Dev.log Indigo

Dev.log Indigo

option 2A
This week I decided to play Thief: Gold Edition. I'd previously played the 2016 reboot and hated it within the first ten minutes. I shouldn't have violated my personal rule about playing a series in order.

   I struggled with the games controls and I hope to include easier controls for any future game I work on. I know it's very old and very sophisticated for it's time, but It took me an hour to get through the tutorial, and I've already forgotten the button inputs. Having to remember buttons for each movement of the camera is a nightmare, much less the number of buttons it takes to change bodily positions. I would have to force myself to continue to play, and I don't think I can stomach the frustration. It really felt like struggling to learn to type at some points again, one finger at a time.

   I would hope to include an art style similar to Thief's that holds up and is recognizable years later, despite having such low detail. Each environment I've seen so far feels very distinct and the atmosphere is conveyed well. I had to mess with the brightness a bit, but the games creatures are quite distinct. It is still rather hard to tell if someone is looking at me. I greatly appreciated the UI design of the main menu. It screams steampunk/ magic to me and very much conveys to me what the game world is like, gritty and intimidating. I hope whatever I work on has a menu that is as absorbing and thought provoking.
   I also really enjoyed the smaller maps. It's hard to find this in modern games, but maps are cramped and tight, and you can almost feel the rats running about. It's a short walk from one area to another but they feel distinct through harsh lightning, and the slow, long patrol cycles of the guards forcing you to creep slowly. I'd like to give players of my games a small, but rich and diverse map at some point. There is a lot to be said for detailing small areas with lots more.

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option 1

   I'm very happy to see our textbook building on the stuff I learned in my previous course. The information on prototyping in chapter 7 goes smoothly with what I learned reading The Design Of Everyday Things  in my previous course in the program. I was a bit confused that other kinds of physical prototypes weren't mentioned as I imagine look and feel prototypes and performance prototypes would also be effective at showing a gameplay loop develop. But I imagine that look and feel prototypes are essentially replaced by marketing when it comes to game development and the 'elevator pitch'. Besides that, the work caused me to return to the paper prototype for a game I've been struggling to get a digital proof of concept ready for. I realized, much like what Chaim Gingold talks about Decomposing Problems. A lot of the stuff I was trying to implement was unnecessary for a prototype and it's been consuming time.