Rationale
I intend to make for my dissertation a working piece of game
play that will not only show my strong design skills but also demonstrate that
I am competent across the development pipeline. As a designer I will need to
work with multiple disciplines in the industry, therefore it is important for
me to have understanding of all areas of a development team. I am therefore
challenging myself to create all assets needed for this development.
I found a job advert online for a lead designer:
Two points really
stood out to me in the skills required:
- Excellent level of knowledge of the game
development process from conception to street
- Highly creative and enthusiastic. Able to
pass this on to the team and inspire them’
It shows that the designer world is not only looking for
someone with interesting design ideas but also with all rounded skills in the
development pipeline. Since I am taking on all roles in this development I feel
that the outcome will prove that I have these skills.
As an aspiring games designer it is important for me to have
a strong design portfolio therefore I have decided to focus my dissertation on
the development of a stand out portfolio piece. I spoke to a friend in industry
(Ben Flynn) and asked him what kind of things his company would be looking for
in a young designer’s portfolio.
‘For a design portfolio I think some working
game play in unreal/unity will be key. I know in a few interviews bringing
playable code is a big plus. That way they can get hands on. If unreal is the
chosen engine then being familiar with Kismet, some level building tools and a
bit of matinee should be enough. Being able to show your thought process and
working would be a great thing to do.’
I realised that although I have level designs, concept work
and character designs to go into my portfolio I didn't have a fully completed
game that showcased my full potential. This is why I have decided to create a
working piece of gameplay.
I have decided to develop Grimm Dreams in unity despite Ben Flynns advice of using unreal.
This is because I'm already very familiar with unreal technology and am in the
process of developing another game using this software. I am not a skilled coder, and UDK can become
quite complex during the coding process. I have experience is coding in unity
so it will be less of a risk factor as I’m coding in familiar scripting language.
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