The Game Development industry is a consistently changing environment which requires its employees to be ready to adapt to new changes and consistently improve on their skills. Several people from the industry have told me that polish and publishing are vital components that employers look for and is something that I heavily striving for with this project. I currently have a solid skillset (as you can see on my overview page), but their is much room for improvement. At the moment, I am noticeably lacking in major industry needs, such as knowledge in Unreal, C++, VR / AR, mobile development and networking, while areas such as game maths / physics, UI, AI, Development strategies (such as scrum and agile), Unity, C#, code debugging / optimisation, Level design, narrative design and general game design have been touched on already, but could use some touching up in my portfolio.
With this in mind, I am aiming to soley focus a project on learning Unreal and C++ to cover a major area that employers are looking for, while also proving that my other skills have been improved on over time as well. Skills I aim to show growth in and improve on in this project include the use of game maths, a well designed UI Interface, AI development, optimisation of code, proper code structures, level and narrative design. The project will heavily revolve around a weekly based schedule that will have me confident in using Unreal / C++ early on, and then will focus around ticking off a portfolio requirement weekly, whether it be a new skill or polishing off an old one. My intent with this schedule is to improve my time management and prove to industries that I can work in a strict schedule.
The type of game which I am going to make is an FPS shooter set out in a similar fashion to "Doom", where the player will be required to navigate levels from start to finsih, killing everything in their path, with an additional multiplayer option that allows the players to VS. eachother in a free-for-all game mode. I have opted for this kind of gameplay due to its success in the marketplace, along with
its overall simplistic and formularic concept that makes it easier to focus less on the game mechanics and more on improving my programming and level design skills. Many games I have made in the past are focused primarily around showcasing new mechanics, but this time I'm opting to initially create mechanics that are similar to what is already in the marketplace to prove that I can do what the Industry requires. Afterwards, I aim to improve on these concepts and make new mechanics which make my game stand out from the rest of the games in the industry. An FPS shooter also gives me the opportunity to massively showcase my improvements in level design, AI and game math / physics.
Time and workload will be managed efficiently with the use of the Agile Delevopment methodology to prove my efficiency in development strategies and polish. During each iteration of the development process, new concepts and ideas for my current area of focus will be brainstormed. Following this, the best ideas from the brainstorming phase will be brought over into the design phase, where details will be refined and explored further for practical implementation into the project. Once the design is up to scratch, these newly designed features will make their way into the development phase, followed by quality assurance testing through play-testing by a potential user market. After playtesting, the next iteration of development will begin again, where the same cyle will commence again until the product is shipped to the client.
The first stage of development for the Game will be to get the basic elements of gameplay down pat, that being basic movement from the player, a simple AI bot, a basic gun to kill them, basic power-ups and an end goal. The most basic elements of gameplay will be developed first, to learn the basic concepts of unreal and C++, along with a basic alpha that presents a minute of solid gameplay that a user can complete. Standardised animation assets will also be obtained, since I have limited use
The second stage of development will focus on adapting the current set of skills that I have previously shown off in a more effective and cleaner way. This will include adding more power-ups, creating more complex AI, developing extra guns that are different yet somewhat similar to the current guns set out and setting certain requirements for completing the level. This stage of development is primarily focused on redesigjning elements that I have done before in unity and C# for the Unreal and C++ environment, but optimised better and presented in a much cleaner fashion. It also focuses on utilizing various concepts I have learnt in level design.
The third stage of development focuses on expanding my current set of skills that I have mastered in the previous development stage. The focus is directed entirely on utlizing new game elements that I have never touched before and integrating them with the current system I have developed. Furthermore, new game modes such as multiplayer and mini-games introducing a new mechanic will be tackled to further diversify my field of expertise.
The fourth and final stage of development will be entirely focused on polishing the game and getting the project ready for publishing. In this stage, no new game elements or modes are created, but rather everything is checked and made sure that it is ready for publishing. Features such as shaders are added to make the game look more professional, and already added elements are refined to make gameplay better and more enjoyable for users. Code is also reviewed again for optimisation / patterns.
This conlcludes my plans for development. What do you think about my idea? Do you like it? Do you have suggestions? Let me know by sending me a message on one of my social media links.
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