What have I done?

This week, I formally started the final major project and I started by filling out a Project Proposal, the project proposal detailed my early concept idea and what skills I have previously that can help in the project, I will continuously update the project proposal over the course of the project with details such as Bibliography and timeplans. I have also finished and recorded my Initial Concept Presentation, where I recorded myself talking through a presentation on my current concept stating my inspirations and what the project outcome will roughly include and look like. I also started work on my Process research report where I detail all of the stages of the development cycle, backed statements up with primary and secondary research and then explained what I will use from this research in my later stages. In this report I was required to contact industry professionals, I managed to contact 10 professionals but at the time of writing this I currently only have one response, although I asked the professionals a wide range of questions so the detail of this research should not be impacted if I do not receive any more responses.

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What have I learnt?

This week of the project, I have learned about the key stages of the development cycle, although we have touched upon this before, I now have a greater understanding of what goes into each stage and what I should avoid or adopt from my research in each stage. This will help me to improve my level of work and also ensure that I am working as closely as that of an industry professional to the standard development processes. Also, the primary research was key to this new knowledge because I was able to first hand compare this to my secondary sources and try to understand how different professionals work in different ways, so this has helped shape my development process moving forward. 

 

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What could have been improved or gone better?

I believe the two key areas that I feel could have been improved upon were the primary research and also the video/audio presentation recording. The primary research could have been improved if I contacted a larger range of professionals because the chance of getting more responses would have increased, in the next research report I will definitely take this onboard and expand my research audience to a larger amount than 10, this will allow me to gather more detailed information that will greatly help my progress. Also, I feel that the Initial Concept Presentation recording could have gone better because I felt nervous throughout the recording and I kept stumbling on words. This hesitation impacted the recording because it did not flow correctly and ultimately I did not feel that I projected the concept as well as I hoped. Next time I will need to plan what I am going to say first so I do not run into these problems again, because the presentation will run smoother.

 

Any problems? If so, how will/have I resolve(d) them? 

I feel the only problem that I encountered this week was the primary research and how I only managed to receive one response, I still have next week to receive responses so this number may change. I planned for the worst when I was writing the questions for these interviews, so I included a wide mix of questions based on different areas in the development cycle for each of the professionals so no matter how many responses I get I will still have a variety of answers on different stages of the cycle.

 

My targets for next week and the remainder of the project are:

• Ensure that I plan larger elements of my project so it can run as smoothly as possible, following the Concept Presentation

• Expand my sample size for primary research to ensure that I receive a larger amount of relevant advice and information

• I also plan to finish the last parts of my Process Research Report 

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Week 2

 

What have I done?

This week, I finished carrying out research into my process research report and adding all of this information to the report itself, the process research report has now been completed and I carried out a proofreading making sure the information was relevant and made sense. I also contacted all of the interviewees again, except for the one person who responded, but I did not manage to receive any more responses, as I said in my previous reflection this is not really a major problem because I feel that I still have a wide range of information and advice from the one person who contacted me back. Also this week I updated the presentation of my website making sure that it reflects a professional layout and all of my new work has been published to the site, I know presentation does not affect my grade this year but I decided to work on it this year so when I get marked on presentation next year it will become second nature. 

 

What have I learnt?

This week of the project, I have learned about the importance of testing, pre-launch, launch and post-launch, these phases during the development cycle are all extremely important and each stage relies on the quality and completion of the previous. I now understand that a large part of game development is testing, marketing and bug patching, testing allows the game to be in tip top condition before the game goes gold and is shipped to the public. I now know that marketing is extremely important for game development because without marketing it is hard for the target audience to become aware of the game and it is even harder to build a reputation and player base. In addition, I know that bug patching is very important for keeping a consistent player base and consistent updating allows for replayability.  

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What could have been improved or gone better?

Following last week, I have improved my workflow and have prepared myself for the later research report, so I have created a list of people that I intend to contact so I am ready and I have also ensured that the contact sample is extremely larger than this time so I can have a greater chance of receiving more responses. In terms of this week, I feel that I have been consistent throughout and I do not believe there are any major concerns in terms of improvements, but one area that I feel could have been improved was how I executed my Harvard Referencing. This consistency will help me manage my time and allow me to meet the deadline smoothly and efficiently. The Harvard Referencing was hard to get my head around even though I have used it before, because I was using a wider range of sources so I had to ensure that I was using the correct format and then I had the problem of identifying what needed to be put into the in-text citation. After reading a Harvard Referencing guide my skills improved significantly and I will need to carry this over to my later work because I need to ensure that all of my references are cited correctly to avoid plagiarism. 

 

Any problems? If so, how will/have I resolve(d) them? 

I feel the only problem that I encountered this week was the Harvard Referencing. I have detailed how I intend to improve and I feel that the referencing guide will be a great tool to reflect upon when I have any concerns regarding Harvard referencing.

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My targets for next week and the remainder of the project are:

• Keep referring back to the Harvard Referencing guide to ensure that my citations are formatted correctly

• Continue my consistency throughout the project to ensure that my work flow continues at this pace, to set me in a good position by the end of the project

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Week 3:

 

What have I done?

This week, I started the Contextual Research Report and I started by filling out the planner on the Project Proposal, this allows me to keep track of my time and ensure I am on task. I also filled out a Research Planner that details what I want to research in the report and it includes possible sources that will back up the points that I am making in the report, as well as this I contacted all of my primary sources on Instagram and by Email.

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What have I learnt?

This week of the project, I have learned about an array of new mechanics that I would like to implement in my horror puzzle game, this went really well as I was able to find various sources that explained the mechanics and most of them used different techniques so I was able to contrast and compare the sources in the report, this allowed me to analyse the techniques and methods in detail and I was able to explain what techniques I would like to adopt when it comes to the experimentation and production phases. In addition to this, I researched different planning techniques. These planning techniques have helped me to understand the importance of scheduling, time management, level design and game design. These will all come in handy when I start to plan out my concept in detail because I will already know what needs to be included to ensure that the phase can be carried out efficiently and effectively.

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What could have been improved or gone better?

Just like the previous weekly journal entries state, I feel that the main area of improvement would be the primary research, although I planned the list of people that I would contact and also planned the questions that I would ask the professionals in relation to the Contextual Report, I am still having trouble receiving responses. I know that these professionals have jobs, but I have not had a single response yet and I have even expanded my research audience from the first research report 

 

Any problems? If so, how will/have I resolve(d) them? 

I feel the only problem that I encountered this week was, as previously mentioned, the primary research and how I have not received any responses as of writing this, I have still got another week to receive any responses so I will have to wait and see if this number is to change. I do not feel that if I do not receive anymore responses, this will be a big problem because I feel I have a large amount of secondary sources that are equally as useful, in addition, I am also planning on carrying out visits to real life locations to gather research, so this will fill in the gaps in terms of primary research.

 

My targets for next week and the remainder of the project are:

• Next week, I aim to finish the Contextual Research Report and also complete the Research List on the project proposal with my Bibliographies from both the reports.

• Visit my research locations to gather information for my real life section of the contextual research report.

• I also plan to finish the Contextual Research Report ensuring that it is completed at a very high quality.

• Moving forward to the rest of the project, I will ensure that I reflect back on this report so I can use the research for my experimentation. 

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Week 4:

 

What have I done?

This week, I finished the Contextual Research Report, the project proposal and the research planner. Also this week I collated all of my primary research from Instagram Direct Messages and also visited London to gather research on architecture and city layouts.

 

What have I learnt?

This week of the project, I have learned about an array of new shading techniques in pixel art that I would like to adopt in my horror puzzle game to elevate the designs of all of my assets to add depth and detail to fully enhance the realism of the environment. This went really well as I was able to compare an array of my primary sources that each explained different methods of shading and most of them also explained varying techniques so I was able to contrast and compare the sources in the report, this allowed me to analyse the shading techniques in detail and I was able to explain what shading styles I would like to adopt when it comes to the experimentation and production phases of the final major project. In addition to this, I researched different real life examples and similar narratives. These real life examples have helped me to understand the different architectural styles in cities and also how decay can occur and how it changes the look and feel of a building and the entire environment. This will all come in handy when I start to design the buildings in my horror puzzle game because I will already know what the typical architecture I need to base my buildings on and I will be able to implement decay effectively into my game setting. The similar narratives have also allowed me to learn about how the horror genre is portrayed in various different media products such as games and movies, this helped me to understand how I will interpret my genre and how I will apply it to my horror puzzle game.

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What could have been improved or gone better?

Following on from last week's reflection, I have managed to gather a large amount of primary research, I have received three responses from industry professionals and I also visited London. I have significantly improved my primary research and I feel that nothing major from this contextual research report could have been improved because I have improved upon my primary research which was a very large area that I was lacking in in my previous research report.

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Any problems? If so, how will/have I resolve(d) them? 

I feel the only problem that I encountered this week was visiting my real life locations, I was able to effectively gather a large amount of photos that would help with the design of my in-game city, however, I was unable to gather any aerial photography of the city due to time constraints. However, I will include aerial photography of New York City in my contextual research report because I have a vast amount of photos from NYC and I have recently visited the city so I have a large knowledge of the city and I can apply this to my report and compare the design of NYC to London for a more detailed report.  

 

My targets for next week and the remainder of the project are:

• Next week, I aim to start my planning and preparation work to prepare me for the production of my horror puzzle game.

• Moving forward to the rest of the project, I will ensure that I reflect back on this report so I can use the research for my experimentation, planning and production stages.

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Week 5:

 

What have I done?

This week, I started working on the Planning and Pre-Production stages, which consists of the project proposal concept box, planning experimentation, planning documents and the pitch presentation. The main focus of this week was starting to carry out my planning experimentation and finish my project proposal.

 

What have I learnt?

This week of the project, I have learned about an array of new planning documents that I will need to create and utilise in my planning and pre-production stage of this project, these planning documents have been extremely important in allowing me to fully plan out my concept to ensure that I have a great understanding of all of the mechanics, levels and features that I will need to develop and design in Construct 3. The planning experimentation went really well and I was able to experiment with the planning methods that I researched and analysed in my two research reports, this allowed me to understand the different variations of the planning techniques such as time management and mechanic planning, and allowed me to create an understanding of the methods and helped aid my decision making when it came to what planning methods I wanted to adopt. All of this planning will come in handy when I move into the later stages of my project such as production as I will be able to reflect back on these documents helping me to stick to my planned features and will ultimately allow me to effectively use and schedule my time when developing Streets of Shadows.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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What could have been improved or gone better?

I feel the only area in this first week of work that I feel could have been improved and altered to run more smoothly and that was, when I was creating my Gantt chart I felt that the chart was lacking in areas such as the stages I need to carry out felt as if they were not broken down enough. By this I mean that I did not specify in my experimentation section what features I intend to experiment with resulting in just one block. I feel if I was to break this down into all of the different mechanics then I would be able to plan my time more effectively. So, over the course of the project I need to update and improve my scheduling documents so I can efficiently use my time.

 

Any problems? If so, how will/have I resolve(d) them? 

I feel the only problem that I encountered this week was, as mentioned above, my time scheduling documents, although I was able to effectively manage my time on these documents a large amount of detail that would help with my time management was lacking on my Gantt chart. This lack in detail may affect my time management and scheduling going forward, so I need to resolve this lack of detail on my time scheduling documents breaking down all of the stages of the development cycle to give a more accurate time frame that I can work to.

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My targets for next week and the remainder of the project are:

• Next week, I aim to finish my planning documents to prepare me for the production of my horror themed, survival puzzle game. This will ensure that I have a strong lead on the tasks that I need to complete on my critical path to develop a polished final outcome.

• Moving forward to the rest of the project, I will ensure that I reflect back on my planning documents, continuously updating my scheduling documents, so I can utilise my time effectively and stick to the mechanics and features that I have planned in this stage.

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Week 6:

 

What have I done?

This week, I finished working on the Planning and Pre-Production stages. My main focus this week was completing all of the remaining documents that I still had left from last week, this included my Pitch Presentation recording and all of the planning documents such as Game Design Document and Story Bible.

 

What have I learnt?

This week of the project, I have learned about how to put my research into action and apply it to my planning documents, by this I mean that I was able to utilise my knowledge that I have built up over the course of my college time and apply it to the planning stages of this project. I felt that the creation of my planning documents went smoothly and without fault, this is because I was able to understand what each document entailed and also how to effectively use the documents so that I can reflect back upon them during the course of experimentation and production. In addition, I feel that the creation of these documents will be vital to the progression and outcome of my project as the final outcome is only as good as the planning and effort put in, so if I am to achieve a high grade then I must stick 100% to this project and that is what I have done. This week, I also recorded a YouTube video of me talking through my Pitch Presentation. This Pitch Presentation was extremely useful as it helped me to detail how my concept has evolved from my initial presentation and ideas. This was also a great opportunity to put my previous feedback from my weekly journal into effect, as I previously stated that I felt nervous and very under planned going into the Initial Presentation and I feel that my confidence and planning had significantly improved this time around. This goes to show that planning and reflecting back upon my weekly journal entries helped me to improve this time. Going back from last weeks “What could have been improved”, I have now revised my Gantt Chart and updated all of the tasks and steps within the development process to create a more revised and streamlined schedule.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What could have been improved or gone better?

This week, I feel that my working standard has improved and I feel that this week's work has run very smoothly. So I feel that there are no large areas of improvement that stood out to me. But there is always room for improvement so my working ethic will continue to be applied to all of my work, not that it had not been previously.

 

Any problems? If so, how will/have I resolve(d) them? 

I feel that no problems arose this week and I think that no problems should arise going forward into the project due to my extensive planning, research and also experimentation which will be carried out next week. Going from this, I feel the only problems that may arise over the coming weeks will mostly revolve around elements within Construct 3 and my game development.

 

My targets for next week and the remainder of the project are:

• Next week, I aim to start my practical experimentation to prepare me for the production of Streets of Shadows. This will significantly help me to resolve any issues with the game mechanics before I set out to develop my final game.

• Moving forward, over the course of the remaining time on the FMP, I will ensure that I reflect back on my planning documents, continuously updating my scheduling documents, so I can utilise my time effectively and stick to the mechanics and features that I have planned in this stage.

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Week 7:

 

What have I done?

This week, I formally started the experimentation and production stage of my Final Major Project. I started this week by experimenting with three of the practical methods that I researched in my contextual research report. The three I experimented with were Inventory systems, Lighting effects and water reflections and effects. In addition, I started to move onto developing my Alpha build of my final game.

 

What have I learnt?

This week of the project, I have learned about a variety of different methods to implement each of the practical methods that I experimented with, this allowed me to reflect upon each technique and decide what method I would like to utilise when it comes to my final game. Also, I started the Alpha build which came with its ups and downs however I have learnt that I should not give up on a feature or mechanic that is not functioning as intended as I encountered a large amount of setbacks in terms of applying different animations to the character and ensuring that they trigger when required. In the end I managed to fix the issue and my animations are now functioning. 

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What could have been improved or gone better?

I believe the key area that I feel could have been improved upon was the implementation of my animations. As I mentioned before I struggled with triggering the correct animation at the required time, for example the character would go into idle mode even though I was using my keyboard to move the character about, I managed to fix this issue by using a set of functions that each include different parameters as to when an animation should be chosen and played. This allowed me to streamline the process of triggering animations and will help me in the future when I move into adding the rest of the mechanics to the game such as combat and object interactions. Another area that I feel could have gone smoother would be the design of my UI system, although I am in the Alpha build at the moment and have several build version to go before final hand in, I believe that my UI design could be significantly improved in terms of aesthetics and player feedback so I will have to look into this once I add in the main functionality to the game.

 

Any problems? If so, how will/have I resolve(d) them? 

I feel the only problem that I encountered this week was in regards to my experimentation, more specifically my Inventory System. One method of my experimentation was to implement a complicated inventory system that worked on comparing and updating locally stored files, this method was extremely code intensive and took too much of my time to implement into Construct 3, I felt that the second more streamlined method would be more beneficial for my project because it has all of the required functionalities that I need.

 

My targets for next week and the remainder of the project are:

• Ensure that I continue to update and reflect upon my planning documents for a smoother development

• Finish building my Alpha build by implementing the mechanics needed and testing their functionality

• Conduct a playtest session after finishing Alpha build so I can get feedback and improve going into Beta Build

• Update and improve the design of my UI systems.

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Week 8:

 

What have I done?

This week, I continued working towards my final outcome. I started this week by implementing a few interactive elements into my puzzles, this started as my researched inventory system and then expanded to my planned features such as keypads and collectable keys. After implementing these elements I moved onto working on other features such as lighting effects and also finishing the alpha build of my first puzzle, then moving onto starting my second puzzle and adding dialogue to introduce my planned rival character Loki from my story bible.

 

What have I learnt?

This week of the project, I have not learnt any new techniques or methods in Construct 3 however, I have managed to expand and test my knowledge in terms of game development because I have faced a lot of challenges and setbacks throughout the implementation of mechanics into my game and so I guess the most important thing that I have learnt is to never give up, persevere and be resilient as I managed to overcome the challenges and setbacks thanks to looking at the issue and working out ways to resolve the bug from occurring.

 

What could have been improved or gone better?

There are many areas that I felt could be improved and a lot of these are stated and expanded upon in my weekly dev log videos. However, the main two areas that could be improved upon would be integration of dialogue text and also the integration of the lighting effects that I experimented and researched with. When looking at the dialogue text, I feel that although the dialogue now works as intended I encountered a large amount of problems and bugs for example the dialogue would not trigger at the correct time resulting in the game freezing and the character being unable to move. Another issue that I encountered was that the dialogue would not appear on screen when the player clicked immediately on the play button, this resulted in the text being unable to render correctly and then suddenly disappearing. As I said, the dialogue text now works, but I feel that if I was to experiment and research into this feature beforehand I think that the execution of the dialogue text could have run smoother. The second area that I felt could have gone better was the integration of my lighting effects, because I had already experimented with this effect I thought that the execution would have been easy however after trying to add these effects I found that the lighting effects did not give off the same effect as the experiment did. I quickly resolved this issue by reflecting back upon my experimentation and research report and found that I had selected the wrong effect for the lighting sprite. 

 

Any problems? If so, how will/have I resolve(d) them? 

I feel the only problems that I encountered this week was in regards to my development and implementation of my mechanics and features, more specifically my Pause Menu and object collisions. One problem that I encountered when implementing my pause menu into the main game was that the menu was not rendering when the player clicked on the pause button, this later was found to be a very easy fix and I feel that this should have been something that I should have picked up on. The issue was that the menu was not visible within the viewport on the Construct 3 layout, after moving the menu to the viewport the button then functioned as intended. This was not a very big problem but I managed to resolve it and tick it off of my asset list. The second problem that I encountered was in regard to my collision polygons and how they hit the doors within my levels. As the player progresses through the first level they must pick up a lock-pick to be able to unlock the exit door, however when they use the lock-pick, unlock the door and walk through it the character continued to be controllable even though I added a line of code saying that the controls for the player should be ignored once they walk through the door. After reviewing the code and testing many methods of resolving the issue I finally found a fix to the bug and that was to implement a dialogue after colliding with the door, this way the player would not be able to move as when the dialogue is playing a function is called to override the ability to control the player.

 

My targets for next week and the remainder of the project are:

• Ensure that I continue to update and reflect upon my planning documents for a smoother development

• Finish building my Alpha build by implementing the mechanics needed and testing their functionality

• Finish the functionality of my second puzzle and move onto my third puzzle

• Update and improve the design of my UI systems

• Carry out extended research and experimentation into pixel art techniques

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Week 9:

 

What have I done?

This week, I continued working towards my final outcome. I focused this week on completing my Alpha build ready for the playtest session ahead of next week. I finished all functionality throughout all aspects of the game and tested each level to ensure that minimal bugs were present.

 

What have I learnt?

This week of the project, I have not learnt any new techniques or methods in Construct 3 however, I have managed to expand and test my knowledge in terms of game development because I have faced a lot of challenges throughout the implementation of new features and mechanics into my game for example new weapon types, dialogue boxes and also interactive sequence puzzles.

 

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What could have been improved or gone better?

There are many areas that I felt could be improved and a lot of these are stated and expanded upon in my weekly dev log videos. I believe that no key area of improvement stood out to me this week and that is mostly due to the fact that I have been working on this outcome for three weeks now and I have been able to reflect back upon my development and apply my knowledge and setbacks to the further development at this stage.

 

Any problems? If so, how will/have I resolve(d) them? 

As I have stated above I found no major problems this week as I have been able to learn from my previous mistakes and improve upon them. So no problems impacted my development significantly this week.

 

My targets for next week and the remainder of the project are:

• Ensure that I continue to update and reflect upon my planning documents for a smooth development process

• Finish designing and implementing my pixel art into my game

• Record, find and implement all audio into my game

• Update and improve the design of my UI systems

• Complete my extended research into shading, dithering and hue shifting over the weekend

• Carry out a playtest session and gather feedback to apply to the improvement of my game.

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Week 10:

 

What have I done?

This week, I carried out a playtest session to gather feedback about my game and how I can go about improving my outcome. I also finished the production stage of my development and created my final outcome. In addition I carried out extended research into pixel art shading and dithering to help with my pixel art designs.

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What have I learnt?

This week of the project, I have not learnt any new techniques or methods in Construct 3 however, I have managed to expand and test my knowledge in terms of pixel art because I have faced a lot of challenges throughout the design process of creating my art assets.

 

What could have been improved or gone better?

There are many areas that I felt could be improved and a lot of these are stated and expanded upon in my weekly dev log. I believe that no key area of improvement stood out to me this week and that is mostly due to the fact that I have been working on this outcome for four weeks now and I have been able to reflect back upon my development and apply my knowledge and setbacks to the further development at this stage and also the feedback from the playtest helped me to improve my game and find and fix any bugs.

 

Any problems? If so, how will/have I resolve(d) them? 

As I have stated above I found no major problems this week as I have been able to learn from my previous mistakes and improve upon them. So no problems impacted my development significantly this week.

 

My targets for next week and the remainder of the project are:

• Create a post-mortem

• Update my Gantt chart

• Create a final evaluation

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Week 11:

 

What have I done?
This week, I finished the final week of my final major project. I carried out a second peer review session to gather final feedback on my website and game. I then applied the feedback to both my game and website and then carried out a final evaluation or post mortem that looked at all the stages of my project so I could reflect back upon my progress, and see what I could change in the future when it comes to my next year of college.

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What have I learnt?
This week of the project, I have not learnt any new techniques or methods, however, I have learnt some key things that I would like to take on board going forward into my second year and that is I want to apply all of my learning throughout the whole FMP and apply it to my work next year to further excel my work and work ethic. In addition to this, I now have a better understanding of how to create a post mortem thanks to my previous research and also my written work this week and I would like to apply my learning next year when it comes to creating documents such as this.

 

What could have been improved or gone better?
As this was one of the calmer weeks of the project in terms of workload I do not feel that anything major could have been improved upon, both my peer reviews / playtests ran smoothly and also I was very confident in writing my final evaluation. Any major improvements that I could have made throughout this project can be seen on my final evaluation, however no major improvements could have been made this week.

 

Any problems? If so, how will/have I resolve(d) them? 
As I have stated above I found no major problems this week, so no problems impacted my workflow significantly this week.

 

My targets for my second year of this course are:

• Reflect back upon all my journals and learn from my mistakes for a smoother second year

• Ensure to make all improvements to my work that I stated throughout the various stages of this FMP

• Always experiment with new methods and techniques before trying to implement them for a smoother implementation