RESEARCH

PRIMARY RESEARCH

There is clearly a winner when it comes to this question and its first person. I was already intending on this anyway but its good that this is the preferred camera perspective for most.

I'm slightly surprised by this because I thought more people would like single fire weapons but I suppose people like the power it gives them and power is what I am aiming for.

A majority of people do listen to the audio design which is nice because I always wanted to focus a little more on audio when making a game. The guns though I'd want to pay a lot of attention to because I adore good sounds for firearms.

This is very split down the middle but gameplay seems to win by only a slither. I did want to lean more so into minimalistic visuals anyway so its good to know that the majority of people think this.

Its a very even split between all of them. This probably means that most people probably don't mind some complex game mechanics but not a bunch of them.

I am not sure whether the question was understood properly by some however, its clear people usually like these breaking the 4th wall style puzzles which I always loved the idea of.

Normal seems to be the winner in this regard. As I already stated below the worded question, Having no set difficulty and just have modifiers that are unlocked over time sounds so much better and allows for more replayability.

Most responses seem to be the fact that the person wants to challenge themselves in some way which is expected. I think what I might do is instead of difficulties, add modifiers which make the game harder or easier depending on which ones are active.

I guess all the people that answered this must be rather addicted to playing games as about half play for atleast 5 hours in a single sitting. This is useful for knowing how long I should ideally make one playthrough of the game and I'd say 20 hours is good to beat all the levels and unlock everything.

I'm pleasantly surprised by these results as I was not expecting most people to want to pay for games. The question was a bit vague so I don't know how much they would be willing to shell out but its useful knowing that if released, I could probably charge a modest £4.99 for it.

SECONDARY RESEARCH

The Artstyle of SUPERHOT

SUPERHOT is a first person shooter from 2016 that was developed and published by the Poland based Superhot Team. Originally made as part of a 7 day FPS challenge in 2013, It involves the player character attempting to defeat RED coloured enemies using guns and many other weapons in various abstract environments. The unique twist in this game is that the time only moves when you move, which allows the player to take a much more tactical approach and assess their situation. A port for virtual reality along with a sequel called SUPERHOT VR and SUPERHOT: MIND CONTROL DELETE respectfully were released later, which incorporate the same gameplay loop but with additional features and levels.

When it comes to the visuals within SUPERHOT, they are extremely minimalistic with red, white and black being the main colours used which help things like enemies and important objects stand out. This minimalism is not only present in the colour palette but in virtually every other aspect such as the models and interface only have the bare minimum required put into them. The lack of clutter allows the player to focus primarily on the gameplay and comes with the nice bonus that it makes the game easier to run on devices increasing accessibility.

I can take some inspiration from this masterpiece and incorporate this amazing use of minimalism into my game, especially the colour palette. It will save me a lot of time and allow me to allocate time to other parts of the game such as the gameplay, which is coincidentally the same reason the Superhot Team chose such a minimalistic approach.

Also... You really should give it a try. It is The most innovative shooter I’ve played in years. ; )

The Complex Music of GTA V

Do I really have to explain the premise of a Grand Theft Auto game? Oh well, I might as well. An open world action adventure game made by Rockstar games centered around bringing a parody of modern America to life. The game is a social commentary on pop culture, politics and other currently relevant topics. Yada yada yada. Crime, guns, violence... Are we done? I think so.

Anyways, Rockstar never fails to put a lot of detail into their games to truly immerse you within their, the music is no different in this regard.

Within GTA 5, a multitude of soundtracks can play depending on what you are doing like during a police chase or heist. However, these tracks aren’t just one file, its multiple files that contain one of each instrument and the game can turn the volume of each one up or down. This dynamic system allows the music to actually react to what is happening at the moment like making the music sound calmer or more urgent.

I could try incorporating this within my game to fill in the gap that all the minimalism will make. Having a complex musical score clash with a simplistic visuals sounds like a very interesting idea. This does vastly increase the effort needed because instead of slapping in a track and coding it so it plays at a certain point, the dynamic system would require a multitude of tracks be coded to play at certain triggers and to transition smoothly without sounding jarring, out of place or not be synced up correctly.

Oh yeah, I would put images for this section but the thing is that there's nothing that I can put up which is relevant to the topic.

Trepang 2's Addicting Gameplay

All I can say about Trepang 2 is that its like a modern take on F.E.A.R. or Black; a love letter you could say. Released in 2023, it's a very chaotic first person shooter which is quite the opposite of SUPERHOT's more calculated approach. The chaos is embraced fully with the movement being tuned specifically for moving around speedily and gore is extremely over the top, allowing for some disgustingly awesome moments. There is a story/campaign but, the gameplay does the heavy lifting in my opinion. It's technically original but at the same time, it feels like I've heard it before just repackaged in an FPS about being a super soldier.

Having played this game all the way through twice, I can safely say that I love how every weapon feels in your hands. They all are extremely powerful, which makes them feel like an actual gun instead of a pea shooter. Pea shooters aren't fun to use unless it plants vs zombies... But in all seriousness, just even being able to see the effect your weapons have on the environment like the NPCs really sells the whole "feeling the power" thing even more. Because you can have awesome guns, audio design and animations, but you need to also see how much your affecting the world around you to truly believe in it.

One of my favourite features though is the ability to dual wield most weapons, which I certainly want to add to my game as the only thing better than having a powerful gun is having 2 of them at the same time. Double the gun, double the fun!

Other than that, there's not much else to say about this. I like this game, the guns are cool so I want to make something similar for my project.

Scorn's Puzzle Setpieces

Ahh Scorn. One of the most terrifying games I have played. No direction and no explanation, you just solve puzzles as you traverse a fallen civilisation. Although, I really like the disturbing artstyle of this game and it deserves a appraisal on its own, I’m only taking inspiration from the puzzles.

I like how they are designed and I think I’d want some puzzles to be just like the ones in scorn minus the visuals. When playing, I had a very similar feeling to what articles describe which is that it starts out a bit confusing until there’s a moment where everything clicks and when you complete it, ends up feeling quite accomplishing. Nothing too challenging, but it makes you stop and actually process what you're looking at. I suppose it also allows you to take in whatever grotesque scenery the developers have concieved with your very own 2 eyes.

I want to make the player slow down and use their brain at times. To calm down from the chaotic situation they most likely were in a moment ago and truly lock in. I feel like scorn has the perfect puzzle formula for that exact thing.

Apart from that, there’s not much else to talk about as the games combat and style is basically the opposite of what I am trying to create. Combat is buns (probably on purpose now that I think of it) and a complex biochemical style that's not easy on the eyes at all.

RESEARCH EVALUATION

1) How has the research helped or guided you?

I think that the research ended up helping in getting a better grasp of what I actually want in the game as a whole. Even though I had an idea of what I wanted to make, researching these games actually showed me how it would most likely look and work in my game. Doing a questionnaire has also helped identify what people like, want and expect from a game such as this.

2) What areas would you spend more time researching on and for what reasons?

Probably secondary research? I did want more but I could not exactly come up with anymore things to research for this game as I already did cover the four major aspects I am going to focus on during development which are visuals, audio, gunplay and puzzles.

3) What issues did your research bring up in respect to your project and how will you deal with them?

When looking how the music in gtav works, I rather quickly realised it will be harder than just playing one track at the same time as a lot of scripting is going to be involved with adjusting the volume for various tracks when certain events trigger although I know it would pay off in the end.

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