4) Hungry
5) Sad
6) Hidden
Overextended Inktober 4-6
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Overextended Inktober 2016 1-3
Inktober 2016 was a bust. Even though I started the first Ink on the 1st, there was too much to last month – including two overseas conferences – to focus on an Ink a day. I could have if I went simpler, but I realized the investment is part of what makes the inking fun. Doesn’t meet the goal of Inktober though.
Nevertheless, the prompts for this year are useful; had an idea just from a cursory glance through the words. So let’s see if I can take it further.
So, 1-3:
1) Fast
2) Noisy
3) Collect
Prop design – Charlemagne’s sword Joyeuse
ConceptArt.org’s challenge was to redesign Charlemagne’s sword, Joyeuse. The sword is real, so the task is to reimagine it as a fantasy weapon.
The key features to the sword was that it changes color multiple times in a day, and it represented joyousness. More of a mass media weapon than a slaying device.
For the color feature, I settled on using opal as a material source. Opal was reputed to be a gemstone that changes color, even when the owner dies. The change of light throughout the day would change the refracted light from the sword, so it explains the color-changing feature. Continue reading
Environment Design – Photobash of a Floating Scrap House
Photobash – with the bash elements composed of mostly textures – of one of the waterworld designs.
Character Design – Waterbased worlds Character Fleshouts
Character design fleshouts from the game world designs of Game World Creation batch sem2 2016. Two students made water-based worlds, so compiling them into a set.
Images in circles are refs provided in the World Design Docs.
Usability Testing Method for Design Students
Previously I posted on the prototypes my game design students did for their game design classes. This post is on one of the processes we used to improve the design of their prototypes: usability testing.
The research and application started in 2013 where I was looking into the best ways to teach design for design students. As cited, one of the strongest feedback received was to get the design students to create prototypes. The second strongest feedback I got was to train them to design based on feedback. That is, to collect data from users, and to create a design that would respond to the issues pointed out by said data.
I recognized the application; it’s what online games do when they track user behavior and adapt their game to maximize wanted behavior. It’s a process used by Facebook games in the late 2000s and being used now on data collected from users on mobile games. The feedback made sense in terms of keeping designers relevant.
That means figuring out how to do playtesting for designers in order for them to collect data to analyze. Continue reading
Art redo: 2010’s Karate and Taekwondo
Did three upgraded characters over the past two days. They definitely ain’t perfect, but I can see now what details I noticed as opposed to 6 years back.
Art redo: 2010’s Gymnast
Had a holiday weekend so spent some time upgrading some old art.
Industrial Design – NeoTokyo Police Car
Tried out the Industrial Design Challenge of the Week at ConceptArt.org. The challenge is to design a police car made to track down illegal Internet comm sites.
Base idea was to have domed detector that can survey even tall buildings and pinpoint precise locations. Assuming futuristic Tokyo would be hard to navigate – with high-rises and complicated streets – drones will do the heavy work. The car will have a dedicated comms personnel surveying the site and managing the drones, while two police personnel will be able to go onsite and do arrests if needed.
Prototyping for game design: What I taught game design students to do to prove themselves
This is a collection of game prototypes from game design students taking my class on Game Genre Studies in KDU. In this class, they are tasked to work alone creating a game using an iterative process. What you see below are works from solo designers creating game prototypes, using a design-test-iterate model over a span of 5 or 10 iterations. Art used are rough placeholders, programming is limited by what the designers can figure out to do with Stencyl, but the designers have to show using testing that they’re able to *evolve* a prototype into a fun, playable game using testing feedback.
Do check ’em out and see if the prototypes prove that these students can do game design.
10-week iteration process. Game is playable here at https://joshykc.wordpress.com/