MD2Final GDD

GDD - Game Design Document

GAME DESIGN DOCUMENT

Due to feedback, I'm only including relevant information related to what I'm doing inline with my role with the group creating the game. Hopefully give more emphasis on some points too. 

I'm part of the media team whom are responsible for creating a "Behind The Scenes" look at the games creation and each team's input on how the journey has been from start to finish. I will be assisting for the majority with my team leader Ian Maher. 

!!! To be clear about this write up, this is my feature that should be part of the final GDD which I discuss influences and goals of what my role is in this project. This isn't the full GDD from me but this will be part of the full GDD to show my role in the grand scheme!!!
GDD:

Proposed Game Design Document

Introduction

The game we are aiming to create is an open world 3D game about the 1916 Rising. We aim to recreate Dublin, researching pictures and footage from the time to help us. The game will be made in Unity and we will be using the plugin Fungus for the narratives.

Description
You play as Micahel “Foggy” Fogarty, a 16 year old boy who after witnessing the murder of hisfather joins the Irish Republican Brotherhood. Foggy travels with his division to Dublin, Easter weekend in 1916 to take part in the Rising and is tasked with passing messages from the GPO to other key locations the IRB and Civilian Army holds.

Hierarchy and Running Order

• Chris and James will oversee all the Team Leaders
• Team leaders will oversee all their Team Members
• At the end of each week, team leaders will tell Chris and James what has been done and
  who is/isn’t doing their job
• If a problem arises where someone isn’t available to pull their weight. Contact the Team
  Leader first and they will contact Chris or James
• Provisionally there will be a meeting every 2 weeks, but this may not be needed
  depending on how well online communication works.
• Every Week we will meet up in the same lab to get some work done. This way we can
  work with each other in person as Online communication can be perceived differently. If you are a Team Leader feel free to organise your own time to work with your team but please take note of attendance and contact Chris and/or James about the meeting
• We will be using Slack.com to communicate. Slack is a way to communicate with one another through Website, Phone app and a Installed software. The reason we are using Slack is so that we can set up separate groups for every team and allow teams to communicate with one another in private rather than setting up multiple Facebook groups that could intertwine with your social life. Essentially, Keep business with business. If you have yet to sign up to Slack please get in touch with James to be added.
• The workload will be controlled by Chris and James and distributed among the Team Leaders. The Team leaders will then give out the jobs to their members evenly.
  The teams will work in process of hierarchy.
  You follow the guidelines of your Lead members. They follow the guidelines from James or Chris. We will contact every “Lead” person individually or at meetings.

My Role
David: Media Assistant 
- Collaborate with Ian to help out with gathering footage and editing videos (Preferably every Thursday).
- Help out Ian in creating a suitable video to promote the game and highlight the idea of the game.

What we hope to achieve:

Me and Ian are in very early discussions about our roles in the project, Given the news that if the game doesn't fulfill it's potential, The "Behind the scenes" video will be crucial towards presenting the game. 

It is predetermined that personal interviews will be taken by each member for the contribution of storytelling and structure coming from the creators of the game. This will be evident and shown from computer captured footage of the work in progress and the labs every thursday the group has to work on it also been captured (Multiple hours). 

I hope to capture many hours of footage following the next few weeks of experimenting with camera angles and techniques to better vividly show what each member contributes. I will be present most of the day chatting and capturing whilst probably implementing some capture software on the MAC's to capture work been done on mostly Adobe software. 

Off course with the 2+ years of experience with Premiere Pro, Editing wouldn't be an issue but there's always something to learn to better portray this whole experience. 

That's basically my role, although straightwork, It is hoped that harder work is done with a lesser schedule and vanilla out everything possible and try to make it something close to perfect for when the time is up. This is off course in terms of almost perfect purity with video and audio quality and post production editing with no mistakes or unnecessary long clips with no context.  

Inspiration/Examples
Joycestick - https://youtu.be/oOQ-NyNIj_E

A boston college group of students develop a VR game experience/story around James Joyce's Ulysses. This would be the level ground type of behind the scenes video that would be acceptable for our project but I feel me and Ian can do better with our project. 

Assassin's Creed Odyssey - https://youtu.be/DBOmid0FkVk

I've used this example of a professional standard game where a behind the scenes video was created for both main characters of the game and the process they went through as voice and motion capture actors. I really like this style and this is a good example to influence off. 

Batman Arkham Knight - https://youtu.be/9itj2iNxpks

Behind the scenes video with once again, the voice actors of the main characters in the game. We get to experience and listen to what the actors thought of the world and the characters at first glimpse and realise the reality of growth they've gone through and turn out to really love their characters and ambitions.

What I've learned or want to do differently with our behind the scenes video

Off course not many of these videos show the makings of the game but more the finished product and reflection. I think we are going to feature the creations of the game and the finished product but not just the product because that's some of the whole sense of a behind the scenes video. 

Games
Example of games set during WW1 Battlefield 1
• Set during WW1 this game and the events within it are from 1914-1918. It captures the war and atmosphere in Europe very well and is a great reference point for weapons, soldier outfits, vehicles, buildings, etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pY3hlQEOc0
Example of story games/dialogue screens Fallout (Game Series)

The Fallout games have a great choice of dialogue
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jyk_j0D25EM
Example of games that are achievable visually and workwise Medal of Honor: Frontlines
The first mission is the battle in Normandy, which if you have seen the intro to Saving Private Ryan is quite similar (excusing the very basic graphics!). This is a very interesting contrast between two iconic battles. (The scene in Saving Private Ryan is the battle for Omaha beach).
Game intro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYVkoiyslJMMovie intro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSKerypwUDM

I will be capturing footage throughout the process of the games creation to provide a narrative for the interviews that will part take at the end of the process reflecting on the creating of the game with each member and assisting Ian with what I can with this and the majority of the Post Production Editing along with set ups and sets.

Unity Free Tutorials

Source

I've decided for this week's unity tutorial requirements to pursue "Gabriel Aguiar's" youtube tutorials on certain aspects and additions to improve your individual game. With me, they were aspects affecting my game such as projectiles,character models and destruction affects. 

All 4 of the chosen tutorials could be essential and helpful for me towards making my game been more authentic. I do admit I was drawn in by his thumbnails of his videos as the effects and work he produces seemed impressive. 

When I watched all 4 of these tutorials, I added them to a personal playlist so I can work with them on Unity and add them to my current game. As I viewed through them today I realised as I followed there was no problem with me following the instructions but I will see how complications will come down the line when I start adding these to my game. There's a chance I might come into a problem with implementing them with objects and materials I already have in my game. I will note if this does happen. 

1st Tutorial

Projectiles

This was the first tutorial I was speculating before moving on but I didn't because the tutorial was indeed effective and does work. I am hoping to add a few of these affects to my turrets soon. 

2nd Tutorial

Destruction

This tutorial was about the animations of objects being destroyed or shattered which I would like to implement on my enemies in my game. 

3rd Tutorial

Laser Beams

This is similar but separate tutorial from the 1st, With my turret variation I want to add different projectile effects when I can. 

4th Tutorial

Character Models

I wasn't going to add a 4th option but as I scrolled through Gabriel's upload history out of curiosity I stumbled upon a tutorial of his on sphere models which is what I am looking for my turrets. 

So after those 4 tutorials and will get to implement them this weekend I will scroll searching again to see if Gabriel has any other interesting tutorials I could add to my game.  

Game Stories

Source

I absolutely 100% agree with realistic storytelling and its importance to any subject including games. I've always been a fan of realistic storytelling of any nature whether its games or movies or short stories, For me and probably a good handful of people its more satisfying to see real life consequences happen with related stories. The story arch i've been thought to follow isn't what or how i'd like to create projects, there are some that its mandatory to do but if you want to be creative you have to be different thats how it works. If you suspect to replicate someone elses work or something that has already been done then expect the same feedback.

Sure this is said alot also with storytelling and in general, I am a huge fan of movies and you always see directors talk about their influences and Scorsese is always mentioned by directors that don't have any work they've done with evidence of that. I am a huge fan of Scorsese, Tarantino among lots of others because of their screenwriting its different compared to all the other recycled stuff.

This works with games also, I've played none franchise games all my life that heavily rely on their stories and it pays off. You enjoy them and fall in love with it and it keeps you coming back to it. I agree fully with mcKee and Aristotle completely and I want to continue that mark with my creations, if it involves storytelling I want mine to be different and have people talking including myself even and open it up for more.

With the game I am currently creating however, there isn't much storytelling involved in the subject i've chosen to take even though its educational and hasn't been done before I hope in the future I can implement storytelling more.

Examples of my experience with games and great storytelling would be "Alan Wake", "Bioshock" and a whole list of others that tried something different with storytelling and had massive success.

https://www.gamesradar.com/the-best-videogame-stories-ever/ 

This is a list of possibly the best storytelling games ever...

https://www.gamedesigning.org/learn/storytelling/ 

First steps guide to creating stories for you games

https://www.theverge.com/2013/6/13/4427444/lucas-spielberg-storytelling-in-games-its-not-going-to-be-shakespeare-usc

George Lucas and Steven Spielberg (Iconic movie storytellers) on their view of storytelling in games.