Making of Courage - Morgan

Hello and welcome to my page. I'm Morgan Thomas.

I am in my third semester of study for an Advanced Diploma in Interactive Digital Media (Games). Our assessment for this semester is to form a group with other students and create our own video game. My group consists of Darshana Paragji (Visual Design), Blair Findley (3D Modelling and Animation), Lachlan Bunker (Coding and Programming), Lucas Krause (3D Animation) and myself (Level Design). Our game idea is a survival horror game called Courage. It is set in the late 1890's and is about a rich aristocrat who is throwing a party in his mansion when the lights go out and the mansion becomes haunted. You must go through the mansion to find a way out, and along the way can choose to rescue the party guests or leave them to die in the darkness.

I am using this blog to keep track of me and my group's progress of producing the game. They also have  blogs to track their own progress, and we also have a main blog for the game itself. I will provide links to those blogs in a future post.

Thank you for reading my blog and I hope you follow our group's progress in the making of Courage.

Individual Goals and Objectives

My role in my group is the Level Designer. I'm really interested in how a game's levels and worlds are designed and made, and has always been the job I've wanted to have in the gaming industry. I have a keen eye for detail, which I think will help me in creating levels. The goals and objectives I have set for myself this semester are:

• Create at least 15 full size levels
• Complete jobs and requests that my fellow teammates give me before the deadline
• Make sure the levels are interesting and not look the same, as well as be appropriate for their respective difficulty levels

Individual Role and Responsibilities 

My role as Level Designer is creating and designing the game's levels. I draw blueprints of the level's layout and then start to build a basic build of it in Unity 3D. I discuss the level's setting and environment with Darsharna, our Visual Designer. We compile a list of assets to be make and be put into the level to make the environment as what we envisioned. Once the assets have been completed, I put them into the level and start to make the level more like what we want. I also apply textures and make the objects more realistic. Once the level has been built, I give it to our programmer Lachlan who will put the level into the game's coding so it will function with the game's system.

These links are to my PowerPoint presentation about my original game idea that I pitched to my class, as well as my post-interview feedback form and my resume.
PowerPoint:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3_eaT0tD7Q_ZWo3Tmd1cERGZWc/edit?usp=sharing
Resume:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3_eaT0tD7Q_R0o1eTlfTVRXVFU/edit?usp=sharing
Feedback form:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3_eaT0tD7Q_TjhhUWVhZ0ZWMGc/edit?usp=sharing

Design Development

Me and my group hold regular group meetings and scrums to see how everyone is progressing and to talk about what else we can do to improve the game. We also use the site PivotalTracker to manage our tasks and projects, where we can assign new tasks to be completed and upload files and assets to be used in the production of our game.

The goal for designing the games levels was to keep it dark and claustrophobic, as the game is set in a dark mansion. The transition and variety of the game's environments is important as the main character starts at the bottom of the mansion in the wine cellar as must make his back up through the mansions many floors and rooms.