Introduction:

 

Going into the early stages of this Final Major Project, I began the project by theorising potential outcomes and ideas that all varied in themes, genres and content, I went into the project with an open mind of the outcomes that I could have developed into fruition. However, after carrying out several idea generation sessions and also due diligence into the complexity and feasibility of each idea, I finally came to the decision of carrying forward with a first person, horror experience set within an abandoned mall, in which the player would explore the mall, defeat zombies and escape safely. I finally settled on this idea because my main goal going into this project was to develop a 3D game in Unreal Engine 5 that tested and improved upon both my programming and game design skills, I feel that these goals have been met with my final outcome because as you can see I have been able to learn new skills and mechanics, through independently identified thorough and sustained research and also a professional in-depth understanding of the flexible processes needed in order to execute a feature or mechanic.

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In addition to the points above, I chose this outcome as my main focus over the others planned because I felt that in order to improve upon both programming and game design skills I would need to choose a concept that relied heavily on both, and so I chose this outcome idea because I felt that this concept would require a balance of both areas of focus. Furthermore, in order to improve as a game designer I would need to choose a complex concept that was achievable yet extremely ambitious, this project concept was a perfect fit for this criteria as the project was ambitious, this would be the first large scale game that I would develop and program independently with the main focus of developing my skills. In addition to this, the project was extremely ambitious as I had used and implemented new mechanics and features that I had no prior knowledge of, also, I used extensive research to analyse and experiment with varying techniques and methods that have ultimately improved my overall knowledge of game design and programming, but has also helped to stretch the complexity of my project outcome.
 

 

 

Context:
 

The first opening stages of this Final Major Project focused solely on Context and the initial planning of the project, such as SWOT analysis and idea generation. To start off the Context stage of the project, I began by carrying out two detailed SWOT analysis’s, one focusing on my professional strengths and weaknesses and the other on my personal, these analysis documents were vital at highlighting my strengths and weaknesses going into the project, so that I could reflect back upon my practices in order to improve and evolve on both a personal and professional level. The two SWOT analysis documents were also extremely useful in constructing the perfect outcome concept, in my SWOT’s I identified that I had strengths in Game Design and also programming whilst a weakness of mine lay within 3D Art modelling and also texturing.

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As you can see from the attached image references of my SWOT analysis, I identified these areas as my strengths and weaknesses, from this, when I carried out independent idea generation, I constructed three ideas purely based upon my strengths, and this was because I felt that in order to improve and achieve an appropriate grade I must work on my strengths instead of stepping into the complete unknown and risk a failing project. I believe that I chose appropriately when it came to my final outcome as you can see that my settled idea relied heavily on both Game design and programming, my main areas of strength, whilst only needing a small amount of my weaknesses in art and texturing.

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However, choosing this idea would also open the opportunity to work upon my weaknesses, as you can see in my final outcome, I have used a mix of free assets as well as my own modelled and textured assets, I worked off of my SWOT analysis and tried to improve upon my weak areas, so I believe that identifying my weaknesses also helped me to improve upon them as I was able to model and texture a few assets in the game independently. In addition to this, the SWOT analysis reports were also extremely useful when it came to identifying threats or problems that could have risen during the course of the project, this enabled me to plan ahead and create a pre-mortem that ultimately helped me to plan out solutions to theoretical problems. 

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The pre-mortem and contingency plan came into its own when I ran into any issues as most of the time I had already planned for the issue and also the solution, for example I identified that the Wi-FI going down could have been a potential problem, this in fact did occur and luckily because of my contingency plan I was able to continue working on a device that did not require the internet and also ensured that all of my Google Documents were set to offline working, so that they were editable without the need for an internet connection. Without my contingency plan and also pre-mortem I would not have had a smooth transition from online to offline working, so I believe that my planning in the Context phase had helped me to overcome issues in both development and also problem solving before they even became an issue.

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In conclusion, my SWOT analysis and pre-mortem has helped me to overcome issues that have risen during development and analysis also allowed me to identify that I could have had an array of different threats that could have negatively impacted my project deeply, but by identifying the threats early I was able to come up with a plan in my pre-mortem to complete as much planning and research as possible to ensure that all issues were ironed out before they even arose during development. In addition, I was able to reflect back upon both my SWOT and Pre-mortem in my later stages and consistently throughout my project in order to ensure that the identified threats did not arise, thanks to my extensive preparation and research work, I was able to continue on with the project relatively problem free, except for some minor issues arising that did not deeply affect my workflow or outcome.

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After completing an extensive SWOT analysis and pre-mortem, I then went on to start developing ideas in the form of idea generation. Reflecting back upon this stage, I feel like this was extremely key to the success of this project as my SWOT analysis had allowed me to identify my strengths and weaknesses, which now helped me to construct an appropriate idea / concept for my outcome, so the importance of carrying out a detailed SWOT and Pre-mortem shone through when brainstorming ideas. These stages of idea generation were extremely important at aiding my development process because without the idea generation I would not have been able to come to a conclusion on the format of my outcome I wanted to develop, for example, a digital game, analogue game or 3D art showcase, but thanks to the extensive idea generation carried out I was able to settle on my idea and work off from my initial idea to create my final outcome that I have presented on my website.

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Reflecting back on the idea generation, I feel that my idea generation had improved leaps and bounds over last year's attempt, as I had now included a range of inspiration pieces as well as mechanics in my idea generation for each idea. But, I still feel as if some ideas that I generated are lacking in content, for example most of the ideas do not include references to character designs, colour palettes and also practical examples of mechanics. This negatively impacted my work because I feel that if I were to carry out higher detailed idea generation then I would have had more detail to base my concept off of going into the later stages of the project. I feel that I could have improved the level of detail in my idea generation just to simply ease the pressure going into the later stages leading to a smoother workflow and reduced need for extended research and experimentation. So going forward, I will ensure that I carry out further idea generation to help reduce the amount of extra planning in later stages of the project and to also ensure that a final idea is chosen earlier on in pre-production, to increase the time spent on development of the chosen concept.

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The next sub-tasks that formed the overall Context phase were creating a Research Source plan and analysing industry website designs, the first task was to identify potential research sources both primary and secondary that I could apply later in research in order to gather references and also research pieces that could inform my work practice or outcome development. I began with identifying secondary sources such as books, videos, journals and websites, this ultimately helped me to reduce the stress when it came to actually carrying out the research, as I had already identified potential sources that were linked to my outcome but were not content specific. Overall, reflecting back upon this potential sources plan, I feel that although it helped somewhat with my next task of creating a contextual research plan, the sources identified were in no way linked to my outcome idea, so if I was to carry out this task again I would try to focus the sources more on the idea concept themes and genre instead of searching for generic sources. In addition to this, following last year's disappointment around primary sources, the plan this year of finding the primary sources before research went extremely well, as you can see I also found several primary sources contact information before the written contextual report, this helped me to contact these sources early in order to guarantee a response. If I were to carry out another plan into my sources or more specifically my primary sources I would most definitely continue this format, because it provided me with results unlike last year.

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Looking at my research into industry website design and also outlets and interactive platforms, this research in my eyes was key to improving the overall design and technology used on my Wix site as I was able to analyse professional gaming websites surrounding my theme of horror and reflect how I could apply this design knowledge to my site. As stated I learnt new ways of ensuring consistency and pushing my theme further by targeting the correct audience and ensuring that my site was using wix to the fullest. As you can see in my final website I have taken inspiration from my researched websites, for example, I have decided to follow a consistent design and colour scheme across my site similar to that of the professional designs that I analysed. In addition to this, I have also used buttons and interactive video players in my Wix site, this is something that I picked up on in my analysis, so I ultimately included this on my design as well, to show how I can use Wix creatively and to the fullest. In conclusion, I believe that this analysis was key to ensuring that my design matched and reflected the themes and genre of my outcome because as you can see from my playtest and website review people believe that my site matches the theme of my game perfectly so this analysis paid off.

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Reflecting upon my research into interactive platforms and ways of using these platforms paired with festivals and outlets as potential promotion sources for my outcome, I believe that this research has been helpful in getting me prepared for later personal projects or when I move into industry. This is because I did not use any of this in my FMP, as I only worked on creating a private graded piece, but later in my career I will need to use this information to know how to promote and publish my game to my audience and I believe that this research has been vital at giving me the required understanding of how to do so, so that in future I already have the basic knowledge to advertise and publish my games. As you can see in my project, I did utilise some of this knowledge, for example I used YouTube to record and upload my Dev logs and development of my game and also used social media to contact my primary sources.

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Looking at the final step in the context stage that ended this phase of working, the process research report looked at the areas of the development process and how each stage is carried out in a professional environment. Reflecting back upon the Process research reports I feel that both the video report and written report were created in immense detail because I considered many processes throughout the development cycle, looked and compared these processes and came up with an educated decision on what processes would be relevant to my work role as a game designer and programmer going into the later stages of the project. Furthermore, my primary research helped me greatly to be able to interpret and construct first hand knowledge of the industry and its work practices, and I then managed to weave these practices into my workflow going into the project. 

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In addition, I feel that the reports were my first look into the professional workings of industry and how I could utilise these practices in order to inform my workflow in the FMP, although I have looked into the basic workings of industry I believe that these two reports gave me a more detailed overview of the whole process. Reflecting on areas of improvement, I feel that one area that stood out to me as needing improvement was my primary research. I feel this way about my primary research because although I managed to gather a larger array of sources than previous projects, I still feel that I could have benefited from more primary knowledge as this would have helped me to compare working practices and allowed me to adopt and experiment with a larger source of working methodologies. Going forward into my next level of study, I need to significantly look into contacting my primary sources earlier than previously carried out, because although I gave them a week before my report deadline, I was still waiting for a few more responses days before the deadline. On the other hand, I was able to produce a large understanding of the areas that I researched into and going from both the video report and written report I had a greater understanding of the development cycle and the processes carried out in my work area, and this significantly helped my development process throughout this FMP because I was able to follow the guidelines in the reports to give me the knowledge needed to carry out each stage successfully and professionally. This ultimately relieved confusion and aided a smoother workflow in the projects’ development cycle.

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In conclusion, overall the Context stage was an extremely beneficial and key stage of the project that helped me to be able to run a smoother research and development process. Expanding from this, I believe that upon self reflection of the Context stage I would grade my work practices at a Distinction level because I showed that I have a comprehensive understanding of subject context and from this I was able to articulate ambitious judgments whilst also clarifying purpose for each judgement.
 

Research:

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Progressing into the research stage of this FMP I carried out a detailed plan into the techniques I wanted to research and experiment with, and also the sources that I would use to accompany the researched techniques that I would use to learn the new techniques and methods. I also completed a contextual research report that looked at various techniques both practical and digital that I wanted to apply to my outcome through the experimentation stage. 

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Reflecting back upon my contextual research planner, I feel that the creation of this document had key significance in helping the smooth execution of my research report because I had planned out all of the techniques that I wanted to look into ranging from planning techniques to Unreal Engine 5 techniques and mechanics. I believe that I created this planner with such detail that helped to reduce the confusion and workload going into the writing of the research report itself, because I had a brief idea of the techniques that I intended to research further into, as well as the sources stored in one place for easy access and reference when writing my report. By carrying out a plan into my sources I was able to spend more time on writing my report and analysing the techniques in detail instead of having to spend more time searching for relevant sources and information, going forward I will ensure that I always follow this method of working because as you can see I had more time to construct my report because the sources and research areas had already been gathered prior to the report, this made the research report feel less rushed and more thought out, this led to a smoother development and experimentation process as I was able to use the detailed findings to the fullest potential, so this planner not only helped me to construct a detailed report but also helped to ensure that my experimentation was carried out professionally.

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When it comes to finding improvements and applying improvements in future work, I feel that there were multiple areas that could have been improved in this research planner, for example later into the development of my interactive outcome I had to carry out extended research and experimentation into multiple mechanics in Unreal Engine 5 such as Melee Combat and also a Key and Door lock feature, in order to improve my research I would in the future expand my research to include all the mechanics and features of the game that needed to be experimented with in order to reduce the risk of this problem occurring again, however, thanks to this mistake I can now show that I have evolved my project and have been consistently researching and experimenting with new techniques, which is needed for a higher working student such as myself.

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Moving onto the Contextual Report itself, my initial research into potential research sources and also my contextual research source planner significantly improved the workflow and structure going into this report. This was due to the fact that my planner broke down each research area into clear sections paired with the required sources needed to gain the appropriate knowledge for each area, this ultimately relieved stress and wasted time going into the written section of this report. Overall, the contextual research report was in my eyes the most detailed research report that I have carried out over the entire two years on this course and this is mainly because I was able to independently identify, thorough and sustained research and carry out extensive investigation into a range of relevant sources that I used to create insightful interpretations on the varying methods that would help me in the development of my outcome. I was able to support and develop my ideas, and this significantly allowed me to produce concise, high quality research that would then go on to support and inform my experimentation. 

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My contextual research report was created in such a detailed manner thanks to my previous planning in my planner and also context stage, as well as my primary sources. All of this planning and extensive primary research helped me to go onto produce supported decisions that would help aid my workflow going into the experimentation and development phase. Upon reflection, I feel that this report into my planning and practical experimentation techniques was key to the success of both my development and also experimentation, and if I was to improve any area in this report, I would only improve the previous planning to reflect all of the techniques that I wanted to research into instead of using extended research later in the project.

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In conclusion, I do not feel that any improvements could have been made in the research report itself because as I have said I found that all of my previous work in context and also the planner helped me to produce such a detailed report. Moving Into my next phase of education, I will continue to reflect upon my previous work practices in order to improve and evolve my techniques and work practices, to ensure that I am always improving both professionally and personally. Reflecting on the research stage I would grade myself at a distinction level because I was able to create thorough and sustained research that I independently crafted and also I was able to investigate an extensive catalogue of relevant sources in order to construct insightful interpretations.
 

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Planning:

 

Reflecting upon the planning stages of this project, I believe that I was able to produce a large and professional array of planning documents, as well as reflecting industry used documents such as a Game Design Document and also Story Bible, my detailed research and experimentation into the vast range of planning documents that I created as well as my prior knowledge helped me greatly when it came to developing the planning required for my project. Without my planning experimentation and research, my planning documents would not have been as detailed as they are now, for example I have been able to successfully update and evolve both my Gantt Chart and Level Blueprint thanks to my experimentation into how to correctly and professionally use each document.

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Looking into the creation of my planning documents, I was able to produce a wide variety of documents that ultimately helped in their own ways when it developing my game outcome, as you can see I created a large range of planning, I created: Pitch Documents, Asset List, Sound Plan, level blueprints, character concepts, storyboard, moodboard, Gantt Chart, Test Plan, GDD and Story Bible. Each of these documents came into their own during development, for example the asset list and sound plan was paramount to the tracking of the assets that I had yet to model or source from my online marketplace, without these two documents I would not have been able to successfully track what assets or sounds I still needed to find or record. This paired with my Gantt chart that I researched into experimentation was key at allowing me to view the project timeline as a whole and continue to update my progress on each stage of the project, to successfully plan and track my progress as a whole to continue to meet deadlines and milestones in the project.

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In addition to this, my continued updates to planning documents such as the level blueprints and also the Story Bible / GDD allowed me to be able to keep on track with the current layout or story structure of the project. Being able to easily see the updated map or story progression in my GDD or Blueprints also helped greatly to create a detailed outcome that met my projected targets and brief that was set out in this planning stage. In future, I will continue to update and reflect back upon planning documents in order to keep up the evolution of my projects and to also show that I am working at a higher level. The creation of these planning documents had helped me to build a good starter base for my project outcome and thus greatly benefited my workflow moving into development and production, because I had planned almost every aspect of my outcome ranging from story structure, level structure and also the mechanics in the gameplay.

 

Looking into the most used document over the course of the project, this document greatly helped to plan and manage my time over each stage of the project and this was of course the Gantt Chart, this Gantt Chart I had used continuously throughout the project and it allowed me to track every small detail of the project progression. The chart was significant in aiding me to keep on track and I feel that without this chart I would not have been able to understand and keep up with the tasks that I had to complete or had previously completed. Going forward into my career and University, I will continue to create such scheduling documents in order for me to keep track of my development and also help me in the later stages of the project when the development load of the project increases.

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However, I feel that many areas in the planning stage could have been improved, for example I feel that I could have continued to adopt and update my storyboard as my project unfolded instead of leaving it in my experimentation phase, if I were to keep the storyboard as my secondary story planning after the story bible, I could have had a clearer look on the story of the game. This would have most likely solved the issue of the dialogue system, some playtesters said that they could not clearly see the story in my very early playtest, so if I had planned this dialogue system I would not have had the issue with the story not being clear. In conclusion, when it comes to planning my next projects in further education, I will need to ensure that I utilise industry standard planning in order to ensure professionalism. When looking at the UAL grading matrix, I have highlighted the key areas in the distinction category that I have met. I believe that I was successful in creating Detailed and coherent self directed planning and negotiation. So I would grade my planning stage at a distinction grade level.
 

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Experimentation:
 

Focusing first on my planning experimentation, I feel that this experimentation allowed me to significantly improve upon the detail in my planning documents because I was able to experiment with the researched documents and see how I could utilise them correctly and professionally when it came to planning. This helped to iron out any kinks in my planning documents before making the final versions and applying them to my workflow. My experimentation into scheduling documents had significantly improved my work standard and time management in the project and I am grateful that I experimented with this technique to fully understand the content and potential of the planning document, so that I was able to use it to the fullest extent when it came to the planning stage.
 
Looking back, I feel that this experimentation into planning techniques could have been expanded more because I only looked into two different methods of planning, scheduling and storyboarding, if I were to expand this even more in my research phase I would have been able to experiment with a wider range of techniques such as professional Game Design Documents or even Story Bibles. In addition to this, I did not experiment with different methodologies, by experimenting with different methodologies I would have been able to gather more information on different workflows that could have significantly improved the development of my work, so next the time that I carry out experimentation such as this I will ensure that look into a wider range of planning documents to set me up with a better understanding moving forward to the creation of said documents and also the application of the documents to my final outcome.

 

Moving into my practical experimentation and extended research / experimentation, I feel that I was able to produce a large amount of detailed and relevant experimentation that was independently identified and justified for my project outcome. The smoothness of my experimentation was aided significantly by my previous contextual research reports and thanks to my detail in these reports I was able to produce very high quality levels of experimentation for my outcome piece. I believe that the practical experimentation that I carried out covered all of the relevant areas that I wanted to use in my final outcome and thanks to this extensive research and experimentation I was able to create a well polished final outcome. Furthermore, without this key stage of practical experimentation I would not be in the position that I am today and that is having a completed and exported project that is able to run through an application file on any Windows PC, you can clearly see that my project has been created and developed at an extremely high standard of work. 

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In addition, I feel that my extended research into melee, door and lock systems and also how to package my Unreal Engine 5 project were greatly needed to improve not only the workflow of the project but also the quality of the gameplay in the outcome, this extended experimentation allowed me to gather further knowledge that ultimately helped me to improve not only my outcome but also my knowledge as a game design student. When focusing on targets and areas of improvement, I feel that one key area stands out to me, and this is my extended research. As I have said before, if I had improved my research plan and report I would have been able to experiment with every feature that I needed to, however, as I did not do this, I had to carry out extended research which negatively impacted my time schedule in development. In later projects, I will ensure that I carry out all research and experimentation prior to development to ensure that I can compare techniques and also reduce the amount of wasted time taken from development.

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Outcomes: 

 

Finally, moving onto the important outcome stage of my practical skills section of my final major project, I was able to independently and professionally apply all of my prior and newly researched knowledge and understanding to my final outcome, and overall I was able to plan, design and develop a high quality and detailed final outcome that met my expectations that I set out at the start of the FMP and also meet the target audience that I intended too. Throughout the development of the final outcome I faced many challenges and most notably the larger challenges and problems I faced in-engine were down to lack of experimentation for mechanics that I forgot to include in my contextual research report and experimentation. For example, looking back upon my weekly dev logs,I faced an issue where I did not experiment or research Melee combat, as this was a main area of the game I do not know how I forgot it, and so I had to carry out extended experimentation and research into this mechanic that took time off of actual game development time, so my research had positively helped me for the experimentation and outcome but a more detailed version of my plan would have been more beneficial for the smoothness of development. 

 

Moving onto evaluating my final outcome and final version of my game, thanks to multiple feedback and peer reviews sessions I was able to evolve and improve upon my final outcome to the point that it is presented today, however, I will reflect upon these changes later, so instead I will focus on my personal attitude and performance in the development of this outcome. Throughout the production of this outcome, I ensured that the development cycle ran as smoothly as possible by making use of all of my knowledge, understanding and planning and experimentation. Overall, I am pleased with my performance throughout the development of this outcome because I was able to consistently work to a high standard and also I was able to stretch my knowledge by including extra unplanned mechanics in my game such as dialogue boxes. 

 

I am extremely pleased with the outcome of this final major project outcome because I was able to plan and develop a functioning first-person, horror, puzzle-like game to a level of detail and complexity that I have not previously completed or worked on before. This was only made possible thanks to my independent prior stages of planning, experimentation and also research, without this I would not have been able to successfully carry out this project to a very high standard. Furthermore, I am very happy with the overall design, layout and playability to my game because I believe that I have been able to capture the essence of the environment of an abandoned mall that is infested with zombies perfectly and on par with that planned in my previous planning in pre-production, so my research, experimentation and prior knowledge had significantly helped me to produce this immersive environment. In addition to this, my research into planning techniques and also the processes involved in development had also positively impacted the quality of my outcome because if I was not following the processes identified in my primary research as closely as I was, I would not have been able to understand what would have been needed in the next stages of development. All the stages throughout the project had been in there own way helpful and positively impactful to the development of my project and I do not believe that I would not have been able to produce this outcome if it was not for context, research, experimentation, playtest sessions, problem solving and most importantly my strong work ethic and understanding of the industry development cycle. 

 

However, if I was to highlight any improvements I would say that if I was to complete the development of my outcome again I would add more horror elements to my game such as blood and gore. I have highlighted this as an area of improvement because I feel that although the horror element is present it can be heavily amplified by the use of gore and blood splatter, something that I identified in my early research into similar narratives. In addition to this, I feel that the puzzles in the game are very repetitive and get boring after a while, so I would definitely look into more interactive ways of implementing these puzzles such as interactive gauges, switches or wheels instead of a simple door and key method.

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Post Mortem:

 

At the very beginning of this FMP I carried out a Pre Mortem, looking into all of the potential issues that could have risen during the course of the project and thanks to my prior planning and contingency planning I was able to overcome these issues swiftly and successfully. Below I will detail a few of the issues that I encountered, how I planned on overcoming them, how I achieved overcoming them and finally how I will take the knowledge on board in future to ensure that the problem does not arise again. 

 

During the first week of the project I ran into two major issues, one of which I thankfully planned for in my pre-mortem, these two issues were that my home Wi-Fi went down impacting my ability to work from home and secondly the college blocking a pdf viewer tool on Wix. As mentioned I planned the solution for the Wi-Fi issue previously and in the moment I planned to overcome the issue by restarting my router, however, this resulted in change, so I then moved onto my fallback plan which was to utilise the offline working tools in Google Documents and use mobile data on mobile devices, this is how I overcame the issue of my Wi-Fi being down. From this I have learnt that in the future I need to stick to my contingency plan and ensure that all of my work is backed up and ready for offline editing in Google Drive, this way I will be able to continue working on my project with no internet, like what I did in my first week. The second issue however, I had not planned a resolution for, I planned initially to contact college IT support however, to no avail the problem still occurred, so my plan did not work. Instead I overcame the issue by utilising a newer form of distributing these pdf documents in the form of buttons, these buttons did not allow for the interactive view that the blocked platform did but the PDF’s were still visible. In the future, to ensure that I do not encounter this issue again I will ensure that I stick to this button method and also search for a new interactive software that will allow for the interactivity of the blocked platform.

 

A recurring issue throughout the earlier weeks of the project were my health concerns around my abdominal pains. I missed a few days of college and was worried that I would fall behind the time schedules and deadlines set out. However, in my pre mortem I set out a plan to combat this exact problem, so I stuck to this plan and decided to work on days that I felt physically able to, in the end I was able to complete the work required and still met the deadline for each section work, so this shows that my plan had worked correctly. In future I will stick to this contingency plan and issue that I am able to work on days that I feel able to. Sticking to the same area of problems that I encountered, in my final week of the project I encountered a similar issue, this was that I had an early dentist appointment that would mean I would miss an hour of college. I planned to overcome the issue by making up the lost time on my days off before the appointment on the Wednesday (a day that I do not attend College), I overcame this issue by doing exactly as stated, I worked my lost time as well as some extra hours on the Wednesday in order to recuperate the lost time. In future I will yet again stick to a similar plan because as you can see it works, I was able to meet every deadline in the project despite missing a few days of college due to illness.

 

Looking now at practical issues that occurred with Unreal Engine, the first issue that occurred which I had planned for was the unsuccessful implementation of my Main Menu UI, during my final playtest session I discovered through my testers that my main menu was not respondent with mouse input on the exported .exe file, in my pre mortem I planned for this issue and stated that if this was to occur I would carry out appropriate research and experimentation into the issue in order to resolve it. This is exactly what I planned for this failing mechanic as well as my broken health system, in order to overcome the issue I loaded up YouTube and searched for visual tutorials on how to fix each broken mechanic. In the end I was able to use these tutorials to fix both my health system and main menu. In the future I will carry out my own tests of the game and its code to ensure that the game is in a playable state before being handed to the playtesters for further feedback, however, this is the purpose of these playtest sessions so either way the problems would have been fixed.

 

In conclusion, I have only just touched upon the surface of the issues that I faced during the project and you can see all of the problems that I faced, as well as how I planned to overcome them, how I overcame them and finally how I would plan to stop the issue arising again, in my problem solving and dev log videos. In order to reflect and grow both professionally and personally I will reflect back upon my problem solving in later stages of my career and education in order to ensure that the issues do not arise again.

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Changes to the site / outcome based upon feedback:

 

Based upon my feedback gathered in my playtest and website analysis sessions, stated under the Outcomes section of my site, I have been able to update both my game outcome and also my Wix website. In this following report I will show all of my changes to both my site and outcome, as well as stating why each change was made in order to show that I have been successful in carrying out first hand feedback, and making subsequent amendments based upon said feedback. Firstly, I will be focusing on changes to my game outcome and then moving onto changes that have been applied to my Wix site.

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In my playtest and website analysis feedback, I identified two areas of improvement: these were an updated health system and also changes to my main menu UI interaction system as players found issues with both features. The bug found with the health system was that the player would die but the game would not restart as intended. I decided to amend this issue because I needed this to function correctly to have a working game loop, below you can see the issue before and after resolution. The next resolution that I made based upon feedback was implementing a fix for the issue with the interaction on the main menu screen, playtesters found that they could not navigate the main menu with their mouse, now this was a big issue because without the correct interaction the game will not be able to be played, so I implemented a fix for this as well. As you can see, the game is now easily accessible with a mouse on the main menu screen.

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The final change that I was allowed for this improvement stage was related to feedback gathered around the design of my website, I decided that I needed to update and improve the overall design of my site to better reflect the theme of my game. I have now been able to reflect back upon my brand package that I made and have applied this to all areas of my site for consistency and to also reflect the genre of my game. Below I have attached before and after images of my site showing the changes made and also a lengthy video showing the improvements put into practice, to show how my design evolved.

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Here is my Journals page on both my previous design and newest design. On the left we can see that there is an inconsistency in the colour scheme, there are a mix or red, white, black and green hues on the page. In my updated version on the right, you can see that I have adopted a more uniform and consistent colour scheme, the background colours flow and the titles and subheadings pop more against the background thanks to the new colour scheme and updated font styles. 

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In addition to this, as stated in the feedback a person found the headings to be unclear, so I have now stated at the top of each page the section that you are correctly looking at. Furthermore, I have also added and continued the horror theme by adopting horror fonts and also blood drips on subheading borders.

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In the older version of my site you can see that I once again had an inconsistent design compared to the journals page, the background colour was different and there were borders around the sections of text, as well as a lack of emphasis on the section headings. In the new and updated version you can see that I have carried forward the colour scheme from that of the new journals page and applied it to all of the pages on this new site. I have also added background borders for the section subheadings in order to emphasise and show the sections of work. In addition to this I have also attached images and other forms of media to the pages to break the white space and break the text down.

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If you look through my site and the video attached below you can see that I have continued this colour scheme and brand design throughout all sections of my website.
 

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How I applied Research and Experimentation:

 

Throughout my project I carried out independently identified, thorough and sustained research that utilised a range of relevant and varied sources to develop insightful

interpretations and synthesis of information used to inform my research and overall outcome development. In addition to this, my extensive research allowed me to carry out experimentation into flexible processes and skills that I then applied to my outcome to develop creative solutions. In this report I will be displaying to you how I applied my knowledge gathered in research, experimentation and also my extended continued research to my final outcome and discuss how each experimentation helped me to develop my complex outcome.

 

Focusing firstly on my first practical experimentation technique of implementing a realistic first person camera, I went into research looking for a method of implementing a true 1st person camera that would allow the user to see the characters body instead of the standard floating camera that comes prebuilt in Unreal Engine 5, I managed to find two varying methods of achieving this mechanic and I compared the two methods in experimentation. When it came to the conclusion of the experiment, I decided to stick with the camera boom approach by James The UE dev. I then applied this new method to my project outcome and you can see this mechanic in use clearly in my game. The mechanic is seen right from the start of the game, the player has a reactive head movement and also the body of the player can be viewed when the camera is moved downward.  

 

Next, on the focus of the implementation of my second practical experimentation technique of utilising jump scares in my Unreal Engine project, I went into research looking for a method of implementing interactive jump scares that would shock and scare the player, I managed to find two varying methods of achieving this mechanic and I compared the two methods in experimentation, the first method was using moving objects and audio to scare the player, whereas the second method used a moving zombie character to scare the player. When it came to the conclusion of the experiment, I decided to stick with the simple object and audio method because I had troubles implementing the other method due to issues with animations. After experimenting with the chosen technique, I then applied this new method to my project outcome and you can see this mechanic in use clearly in my game. The mechanic is seen in my game as the player enters the book store, as they walk past the leftmost book shelf the books fall to the ground and an audio cue is used to alert the player of the dropping books.

 

In continuation, moving onto the implementation of my third practical experimentation technique of implementing an objective tracker into my Unreal Engine project, I went into research looking for a method of implementing a HUD objective tracker so that the player could understand and clearly view the missions yet to complete, I managed to find two varying methods of achieving this mechanic and I compared the two methods in experimentation, the first method was using variables and a widget blueprint, whereas the second method used a system of functions and widget blueprints to display the missions. When it came to the conclusion of the experiment, I decided to stick with the variable and widget blueprint method because I believed this method to be more reliable and easier to update than the other method. After experimenting with the chosen technique, I then applied this new method to my project outcome and you can see this mechanic in use clearly in my game. The mechanic is seen in my game from the very beginning, in the top right corner of the screen objectives are seen that update as the story progresses, in addition to this, I also applied the same knowledge to a dialogue system that can be seen at the bottom of the screen.

 

Next, moving onto my final experimentation piece for the first experimentation process, this is the implementation of utilising audio and sound effects in my Unreal Engine project, I went into research looking for a method of implementing audio and sound effects, I managed to find two varying methods of achieving this mechanic and I compared the two methods in experimentation, the first method was using a single audio cue to create a sound effect, whereas the second method used a random generator to play a range of sound effects, such as footsteps for walking. When it came to the conclusion of the experiment, I decided to stick with the single audio cue because I felt that this would work best for the purpose of my audio cues. After experimenting with the chosen technique, I then applied this new method to my project outcome and you can see this mechanic in use clearly in my game. The mechanic is seen in my game from the very offset, footsteps are heard when the player walks, audio cues can also be heard for dealing and receiving damage as well as opening doors.

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Moving onto my two extended experimentation pieces and how I applied them to my final outcome, the first extended experimentation piece was utilising a newer and more flexible method of implementing a key and door mechanic. As stated in my experimentation I have previous knowledge of this method however, I felt that my previously learnt method was not as reliable and professional so instead opted to find a new way of implementing this feature. This new method that I experimented with used a newer feature called the eyedropper tool, this allowed me to choose which keys opened which corresponding door, something that would have taken several hours to do with my previous method but only a few minutes with this newly acquired one. In my game you can see this method in action several times, firstly the doors in the emergency corridor use this method and lastly the exit door to the delivery entrance also utilises this new feature.

 

Looking at my final extended experimentation piece and how I have utilised it within my final outcome, I researched and experimented with a new mechanic called Melee combat that used line tracing in order to simulate an attack on both the player and also the zombie AI’s, it also used a series of animations and variables in order to update the health status of both player and AI. Going into the project I knew that Melee combat was going to be a focus of mine, however, when it came to research I completely forgot about the mechanic and so I carried it over to extended research. For this, I used an online video tutorial that guided me through the process of implementing this feature and as you can see in my game I have adopted this mechanic. As the player encounters an AI they will attack the player, a lunging animation is played and health is taken from the player until they run out of health, when looking at how the mechanic has been implemented to the player character, it has been implemented with a mouse button click that triggers an animation that swings the players baton and hits the enemy AI causing their health to deplete.

 

Each of these experimentation pieces can be seen in use in the attached video:

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Based upon my outcome, who is my target audience? why?:

 

Based upon the themes and genre of my final outcome, I believe my target audience to be 14 - 18 year olds because my final game incorporates combat and survival elements that are set within a realistic environment and not a fantasy themed setting as detailed for a PEGI 7 or less rating. In addition to this, I believe that this is my target audience and that I have met this target audience because I have included dark themes such as horror and survival, that are used in a way to frighten the audience. When it comes to applying for a PEGI and ESRB certification ready for commercial publish, I feel that my game will fall in between the PEGI 12 and 16 ratings because the violence in the game is toward a human-like character so it is automatically at a 12 rating at the lowest, however, it can be leaning towards the 16 rating because of the frightening scenes and mid-language, so it is hard to tell, either way I have met my planned target audience, so I know that I have been successful in creating a game that is targeted towards my correct audience.

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Furthermore, when it comes to releasing my game overseas in the United States, I have carried out research into the ESRB rating system and have identified that my game would be rated at a Teen rating in these markets, so yet again I have met this target audience perfectly, the reasons that the game has fallen into the Teen certification is because of violence, horror and language, also I have not included any adult themes or drug use so the game would definitely not be rated an 18 or Mature, so I believe that it would be rated at a 12 / 16 PEGI rating and Teen ESRB. 
 

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How I could promote and launch my game:

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If I were to launch my game commercially I would definitely aim to launch my game onto a PC storefront, this is because I have developed my game to work perfectly on PC hardware and not with another device such as a phone or console. Furthermore, I would decide to launch solely on a PC platform because this is normally an easier piece of hardware to distribute an indie game, as I do not have to acquire a hardware licence to distribute a game on Steam or Itch.io, when compared to consoles where I would have to acquire a licence in order to sell my game on their storefronts. So sticking with Itch and Steam would be a more affordable option for an indie developer such as myself, in addition, I believe that PC storefronts are more easily accessible for smaller indie games so I believe that launching on PC would be a better choice for any indie game and developer such as myself. Furthermore, most horror games are played more frequently on the PC so this would definitely be a better choice for me at being able to reach my intended audience.

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In order to promote my game I would take a page out of my interactive platforms and festivals / outlets research that I carried out in the context phase of the project because there I researched into the many different ways of promoting my game and being able to reach my audience. When looking at said research, I looked firstly into using interactive platforms in order to gather feedback and to also promote my game, in this research I found that I could use social media in order to advertise my game and interact with my target audience directly. When it comes to promoting this game, I would use exactly that, I would upload images and videos of development to TikTok, YouTube and Instagram in order to not only gather community feedback but to also spread the word about my game and hopefully attract more customers toward my game. 

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By using these platforms, I would be able to present my game content and development directly to my intended audience, meaning that I will be reaching toward the correct audience for my game. In addition to this, I would also be able to communicate with my audience through comments and also the Community / Post feature on YouTube, this will allow me to see what my community has to say about my game and if they would recommend any changes or improvements to my outcome. This will ensure that I keep up community engagement and tailor my game updates toward my audience so that I have more chance of keeping players interested in my game. Furthermore, in this project I have decided to use Itch.io to distribute my game or more specifically my Alpha build, if it was to come to the point that I would be distributing my game commercially, I would definitely be using Itch again, however, I have found that there is a 1GB upload limit on Itch and this is a large issue because my game is over this limit so I would have to invest in more storage in order to advertise and distribute my game on itch.io. 

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When looking at more ways that I could promote and present my game to my target audience, I researched festivals and other physical outlets that I could attend in order to distribute and promote my game. For example, a large amount of game festivals are held in the UK so I could attend festivals such as EGX or UK Games Expo, at these festivals I would be able to set up a stall with the final build of my game available to play on PC, this way I would be able to advertise my game and gather first hand experience from my audience as they play and enjoy my game. This is a more expensive manner of promotion, however, the live demos would provide more advertising for my game than videos on social media, so a mix of both festivals and social media would be perfect for an indie game in order to build the audience and community.

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How would I grade myself:

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In terms of what grade I would award myself based upon the grading matrix, I would grade myself at a distinction level because I have an in-depth understanding and aesthetic awareness. Imaginative and flexible processes, skills and knowledge applied in extensive enquiry to develop creative solutions. In addition to this, I have consistently throughout the project been concise, detailed, coherent and professional to all areas of work, as well as being able to work independently and self-directed in all areas. I would grade myself this grade on the matrix because I have shown throughout the project that I have a clear deep understanding of the methods and techniques that I have applied to my outcome and I also have a clear aesthetic awareness.

 

Furthermore, I believe that I have applied flexible skills and knowledge to develop extensive creative solutions. I believe this because when I decided to implement the dialogue system this was not something that I had originally intended and the only reason I implemented it was to resolve an issue that I found with the progression and presentation of the games story, so I could have just stuck with the plain objective system, but decided to use both to portray not only the characters internal thoughts but to also guide the player through each area of gameplay, I believe this to be a great example of being able to develop creative solutions based upon a problem.