Week 4's activities and resources were around planning and coordinating a pitch, as in week in week 6 we will be pitching our product idea to industry professionals.
Following last weeks events and discussions, we were able to promote a new team leader and move forward with the project with renewed vigour and began by reviewing our initial design choices and deciding on design pillars and core gameplay loops.
There were many other decisions made, which included a change of game engine - from Game Maker Studio 2 (GMS2) to Unity, as after some research, it was deemed to be too challenging to make a 2D isometric engine with GMS2 within the given time frame. Unity's marketplace offered suitable engines and support so we went with that, allowing the prototyping to begin much sooner.
Now these decisions had be agreed on, we could now begin working within our own roles and disciplines, along side this we would need to research and discuss various approaches we could use, then outline and begin preparing our pitch.
To further my knowledge on pitching, I first watched a the provided video resource in which Sam Lanyon, the technology and design director of Concept Shed Ltd.
Sam has had years of entrepreneurial experience and had his work featured in the national and international media. In the video he discussed his experiences pitching ideas to potential collaborators and investors and shared valuable lessons learned along the way.
Key points taken from the video were:
It's more important that you passion comes across rather than worrying if you or your product are going to be liked - take the pitch as an opportunity to discuss the things your passionate about.
Do some basic research on who you're pitching to avoid making an idiot of yourself.
Don't get worked up over negative feedback and get into arguments.
Don't dwell on the bits that have gone wrong.
Learn from your failures
Next I watched the supplied video from Falmouth University's RealWorks resource, where George Hardwick outlines techniques and guidance for structuring and delivering presentations.
Parts I found useful, were the explanations of openings, as well as the Pre-stage and close of the presentation - specifically, how to get the whole audience involved in the initial stages and invested with your presentation and how to gain credibility and authority by explaining how we have the knowledge, skills and expertise to deliver your product.
Additional resources were also shared and discussed on the team's discord channel, these included the free online lecture: Pitch Perfect by Jason Della Rossa in which he outlines
This one-hour lecture is presented by one of the SwissGames Showcase mentor : Jason Della Rocca - co-founder of Execution Labs. Jason is a game industry entrepreneur, funding advisor, and specialises in business/partnership development and pitching/funding as well as other related areas.
I found this to be an excellent resource as it went into detail about the point of pitching - explaining that it is up to you to show that your game is the right opportunity, rather than the best game ever. The lecture also went into detail between different types of product pitches, such as itching to a mobile publisher and a premium publisher - which would be useful when the team would begin discussing our pitch strategy.
Alongside this I had been researching isometric pixel art techniques and converting some of the initial character and other concept work into in-game pixel assets. I believe that I initially underestimated the task as reality kicked in and I realised that I had not actually produced any isometric pixel art before! So, to get a firmer understanding I followed some tutorial videos by indie developer and pixel artist Adam Younis and pixel artist Brandon Greer.
Once I had received the concept art, I began working on initial designs:
Image 1: Cavewoman concept (Debbs Norton 2021)
Image 2: Cavewoman pixel art asset (Will Ward 2021)
I took what I considered to be the main features from the original design - large hair, bikini style top and leggings and began working from those features. I made sure to use less colours, as this would not translate well within the smaller pixel dimensions - deliberately keeping the clothing the same dark colour and using a brighter hair tone to draw the view towards the character face.
It was initially discussed that the Cavewoman character would be a potential quest giver, so I decided to make her idle animation foot tapping - to imply that she's waiting. Along side this, the body was adjusted slightly to place her standing along the isometric lines.
Feedback from the team was positive, so I continued to develop the design - one of the main concerns was the lack of clarity against a tileset, it was suggested that a black outline would help, so I added this along with a shadow.
Image 3: Cavewoman pixel art asset (Will Ward 2021)
The above image show the adjustments - I also added a pointing animation, that could possibly be used to direct the player to their task - with the idea coming to me from Jet Set Willie's housekeeper.
Image 4: Jet Set Willie (Software Projects 2984)
Work was progressing well in Unity for the engine and I was asked if I could produce some assets for the game, so they could be tested. So I worked on a basic floor tile and some additional in-game assets like trees and rocks. I again, watched tutorials and looked for examples online and quickly produced some assets.
Images: 5 - 9 Keep it burning in-game assets (Will Ward 2021)
The assets were more more straight forward and quicker to produce isometrically that the initial character, however after I had seen them in-engine I realised that the scale was too small. Luckily, they could be scaled up in Unity without any real loss of clarity.
Image 10: Keep it burning (The Wild Branch 2021)
We were soon shown a brief screen capture of the basic controls and some of the graphics assets working together - it was great to see the early progress and as it felt that we were beginning to focus on the task and settle into our given roles.
References:
Adam C Younis. (2021). Pixel Art Class - Isometric Tile Basics! [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqwQBWEzcxU&t=118s [Accessed 10 June 2021].
Adam C Younis. (2021). Pixel Art Class - Isometric Character Basics. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45gueF62t1Q [Accessed 10 June 2021].
Brandon James Greer. (2021). Isometric Pixel Art Practice. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0SvOecD5DM [Accessed 11 June 2021].
GDC (2017). 30 Things I Hate About Your Game Pitch. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LTtr45y7P0 [Accessed 17 June. 2020].
George Hardwick (2021). RealWORKS - Present with Power. Falmouth University [online] Available at: https://flex.falmouth.ac.uk/courses/913/pages/week-4-realworks-present-with-power?module_item_id=53060[Accessed 17 June. 2021]
Jason Della Rocca (2020). SWISSGAMES Pitch perfect : free online lecture. [online] Available at: https://swissgames.ch/2020/11/03/pitch-perfect-free-online-lecture/.
[Accessed 17 June 2021].
Notion. (n.d.). Notion – The all-in-one workspace for your notes, tasks, wikis, and databases. [online] Available at: https://www.notion.so/Pitch-Decks-f56e38c13fe6417f8379859e74367e1a.
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