Norwich Games Festival Write up


Norwich Games festival: Preparation

From Thursday 30th May to Saturday 1st June, we took part in the Norwich Games Festival at the Forum where we got the chance to present our videogame projects we have been developing for the past few months, showing gameplay to the audience, answering questions and interacting with other game developers from different colleges. It also gave us the chance to see what we thought of the event ourselves, playing a variety of games and chatting with professional game developers. A couple of weeks before the event, we had an online presentation meeting presenting our videogame ideas through a presentation to the client so they knew the type of projects we would've been presenting, which is when I spent some time creating the presentation including an introduction to our game, screenshots of some of the levels, concept art, our research that we used for inspiration, design scope and mentions of the software we used during the development.

 From Thursday to Saturday, we had our own stand displayed where the event was taking place. For this, our teams had designed banners and posters that were displayed in the background to make it look more appealing and so the audience would get an idea with what we were presenting when people walked past our stand. These posters shew some images along with information of the different assets that have been made for the game and some information about the different tools used. For our game 'Breach' which was designed as a Sci-Fi space game,  our poster was designed with a space background filled with planets to fit the them of our game. Whereas the second team's game was designed as a horror cave based game, which felt more of a horror game compared to ours. For our table where we had the pcs running the games, we included some additional props that also fit the theme of the game. For Breach we had an old style computer which looks similar to computers that would be found found on a space shuttle, along with other computer parts like a motherboard for display. The other team had their own props designed for their game such as a wrench and a crowbar. This event was also a good opportunity to help represent promote East Norfolk Sixth Form College for potential new students who might be interested in applying. So we also included free East Norfolk notepads, pens and booklets for people to have a look at if they were interested in the college. So our plan was to have our videogame projects running on the Pcs we brought to the event so players could feel free to try them out and so we could get feedback on the games. However it did not go as planned as both games kept having technical issues which prevented them from even being playable. During the first day, the horror cave game team had their game able to play, so over the day they had a few young players trying the game out. Since the game was based around horror, younger players were warned of a few jump scares during the game so it wouldn't freak them out too much. The game received some positive feedback from kids saying it was enjoyable. Unfortunately our team was not able to make the game work and couldn't be used by players. Instead, we had a trailer for the game Breach, created by our team mate Dylan, playing in a loop so the audience could get some idea of what the game would be about, plus the screenshots of the game included on the poster, players would still be able to identify what the game would look like. So even though we never got the game to work, we still got the chance to speak to some people about the game and how our experience has been like at East Norfolk.
 I attended the event on Thursday and then on the Saturday. On Saturday I spent the majority of the day looking around the event, playing different games such as retro games on old Nintendo consoles which was fun. I also enjoyed talking to a couple of game designers from other colleges and tried out the games they've been developing. I think the Norwich games festival is a fun event for gamers to be able to hang out playing games while also socializing with new people who have a big passion for games as well. Overall it was a very fun gaming experience and even though it didn't go as well as we hoped, it was a good opportunity to be part of an event and I hope to take part of similar events in the future. 
















Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Unit 1 Assignment 2 - Business plan and Legislation

 Strategic planning for a Game company  When it comes to strategic planning for any games company, an executive summary is a compelling overview of the overall gaming business and the games that are produced. It consists of a large document or report prepared for senior executives who need to understand the main points of the company. It provides the ideas of the company’s goals, visions, and key highlights. This would appear at the beginning of a business plan; however, it is often written after the other sections are complete. The plan should explain your strategy and key goals to get from where you are now to where you want your company to be in the future.  The executive summary should start off with the mission statement which clearly states the values and purpose of the games business. The executive should understand what the company hopes to achieve in the future. For this, you should express the long-term aspirations and the impact that the company seeks to make i...
Read more

Level 4 Games careers plan and map

Image
Careers plan and map Career paths  One possible career path that I would potentially do in the future would be art design for 2D and 3D games. Which revolves around the process of  creating the visual elements of a video game whether it is 2D or 3D including characters, environments, and special effects. Game artists use a variety of techniques, including 2D and 3D modelling, animation, texturing, and lighting, to bring the game world to life. They work closely with game designers and programmers to ensure that the art style and visuals complement the gameplay and overall game experience. The difference between a game artist and a 3D artist is that characters are brought to life via 3D modelling, which fleshes out the movements, mannerisms, and tracking of the characters as they move through the world of the game. Game artists are tasked with producing a library of 3D assets that will be used to populate the various levels of the game. A game artist is different to a game ...
Read more

Board Game analyses and enhancement

Image
  Board Game Analysis – Munchkin Game overview Munchkin is a card-based board game which is simple and accessible, but it also acts as a guide for players to map out their next steps . This card game has elements similar to dungeons and dragons like going down into a dungeon, killing a load of monsters, backstabbing the other players so you can still their treasure and items. The players compete to kill mythical monsters and loot magical items after you kill them. Each player starts at level 1 and the winner is the first player to reach level 10. Players can acquire familiar D&D style character classes during the game which determine to some extent the cards they can play. This game has continued to expand its audience through the regular release of licensed editions.   Analysis of features and Mechanics  In this game, there are two sets of cards for the players to collect throughout the game, treasure and encounter/door cards. The encounter cards usually involve ...
Read more