Game Design

Generations:

This timeline is the best i could find on google, its good however there are another nearly 3 generations missing. Generation 8 including the Wii U, PS4 and Xbox One, Generation 9 including only the switch, and generation 10 on the way with the PS5, Xbox Series X/S and potentially a new switch model.

The game i choose from before 1995 has got to be Punchout! (1987) this is my favorite old-school game by a good margin. For my game after 2015 i’m gonna go with Zelda Breath Of The Wild (2017) , the most recent installment in the zelda series for the switch which takes link to his most open world yet.

Game #1

Punch out! is a 2D boxing game originally released on the Nintendo entertainment system on September 18th 1987. The game involves you, a boxer named little mac, dodging opponents punches and beating one after another until you have the chance to take on Mike Tyson for the championship belt. There are 22 levels before Mike, all getting harder and harder with their own tricks along the way. I think the game was designed for boxing fans (obviously as Mike Tyson is a boxing superstar). It will have been to market on trying to create the original transition of real life sports fans to the then new generation of video games.

Game #2

My second game is The Legend Of Zelda Breath Of The Wild, released in September 2017, BOTW is the Zelda series’ most expansive generation yet. Set in the vast explorable kingdom of Hyrule, Link awakens after a 100 year slumber with no memories as to what happened previously. This begins his journey to regain his lost memories and save the world from the blight of calamity Ganon. The player is told to defeat the 4 divine beasts and restore them to good, however, you actually don’t have to even bother if you don’t want to. The player has more narrative choice than ever before in a Zelda game with what they want to do, rather its an 100% run, or you just go straight to the final boss like a GG master gamer. The game was in development for 5 years, revealed originally in January 2013 with a Wii U presentation in which they talked about their plans of making a Zelda game like no other.

GameJam

This is a video of the game me, Jonathan and Josh made. Josh created the menus, Jonathan created all the prefabs and code, and I did the level design for each level.

Integrated Development Environments (IDE’s):

Examples of IDE’s:

Visual studio

• supports: C, C++, C++/CLI, Visual Basic . NET, C#, F#, JavaScript, TypeScript, XML, XSLT, HTML, and CSS, and support for python Ruby, Node. js, and M are available via plug-ins

Komodo

•  Python, Perl, PHP, Ruby, Tcl, SQL, Smarty, CSS, HTML and XML, and the operating systems Linux, OS X, and Windows.

Netbeans

• Java, C/C++, XML and HTML, to PHP, Groovy, Javadoc, JavaScript and JSP. Because the editor is extensible, you can plug in support for many other languages.

Eclipse

• Ada, ABAP, C, C++, C#, Clojure, COBOL, D, Erlang, Fortran, Groovy, Haskell, JavaScript, Julia, Lasso, Lua, NATURAL, Perl, PHP

Code::blocks

• C, C++, and Fortran

What are common features and benefits of using an IDE?

IDE’s are used for things like debugging, programming language support, integrations and plug-ins as well as using a text editor. They’re also used for code completion and compilation.

What is the essential difference between an IDE and a game engine?

A Game Engine is more specialized than a framework; it’s a framework very specifically targeted to make games, and usually only games of some kind. … With Unreal Engine you make 3D shooters. An IDE is unrelated to all these. It means Integrated Development Environment, and it’s a step up from a plain text editor.

Digital Storefronts

A digital storefront is a website that offers a place of service where people can buy games/dlc etc only at any time. This is to be more efficient given the medium of games as they used to require going to a real store to pick them up. Some examples would be steam, the playstation plus store, the nintendo eshop for switch as well as the microsoft store for xbox.

Trends

Trends in games come in both ways of design, and ways of development. For example, a design trend nowadays would be the battle royal style of gameplay, and in development, games made for VR/AR are trending in 2020. Trends are simply the popular current things in games in the current time.

A first example of an upcoming development trend, is the fact that the “war” between consoles, like the notorious playstation vs xbox debates of the mid 2000s, are coming to an end for an instead united friendship of gamers everywhere. While some console games will of course still remain exclusive to start with (like demon souls remake for ps5), they could even be seen to release on all consoles a while after they’re released. While this is purely speculation for now, this could very well become the norm in gaming culture someday, as even games like call of duty warzone, among us and many many more already allow cross play between both consoles, pc and even mobile.

a second example i’d like to talk about would be 5G gaming in the modern age, this would allow even faster connection online and paired with the insanely fast load times already shown off with the new ps5 and xbox sx, this will make logging on and hopping straight into a game 5x as fast as what it was previously. Online you can watch videos of load time comparisons, specifically for games like GTA5 and Destiny 2 which are known for the insanely long load times, getting absolutely shredded by todays spec. 5G will also allow far better matchmaking play, which in turn allows developers to focus more on what new to add to games instead of having to focus as much on server maintenance.

Now, some examples of design trends.

Storefront and Marketing

I’m going to compare the PS Store, the nintendo eshop and finally itch.io.

First off, the PlayStation store has a very sleek modern design and features many of the triple A games that are out at the minute. Itch.io is opposed to this, having much simpler games featured made my single or a team of few developers. Most of the games on the PS and Nintendo stores have price tags whereas Itch is mainly free or at least very cheap games. I see the Nintendo store as a decent balance, there are plenty of both indie and triple a titles on it.

Evolution of game design over time: