Unit 1: Pre-Production Techniques For The Creative Media Industries (james assignment)

Charlie Long

Unit 1: Pre-Production Techniques For The Creative Media Industries

When creating a game there is a lot of work to be considered before starting. For my game i aim to create an isometric 2D game that has a similar look to Pokemon. My game takes place in the current year, located in the Nevada desert at a military base, however this information is only found out at the end of the game upon completion. The game follows the story of an 18 year old boy and girl. Devan, a strong willed leader, and Lara, an intelligent lover who are believed to be the sole survivors of a planet in another solar system called phantasia. Sent to earth as babies, their true form was hidden so that they could blend in to the human race. On their 17th birthdays they awoke with what is known as burning eyes, where the eye turns completely fluorescent gold, glowing in the dark. They also found that their hair had a streak of white/silver running through it, startled and fearful of what people would think of them they went into hiding, where they learnt the full extent to their true alien nature. Both showed special capabilities, such as producing a golden form of energy from their bodies and using it to fire out of their hands/feet. Along with this, they could also teleport a short distance, making them very elusive. Strength, stamina and intelligence was also above the normal human average, making them keen targets for the military.

A year since their "first incident" as they called it and they had control of their abilities, until they were taken from hiding and placed into a military test facility. Once there, they quickly learned that humans could never be an ally, and that all they wanted was to use them for military projects across the globe. In an act of rebellion Devan, the older of the two attempted to fight his way out, before both were restrained and held for sedated experiments. The bond of love between the two was strong, and therefore kept them alive throughout the brutal and horrifying tests that were carried out on them while comatose.

Game play

Upon the start of the game you awake as Devan, and immediately notice in the bed beside you Lara, however she is still in her comatose state and cannot awake, while avoiding the military guards and finding out clues, the aim is to find a serum made in the military facility that will not only wake her up, but restore your memory through flashbacks. Along the way you will bump into helpful characters, and those such as  Cpt. Titan who wish to lock you away and experiment on you, being a boss character he is harder to kill with higher health and attack damage.

Creation

In order to create a game like this a lot of elements need to be taken into consideration, one of them for will be the financing of it. If i was to use other images or sprites that had been created i would have to contact the creator of those sprites and either pay for them or come to some sort of deal about them, along with this i would also have to consider hiring a team/workforce in order to help create the game, which also costs money. Therefore start up costs may be rather high, this will be something i will have to take into consideration before creating my game, and i will clearly have to identify what needs to be worked on and when it has to be finished for. This is another area that needs to be thought out before the production of a game, time. If each part of the game has clear timescales for when that segment is to be completed, the creation process is much easier. For example in my game, the character sprites fully animated could be given up to two weeks on. This lets everyone know at either the company or me as the creator that by the end of 2 weeks i should have this done, by that time i can then start on the next step. This time scaling can also help for announcing a release date of the game that is accurate.

However without the initial start up finances, especially with the prices of hardware (a good computer or dev kit) being close to 400 pounds + there is funding options that will need to be considered. One form of financing could be a "fund me", which is where you have a donation page allowing people or fans of your project to donate. For me, this option isnt too viable as there isnt too much of a buzz for the game that could create enough money in order to fund it. This can be a common problem which stops games. For my game, it is possible to create it on game maker, which is free, and the paid version allowing distribution and exporting of the game can be bought cheaply in deals that game maker has from time to time. This will save money, however i feel that a game which is as in-depth as mine seems to be will take a long time to complete with just one person. This requires my game to have some initial start up costs which will be crucial to the games creation in a reasonable amount of time. Another method of funding can be either sponsors or contributors, many games do this and either use product placement throughout games.

As you can see here the pizza company has paid for their adverts to be placed into games. This is more common in indie games or apps, such as Flappy bird which was actually a free game that made its money off of the heavy advertisement. This could be a viable option for money making, but in the case of my game which does not already have a large amount of interest to be a marketable game for large companies, it does not seem like something which is possible.

As for the cost of publishing the game, luckily there is whats called Steam Greenlight, which is an open platform run by Steam that is used to help developers create their and publish their game for minimal costs. When publishing with Steam Greenlight the game is tested by the public, and based off of the like to dislike ratio the game is then considered for sale on Steam. A cut of the profits are taken by Steam, with a possible initial sale price like an uploaders fee found on eBay. This is much cheaper than self marketing, especially for my game. Another method of publishing can be to contact and provide the idea of the game to a gaming company such as Ubisoft, in hopes they will create the game for you or alongside you. This will be a much easier process for advertisement, and most costs will be handled by the company. However the downside of this is that elements will be altered, and depending on how involved you are with the game you may not be credited to its creation, rather its idea. This can be a problem for creators who want to see their own product that they have created, and not just an altered version of the idea that you have produced. This is why for my game i would go down the self publishing onto Steam Greenlight route which will be easier and benefit me more in the long run.

A problem with being a self publisher is that along with handling nearly everything, cost wise and work wise yourself, you also have to sort out the use of equipment, sounds and imagery for the game. All this can become stressful and could lead to elements of the game taking longer, due to equipment taking a while to be free, or for when you go to get an age rating approved. Again this is why Steam Greenlight can be the answer, as they take into consideration the age ratings and most of the time either contact someone for you, or come up with a rating for you. This saves you time, and allows you to focus on other elements in the game.

Finally, legal and ethical factors need to be taken into consideration. Firstly the game should be created without the intention or accidental offence to anyone or any race, this can prove to be a problem. Times have occured where games have not thought about the translations of their games, and how in other languages they can be offence. This is something i will look into, also copyright can play a factor, If i was to "steal" a sprite off of the internet, i could one day be contacted by a creator of that sprite and be told about how i have stolen his intellectual property, this violating the copyright act. With my game however i plan to create my own sprites, with a pixel/isometric art style, therefor bypassing the copyright issue. However i will have to check the name, and the plot of the game in order to make sure the game does not already exist in some form. Once all these issues are laid out, the game creation can be started. 

In conclusion my game will hopefully cost a reasonable amount, around 500 pounds initial start without the help of a team, being a solo project saving the cost of a team. Along with this, i will use Game Maker which is free, and then publish my game onto Steam Greenlight which isnt too much. I believe the game could be created off of this small budget, as equipment can be found cheaper, this may cause the game to lack quality however, which is a worry however this cheap method will cause the game to take a much longer time to be finished as it is only being created by one person.