The Card game
The project for this module is going to be a Card Game made from a template and built up as it's own thing. We are to make our own cards, graphics, sounds and other parts of the template to shape it into our own vision. I've been put in a group with Goncalo and Braulio to make this card game happen.
The game's title is Honour and Plunder and it's premise is that a Kingdom called the St Mark's Militia is under attack by the Woodland bandits and depending on who you play as, you either help the MIlitita defend their city or play as the Bandits and pillage whatever valuables they've got.
The Pitch
To start things off we have made this Game Pitch document going through what the game will be like and also including a hook at the start. Like most of my Portfolios, the link to the documents is by clicking the button.
Game Pitch Document
The GDDs
The Game Design Document was first written by Goncalo on an online Microsoft Word. I've had some issues with how the document was structured and the topics and titles being spread around with no flow. Overtime, I've rewritten the GDD on Google Docs and have updated it to fit the current state the game's in.
First GDD
Final GDD
What did we do?
In this section, I'll go into detail about what we've done through the development of the game.
Above is a collection of a few assets that Goncalo has done for the project. He has done the background art of the title and edited some custom card art in the event that there's something too vague to borrow online. For instance, he has made the Recruitement Posters, Hostage and Banner art.
As for looking up assets, he has found most of the art online, which I'll link below. He also has researched most of the sound effects that play when cards attack, die or activate their abilities.
Braulio didn't do that much, but he did assist mostly on the design of the cards. He has made the icons shown here and has assisted in a new card design. I've settled with Blue and Green due to the faction's chosen colours and for consistency, replace the black card with grey for the now-locked debug cards. The other colours were meant to replace the pre-existing colours, but were soon scrapped in favour of the main 3 sprites.
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As for me, I was in charge of re-programming the template into our ideas. On the side, I've also done the icon for Mana which is called "Morale", the Title in Text and 3D assts in Autodesk Maya: castle walls, tents and gravestones. Additionally, I've looked up some extra sounds for other cards that were added later, such as the bear.
I have went with re-arranging the table so that it's easier to see the player's health when it ish't obstructed by the cards. Each side has their own way of living and burying their dead. And to make it more like the players are fighting in an open area, I've replaced the ground with grass and snow.
Programming wise, I was able to make new abilities like adding health and damage to minions and implement them into Support and Attack cards.
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These stats are what the cards have and what they have and could've had. The stats were done with help from our teacher for wording and balancing. The stats were copied into the cards with multiple checks to make sure nothing was off about them. One of the issues however was that I wasn't the best at programming despite being arguably better than the other 2 of my teammates. The abilities that I have left out were dealing damage to a random enemy and spawning allies. They were either replaced with nothing or a substitute that was somewhat similar to what the other card decks had.
The peer review
On our 12th week, we were tasked with having to share our work with 3 other groups and review each other's work. We are to get our games ready for testing, a Google Forms link and Play Instructions. However, the way I went about this alone was a bit of a hiccup. I've made a document talking about it.
Peer Review document
Final Gameplay
After having to talk to our teacher Andrew, I've went out to get the game fixed up along with his help and advise on balancing and programming. After the amount of backups, roadblocks and countless testing, I've made the game and recorded gameplay of it.
Note: Because of how dodgy my screen recorder is, I was only able to show one window. The perspective shows Player 1, but Player 2 is on the other screen so I do apologise for how the music is getting skipped forwards and backwards. It's expected when swtiching tabs.
Conclusion
Honestly, I don't know where to begin. The project was in shambles with the 3 of us having different flaws. Goncalo lacked the motif, Braulio was busy and I was just outright confused, stuck in lala land until the final weeks. But somehow, we managed to pull through, with me carrying the team with this card game.
If I was to look back and say what were the pros, is that Goncalo did well with making the art and Braulio for creating consistently decent assets. On my end, I think it's just getting it finished.
On the other hand, I've got a lot to talk about the negatives, and I would like to say that this team needed a leader. I had the assumption that Goncalo would be one, but he wasn't motivated enough, and I didn't see myself as a leader due to how my old idea was rejected and how I saw their idea as "generc". But in the end, I kind of did become somewhat a leader in the end. Things might've been different if I took the lead in the first place.
Another issue I had was understanding things too soon. If I was to look up Control and Agrro curves and how to program abilities much earlier than now, I wouldn't look that much of a buffoon. I will admit, some mistakes that I was stuck on for days took only a second to figure out. Thinking about it, those 2 abilities I skipped could've also been done before.
All n all, it was a stressful and head-slamming experience, but I've learned a lot from it and at least it ended with a somewhat finished game.