the collision events for the different shapes the player can change into, are 3 actions which are played through; Change sprite, code and then alarm. The change sprite action allows the player to change into the shape sprite of which it has collided with, the coding includes code of the vspeed and hspeed which created when in contact with the shape object and the alarm is an alarm which is set to turn on after 1 tick. The coding, which includes a set vspeed and hspeed is there so that whatever vspeed and hspeed the player is moving at will then be reversed and the player will be pushed away from the object. The reason why I have done this is so that the player does not get stuck within the shape object. The alarm is then set after the code has been executed and then the alarm will turn on. In the first alarm which is set is friction and then another alarm which is set to turn on after 10 ticks. The friction slows down the player and then once that has been executed, after 10 ticks alarm 1 will turn on. Alarm 1 contains a drag and drop which turns the friction off. The reason for this was so that it wouldn’t be buggy. The bug was that leaving the friction on would mess up the movement of the player. The collision event with the walls, invisible walls, moving walls and the “push” objects is there so that the player can’t go through them. The final event is the collision with the enemy. Inside the enemy collision event is an action which executes a code. Within the code, are two if statements. The first if statement defines, if the object player is the same sprite as the enemy sprite then what happens is the enemy sprite is destroyed and then 20 score is added onto your score you have got. Otherwise you die (the player). The second if statement happens when you die. So, if the player dies then your lives are reduced by 1, an explosion is then carried out, your player gets destroyed and then gets spawned back in the original spawn point. Within this second if statement is a nested if statement which defines what happens when you have less than 0 lives. What happens is that a message pops up and the game restarts. This including a fresh set of lives, new score and the game ticks are reset.

Object Enemy (obj_enemy):

Within the create event are two actions. The first action is the “start moving in a direction” action and I have set this so that the enemy moves in a certain direction on its own. The code action after the direction one includes code which links in with the “frozen” element I have within my game. (The code is setting “frozen” as a variable). The step event has only coding tied in with it. The code has 3 if statements in and a switch statement. The first if statement is defining what happens when the frozen variable is 0. Within this if statement is a nested if statement which explains, if the moveto variable and the player does NOT have the same sprite as the enemy and the enemy doesn’t move towards the player then moveto is false. The next if statement is similar however if the variable moveto and the player is the same sprite as the enemy and the enemy doesn’t move towards the player then moveto is false again.
The switch statement is set to work with the variable “spriteto”. The sprite_index is the list of sprites I have. Therefor what the switch statement is doing is going through the list until it has found what it is meant to equal to. So if it is “case 0” then the sprite will flick to the “Circle” sprite I have. If the case is 3 then the sprite will change to the “Square” sprite and so on.
Right at the bottom of the code is an if statement which basically means if the variable “freeze” is set to 1 then perform a specific event which has been defined within the enemy and then turn the global variable freeze off (to 0). The specific event which is being called within the if statement is actually calling the user defined 0 event. Within this event are 3 actions. The action stops the motion of the enemy, it puts it to a complete standstill. Then an alarm 2 (another event) is set to go off after 200 ticks and then a piece of code is executed after the second action has been carried out. Within the code is the global variable “frozen” being set to 1. Alarm 2 activates after 200 ticks. What alarm 2 does after 200 ticks is allows the enemy to move again and then the code sets the variables “freeze” and “frozen” to 0 which essentially means turning them off.
The next events are collision events. The collision event with the player is the same as the player collision with the shapes it can change into. What happens in the code is that the player is flung reverse to where it was going. For example, if it was hitting the enemy from above (so going down) it would be flung back up. Then an alarm is set to go off after 10 ticks. What this alarm does is sets the friction of the player down to 0.5 and sets another alarm to go off after 5 ticks have gone by. In the next alarm it sets the friction to 0 and then allows the player to start moving in any direction.
The collision with the first “obj_wall” allows the enemy to bounce off of the wall object and then move in any random direction. This the same for “obj_wall_1” however advanced bounce is set to true. The collision with the push objects basically pushes the newly spawned enemies out in a certain direction. So for the “push_l” they get pushed in the left direction and for “push_r” they get pushed out in the right direction. This is the same for the invisible wall collision. When the enemies collide with the invisible walls they get bounce back dependent on which wall they are colliding with. If they are colliding with “obj_wall_invisible_r” then the enemy get pushed in the right direction as they were currently moving in the left direction.



Controller:

The controller only have 4 events within the object. The create event holds a execute code action. Within this action are a bunch of global variables which have been set. In the alarm 0 event is a code which has set another global variable. However the reason why it is in the alarm event is so that it can be called upon at a certain time.
Within the step event there is only 1 action event, execute the code. There are 5 if statements and 1 switch statement within this action. The first if statement defines if the variable “frozen” is set to 0 and a random integer is equal to 1 then the countdown is reduced by 1 each time instead. The next 3 if statements work together. The first “cycle” if statement basically means if the cycle is equal to 0 then a lot of the invisible walls are created in specific locations and then 1 is added onto the current cycle count which at this point is 0 so it will equal to 1. Then in the second if statement, if the countdown is less than around 5/8 and times the amount of gameticks and the cycle is equal to 1 then what will happen is it will destroy the invisible walls and then create a lot of walls in a specific location and then 1 is added onto the current cycle amount (thus equal to 2). The final if statement which links with the cycle explains that if the countdown is ¼ of the gameticks and the cycle is equal to 2 and there are only 2 or less enemies alive then it will spawn in 6 enemies in specific areas. Then 1 is added onto the current cycle value. Those 3 if statements sum up how the enemies spawn in, how the walls work with letting the enemies get out and how the game knows when to spawn in more enemies. The last if statement has a nested if statement involved. If the countdown is less than 2 then, if the gameticks are more than 50 the gameticks will be reduced by 5, the countdown will equal the gameticks (which means that will also be reduced by 5) and the cycle is reset back to 0. Other than that, if the gameticks are not more than 50 then countdown equals what the gameticks are currently are and the cycle is still set back to 0. Then the spriteto variable will equal the spritenext variable. What the spritenext variable is equal to is a random integer which it selects a number out of 5. The final part of the code is the switch statement. What this switch statement does is basically works as a playlist. The cases work in pairs. So case 0 and 1 works for one sound that is created. The first case plays the sound which is has been set to play and then the second case checks whether song is still playing. If the sound is not playing then it will play the second sound (or in this case the second song) and then so on.
The last event is the draw event, within this event are 3 actions. The first action draws the score on the game, which at the start is 0. Then the second action draws how many lives you have, which at the start of the game you have 5. The last action is executable code which has 15 if statements and few other pieces of code. The first 5 if statements cover how the numbers appear in the middle of the room and it associates the numbers with the shape of what is going to show next. Then the next if statement is the checking whether the backspace key has been pressed. If the backspace key has been pressed then the variable “menutoggle” will be set to -1. Then the menutoggle if statement checks whether menutoggle is more than 0, if it is then it will create the sprite of “obj_shop”. The sprite “obj_shop” is an animation of a purple dropdown. The “draw_set_halign” and “draw_set_valign” sets the positioning of the sprite and then another if statement is carried out. If the variable of “shopdraw” is equal to 1 (so turned on) then font used, white will be the colour of the font that is drawn and used and 4 lots of text appears on screen. The rest of the text that is on screen is set to the colour red and uses a different font. Then another menutoggle if statement is carried out. If the menutoggle variable is less than 0 then the shopdraw variable is equal to 0. What this means is that shopdraw will be turned off. The next few keyboard if statements all link in with shop and buying mechanism. The keyboard check, checks whether numpad 1 and the score is more than or equal to 100, if both of those conditions are met then the 100 is took away from your current score and life is added to your current amount of lives and the menutoggle = -1. The next keyboard check, checks whether the numpad 2 has been pressed and whether the score is more than or equal to 100, if both of these conditions are met then the global variable “freeze” is turned on (changed to 1) and menutoggle is equal to -1. The following keyboard check, checks whether numpad 3 has been pressed and the score is more than or equal to 50, if both of these conditions are met then 50 score is taken away from your current score and you will gain double the amount of speed that you have (in this case, your playerspeed is equal to 6) and then an alarm is set so that after 100 ticks the menutoggle is set to -1 and the effect is turned off. The final if statement within executable code action is a menutoggle if statement. If the menutoggle is less than 0 (in which its usual state is -1) then the number is drawn in the middle (the one that changes), the gameticks show and the countdown shows.

Object Wallmove 1 and 2:

Both of the object wallmoves have similar coding but both working in the same way. The only difference in the coding is the positioning of where the wall is being moved to and the score they are set to move on. Obj_wallmove only has one event in which is a step event. Within the code of the step event are 3 if statements. What the if statements do, they check if the score has reached a certain amount and then once it has reached a certain amount the path starts to stop. However, once it has reached certain co-ordinates, the path ends. Then when the score has reached a higher number, the path starts again, reaches a point and then the path ends.

Object Collectables:

Similar to the wallmove, it only has one event. The only event this has is a collision event with the player. Once the player has collided with the collectible 2 actions are played through. An additional 5 points is added when the player has collided with the collectible and then the instance is destroyed.

Object Menu:

The object menu is the menu that you first encounter when you load up the game. This object consists of 3 events. The create event holds some code which is run as soon as soon you have loaded up the game. The code is set out as a list (an array) and to whatever number is set text of what will appear. Then the amount of space between them is 64 pixels. In the step event, it holds the code for the movement of your arrow keys. The variable move is set to 0. The “+=” and “-=” both either increase or decrease from 0. Every time you either press the up/down arrow or the W/S key then each time it will add 1 or – 1 from 0. This then sets off a chain reaction for the next if statement. After that, if move is not equal to 0 then the next piece of code explains that if you move up it will curl back around and appear at the bottom and vice versa. The final piece of code is that, if you push the enter key, the shift key or the spacebar key then the script menu is used. The “scr_menu” contains a switch statement that works with the variable “mpos”. Basically, it checks through what you have pressed enter, shift or spacebar on. The case numbers link with the menu array list that I set up at the beginning in the create event.

Object Shop:

The object shop consists of 2 events, a create event and a step event. In the create event is code which defines the variables of “yup”, “nope” and “image_speed”. What happens in the step event is how the image_index appears when global variable shopdraw is turned on (equal to 1). If the image_index is equal to 7 and the nope variable is equal to 0 then what happens is the speed is equal to 0 and the image_index is equal to 8 and it plays the animation and the shopdraw is turned on (equal to 1). However, if the global shopdraw is turned off and yup equals 1 then the image_speed is reduced to -1 which means reversing the animation and making it close. Then in the nested if statement the image_index is destroyed, this making it disappear.

Object Pause:

There are 2 events in object pause, create and <any key>. In the create event is a piece of code which declares the global variable “pause1” to 0. Then in the any key event is code which contains 2 if statements. The first if statement check whether the variable pause1 is equal to 0 and the spacebar has been pressed and it deactivates the controller, the enemies and player. By deactivating those means removing them whist the variable is set to 1. Then the code is executed. Then the last if statement checks whether the spacebar has been pressed and the variable pause1 is equal to 1, if both conditions are met then the player, enemies and the controller are all activated again and you can continue the game from where you left off. Then the variable is set back to 0 which means turning it off.

Object Pause Draw:

This object links in with pause object. What happens in the draw event is that when the variable pause is equal to 1 (turned on) then text is drawn.

Object Background:

An object background was created so that I could have an animated background. In the draw event is a piece of code. It just stretches the sprite to fit the room height and width. Otherwise it just plays through the image index the size it is.


Task 1 (1.4) Rooms and Task 4: Improvements : 

Task 5: Game Manual (Documentation):

Task 2 and 3: Testing the game

https://youtu.be/wqZpCIOOFMs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5CgCNkUK9g&feature=youtu.be

Assignment: Unit 1: Pre-Production Techniques for the Creative Media Industries

BTEC Extended Diploma in Computer Games Design
Unit 1: Pre-Production Techniques for the Creative Media Industries
Pre-Production and planning for a Computer Game

There are many pre-production elements in which needs to be considered when preparing for a specific game idea. The pre-production elements in which I am going to discuss are: Type of production, Finance, Time constraints, Personnel, Facilities, Materials, Contributors and Codes of Practice. Each of these pre-production elements are going to be implemented into what I will need to make my game I am creating and why I will need them. The type of production which I will be doing is game pre-production. This game will be created on Game Maker and so will be a PC game.

Finance, Equipment & Facilities:

When it comes to finance, you will have to carefully plan how you spend your money and buy what you think is necessary to make you game. You will have to purchase a lot of things in order to make your game. First off, you will need to support whatever program that you are using or going to be using.  Furthermore, you will have to pay for licensing of the programs and such. For example, Maya costs £97 pounds per month and for a year it will cost £1,160. GameMaker (which is what I will be using for my game) has 3 different versions I can download/buy. The first version is for free, this includes registration, made with GameMaker Splash Screen in game, unlimited resources, GameMaker: Player Export and Windows Desktop Module. The second version of GameMaker (Professional) costs $149.99 which includes a lot more features and the third and final version of GameMaker (Master Collection) costs $799.99 which includes everything GameMaker can offer. UDK (Unreal Development Kit) is a development kit which you can use to create games and is free to download. Unity has two options in which you can download. The first version is the free download which is called the personal edition and has a limitation on the features and the second download is the professional edition which costs $75 per month and comes with all the features. This is only one of the aspects of which financing will cover, you will also need to make sure that your computer system can handle these programs. I have researched what sort of specifications the programs need to run well with and how much they cost. To run Unity, you will need the minimum of Windows XP, 7, 8, 10 and graphics card with DX9 (anything made since 2004). Lenovo H30 Desktop PC costs £449.99 includes, windows 10 free upgrade, I3 intel core processor, 8GB RAM, dedicated NVIDIA GT 705 direct X 9 compatible graphics card and 1TB HD. In my opinion, I wouldn’t go for a PC with NVIDIA GT as I feel the GTX graphic cards work a lot nicer and makes it all look a lot nicer. This system is also suitable for GameMaker too. For the system requirements to use UDK you will need the minimum of windows 7/8 64-bit OS, Quad-Core Intel or AMD, 2.5 GHz or faster, 8GB RAM and DirectX 11 compatible graphics card. The cheapest computer I have found costs £499.99. This PC has 8GB, AMD FX-4300 Black edition processor, AMD Radeon R7 250 which is direct x 11 compatible, comes with windows 10 free upgrade and 1TB hard drive. This system is also suitable for Maya.
Despite that all of the above are great for creating PC games, they are not suitable for creating games on other platforms. If you want to publish and create an Xbox game then you will need to use the ID@Xbox (Independent Developers at Xbox. When researching, I was unable to find out how much it costs to purchase the development kit. On the other hand, I found out that if you are a developer with an approved concept for Xbox One, then you will receive two dev’ kits for free. When it came to researching how much the PlayStation 4 Dev Kit costs, It was rumoured that it would cost $2500, Even though the PlayStation Dev’ Kit costs so much, it was also rumoured that Sony were handing out their dev’ kits like “candy”. http://www.polygon.com/2013/7/24/4553842/so-how-much-does-it-cost-to-develop-for-playstation-4
For the Apple Developer Program it costs $99 per membership year. You are able to download and install the latest beta OS releases simply for development and distribution, advanced app capabilities, testing and support app which allows you to invite users to test your iOS app and then you are able to distribute your app.
For the android developer you need to pay $25 as a one-time registration fee that can be paid with various cards. Androids developer console offers you to set up a google payments merchant account if you want to sell priced apps, in-app products or subscriptions. With Steam Greenlight, you only have to pay £70.00 and then you can publish as many games as you like under Greenlight. There are rules in which you have to abide by to post your games and there are different factors that you have to consider.

They are different ways to receive and manage your money in which you will be using in the pre-production process. Self-Financing is one of the ways to manage your money. Self-financing means being able to make enough money to carry on supporting yourself/your company. Money that comes from yourself and not from anyone else such as investors and lenders. The advantages and disadvantages of self-financing are listed below.

Advantages	Disadvantages
Quickest and easiest way of securing money	The person who in which started up the business (entrepreneur) may not have the required knowledge or skills to keep the business running or make it bigger.
The entrepreneur gets to spend the money on whatever the entrepreneur needs/wants.	The entrepreneur is the only one at risk, if the money runs low then it is the entrepreneurs roll to sort it out.
It gets rid of any complications of having to add more partners and shareholders.	If an opportunity comes up to expand your business or make an appearance somewhere, you may not have the money to take the opportunity.
It is simple to exit the business.	Possibly be put into debt by taking out overdrafts from the bank.
All of the profit goes to the entrepreneur.

http://www.drjeffcornwall.com/2008/08/07/pros_and_cons_of_selffinancing/

If you are low on money or don’t have any at all, there are different ways in which you can receive money to help you create your game. There are websites in which you can visit that will help you, but only under certain conditions. Indie Fund and GamesLab are two very good examples of indie funding. Indie fund is an organisation in which is created by many different independent game developers. The indie fund is to help fund businesses in which are going into indie video game development. GamesLab Development Fund is a dedicated program in which support and invest in indie game businesses. Companies that are eligible to this program will be granted up to £25,000 to support themselves on. This includes publishing, marketing and distributing. The advantages and disadvantages are listed below, they cover the advantages and disadvantages of going to an indie funding website to help you develop your game.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Advantages	Disadvantages
Simple contract which you doesn’t need negotiation or lawyers. (indie fund)	They don’t publish (both)
Get funded quicker than other funding organisations (indie fund)	Cannot be repaid if your game doesn’t launch (indie fund)
Advisers to ask for advice when you run into a situation or problem (indie fund)	Very selective (indie)
Offers master classes for development which includes pitching, legal workshops, marketing and development. (GamesLab)
Free access to UK events where it is possible for you promote your company (GamesLab)
Opportunity to show your game at the GamesLab event (GamesLab)
Regular contact with an industry mentor who can offer guidance and advice (GamesLab)

http://indie-fund.com/       
http://gameslab.creativeengland.co.uk/

Crowd funding is another way in which you can raise a certain amount of money to support you in creating your game. Crowd funding is where you ask a large group of different people for money and then receiving small amounts of money from each person. Crowd funding is very common on the internet. Indiegogo is accordingly the “largest global fundraising site” in whom help out individual people, businesses and non-profits to raise money online for what they want to achieve. How it works is that you start a campaign and then you activate your community and then wait for it to be funded. Kickstarter is another website in which helps people raise enough money for them to fund their projects. Kickstarter also builds a community around your work. With Kickstarter, you are able to track your funding progress on your phone with the Kickstarter app. The advantages and disadvantages listed below talk through why crowd funding could be a good decision or it could possibly be a bad decision.

Advantages	Disadvantages
Free to launch (Indiegogo)	Your project may not get funded at all
“Simply and Easy” campaign editor (Indiegogo)	Collects 5% fee from a projects funding total (Kickstarter)
Multiple payment options (indiegogo)	Pledges on Kickstarter are collected and processed by their payment partner, stripe. They take 3-5% of the processing fees.
100% ownership of your work (Kickstarter)

The final way to receive money (from what I have researched) is from receiving grants. “Epic has created a $5,000,000 development fund to provide financial grants to innovative projects built in and around Unreal Engine 4. Awards range from $5,000 to $50,000, and there are no strings attached: you continue to own your IP, are free to publish however you wish, and can use the grant funds without any restrictions or obligations to Epic.” This quote is from the Unreal Engine website. If you are using crowd funding sites such as Kickstarter then you are still eligible to receiving a grant from Epic. Although to apply for the UE dev grant you need your project to already be working in UE4 or for it.

https://www.unrealengine.com/unrealdevgrants

A game publisher is a company that publishes video games that they have either been developed by someone in that company or by someone who has created a successful game. Activision is a very popular video game publisher. It has published series of games in which are extremely popular amongst the gaming community. These game series are Call of Duty, Destiny and Skylanders. They also publish games which are on a variety of platforms.

To make my game, I wouldn’t need a grant to publish my game as it is only a small game. The grants in which are given are usually there for a person to develop a big game whereas I want mine to be  published in steam or free to play on the internet.

Facility Houses:

Facility houses are houses in which are made for a specific purpose. I have found a website in which has a facility house for media production. They have film crews and kit, sound proof room, Avid symphony Nitris DX edit suite, Avid Media Composer edit suites and so on. The two links below are links to two facility houses which work with post-production. http://www.the-hall.co.uk/index.html

http://www.fiftyfiftypost.com/

Extra information:

In the game of Call of Duty: Advanced warfare, they use Audiomotion to create and deliver the Exo Zombies trailer. Here is a list of the post production they do, they provide a varied range of post-services apart from solved, re-targeted animation, Conversion to different formats and output to all major 3D pipelines, animation post production including loops and blends, solving to custom rigs and skeletons and un-paralled after sales support.

Time Constraints:

Deadlines and how to manage your time: When creating games, you will have deadlines in which you would need to meet. You will need a good structure of how you are going to complete the game and when by. Setting yourself a list of deadlines would be ideal as that means you know that you will have to complete this certain task to move on to the next. If you didn’t have a set structure then your layout for creating the game will be messy and you may not release your game out in time. If you have an idea of when you want you to game to be finished then write it down and stick to that deadline. The more you push the deadline ahead, the likelihood of actually finishing the game would reduce.
Now that you have a set date for when you want your game to published, you would need to break your game down into chunks. This meaning knowing what you need to do first and when by. Make a list of what needs to be done, for example, sounds, graphics and coding. Once you have written down what needs to be down, break that list down even more. So with the sounds, the list could be; sounds for level 1, sounds for level 2, sounds for when you die, sounds for when you have picked something up etc. Although, you don’t need to break everything down so that the list seems long and unbearable, just break it down until you think it’s reasonable enough and then move on to the next list that you are going to create. This idea is very helpful for each game that you create. It will help you keep your work very organised. After making the lists, move the lists into an order of which needs to doing first. Also group the lists together if they fall under a similar subject. Then assign the people whom you work with, with what they specify in. Giving them things to do in an organised manner helps keep everything under control. A way of managing your money would be to set your money aside for the things you need monthly first and then after that set your money aside for the yearly things around 4 months before you need to pay. When it comes to deadlines for designing my game, I will preferably want to section off each level and work on each level individually and set times for when I need to complete a certain level for. I think working this way would be best as it is a platform game that I am creating and I need the levels to progress. Also, completing a level before jumping to next without finishing the others would be slightly inefficient as I will be constantly switching rooms fixing another level and then forgetting what I needed to fix on a previous room.
Availability of equipment and personnel:
The availability of the equipment that you use is talking about how long you have got the licenses for that you have bought. For example, Maya costs £97 per month, Unity Professional Edition costs $75 per month and iOS Apple Developer Program for $99 per membership year. You would have to keep on top of when these licenses run out and have to set money aside to pay for them again.
The availability of the personnel is very dependent on whether you work on your own, in a small group/business or a large business. If you work on your own you would need to set time for yourself to work on the game and also revolve whether you work at your job or look after family members around working on your game. If you work with a small group of people you will have to consider what times that they can dedicate themselves to working on the game. When working in a large business you would have to consider when your workers are available and know which days they work on. Furthermore, you may come across that one of your workers are ill and you need to take in mind which other person could take over and if they can do overtime. I will only need to use GameMaker. One version of GameMaker is free however it is also good for me to purchase the other versions as this will allow me to use more features on GameMaker itself.

Timescales for clearances: When it comes to finally finishing the game you will need to set a time for when your game can be tested. In this test it will determine what age rating the game is given. For example, PEGI gets the developer of the game to complete an online declaration form in which is sent to the administrator of the age rating system. The completed form then gets reviewed by the administrator and is used when the content of the game is being reviewed. They choose particular sections of the game to review based off what information the developer has given the administrator. This system is accordingly a more efficient way of rating the game than by playing the full game.
For the delays in publishing you would need to set yourself another deadline after you have your original one set just in case you do not meet your first deadline. For the game to be legal it does need to be checked for plagiarism. To see that it is not the exact same as another game just different graphics. Also you need your game to be tested so that you can receive some feedback and change your game slightly if needed to. Organising this time after the release is essential as you will want this time slot to fit before the final release of the game. When it comes to my game, I would need the game to be verified so I would leave time at the end so this process can happen.

http://www.pegi.info/en/index/id/1184/

Materials:

Concept Art:
Concept art is a way of displaying visual ideas for games, films, animation, comic books etc. Concept art can include ideas for characters, weapons, backgrounds, vehicles and much more. The concept art in which is created for a project is used as a guideline for the entire projects itself, it gives the look and feel to the project. Others consider concept art as visual development for concept design. Usually, when it comes to designs of characters and weapons, they show different designs for the same character/weapon. For the characters, the concept art would contain different styles of clothes the character might be able to change into in the game, the specific stances it will do and the different facial expressions.

 This concept art is from Final Fantasy XIII, it shows the different viewpoints of a character they have created and it shows what sort of weapon this character specifically uses. The different viewpoints show that the game artist has thought about this character thoroughly. Also you can see the development of this concept art. The top right images, show the original design of the front and back upper part of the body of the character and then underneath is the characters full body in which has a lot more detail to it, added colour and detail. The concept of the character from the side viewpoint has a lot more detail and tone on its body. They have also added in where the light hits the character and where the shadows are created.

Audio:
Audio is very important in games. The audio can give the game an overall feel to it. For example, in horror games, the audio is very important as it makes the player feel fear. The game called “Outlast” is a prime example of having tense music playing when being chased by one of the “mental patients” contained within the asylum. Other games such as Mario, the audio used within that game is very memorable and that leaves a positive effect on the player. Audio in games isn’t just based on the background music, there are many different places you can use audio. You can use it when a player has collected something, the character has died, completed a level and so on. Within my game, I would like there to be audio whenever my character had collected something, when they have completed a level and moved on, when they die and for music to play in the background throughout the whole process of playing the game.

Storyboard/animatic:

Storyboards and animatics are basically the same thing. The only difference is, is that animatics are animated storyboards. An example of when using animatics in the gaming industry would be using them in the pre-production process of animation. They can be produced using computer animation in 2D and 3D with special effects. A storyboard is a similar thing except the drawings are static. Both techniques are ideas used before creating the real thing. 

Script:

Within the pre-production process, the script writer will need to create the story of the game and explain the environment, characters, details of scenes, triggers, actions, sounds and music which will be implemented into the game. The script writer will have to make specific choices in which will suit the original game idea which was created. He/she has a lot of things to work on such as character development, how the story rolls out, what the environment would be like in a specific scene, what the weather would be like, what sounds play where and explain these actions thoroughly. Within my game, there will be a story line in which suits the games end goal and links in with why the character is collecting the specific pieces of stuff which needs to be collected and why the character is going on such a journey.

Contributors:

In a lot of famous games there are voice actors/voice-over artists who in which play a role in your game. They use these voices so that the game sounds more professional. Furthermore, if your game fits into the photo-realistic style, using famous voice actors would gain your game a lot of attention. For example, Until Dawn is a horror game in which used the voices of real actors and the characters of real actors. In my game, I wouldn’t need voice actors as it is only a small game which is being made in game-maker. My game doesn’t actually include any humans at all and is the complete opposite of the style, photo-realistic. For my game, I only want the music to lead the player through the levels. There are no dramatic cut-scenes involved within the game in which would require speech.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2742544/fullcredits/

Codes of Practice:

The part in which is copyrighted in the game is the underlying code, the artwork and the sound. There are parts of a game in which are not copyrightable. These are the lives, scoring system, coins, the sky, the ground and much more. These all fall under the “Scenes of faire” section. A good example of this would be creating a football game. It would be ridiculous if you could not create a football game because the scoring system is the same as another game, even though that is the scoring system which is used in the original sport.  Liability insurance is insurance in which protects the an organisation or a person from risk that they may be possibly sued and it protects against claims that in which a person has hurt themselves or damaged property due to inappropriate actions. Other codes of practise include health and safety and completion insurance. Every company/organisation has health and safety rules for the employees to follow. Everyone has to follow these health and safety rules within a work place so that one employee does not manage to injure another employee or themselves accidently. Completion insurance is insurance in which is used to guarantee minimum payment distribution amount only if the game is delivered on time.









Animators:



There are a list of things in which you need to fulfil to recognise whether you are perfect for this roll or not. Animators are the people who are “responsible for the portrayal of movement and behaviour within a game”. There are a number of certain skills that you need to have to become an Animator. You need to know how to use FMV (Full Motion Video), need to have some knowledge on how to program, need to be able to have knowledge of “traditional and computer 2D and 3D animation techniques”, need to have knowledge of “the requirements of the relevant health and safety legislation and procedures”, to be able to work as part of a team, have your own initiative and to “be able to take responsibility for organising your work within the production schedule, managing files and meeting deadlines”, need to be creative and imaginative and spatial awareness. There are other requirements which are needed, you need to understand the production process, to communicate well with other people in other teams, be able to understand the appearance of animal and human movement, and this includes lip syncing and limb movements. Animators give life to the characters which are created and they have to apply their understanding of movements of human and animals. They don’t just animate humans and animals, they animate objects too. Furthermore, they animate using 3D animation software. The average cost for Animators (Games) with 3-6 years of experience is $65.619 a year. With less than 3 years of experience it would be $42,512 a year and with 6+ years of experience it would be $73,031 a year. You need to have an animation-related degree with games animation involved. You also need to show your work that you have produced through a portfolio or/and a showreel. However, if you bring a reel it has to last roughly around 2-3 minutes and contain detail about contribution you have made. People who hire animators look for a variety of different genres and styles that you have worked with, different walking and running cycles and emotion, movement and personality portrayed in a character. For the game that I have created, I would need an animator to animate the sprites I have created. I would also need the animator to animate the moving platforms that I want in the game and to animate the objects that the player has to collect.



http://creativeskillset.org/creative_industries/games/job_roles/325_animator_games


 Assistant Producer:


An Assistant Producer makes sure that all of the game production staff deliver their work on time to a very high quality product, to the highest quality possible. What an Assistant Producer must do it work well in a team, have full knowledge of project management, have strong communications skills, verbal and written language, be able to learn new skills quickly, have high self-motivation and confidence in dealing with difficult situations, be able to plan ahead, set objectives and prioritise objectives when they need to be done first, have good management skills, pay close attention to detail, have high standards of work and to have knowledge of the health and safety legislation and procedures. An Assistant producer’s role and responsibility can change during the game development process and they also work between sales and marketing departments. To be fit for this job, you won’t need a qualification but you will need to have some previous experience working with production. You will be receiving training on the job. The salary of an Associate Producer in Ubisoft is between 24k to 26k.



http://creativeskillset.org/creative_industries/games/job_roles/326_assistant_producer_games



Audio Engineers:



Their salary ranges from $20,000 a year to over $100,000 a year. What Audio Engineers do is create the soundtrack for a game they have been set to work on. This includes the sound effects, the music, the character voice, instruction voice and ambient effects. They must have a sense of timing, being able to create and perform music, have knowledge on using the relevant programs and technology, have imagination, creativity and have a sense of fun, to be able to keep up with any changes the producers decide to make, to be able to communicate well with the art departments of the gaming industry, to work independently, have good organisational skills and know the relevant health and safety legislation and procedures. Audio engineers usually work as 1. For my game sketch idea, I would need the audio engineer to work on the background music, making it something fun and cheer. I would need them to work on the sound of the snakes and when they die, the sound of when you have died, when you have collected some string, when you use Unicat’s special ability and then music for the final boss level which should be something quite daunting and serious.



http://creativeskillset.org/creative_industries/games/job_roles/327_audio_engineer



Creative Director:



The Creative Director works in the design department in the gaming industry and is responsible for the overall look of the game, making sure that everything is in working order and oversees any high-level decisions that affect the game. As a Creative Director, you must be able to inspire those around you so that they make the highest quality product possible, be able to make tough decisions, have an excellent imagination, creativity and problem-solving skills, and be able to communicate well with other and have great presentation skills and have knowledge on relevant health and safety legislation and procedures. You don’t need a qualification to become a Creative Director however you do need previous experience and a strong artistic vision. The full time salary is 75k to 10k and the freelance day rate salary for a Creative Director is £350 to £500.



http://creativeskillset.org/creative_industries/games/job_roles/329_external_producer



















External Producer:



An External Producer is someone who ensures the successful delivery of a game, whilst working externally from the game development team. They also make sure that the publisher has all of the relevant information required to make that game as commercially successful as possible. To be an External Producer, you need to have a clear understanding of the role and requirements of a game publishing company and a game development company , understand the development and publishing processes from a game's design phase through to its release, have solid project management skills including scheduling, budget and risk management , have a passion for games, be able to handle multiple projects at the same time, have excellent communication and presentation skills, be able to manage people, time and resources and to have good negotiation skills and have knowledge of the requirements of the relevant health and safety legislation and procedures. You don’t need a qualification to be an External Produced however most External Producers are graduates in which have studied course including visual and technical arts. You must be able to demonstrate a track record gained by having been involved in every stage of a project. You will also need to have experience at a senior level of game development. You should have a good knowledge of project management software.
http://creativeskillset.org/creative_industries/games/job_roles/329_external_producer



Games Designer:



The Games Designer decides on what a game consists of, how it plays and defining all of the core elements. They also talking to and telling the rest of the development team who create the art and computer code about the ideas they have come up with and what they want doing. They come up with a plan and decide on all of the elements in game. These elements in game are the structures, characters, what story it’s going to have, the setting, the rules, whether it is going to have vehicles or not, HUD design and if there are going to be different modes of play. To be a Games Designer you need to be able to work in collaboration with multi-disciplinary teams, be able to communicate your vision to artists, programmers, producers, marketing staff, and others involved in the development process, be able to accept constructive feedback on your work, be able to present your ideas both verbally and on paper, be imaginative and creative, have good written and verbal communication skills, have good basic visual design and drawing skills, be reasonably fluent in a range of 2D and 3D graphics and animation packages, such as 3D Studio Max, NUKE or Maya, have some programming skills at least at ‘scripting’ level , have an awareness of the various games platforms and technologies, possess a thorough understanding of game play theory, have storytelling and narrative development skills, be skilled in information design and user interface design, be able to think systematically and strategically, have knowledge of the requirements of the relevant health and safety legislation and procedures.



You apparently don’t have to have a specific qualification to become a Games Designer however, most people that are hired to be a Games Designer are graduates. Employers will want to see what work you have done and see what you can do, it’s best to take in portfolios of work and these portfolios can take in the form of a game project, proposal or written games design documents. The average salary of a Games Designer per year is $83,240. They can range from $45,090 to $121,230.



http://creativeskillset.org/creative_industries/games/job_roles/331_game_designer



Game Programmer/Lead Programmer:



A Game Programmer is someone who designs and write the computer code that controls the game and runs the game. They also work in the development department. A Game Programmer must be able to program in C++,C and other programming languages, must be systematic and highly organised, be able to work on their own and as a part of a team, have good communication skills, have specific platform experience such as Xbox, PlayStation etc., they also must have a good understanding of game play, be able to take instructions and hit deadlines on time, have excellent problem-solving skills, be creative and have knowledge of the relevant health and safety legislation and procedures. The Lead Programmer translates the design into a technical specification for the game, and the he gives specific task to the programming team. The general programmers work on code that has already been written by others, the programmers with specific tasks might work on the physics of objects and the specialist tools programmers identify and design any custom tools which are needed. To become a Game Programmer you need to have a degree in something such as Physics, Maths or Computer Science. Most people who usually pick this job uses programming as a hobby. The average salary of a Game Programmer is $83,060.
The Lead Programmer must also provide support and guidance to the programming team, making sure that the programmers understand the specification and have the right skills and training to be able to do their jobs effectively. Lead Programmers will also write a substantial amount of code themselves. The Lead Programmer must be a team player and an excellent leader, be approachable, able to communicate well, understand all of the programming roles, have advanced programming skills, have excellent people management skills, able to multitask and solve problems, be calm under pressure, be creative and understand the relevant health and safety legislation and procedures. The Lead Programmer needs the same qualifications as a Games Programmer and when they are seeing the employer, they need to ask for some kind of demo or put you in a test. Furthermore, you must have 5 years’ experience working as a Game Programmer. For my game, I would need someone to program in the AI characters movements, the main characters/players movements and the platforms movement.
http://creativeskillset.org/creative_industries/games/job_roles/333_lead_programmer_games



http://creativeskillset.org/creative_industries/games/job_roles/336_game_programmer


Games Artist/Lead Artist:



The Games Artists are the people who create all of the visual elements in game. These include the scenery, the objects in game, texture art, characters, animals etc. They also create the concept art and story boards in which propose the ideas during the pre-production. They work in the Art Department. To be a Games Artist, you need to have an art portfolio demonstrating a range of work and originality of style, be able to draw from life, have knowledge of anatomy and architecture, be able to convey facial expressions and emotions, have a flair for colour, composition, perspective, modelling and texturing techniques, lighting and mood, have skills in comic book art and/or storyboarding, be able to work as part of a team and independently , be imaginative and creative, pay close attention to detail and have strong powers of observation, have good communication skills, be able to work to a style guide and have knowledge of the requirements of the relevant Health and Safety legislation and procedures. The Game Artists are the people who try to achieve the desired result of the visual style that is wanted. For example this could be Photo-Realistic, Cel-Shaded, Exaggeration, Retro and so on. The Game Artists have to cover the different techniques and range of jobs given to them For example, creating the concept art would typically use pen and paper whereas building the characters they need to use a 3D modeller. The majority of game artists which have been hired have a degree or HND in fine art, graphic design or illustration. The lead artist will need the same HND or degree experience and 5 years of experience working in the games industry. The lead artist will need the same things in which you need to be a games artist however leadership skills, communication skills and art skills are key. You must be able to motivate and inspire a large team and have an original style. You must have excellent organisational skills and skills with different software packages. The Games Artist salary averages around $75,000 a year and for the Lead Artists earn a considerable amount more as being a Lead Artist in the game industry is the highest paid job in the art department.



http://creativeskillset.org/creative_industries/games/job_roles/330_games_artist



http://creativeskillset.org/creative_industries/games/job_roles/332_lead_artist_games



Level Editor:

 The Level Editor is someone who creates an interactive environment/architecture for part of the game. This includes the landscape, buildings and the objects. The Level Editors are based in the design department. The skills that you need to be a Level Editor are to have good spatial and layout design skills, have knowledge of 3D modelling and a firm grasp of game design principles, have the ability to visualise layouts, have a practical understanding of programming and scripting language to work closely with artists and programmers, be able to train the QA Testers to play the game, have IT skills and competence in the use of world-editing tools, have knowledge of different platforms, be very well organised, be able to work both independently and as part of a team, be able to accept and give direction, be imaginative and creative, have excellent communication skills (both verbal and written), pay close attention to detail and be able to evaluate quality, have a passion for games and knowledge of game design theory and have knowledge of the requirements of the relevant health and safety legislation and procedure. You don’t need a specific degree in anything however most people who are hired for this job are graduates. However, you could study design, engineering or software development degrees. I wouldn’t necessarily need a level editor for my game because it is a platform game in which the background/environment isn’t interactive. A Level Editors salary per year ranges from £17,737 to £32,511.



http://creativeskillset.org/creative_industries/games/job_roles/334_level_editor



Marketing Executive:



A Marketing Executive is someone who would promote your employers products, services or ideas. You need to be excellent with your communications skills, organisational skills, plan product launches, market research and knowing public relations events. You need high levels of confidence and creativity as you may need to talk about the product on TV, radio or to the press. Work as a Marketing Executive may include doing market research, creating marketing campaigns, looking at competitors marketing strategies, organisational public relations events, arranging sponsorship, distributing posters etc. The salaries can range from £18,000 to £22,000 a year and then with experience it can rise to £25,000 to £40,000 per year. To get this job you need to have a lot of experience. The majority of people who are hired on this job have a HNC/HND or degree in marketing, communications, advertising, business and management or psychology.



https://nationalcareersservice.direct.gov.uk/advice/planning/jobprofiles/pages/marketingexecutive.aspx



Marketing manager:

It is the marketing manager’s job to find out the best ways they can promote the employers product, services or brand. Your work could possibly involve researching and analysing market trends, coming up with marketing strategies, organising the production of posters and brochures, attending trade shows, managing a team of marketing executives etc. You could earn up to £50,000 a year or more if you are a senior marketing manager or a marketing director. The salaries are usually £25,000 to £40,000 a year. You will need at least 3-5 years of experience working as a marketing executive before you apply for this job.



https://nationalcareersservice.direct.gov.uk/advice/planning/jobprofiles/pages/marketingmanager.aspx


 Product Manager

The Product Manager works within the production department and they help create marketing campaigns to help increase the game sales. A few of the things a product manager needs to have is to be able to manage a marketing budget, have strong presentation and communication skills, good knowledge on the gaming industry and on games and have good negotiation skills. There isn’t a specific qualification that you need to take up this job however experience is needed.



http://creativeskillset.org/creative_industries/games/job_roles/335_product_manager

 Project Manager/ Producer



The Project Manager/Producer works within the production department and they ensure that the game is delivered on time and successfully. A few of the attributes the person needs to do this role would be, the ability to multitask, be good at managing people, be able to inspire those around them and motivate them and be able to handle clients well. There isn’t a specific qualification in which is needed for this role however it would be good if you had some previous experience which is relevant/similar to this role.



http://creativeskillset.org/creative_industries/games/job_roles/337_project_manager_producer_games

 Public Relations Officer

A public relations officer is someone who is responsible for managing the businesses/organisations reputation. To become a public relations officer you need to have great communication skills and be excellent at managing your time. You also need to be able to get on well with others as you would be working with lots of different people. There is no specific qualification you need for this job however it is said that most people who take up this job have a degree qualification.



https://nationalcareersservice.direct.gov.uk/advice/planning/jobprofiles/pages/publicrelationsofficer.aspx



QA Tester

 The QA tester works within the production department and what they do is test, tune and debug the game that everyone else within the organisation was working on. They makes sure that the game is flawless before it is introduced to the public. A few of the attributes that a person needs to be a QA Tester is, they need to be analytical, be able to identify, record and fix problems, have good conflict resolution skills and be persistent and patient. There is no specific qualification needed however experience and passion for coding is necessary.



http://creativeskillset.org/creative_industries/games/job_roles/338_qa_tester

Technical Artist

The Technical Artist works in the art department in the organisation and what they do is they investigate new techniques, they bridge the gap between artists and programmers and they ensure that the art assets which have been created by the artists is easily integrated into the game. A few of the attributes a person needs to do this role is to be to work well as a team, work with minimum supervision, think creatively and have knowledge of console hardware architecture. You will need a degree for this job. A degree in any art of technical subject would be advisable.
http://creativeskillset.org/creative_industries/games/job_roles/339_technical_artist_games


To produce the game that I want is a single person job or a two person job. What I am using for my game is GameMaker and I don't need a really expensive computer as GameMakers specifications aren't that high. When it comes to finance, it is most likely that if I wanted to purchase the full GameMaker package in which includes different platforms for me to work with then I would use either self finance or try to get a small grant/use Kickstarter for me to set up a project of creating this game on different platforms.