Pre-production techniques for the creative media industry

cost research

hardware

only some computers have a good enough spec for game design as others will crash the cost for one of the good ones range from around £800 plus.peripherals is things that you can plug into a computer like a mouse or a keyboard you don't really need a expensive keyboard or mouse as they are not as important as the computer but you may need things to record sound like a microphone for the sound on your game. dev kits are needed to allow creation of a game mainly for the platforms like consoles such as Xbox and play station.

software

the software is important for game design there are many different ones the main ones are udk unity game maker and Maya. game maker is for 2D  games but there is costs for different versions

and unity is the main one used for mobile phones apps and tablets.

 the udk engine and game maker are free but im not sure about the others.

PUBLISHING

you can publish many different ways for different platforms the problem is the cost of the publishing

for you to pulish a game you need =either a dev kit for xbox or psn or team but to publish a game it can cost a good couple of hundred pound maybe up to a thousand.

Timescale

setting a timescale is important because of if you spend too long on one part of a game it will take longer than you need also if you time your self or your team to do different things for your game and if you have a curtain date you can try and complete it on time.

the best way to manage your time is to set a limit of work on each part of the game to make sure you don't spend forever doing it. also if you advertise a game for a date then run over the date your audience will become quite fed up and you might lose profit.

Personal

It is important to know what skills and experience in your team to create a game to meet your deadline you need to make sure you have enough people in your team to create your game you will need a programmer a artist and someone to create digital graphics. For you product to be released you will need someone that has skills in business.

 Also to make a game you will have to spend your money on software and publishing. You will also have to pay some people in your team. You will have to check your teams cvs to see if you got the right person on the write job.

Facilities

For some games that have been made they use different places to make them for example fifa is made by using a motion studio for the different tricks because it would be hard to animate them but the cost of the studio can be quite a lot depending on how big.

Materials

For a game to be created you will need certain things in order to start production. Most games make concept art for the main characters and weapons and backgrounds others may use a story board to show the story of the game as the person plays the game people also create concepts for the game assets also you can use the internet to gather ideas for a game and look at what sort of game ins most brought by the public. Also it is important to look at different games to make and idea of the sort of sound/audio that is used for different types of games so it suits the genre. If you get the wrong sound it won’t be good.

Contributors

To make a game that stars a certain person you will need to acquire that person but it can cost quite a bit of money but it can make your game seem more professional and help with the areas of the game you are making. Games like call of duty use the us military to advise on the weapons and vocal scripts for some of the characters and the types of scenery used for the story.

Codes of practice

Tom publish a game for the public you have to go through certain different things in order to make you production able to be released

Firstly you need to do research on the pegi ratings to make sure your game is aimed at the right people for example a game rated 3 would be like racing games like forza game rated 16 would have slight action but not much this would be games like wwe which has action but is not gory or rude but games rated 18 will be horror and extremely violent and gory game like call of duty gta and alien isolation these are the game that children shouldn’t play. Also on the back of every game case you have to pust some health and safty regulations regarding your game to make sure people have fun playing but stay safe whilst doing so. Also you can use other peoples games as inspiration but you cant copy because you then will be at risk of being sent to a court of law for copy right. Also you have to take into account public liability as some people frome a different ethic group might not like the content or the comments used in the game as they might find it offensive and you could get sewed for racist content.

My game

the game genre will be action as it will give you the ability to shoot at zombies. there will be coins to pick up and there will also be blocks that you stand on that will kill you also to got to the next room you will have to get to the goal which will be a bomb. the zombie that i will be using will be simple and pixelated so will the player but the player will be more detailed. each level the background will be blue and there will be another kind of bricks which will make up the walls and some of the floor these will also make the shapes and platforms that you stand on each level will have a unique lay out and you will not be able to touch parts of the floor the game will also have two menus 1 will be the main menu this will consist of two buttons one will be play button the other will be the exit button and the other will be pause menu will have a quit button that you press to go back to the main menu. the games difficulty will be quite hard as the players will have a little slide motion so you can slide of the blocks and die also the game will have GUI which will consist of score which will go up 10 every time you pick up one of the yellow coins and the coins will be scattered across the rooms also there will be a pickup you have to get that will destroy the walls that's your standing on plus the walls blocking the exit.

First I will be creating my sprites for the game all together they will be about 8 sprites and at the minute I have created 3 after the sprites I will be making a background which will be a blue sky with clouds and rain animations and cloud animations to. After the background I will be making the sound product for the game which will be explosions gun fire and a music beat. Then I will begin coding for the game when I’ve finished the coding I will make a menu and a instructions page with the controls and a picture showing the gui for the game.

Sprites

-player: a solider that has green woodland camo and white skin and will have a 9mm pistol.

-enemy: a basic zombie that will be green and will have bloody cloths.

-jewels: will be a coin that is yellow and will have the number one on it.

-wall 1: this will be the most used one which will be basic bricks but they will be a darkish gray .

-wall 2: this will be the death wall the will kill you on contact this will also be basic bricks but will be a dark red.

-goal 1: this will be the goal that you have to get to in order to get to the next level.

-goal 2: this will be the goal that you have to get to in order to finish the game.

-coin will be an object for you to pic up to build your score.

Main menu will have 2 buttons one will be a start button and the second will be a exit button also I might be creating a levels button that will let you select a level as long as you done it before.

Pause menu will have on button for now which will be a quit button which will take you back to the main menu. I will add another one to change you players color and another one for the back ground. You can access this by pressing the letter’s “p” on your keyboard

Level 1 will have a stone brick border and I will make it quite easy and will only have around 5 zombies but will be full of coins for you to pick up.

Level 2 will have the same broader as the all the other levels but it will have more zombies and you will have the ability to shoot them but the positioning of the coins will be slightly harder than the first

Level 3 will have the same border as the others but this one will be even harder that all the ones before and will have more enemy’s and harder to get coins .

Level 4 will have the same border as the others but will be harder and more difficult to get coins.

Level 5 will have the same border as the others but this level will be the hardest out of all the others and will have a coin that looks the same as the others but will put you in to a special room.

The special level will have a brick border but will have loads of zombies and coins for you to kill and collect once you killed the last one you will be able to  go back to level 5 and finish the game but you cant die or you will have to start again.