For this project I chose my target audience to be between the age range of 16-25 boys and this is because this age range has the highest amount of time spent playing games. My level design/game meets my target audience as I have created something in the first person shooter genre which is the preferred genre by my target audience also my level design is kept linear and without deviations which was deliberate for the type of game I have made but the element of choice is still there which my target audience likes but in the form of how the player might tackle my level through the enemy spawn locations as well as the collectible spawn locations.
My audience research had a heavy influence on the genre that my game took on as durning my research I found that some of the most popular games among my audience were first person shooters like Halo and Overwatch. What this allowed me to do was take elements from these games that are liked by my target audience such as the way Halo’s levels are setup with clear paths guiding you through the level but the challenging factor being the location the enemies are placed as well as things like weapon and power up spawns and apply the key principles behind these decisions to my level design. I also felt the stylised art style of Overwatch was something that helped the game appeal to all the age ranges in my target audience and although I stuck to a blockout for my level design if I was to create assets and texture them for the level I would’ve kept this in mind and had a cartoon/stylised art feel in my game.
Throughout my project research I found that when it comes to level design a lot if not all the multiplayer level design had some kind of symmetry to them to create an even flow throughout the level for both teams and although my game is not multiplayer I took the symmetrical approach to the design of the level and kept those characteristics in my level as I felt for the type of game I was making a symmetrical design would be key for keeping it consistent and more easily memorable to the player. During my research I also spent time looking at stylised assets and what sort of art style I wanted to deliver in my game to my target audience and I found it difficult to find free assets within the art style I desired so I opted to keep a blockout for my game. I researched heavily into spawn points in level design and this is an incredibly important part of level design as it has a direct affect on the flow of a level so when I came to choosing the spawn points for my enemies I was very careful to make sure the way I setup the enemies and collectible spawns they would keep a nice flow to the level that was jarring to the player experience.
Another part of level design I looked into was the flow of a level and more specifically how the level should be easy to navigate for the player and be an intuitive experience so I made sure that the pathway around my level would be easy to follow and that there would be no way for the player to accidentally stray away from the correct path and I did this by keeping the layout of the level quite linear and then had my peers playtest my game and see how their user experience would be.
I knew from the get go because of my target audience I wanted to create a western style shooter game and what I settled on was a firing range type game that the player could navigate a level and destroy all the targets as quickly as possible. So I looked into learning and creating the mechanics for a shooter game in UE4 and I chose a hit scan system as I felt it would be more responsive and give a better feel for a game that is designed to be fast paced and focused on the players accuracy, this is why I thought a moving projectile wouldn’t work well for my idea. I also spent a lot of time getting to grips with UE4 and creating test programs for some of my mechanics that are present in my game now and I think this really helped me when I was creating my game as I had a much better understanding of how to use the software. Lastly I think my skills with 3D modeling became very useful when I came to blockout my level design as it is a basic skill I have learnt in 3D modeling to help simplify more complicated objects so this allowed me to create the assets that are within my level with the blockout tools provided in UE4 without any real trouble.
Throughout the project I felt I was making a lot of progress with my skills as a programmer and with UE4 to point where I now feel confident to use the software to create any number of mechanics for all sorts of games and I think I am able to now look through my blueprints and more easily identify bugs or problems that have cropped up during my development which I am very proud of as I think I gained this confidence with UE4 very quickly. During the early stages of the project however I had a lot of trouble finding assets to use in my game and is an opinion I voiced throughout my project but I don’t think this hindered me as I liked the ability to just blockout my level and be able to focus on making and refining the mechanics of the my game.
I think in my project all of the mechanics I created for the player character went very well as the mechanics allow the player to do everything I want them to be able to do. The shooting mechanic I created I am also very happy with as I think it is very precise and consistent though I had some trouble in the beginning stetting this up I am happy with how this with the outcome. Some things I feel as though didn’t work well was the particle effect I tried to create for the muzzle flash of my gun as it is one of the few parts of UE4 I am not too confident with so I think if I was able to come back to make changes to my project that is one of the few areas I would change as I think its something that lets my game down, to improve this I would need to do some research into using cascade in UE4 to help myself get to better grips with the tools that are at my disposal. Overall though I am incredibly proud of what I was able to produce in this project and I think I did very well to gain a good understanding of how UE4 works.
I think my peer reviews were very beneficial to me during this project as I think they helped me raise my level of work not just through the comments that my peers gave me on the work I produced but also the fact I got to review my peers work and help myself also gauge what level my work was at and then be able to make the improvements I needed to raise my own quality of work. The tutor feedback I received was invaluable to me during this project as it helped me gain some direction and more specifically make changes to my game (for example adding some kind of visual feedback for the mechanics of my weapon) that increased the overall quality of my product. The tutor feedback was also another perspective and insight on my work which again allowed me to bring up the overall quality of the work I was producing.
On this project I learned a great deal about how to use UE4 to create 3D games which I think is something UE4 does a lot better than Unity which is the software I predominantly used throughout my first year. I think when I came to do the research for this project I have learnt better research habits for example I am much better at finding specific useful research that I was able to use and apply to my project which before this I think I struggled with and would find myself doing additional research after the I have already begun production slowing down my overall productivity. Lastly on this project I believe I have helped condition myself and learn better time management skills as I have been able to submit all of my interim’s on time as well as the fact that I didn’t find myself putting myself under pressure because I still have lots of work to do before the deadline. I taught myself better time management by setting myself personal goals within different parts of the project that would help me stay on target or even ahead of schedule.
Level3GamesDevelopmentYear2LukeWadey 