2. Research existing product evaluation
• My research I believe was very efficient and relevant to the subject I was planning
on researching. This is because of the previous projects that I had done a similar
style of research to so I knew where to find reliable information that also correlates
to what I need to find out. For example, I knew that I did too much research into
my audience last time that didn’t tell me anything that I needed to know so I
wasted time, but on this project I decided to cut down my audience research so I
only specifically found out what was needed. When researching for specific project,
I decided that I would focus on games that had as similar a structure to the game I
am making as possible as it has such unique mechanics that are the main relation
the project criteria due texisting products o being location based, thus helping with
tourism in theory.i believe my research into worked incredibly well as I found many
games and looked at only the specific elements needed instead of the whole game
in general like in past projects. This made my research far more efficient and
allowed me to take a deeper and more in-depth look into core components of my
researched games such as UNDERTALE and Pokemon Go. These components were
typically colour schemes, angles, shot composition and font styles/colours. This is
because these are fundamental elements to any game trying to become
mainstream to a 16-25 year old audience and was crucial for me to look at previous
games that have done these as it adds to the overall tone and feel of the game. If
was going to do this project again, I would definitely research more existing
products as it would give me a wider scope as to why certain aspects of said games
work and to get another view on what makes them work so well. For example I
could have looked at the recent Minecraft and Harry Potter ARG games to see how
different themes translate their themes across through colours and font styles. This
understanding of what makes certain features work would make sure that I am not
just copying the few pieces I have researched because it is the only example I have
of certain techniques being used.
3. Evaluation target audience research
• Since my research on my target audience was very poor in my past audience
due to not knowing how to how to commence said research, or even what to
research. This led to my target audience research being irrelevant to my task
and very unreliable. Therefore it was overall pointless and couldn’t be applied
to my project. When researching my target audience this time I decided to
see. This was so I could understand where my target audience stand in terms
of their interests. In order to do this, I made a survey for 16-25 year olds to fill
out which what I did badly last time, and focus on those areas to try and find
out the information neededwas composed of questions that were both
relevant and accurate to my project, unlike my previous conducting's of target
research. The questions look at their interests, why they are interested in
them and any examples they can give within their interests involving gaming.
On one of my answers I received, a participant explained that they were
interested in historical based games and explained that the way the historical
theme was implemented was what interested them so much. They said that
the way the games mechanics weren't changed by the theme, instead it acted
as just the backdrop for the game. This was vital for me to find out as I
planned on having my mini games change drastically depending on which time
period the player plays in. due to my accurate and well thought out questions,
I didn’t create my game as such and instead made the games theme change
within the historical settings, not the game mechanics itself. If I was going to
do the project again, including more people in my survey would have helped
my answers be more precise and not have as many outliers which could have
messed with my results overall. This happened due to my lack of a range of
people I knew within the target audience age range that were remotely
interested in games. Although this didn’t help me with my investigation, it did
mean that all my participants were within my eligible audience instead.
Overall I believe my target audience research worked well and efficiently,
even if there was not much of it.
4. Planning for practical evaluation
• Throughout previous projects planning has always been near non-
existent due to transitioning instantly from research to doing practical.
In this project I found that I need to do some real planning as the
project I am making can sound good on paper, but when made may not
have the same effects as I anticipated. With this in mind, I decided to
draw out each screen I plan on making and decide my composition and
layout for the effects I plan on using. These include the main menu
screen and the button layout for it, the character creation screen and
how that would work and especially the settings menu as it was
important for me to have the players be able to tune the game to their
liking. When I finished doing the planning for the layout of my scenes, I
decided to plan more in depth for each individual scene and decide on
what font style and color scheme I wanted my game to have. While
looking at several different font styles, I realized that it would be
difficult to get a font style that would stick to my art style but also fit
within the interests of my older quartile of my target audience. After
much consideration and debate, I decided that the Mario kart DS font
style would be best as the pixelated and cartoon slant that the font has
is pleasing to the eye and caters to my younger audience while also
seeming appealing to my older target audience. If I was to do my
project again, spending more time on planning would be vital to doing
better on my practical, even if I have to sacrifice more time. Even
though I planned more this project than before, I still felt that I was
stranded when doing my practical as I didn’t have a timetable or plan
to follow exactly, I only had ideas. Even if I did my ideas, if they didn’t
turn out the way I wanted then I didn’t have a plan to turn to for
another idea. So for my next project, creating a plan with contingencies
would help me incredibly.
5. Time management evalutation
• One blatant issue I struggled with throughout almost all my previous
projects was how i managed my time, especially on how I spent it on
irrelevant aspects of my project such as spending time on my practical,
then realizing the section I have been working on for a couple of hours
was not as good as I imagined and was unusable. This happened
multiple times in this project aswell. so I decided to try and reuse the
sections I didn’t like as much, but just polish them up. This left me with
more time that I expected is a more efficient way to handle set backs
than to just throw them away. One example of this was the main menu
screen that I made that featured a badly drawn ghost and some very
ugly buttons that blended into the background colours of the menu
screen. Instead of deleting it, I decided to change the colours of the
buttons and add a 3d effect so it contrasts more with the background.
This worked incredibly well and saved me plenty of time. I also kept the
original vintage paper background texture so I didn’t have to create a
whole new texture and background. This was something that I learned
over my past projects and it paid off in this particular project due to
having a more limited schedule. This has increased how efficient I am
overall and has even been used in other parts of the project such as the
planning and researching aspect. When doing my net project, my time
management will be bettered by the addition of a schedule that I will
create for myself so I have a basic itinerary for myself that I can stick to
incase I get lost as to what to do next within the project. These are very
easy to make so wouldn’t take up much time and I have used them
before in a few previous projects so I know their value and how much
they can make project flow easier when building up to practical work.
6. Evaluation of Technical Quality
• The technical quality of my project for this game has shown just
how much progress I have made over the past year of doing these
projects. My graphics and composition of each scene had no real
relevance to the theme or style of the game and each scene just