Journal 3

The Walking Dead 2

The Walking Dead was just as i thought it would be, interactive decision making. Ironically, the first Telltale game i played was the Jurassic Park game (which was questionably decent), but while playing TWD, it reaffirmed my trust in Telltale. The first thing i learned was to be extremely observant on whats going on on the screen, because i missed the prompt to feed the do and payed the price by having to put him down which i really didn't want to do. It also made it extremely obvious that choices mean a lot whether its showing two basic options, save yourself or save others. Overall, I would defiantly recommend this game to others as well as get the game for myself because the story interests me and i'm curious how many different outcomes can happen for situations.

Portal

When i first heard of portal it was from the second game, Portal 2, so my expectation for Portal was a bit skewed, i figured it would be two player in some sort of form, but i was not disappointed by a single player game. I really had to think about how the portal interacted wt the environment to figure out some of the puzzles which i really appreciated the challenge rather than to breeze through a level but not to the point where you rage quit a difficult level. As i advanced through the levels, I could tell a distinct and growing disdain from Glados, the ai, I figured that she didnt really care about my characters life and viewed me as an experiment. (Also, i figured the whole"the cake is a lie" meme)

Dota 2

As i figured with this game, it was point and click on a busy screen, with so many different option but with surprisingly little reaction from your character on screen. The movement ingame was tedious and took way too long to move across the map, if we could directly move our character, but unfortunately its controlled by point and click. Quickly i noticed my interest in playing this diminished quickly due to the odd controls and uninteresting game play. Overall, I have no clue why/how people enjoy it apart that they enjoy frustration.

Game review 3

Jurassic World

Jurassic World the game, is a (mostly) FTP mobile app game that encompasses Jurassic World. When the game was first released, it was about 1 or 2 months ahead of the movie, because of this players got a very vague experience of the story through the game's mission's chapters, although the actually missions were more focused on adding or moving things around your park. Also opon starting the game, players are introduced to the battle system (Although since then, ALOT has been added.) 

As you can see here, the battle system in rock, paper scissors style with the creature with the type advantage gets a 50% attack boots and the creature with the disadvantage gets a 50% nerf to their attack. And as the image above shows, they recently made an integrated battle system with both Land an Cenozoic creatures, however upon meeting their stats will be at base. Also, the creatures have a rarity that dictates their stats, blue is common, bronze is rare, silver super rare, gold legendary. And each creature can be bought by using DNA

Also, some creature the player can combine to create hybrids, although you can only fuse them once the 2 needed creatures are at lvl40

Lvl 40 Indominous rex, base creatures needed are a maxed tyrannosaurus and a maxed velociraptor

When the game first launched, in originally only had land creatures, since then we've gotten aquatic and ice age animals, which are kept in separate areas from the main park.

Base park

For the aquatic area, you tap on the lagoon, it becomes unlocked once the player reaches a certain level.

The galcier are is located in a large building to the left of the screen, and also you can see that the player and jump into the creatures enclosure where players can feed them to level them up an "pet" them.

So, over all, the game is very fun and addicting and the devs are activly updating the game with new feature and creature and modes, such as pvp (Against bots), events, tournaments, community boss raids, and daily battles. 

Journal #2

Journal Review #2

Minecraft

As has many gamers, I've heard and played Minecraft and actually like it for a short amount of time, well with the vanilla game, i never managed to do mods for mine so i feel i've missed out on the full minecraft experience. However the simplistic design of the game makes it unique in comparison other games (and also makes it run pretty good) Also because of its design it reminds me of playing with LEGO's as a child which brings out my inner child which i really appreciate.

Farmville

As a person who does play mobile app games, Farmville was pretty decent until you get stuck wait for crops and other items timers to run down which severely halt game play which can get irritating (Although i know its there to pace game play but doesn't work as a game you play for more than 10-20 mins a day) In comparison to a similar game, Jurassic World, whoms base is the same, in where the goal is to gain coin, food, special currency and other resources, for FV it being land, animals and decorations, for JW dinosaurs, DNA, and other items, whoever when comparing them, JW had a battle feature where you can fight against a bot which gives the game more that you can do while you wait for timers to run down, FV however doesn't have such a feature. Because of that, FV falls short of enjoyable to me because it lacks depth that alows us to pass time ingame.

Katawa Shoujo

Personally, Kawata is different from most games as it has very limited interaction with the main characters decisions and most things are automated/ randomly chosen. For example, it is suppose to be a dating game in sorts, but I never really saw the option to choose the girl I wanted to go after. Eventually the game itself just became boring to me and quickly lost interest as it became simply press spacebar to go through dialogue.

Warframe

I honestly cant say much about Warframe considering i never got the game to run due to an overly problematic login system. However, I did look up a few videos of gameplay, while watching i never really stopped to ask about the gender of the characters that is because of their armor covers them as armor should, and whats under the armor doesn't really apply to the game as important even thouh the armor themselves have a gendered shape which questions what the developers were trying to get the players to conceive.

Left 4 Dead

Out of most of the games that we played, L4D was by far my favorite as it incorporated survival and working together with a team which are my preferred types of games so it was very enjoyable to play this for the first time. What made the game fun is how the levels are designed, its done in a way that looks open but in reality is actually linear, as often I found myself exploring however always eventually getting to the safe room. I also appreciated that you couldn't lone-wolf the level as the special infected are powerful enough that you cant take them on alone. So all in all, I will definatly will eventually get the game myself.

Journal #1

Game Journal

Limbo initially I wasn't to sure about its game play, as i'm more of a fully 3D person, however while playing it, I slowly became more interested as I learned the mechanics that made the game work. As i progressed through the levels I could easily see as the obstacle difficultly increased as well as the margin of error between a correct jump or death. 

When it comes to the games artwork and atmosphere, its perfectly executed with black and white dark, dreary scenery. It gives the player a sense of urgency when controlling the young boy through the forest and eventually civilization, which brings a point that, when progressing through the game, the environment gets more modernized, leading from a forest to a village, to farmland to sewers and so on. Overall, Limbo is a game that from looks alone i probably wouldn't play, but after playing it a bit, i feel compelled to continue the journey.

Street Fighter IX unlike Limbo, i knew about and have played a few times with friends so i knew a bit about it beforehand. Overall, its a good game that's best played with real people as the computer isn't the best of an opponent once you understand the fighting mechanics.

Overall the game play of each character felt unique and different from each other that it was easy to find one that suit you play style, for me personally M. Bison was the one  felt i did best with. 

As for story, it honestly gets away without have one pretty easily considering the core game.

Toy Solders, like Limbo, i haven't heard of nor would I have taken the initiative to buy it for myself, however the game play of it had me captivated with keeping my base safe till the waves ended. While playing the first mission i quickly pressed random buttons looking for some sort of prompt, and soon afterwards, i was manning a turret gun myself. After a few minutes i could notice a pattern with the allied AI and their weapons where they had a max radius before they started attacking enemies.

The aesthetic of commanding toys and protecting a toy box brought back memories of my childhood playing around with plastic army men and different animals and it was quite relaxing until the first boss apeard where i actually felt heavily pressured to take it out.

"The Isle" Game review

DeJon Horton

COM 3342

Hall

1/26/17

The Isle - PC

When this game was first revealed, not much was known about it apart that you could play as dinosaurs and that it was multiplayer. As of now, the game has been release for a bit over a year and there has been a tremendous amount of work that's been put in it since then. 

Initially, there were only 6 playable dinosaurs, (Tyrannosaurus, Carnotaurus, Austroraptor, Shantugosaurus, Gallimimus, an Pueretasaurus) and as of now there are 24 playable species (Velociraptor, Herrasaurus, Allosaurus, Acrocanthosaurus, Giganotosaurus, Baryonyx, Suchomimus, Spinosaurus, Psittacosaurus, Dryosaurus, Maiasaurus, Diabloceratops, Stegosaurus, Triceratops, Pachycephalosaurus, Ankylosaurus, Therizinosaurus, Utahraptor and the original six, not to mention mercenaries and tribal's are nearly done as well. 

Also since the release of the game there have been many new mechanics that refine it, such as progression over sandbox (Sandbox being you join a server and select any dinosaur you want, which normally ends up with a bunch of top tier dinosaurs in giant packs which is very problmatic) So what is in at the moment is a point based progression where you start of as either a velociraptor (Carnivore) or psittacosaurus (Herbivore) and work your way up to a larger dino via progression points. Herbivores earn them by eating blue progression plants that are scattered around the island. Carnivores earn then by the minute. For example, to get a rex, you need 30pts as Velociraptor, -> 120pts with Herrarasaurus, -> 120pts with Allosaurus, -> 180pts with Acrocanthosaurus -> Tyrannosaurus (7.5hrs). Now at first glance that may seem a bit extreme, however, if you were to go onto any nearly full server (50 or more players), there is going to be at least 4+ rexs, 5+ Giganotosaurus and 7+ Spinosaurus (Because atm spino's damage is bugged with its weight class making it do more than it should) The other way to get progression points is by nesting other players in and raising them to sub-adulthood (.8 scale) at which the "parents" will get a massive amount of points. (Eventually points can also be used to upgrade you dino or humans stats (Aka, Stamina, Damage, Bleed, etc)

Pros: 

Dinosaurs!

Graphically gorgeous

Time absorbing

Very fun with friends

Updates nearly everyday

Passionate Devs

Have to work to get a top tier animal

Highly Immersive

Cons:

Whiny community (Some)

Time consuming

Early Access

(Click pictures to view them if they don't show up)

(Albino Tyrannosaurus)

(Austroraptor pack)

(Shantungosaurus)

(Quetzalcoatalus)

Week 11 Assignment

Increasing scheduled time- We didn't have to add too much apart from fixing a few bugs.

Adding resources- Apart from adding in a few features such as art or minor details, nothing major was added on game-play wise.

Cutting features- We had to cut character customization, some art work, and some locations.

Reducing quality- In terms of detail, all that was reduced would be the artwork. Instead of having high resolution characters and backgrounds we used pixel art.

Build notes

Dev team- The Main menu artwork needs to be done
Management- Added a new document to discord.
Marketing PR- Added updated art assets

In13Tween Project

The goal of the In13Tween project was to create a vertical slice game concept of young teenagers and concerning the choices they make. Primarily, it deals with drugs and partying. What we expected was that we were initially going to have a the player choose a character during middle school, where the player will interact with other students and make decisions on whether or not to hang out with them,as each choice will effect their grades, health, parent approval or student approval.

During the process of creating assets, we kept the basic pixel design throughout the project without changing its concept. We also kept our deadlines down and got all of our content turned in. However, there were some communication issues that resulted in two parties designing the same assets without any communication between the two, although we did resolve the issue without much of a problem.

I learned that if we don't communicate between teammates, problems can easily sneak up on you without you knowing till its too late. Also, even if you've completed all of your assigned work, there's still work that can be done or a teammate that needs help.When you have a deadline to meet, do not wait till last minute to turn it in even if its simple, there's always a chance for something to go wrong.


The School background setting

 The yes button

In-game screenshot

The game I chose to use is Primal Carnage Extinction and I listened to its many sound effects.

Roars, No they don't loop, they are around 1-6 seconds long, sound effect
Bite/attack sounds, don't loop, are all under 3 seconds, sound effect
Gun shots, do not loop, about .5-2 seconds, sound effect
Eating sounds, they do loop, are between 2-7 seconds, sound effect
Heavy breathing, loops, around 3 seconds, sound effect
FlameSaw fire, loops, base sound is about 2 seconds, sound effect
FlameSaw's saw, loops, 2-3 seconds, sound effect  
Idle, loops 1-3 seconds
Reloading, do not loop, 2-5 seconds, sound effect

Birds, do not loop, 1-5 seconds, foley sound
Outdoor ambiance, loops, foley sound
Light fixtures, loop, 5 seconds foley sound
Rain, loops, 10 seconds, foley sound
Wind, loops, 5-10 seconds, foley sound
Footsteps, do not loop, less than 1 second, foley sound
Clothes moving, do not loop, under 1 second, foley sound
Electricity, loops, 3 seconds, foley sound
Lightning, does not loop, 2-4 seconds, foley sound
Human talk, do not loop, 1-3 seconds, foley sound
Bushes, do not loop, 1-2 seconds, foley sound

The intro music: loops, about 60 seconds, composition
Battle music: loops, 10- as long as you are in combat, composition

Dr. Nido Qubein shall be playing as a protagonist here and we will have a few animations that he'll have to perform.

Idle
Attack 1
Combo Attack
Attack 2
Walk
Sprint
Sprint Attack
Crouch
Counter Attack 1
Counter Attack 2
Push
Block
Jump
Jump Attack
Double Jump
Ground Smash
Injured
Limp
Limp Attack
Interact
Use Item
Grab
Throw 1
Throw 2
Crouch Attack
Death

FlowChart



Shot List

N(Nido), I(Idle), LO(Loop), A1(Attack_1), A2(Attack_2), G(Grab), TH1(Throw_1), TH2(Throw_2), IT(Item), IN(Interact), CB(Combo_Attack), L(Limp), LP(Limp_Attack), P(Push), BK(Block), IJ(Injured), JP(Jump), DJ(Double_Jump), JK(Jump_Attack), GS(Ground_Attack), CH(Crouch), CK(Crouch_Attack), W(Walk), SP(Sprint), SK(Sprint_Attack), CT1(Counter_Attack_1), CT2(Counter_Attack_2), DH(Death)

SWOT Analysis

Our game is called In|13|tween, the game itself will be a teenage life simulation with a point and click decision making type of experience. Our target audience are ages 10-18 because it would be the most relatable age to the users experience.


SWOT Analysis

Strengths
Our team has a drive to complete this.
We each have a bit of experience in different areas, (Sound, art, etc)
The fact that we are near the age of our target market, so we can relate to them.
The fact we have a small group, it makes getting us together and assigning us to tasks is easier.

Weaknesses
We should avoid trying to get too complicated due to our limited time and numbers
Our limited amount of time we see each other to communicate and overall time to complete the project.
The fact that we are all fairly new at this, we don't have a strong impact compared to other companies.

Opportunities
The fact that we are students we have access to resources that others don't.
The fact that the younger population seems to be more at risk than our generation was at their age.

Threats
Because we are in school, there's a chance that other classes will interfere with our progress.
The other group working on a similar game as us along side us.
Our experience level could be a threat if we don't try to learn what we don't know.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Childhood Diseases" (Google play app store)
"This application dedicated to giving you the best possible information to help you make educated decisions on your health care needs.

You will find reliable health information such as diseases description, it's causes, risk factors, treatment and complications, questions to ask your doctor."

Strengths
On a mobile platform, so its easily accessible
Available offline
Large database available to the user
Has a steady target market. (Parents to young children)

Weaknesses
Not a game
Lack of interest to younger players
Primarily text based

Opportunities
Made for a permanent group of people, as parents are going to be a steady population.

Threats
If a similar software is released but is more image and game based, it could be overtaken.
Data based could be used for other software.

The Isle was created in Unreal Engine, so from playing with it I somewhat know what the engine can and cant do.

-In terms of progression from aging, The Isle's progression system works great with it. You start off as a low level dinosaur, then once you accumulate enough points, you can progress to a higher tier creature.
However, time wise, it be best to reduce how many points it'll take to move up in the clients game, as in the Isle, progression is going to be a long process, as at the moment, it takes 5 hours to get to the adult rex and eventually its going to take even longer, due to that progression points accumulate 1 per minute. (Although that will change in the future)



-In terms of meeting people, The Isle teaches you cant trust just anyone you meet, as if push comes to shove, players tend to think of them self first like in any other survival game. Due to this, the player in the clients vision can be taught that not everyone is going to be your friend (Although in the game, the worst possible outcome is drugs and such, in The Isle its much more graphic as well as loosing possibly hours of work)
However, by picking the right friends, the game becomes more fun and a bit easier.

Here, me and two other players made a pack of Austroraptors (Left) so we could help each other progress to Utharaptor (Right)


-Now something the clients game already has is making choices in what you future holds, in making good or bad decisions. In the Isle, picking between carnivore and herbivore will drastically change how you play the game and interact with other people. So there could be two factions in our game that would influence two styles of game play that may or may not overlap.

Herbivore life (Left) Carnivore life (Right)


In The Isle, because its made in UE4, and the Devs often stream what they do, its been explained what can and can not be done. Such as playable sauropods, as they would need 16+ attacks to have a viable defense against a large predator. Saying this, some game features may sound fun, but in actual game play wise they would not be enjoyable or balanced enough to work.

The Isle

The game i chose is the Isle, which is an open-world survival game where players choose from three factions survivors, tribals, and dinosaurs in an attempt to survive a fierce island where you have to hunt, hide, and survive.

At the moment, only the dinosaurs are playable (but that will change soon.) At the moment, Triceratops, Stegosaurus, Shantuangasaurus, Pueretasaurus, Gallimimus, Diabloceratops, Maiasaurus, Dryosaurus, Therizinosaurus, Pachycephalosaurus, Ankylosaurus, Herrarasaurus, Austroraptor, Utharaptor, Allosaurus, Suchomimus, Carnotaurus, Acrocanthosaurus, Juvenile, Sub-adult and Adult Tyrannosaurus. Although new dinosaurs are on the way.

As it is now, dinosaur players have to hunt/forage for food, get water, and basically hangout with friends, although the way it work  is that, you start off as a tier 1 dino, very weak and only defense is to hide, then after you amass a certain amount of progression points, you can move up a tier.

For tyrannosaurus tier set, you start as dryo, get 30 points, then move to herrarasaurus, then get 30 more points and get juvenile rex, then 120 for sub adult and another 120 for adult

In the picture below, there is the adult at the left, sub adult in the middle and the two on he left are juveniles.







Suchomimus, relaxing

Diabloceratops and Shantuangosaurus herd
Stegosaurus and triceratops vs Acrocanthosaurus
An Allosaurus pack

An adult rex meets an Austoraptor

And a pair of Acrocanthosaurus attack a Shantuangosaurus

Final Project

DarkLionRises

Audio Story vox pox

Vox Pox test

Swatches and Fonts

I looked at High Point University's passports for inspiration.

Curves, Levels and Vibrance

For this blog I have used photo shop to edit a picture if increase the color and overall appeal of the image.

This is the original image. From what you can easily see that it is desaturated and bland.

The second image only has edited curves increasing color and giving it more life.

The third image as its levels edited as well as its curves. Overall it looks more real in comparison to the last two images due to the lights and darks edited to be more balanced.

The last picture has edited vibrance giving the image a slight touch up on its color and making it far more interesting than the original image.

Photoshop cloud blog

In this blog post I have some edited pictures of clouds in different formats.

This first format is the gif, here the cloud is too sharp to be usable in a professional shoot and that's due to the fact that gifs are normally animated and to have an alpha channel that fades in a gif format would be too much for it.

 The next format is the jpeg, it overall has the best quality of the three but does not have an alpha channel behind it causing it to have a white background that steals the contrast.

 The last format is the png and its quality is good for general photo due to its normally smaller file size it also gets rid of a white background that jpeg has.

Blog post 3

My goal for this post was to begin photographing any object in my home, and allow the process of "working the shot" so I this first picture is just me looking at my desk deciding on what to focus on so I just took a picture at eye level.

The second shot, I decided to focus on my headphones at an angle and moved some of the other stuff from my desk to get a better view.

The third shot, I re positioned the headphones cord and the angle of the camera to get more light.

For the fourth shot, I moved the headphones again to get a better emphasis to the blue nd coiled the cord to make it look more organized.

 The fifth shot, i made a landscape to capture more of the headphone and less of everything else.

 For the sixth and final shot, I moved around the table and got a really nice shot of its iridescent blue and a boost in clarity.