Final Project and Evaluation
This page will be showcasing my finished project along with my evaluation of the various elements of the development cycle involved. I will also be placing any additional evaluative work here when needed, such as an analysis of my project pitch describing what I did right and what could be improved upon.
Download links for my final project and a showcase depicting various images and videos of my final opening scene will be towards the bottom of this page.
​
First I will be analysing my first project pitch used at the start of this project.
Project Pitch Evaluation
Although my pitch initially is short on paper only consisting of two pages, during the presentation of my pitch I had also prepared a Q&A sheet to reference any possible questions about my final project that might be asked, located below.
For my project, first I wanted to create a narrative to follow as I wished my opening sequence to be laid out as a story driven game might do, as I felt this would make more sense when presenting my pitch to an audience in order to engage them and make them see the bigger picture of my project goals. Although I am only creating an introductory sequence, I wanted it to feel like a bigger game as the player navigated it with the use of an interactive narrative.
As for the rest of my pitch, I spoke of the different key points that would influence my final design and ultimately my final product. Such as, what genre I will be using as an influence on the overall styling of my product, what tools and applications I will be using to produce my project, what platform I will plan on releasing my product on and how I will go about doing so, the overall length of my finished product including how long I wish the opening sequence/tutorial to be and the themes of my product including the visual and audio and how they are going to be presented to the player.
​
A recording of my pitch is included below.
Project Pitch Q&A
During my pitch for this project, I had created a Q&A list of possible questions that I may be asked by my peers in order to prepare myself for the responses of my pitch choices and how I will achieve them. This proved useful as after I had given my pitch some of the questions I had on this Q&A were asked, you can find an audio recording of this below along with the aforementioned Q&A list.
Formative Feedback
After the first initial weeks of development, I had received feedback on the progress of my project so far, along with an update of where I am currently at in terms of development and with my continued work on this site.
​
After listening back to the feedback I had received, I used this as an opportunity to develop my project site further by including the key elements of research that I may have missed without this.
One aspect that was brought up was the scale of my project and whether it may be reduced in scope as this is only an example of a tutorial level as a potential product, this means that I may have to make compromises with my overall design and alter my initial concept.
​
Additionally, I was able to converse about possible ideas that I have in regards to my project and whether or not to include them as I have a limited timeframe in which to complete this by.
We spoke of different texture variations that I have used from my primary research which have been utilised correctly within the science fiction theme.
I was able to talk about any issues that I have had during the early stages of development such as creating concept art and how I found myself struggling with it, although I was able to overcome this by starting to work on my level in a 3D space as I found this easier to do.
​
I was able to establish a timeframe for the remainder of my project with this feedback as many of the elements that are required were explained to me and how I should be using this time to keep on moving forward in this project.
​
I feel that the reflection of my development on this project has been steady as I continue my work even if it requires me to backtrack certain points that requre my further attention.
Alpha Testing / Feedback
Before finalising my project, I had a couple of my peers playtest and review my work in its current state and recorded the results as shown above. After discussing what could be improved upon and also what is done correctly I have reviewed these results and have summarised what I need to do and additionally fixing any issues that playtesting has shown.
​
Playtesting has indicated that the environment in which my project is based fits the genre that it was designed to be, although a particular issue brought up was that the doors have no indication to whether or not they are locked or open to use, this can be fixed however by either having a message appear telling the player that the door is locked or unlocked and also possibly a light indicating so.
Moving on to the audio, this was a mixed response as a majority of the results show that it required improvement with one suggestion being that the ambient audio needs increasing as it is too quiet which I can agree on as it is something I overlooked when building this demo and only realised after I had playtested the level.
​
The next question asks if the character movement was suitable for this style of a project as I had used a pre-made blueprint with a more natural flow of movement as the stock movement built into Unreal was too stiff which I did not agree with. The results show that most playtesters agreed with this style of movement which is great as I wish to learn how to create this style of movement from scratch and going into the processes involved in doing so.
​
Next, I asked the playtesters what could be improved upon or additionally added to my project as I am certain that I have missed out on a few key elements when developing this level. Many of the issues that playtesters had were with the door animation not syncing up with its audio correctly which I had noted additionally camera sensitivity was also a concern as it would clip through the environment but I was unable to fix these last minute but I'm sure that I can find a solution to these issues once this project is finished as I wish to continue to develop my project further.
​
​
Final Evaluation
Project Download Links
Here are the OneDrive download links for my final project which I have placed into a .Zip file.
