IAT 410 Journal - Quinn Macdonald

It feels like we're ahead of schedule for this project, which is great. A lot of times in SIAT projects, things don't actually start getting built until near the end, causing stressful crunch times and unfinished products. We're getting through a lot of early design decisions without much friction, so I think we'll be able to start building out art assets and gameplay prototypes early. To get started on the art assets, I need to finish the concept art for the primary gameplay elements. For a lot of this week, I was finalizing the character and enemy concept artwork. I tried to create multiple options for each character/enemy so the whole team could chime in on what their preferences were. We also created our first official game design document this week, which ended up being quite a lot of work. I spent a while ensuring the document suitably explained all aspects of the game, from aesthetic, to story, to gameplay. It was important to start strong with the design doc...

This week we continued to refine our concept for the game and tried to tie as many loose ends on paper as we could, before things started to unravel during implementation and playtesting. This part of any project is exciting because it's when we're really starting to be able to picture what the game will look like. One of my major roles this week was continuing to generate concept art for the characters and enemies shown in the game. I shared these images with the rest of the time, hoping to provide a few options to choose from, so we could all have input on the appearance of the game elements. This eas especially important for the enemies in the game, since their appearance needed to communicate what their abilites are. I also spent a lot of time on the game design document, refining existing mechanics, and writing a quick narrative arc. The game design document will be really important going forward, since all of us should use it as primary reference when designing the vari...

I was briefly enrolled in IAT410 in the past before a co-op I was doing got extended. In that short week, I had an idea for a game that I was really passionate about. Luckily the group I've found in this iteration of 410 is also interested in pursuing this idea. We've spent this first week fleshing out this idea and start to imagine what the actual gameplay and systems will look like. Since I pitched the project to the team, it was up to me to produce appropriate visuals to best communicate my ideas. This was not only important for my team, but also important for developing our project pitch and design document. I started by doing a butt-load of sketching, trying to work through as many issues, questions, and designs on paper first. After getting an understanding of the game in my head, I then tried to translate that onto paper (a google doc), as well through high fidelity digital paintings. So far, everyone has been great to work with, and I'm excited for how this ga...