WEEK 2 | Animamundi

Project Scope Analysis, Budgeting, Methodology, Team Goals

UNDERSTANDING ANIMA MUNDI GDD

I have begun by looking into and analysing Josh Basi's Games Design Document, which can be found here: https://joshpalb.wordpress.com/

My Team are working towards the development of Anima Mundi. An Exploration and Puzzle-Solving PC game, based in the spiritual world, where players (the Shaman) are taken on a journey of "spiritual enlightenment and self discovery".

In order to do this, players must explore the 6 regions of the spirit world and confer with spiritual beings to unravel the narrative further.

PITCH

"Traverse across a diverse spiritual world full of wonder and mystery, solve puzzles and reclaim balance by repelling evil spirits in this 3D Open-world RPG. Discover yourself by overcoming obstacles and using your inner abilities granted to you by Spiritual Wardens. Tread lightly, there are many beings who find mortals who meddle with the spirits troublesome"

My Analysis of Josh Basi's GDD - Anima Mundi

Players play as a 'Shaman' - “A person regarded as having access to, and influence in, the world of good and evil spirits".

Players explore 6 regions of the spirit world where they come across animals and mythical creatures to make the narrative clearer.

THE 6 REGIONS

Within each region are puzzles that need to be solved to acquire ‘Souls’.

‘Souls’ can be used to charge the Shaman’s Staff, allowing them to use the Staff’s abilities.

Examples of Souls (Resources within each Region)

Earth souls

Air Souls

Fire Souls

Water Souls

Ice Souls

Thunder Souls

Souls can be obtained by completing puzzles.

THE 6 ABILITIES

There are a total of 6 Abilities, each obtained from the different regions.

The player obtains an ability after conferring with the spirit in that specific region.

Each ability has their own use to help the Player solve puzzles and overcome obstacles.

I put together this table to make the use of abilities and souls more understandable, as well as which Spirit they were gifted by and in which region. I shared this amongst my team via Slack.

Players need to have solved all puzzles in that region and conferred with the spirit before they can progress onto the next region.

COMPLETION REQUIREMENT

Obtain each ability from the spiritual guardians and discover each region.

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THURSDAY 18TH LECTURE - PROJECT SCOPE

SCOPE ANALYSIS

Performing a Scope Analysis - Decide your intentions, whether to make a part of the game as it is designed or a technical demo of all the features of the game.

(More research into this can be found in my Blog Section)

What is the Project's Scope?

Commercial Software Development: Game

- A list of features of software requirements that the software must have

- An estimated development time

- A development cost

What should a project scope consist of?

Feature List

Presentation format (how features will be shown)

Asset's List (how the features will be realised, what scripts of code do i need etc)

Time frame (May 20th)

Pipeline Analysis (how long it will take)

Milestone Dates

Project Budget

Project Scope in terms of our Vertical Slice

In order to establish a project scope, my group and I must discuss the vertical slice and what aspects of the game we will be showcasing.

THURSDAY 18TH: SLACK MEETING

Today we organised a Slack call to discuss the elements of the game we will be covering within our vertical slice. This allowed us to begin creating a project scope based off the main aspects of Anima Mundi.

Our group consists of 5 people with similar skill sets therefore we thought strategically and came to a conclusion which we felt worked best for us.

DISCUSSION:

Our intention for the vertical slice is to showcase the transition between regions to show the contrast between environments within the game. As well as this it's important for the player to have been given an ability beforehand to establish their reasoning for traversing the environment. Players will then have to complete a series of puzzles to acquire the next ability, and interact with a Guardian Spirit to progress to the next region and essentially acquire a 'Soul'.

NOTES FROM MEETING:

Potential aspects of Vertical Slice -

Choose 2 regions to showcase the transition between them and the players objective.
Player begins in one region with the previous ability and progresses through the environment
Have player acquire a new ability by completing puzzles in that environment.
Player should have at least one dialogue encounter with a Spirit/Guardian.
Potentially show player acquiring a soul.
User interface to be shown on screen at all times.
To create the intended atmosphere, sound design is important when it comes to developing the vertical slice, we'd like to showcase the important elements in which make the experience.
Beauty is a main aspect. The environment design, puzzles, assets and sound must all tie in together. This is essentially our main focus.
Transition from Air region to Fire region.
Showcase the contrast between environments.
Once players enter the Fire region, the puzzles will require the use of air region ability to cause 'domino-effect-like scenarios'.

PROJECT SCOPE

To conclude on this discussion we have established our intentions for our Vertical Slice and next will create our project scope.

This brief scope includes the features and asset list of our vertical slice, made by myself and Kiera with some input from our team.

FEATURES

User Interface - Mini map, player abilities, crosshair to target abilities, interactive dialogue, resolution mechanic, distraction mechanic (to distract mythical creatures in environment)
Mechanics - player movement, jump, boulder throw, gust of wind, interaction with puzzle.
Puzzles - placed around environment
Soundtrack/Audio

ASSET LIST

3D MODELS

Character Model (Shaman)
Staff Model
Environments - Air and Fire Regions
Souls - Air and Fire
Puzzle assets
Abilities - Boulder throw, Gust
Guardian Spirits - Dragon and Phoenix
Animals - Butterflies and Eagles

3D ANIMATIONS

Basic player movement
Player abilities
Air Region - Clouds moving, flying butterflies and eagles
Fire Region - Spiders crawling
Puzzle Animations
Spirit interactions
Obstacles around environment
Transition between regions

USER INTERFACE

Mini-map top left corner
Player abilities numbered 1-6, once ability is unlocked, change colour/saturation
Crosshair to target abilities
Interactive Dialogue with NPC's

FRIDAY 19TH: SLACK MEETING

After our Friday Lecture we had another call and discussed refining our scope. We briefly discussed our intentions for our vertical slice and began to refine.

DISCUSSION

During our discussion it was important for us to be honest in terms of our skill sets and what would work best for us.

Briefly:

Kiera - 2D Artist, Narrative

Charisma - 2D Artist, UI

Daniella - 2D Artist

Molly - 2D Artist, 2D Animation

Emilia - 2D Artist, UI, Sound Design, Marketing.

Because of this, we came to the conclusion to develop the vertical slice in 2D rather than 3D. This was a decision made collectively as we felt more comfortable with this and know this way we will perform better. Taking into consideration the amount of time we have, this is much more feasible.

NOTES FROM MEETING:

Refining Vertical Slice -

Consider our skill sets, what would we be most comfortable in creating?
What are we trying to achieve from our vertical slice?
2D game rather than 3D, each of us are mainly 2D artists with some knowledge in 3D.
Remove pointless information, why are souls included? Consider intentions for vertical slice.
Take into consideration the amount of time we have, what is feasible? How can we work efficiently?
What's most important for the vertical slice?
Consider feasibility and efficiency.

EVALUATION

After this conversation we have decided to refine our project scope as well as change the platform from 3D PC game to a 2D Mobile game. This way we will be able to showcase our skills as well as still capturing the intended experience. Referring back to the developers' charter from Week 1, it's important to be honest and truthful about our skill sets and capabilities, therefore producing a 2D game will be much more convenient for our team.

CHANGES:

Removed acquiring Souls.
Focusing more on the interaction with the puzzle.
Focusing on achieving the beauty of the environment. How does the player traverse the environment and what can they do around the region? Potentially interactions outside of the main puzzle e.g. being able to sit in a passing tree and listen to or play music.

PROJECT SCOPE

Kiera and I then refined our scope (features and asset list) by taking into account the 2D Mobile platform.

FEATURES

User Interface - Player ability icons, Staff charging bar, Interactive dialogue, Main menu and Settings option.
Mechanics - player movement, jump, boulder throw, gust of wind, interaction with puzzle.
Puzzles - placed around environment
Soundtrack/Audio

ASSET LIST

Main Character - Shaman
Staff
Environment Designs - Air and Fire region
Background/Foreground Assets
Interactive puzzle pieces
Animals and Guardian Spirits

2D ANIMATIONS

Player movement
Player abilities - Boulder Throw and Gust
Gust Animation - showing outcome
Environment - clouds, butterflies, eagle and water flow
Spirit animations during dialogue
Transition between regions

USER INTERFACE

Player Ability Icons
Staff Charging Bar
Dialogue
Main Menu/Setting

SOUND

Soundtrack
Sound effects: Player movement, abilities, environmental sounds, animal sounds.

MARKETING

Blog/Website
Promotional material such as Posters
Instagram and Twitter

BUDGETING - Friday 19th February

A Budget estimates the development costs for creating your project.

LECTURE NOTES

We are an independant studio making a game for release to the general public, rather than a development studio creating software for a client.
We have the means to publish our own games. Won't feature this in our budget.

Following Costs for our project: (Based on average current UK estimates)

Programmer (0.66) : £20116.14 per annum / £386.85 per week
3D Modeller (0.66): £16882.80 per annum / £324.67 per week
2D Artist [Animator and Concept] (0.66): £17637.84 per annum / £339.19 per week
Team leader: Pick an appropriate role and multiply that by 1.5
Consultant: Pick an appropriate role and multiply that by 3

Consider skilled employee costs - skilled colleagues perform their roles.

OUR TEAM:

Team Leader

2D Artist

2D Animator

Programmer

Sound Designer

Using this I made a brief budget for our vertical slice, with the input from the team via a Slack call.

PROFIT EXPECTATIONS STATEMENT

In order to achieve the desired profit expectations of this project, we will need to sell 8054 copies of the game priced at £4.99.

(Will consider marketing, additional help/roles etc and create a more detailed budget)

BUDGETING - UPDATE

Kiera and I have updated the Budget Plan using the appropriate values and additional costs such as software, hardware, marketing and a required consultant.

This budget is based on the 12 weeks of development up until the 21st May.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

As we are a team of five 2D artists each with a range of abilities, we have distributed tasks fairly between us depending on our skillset.

I have been assigned the following:

- Lead Artist

- Sound Designer

- Marketing

Charisma spoke about her experience in UI Design therefore she has been assigned this task also.

Our team is complete however we have noted down the cost of a consultant to assist Kiera in the implementation of our assets into Unity. Essentially, this individual will help with coding/programming our vertical slice to meet our expectations.

We have accounted for this cost in our budget plan as well as for both hardware and software resources.

PROFIT EXPECTATIONS STATEMENT - UPDATED

Desired Profit: £65,890.28

Units: £13,204.46

Target Sales: 132

This budget plan has been made according to the length to develop the Vertical Slice. In order to develop the full version of the game, we have estimated this to cost around £105,000 overall, by multiplying the vertical slice by 4.

AGILE METHODOLOGY

As we are working in a Team, we will need to schedule ourselves to ensure we fulfill the expectations of the vertical slice within the given time frame.

I am familiar with the use of methodologies to organise and structure project team work which makes it easier to keep on track of progress and next steps.

"The Agile methodology is a way to manage a project by breaking it up into several phases. It involves constant collaboration with stakeholders and continuous improvement at every stage. Once the work begins, teams cycle through a process of planning, executing, and evaluating." - Wrike.com

Putting an Agile Methodology in place breaks up each stage of our project and distinguishes the tasks that need to be completed within each phase, this makes task distribution between team members much easier and clearer.

OUR METHODOLOGY / PLAN

I have broken up the project into six stages. This way we can differentiate each stage and the tasks which need to be undertaken within them.

PLAN - We must establish team goals, a project scope and our design intentions for Anima Mundi.

DESIGN - We must distinguish an original art style and consider the features of the game which will require design, such as puzzle interactions and sound.

DEVELOPMENT - This involves asset creation, code and user interface. We must ensure we have all the work needed to fulfill the requirements of the vertical slice before proceeding with development.

TESTING - Testing is an important stage of the project, to ensure the quality of assets remain high, to mitigate risks, prevent bugs in code and conduct playtesting to gather feedback to make improvements.

RELEASE - We will release Anima Mundi and market the game appropriately. We are scheduled for release/hand-in by the 20th May.

FEEDBACK - We must gather feedback from players in order to make improvements and changes to our process to benefit development in the future. We can do this via Surveys and our online arcade event.

TEAM GOALS

Before proceeding its important we establish some clear goals.

To produce a functional vertical slice by allocated time frame - 20th May.
To ensure everyone is kept happy and satisfied during the process.
We are open to learning new skills and doing this by training both ourselves and each other!
We aim to inspire individuals similar to ourselves and encourage people to pursue what makes them happy.
We aim to provide people with immersive gameplay and mind-blowing visuals as these elements are our main focus.

WEEKLY SUMMARY

To summarise the week, we have discussed the outcome for Anima Mundi and are aware of our next steps to begin development. This week we focused on refining our project scope, establishing team goals and calculating a suitable budget for the project. We are aware of the brief concept for our game and next week will begin to refine this in order to finalise our Project Scope containing more detail.

We have been assigned our tasks for next week and have also scheduled our next meeting for next Wednesday/Thursday.

SCHEDULE - UPDATED

During our weekly meeting, Team Leader Kiera Walton assigned our tasks for the following week.

MY TASK / NEXT STEPS

For next week I must research existing puzzle games and interactions in order to develop our own series of puzzles for Anima Mundi. To do this I will use my research into existing games to brainstorm significant features and mind-map my own ideas which I can share with the team in our next meeting.

I must also look into User Centred Design in order to understand our audience before I begin with game design.

TEAM TASKS

Each week I will take note of each team members assigned tasks and keep track of their progress. This ensures I will be kept updated and aware of our position in development.

DANIELLA

Daniella has been set the task of Character Design and is scheduled for completion by next week.

MOLLY

Molly will be focusing on Ability animations and the appearance of these.

CHARISMA

Charisma will be working on concepts for the air and fire regions.

KIERA

Kiera will be writing up a suitable gameplay structure.

EMILIA

My tasks involve researching existing puzzle games and establishing an idea for a series of puzzles to take place in our vertical slice.