P1 Understand the use of Sound and Music in Games.

P1 Understand the use of Sound and Music in Games.

The Dark Night Rises
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9neFAM4uZM     2:42 - 3:30

An example of a bad use of music would be the opening scene where we are introduced to Bane as the plane is being hijacked. Before the plane is even hijacked, we are bombarded by the music that is overbearing and completely drowns out any suspense that the visuals were trying to portray.

HEROES OF THE STORM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmX7GRpNwPw

This is the game from the main menu, its choir type sound along with the digital music put in builds up to the peak. Its sole purpose is to pump you up before the game and it does this to good effect.

Music in video games is by far the best way to set the tone and mood. For example, this is music from Fallout 3, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JKVanqVvVw. Fallout 3 is often described as “desolate” or “isolated” and “dreary” and it is shown in this score that is specifically aimed to make you feel so.

Another reason to have good music in a game is addiction. For example in the original Super Mario Bros, not as much music could be added back in those days. Due to this the music had to be repetitive and addiction in order to convince people to keep playing, however not irritating at the same time. People would then associate positive outcomes with that music, which will in turn make people more likely to keep playing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhscMsBhNhw

Waveform

A waveform is how we represent, the shape of a wave and how it travels. First the wave length is the distance between the peaks of the wave, the frequency of the wave is the number of waves produced by the source every second. The amplitude of the wave is how far the peak of the wave is from its undisturbed position. The Rubens tube shows a standing wave by using sound and fire.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynqzeIYA7Iw

Foley

Foley is when you use real life sound effects in films, video games and other media. These sounds can include things like rustling paper, to glass breaking.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJyk5do5pq0  1:24 - 1:30  2:39 - 3:15

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKa4A-oas74  1:49 - 2:00

Timbre

Timbre is what makes two different notes sound unique and stand out. This is because every note has certain vibrations, made up of the fundamental frequency and then inner ones as well. These are harmonics or undertones. The fundamental is the frequency that all of the wave vibrate. To be able to identify the tone it needs more than three harmonics.

Psychology of sound



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCAqDMfPcRA

This is the death sound for a unit in Civ V, for this reason the sound effect symbolises death.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZ8z9FQEQiQ

You can hear the in the video above the instructions that Peppy gives you, this tells the player what they need to do.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfx6yf8pux4

This is the sound effect for picking up a coin in Mario, I believe it symbolises happiness and success when you hear it.

Unit 13 – Understanding the games industry

Unit 13 – Understanding the games industry - Financial Issues

This is a report about the financial issues around the games industry and what causes them. There are several reasons that cause a game to sell well or bad.

The Cost Involved in Creating a Game

There are several things that at costly in the development process, these things include staff, the development of software and hardware, the rent and bills, marketing and advertisement, legality.

In America in 2013 the cost of setting up and running an MMO games development studio for 12 months was roughly $618,000, excluding variable costs. The staff includes 2 programmers, 1 software engineer, 1 artist, 1 games designer, 1 PM/Team Lead, 1 QA tester, 1 systems admin. On average each person earns $73,000 per year, this approximately $584,000. The office space would be around $24,000 for 12 months. All of the equipment would cost $1,200 per person, so $9,600 for 8 people. Sometimes money ins't the only reason a game fails, Grim Fandango for example had several other factors some of these being the fact that the point and click genre just want popular at the time. Also other games like Half-Life came out at a similar time.

How Could a Game be Funded

The funding the developers get for their game comes in many different forms and can often decide how the developer will spend their budget. It used to be fairly limited when it came to getting a budget, your options normally being a bank loan, an investor, or a publisher. While these would help you stick to a set budget, they would be quite difficult to get, for example an investor would have to be quite sure that he was going to at least earn his money back and the bank would want collateral just in case the development didn't go well. It has recently become very popular to get funding though crowd funding sites such as Kickstarter and GoFundMe. It can also be quite hard to raise money this way since regular people have to bet on your game being good to decide to donate to you. Also it is quite regular to see the developer giving out rewards to people that donate a certain amount of money, these rewards can vary from IRL items, to access to the full game. The advantages of crowdfunding would be that genres that aren't often seen would get recognition and funding where in the past this wouldn't have been possible and example of this would be Exploding Kittens this is a card game that would have you trying not to draw cards instead of drawing them. Crowdfunding also allows indie developers to get more funding and following then they would normally get, this helps people get hyped for the game. This however can also be a downside as expectation may become too high, backers of the game may not get exactly what they were expecting, or may simply be disappointed by the end results. This happened with a game called Code Hero, a game that raised  $170,954 on Kickstarter, the backers were suddenly met with a comment from the developer Alex Peake saying he was quitting that was the last update in April of 2014.

Issues Affecting Small Companies

There are several reasons that a small company would have a lot more trouble then say a large company. One of these would be getting the funding to actually start the development of a game, there would be different reasons for this when compared to a larger games company. For example the bank would look at your current income, and since an indie developer plans on using their free time to make a game they probably don't have a full time job if they even have one in the first place. It is hard enough for a normal games designer to get one considering the state of their pay. There would be long periods of time where you are earning no money and then spikes every now and again. Another problem they would have is publishing, getting some one else to publish for you can be a good thing considering they would normally pay for the full development of the game, this covers all cost, however due to this they would take all the money the game earns until they break even and then the development studio would only get what was agreed upon in the deal, which usually isn't very much.

Conclusion

So we have learnt that it is important to not make your expectations too high and to set a budget as to not get off track. If you're under prepared, then you should take a step back and plan, to avoid too many financial issues. There are different ways of funding that are right for different businesses, these in turn would give different options to sell your game to the public. There are extra costs that you need to plan for in case any problem occurs during development. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_video_games_to_develop
https://www.quora.com/How-much-does-it-cost-to-develop-a-video-game
http://freshtechsolutions.co.uk/blog/advantages-disadvantages-crowdfunding/
http://kotaku.com/12-successful-kickstarters-that-never-delivered-1687019268
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_video_games_to_develop
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2014-08-06-shovel-knight-devs-break-down-costs-sales
http://ukie.org.uk/research

Unit 20 - Computer Game Platforms & Technology - Software Technology

Unit 20 - Computer Game Platforms & Technology - Software Technology

An Operating System (OS) is software that basically allows the computer the run, it communicates with the hardware and allows other programs to run.

PC – Windows 10	Apple Mac – MacOS	Iphone/Ipad – IOS 10	Samsung Galaxy S7 – Android 7 (Nugget)	Playstation 4 – Unix-like Orbis OS	Xbox One - Hyper-V and Windows 10
You can browse the internet, download and run different software.	You can browse the internet, download and run different software. Make sweet music.	You can browse the internet and download apps to run them. You can also send text and answer calls.	You can browse the internet and download apps to run them. You can also send text and answer calls.	You can browse the internet and run games from a disc.	You can browse the internet and run games from a disc.

Windows 10 has probably the most functionality out of these options because other make game platforms that you can download for it, for example Battle.net.

Windows 10 isn't exactly built for games, however it has certain apps that help with this. For example Steam and Origin are separate things that you can use to play games. There is also a Windows store that you can buy or download games from. There is also a Xbox app so you can link up with you Xbox account to control it from your PC.

Platform dependency is where software is made for only one platform and so can only be used on that one. Examples of this would be PlayStation games and Xbox games, they each wouldn't be able to run on the other console. There are also several games that are platform independent for example Bloodborn. Platform independence is where you can run a program and it isn't restricted by the OS. An example of this is the language Java, this is because when we execute the code it generates a .class file which comprises of the bytecodes. These bytecodes are easily interpreted by JMV which is available in every OS we install.


A device driver is a certain program that can control a device that is connected to your computer. There are several device drivers for example, they have one for printer, displays and CD-ROM. The device drivers are usually built into the operating system.

Application Software

Interpreted Languages

 An interpreted language is where the program that has been written is being executed line by line, this can be done on any operating system, however it is often slower than a complied language. Examples of these are Java, Python and C#. The reason Java can run on most operating systems because when the machine executes the code it generates a .class file which is comprised of bytecodes. Examples of games made in Java are Wolfenstien: RPG and Minecraft. Bytecodes can be interpreted by JMV which is available in ever OS. An example of a game made in python in Civilisation IV this is because most of the tasks are quite simple.

Complied Languages

A compiled language changes the  source code into machine code, that is directly specific to the target machine, before executing the action. This code will be specific to the given processor and OS. Advantages of this is that they will run faster because there area already in the native code. However the code isn't very portable and it is impossible to write in machine code. C/C++ are both compiled languages and an example of a game made in C++ is Doom 3.

Game Engines

The code for GameMaker didn't want to be too complex for new people and so has its own in built language called GML or Game Maker Language. Example of a game made in GM is Hotline Miami and Hotline Miami 2. Unity uses C# and a Javascript like code called Unityscript, which are supported by the source code in C++. Examples of game made in Unity are Pathfinder online and Cities:Skylines. Unreal is coded in unrealscript which is made to be a simple yet high level language. Unreal 4 however is coded in C++, this is because it is the base to add other languages like C# and Javascript. Examples of games made in Unreal are Batman:Arkham Knight and Battleborn.

Graphical API

API or application program interface, are the tools we use when building software applications. The API specifies how the software should be used in conjunction with each other. A good API provides all of the materials needed to make developing a program easier. Some examples of API are Google Maps API this lets developers embed Google Maps on their webpage, it is designed to work on both mobile devices and desktop browsers. One of the most used graphical API is called OpenGL, it is used for rendering 2D and 3D vector graphics. It is also used for achieving hardware-accelerated rendering by interacting with the GPU.











http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1326071/is-java-a-compiled-or-an-interpreted-programming-language
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Java_platform_games
http://www.programmerinterview.com/index.php/general-miscellaneous/whats-the-difference-between-a-compiled-and-an-interpreted-language/
http://www.cplusplus.com/forum/beginner/114882/
https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-stellar-examples-of-games-created-with-Game-Maker
http://answers.unity3d.com/questions/604180/what-type-of-coding-does-unity-use.html

Task 3

The genre of the game would be rouge-like, dungeon crawler in which you have to guide Jack through each level by defeating sets of randomly generated enemies each with different attack patterns, skills and health. The layout for the rooms would also be randomly placed from a set of pre-generated rooms as to make each run though as different as possible. There would be several different playable characters examples being Jack, Wang and Egg Shen. Each different character would have different stats for example Jack would be the most well rounded character, whereas Wang would have do more damage but have less health. There would be random items that spawn throughout the levels that'd give different effects to the character you're playing. Some characters would even start with items, for example Wang could have something that increases the spawn rate of items.

There would be several significant differences when compared to the story I wrote for example there would be a transition level in which you get Jack from one place to another on his truck or motorcycle, this was taken out of the story due to it being a bit boring and considered filler. We would need sprites for all of the characters, enemies and objects in each room. As well as sounds you would need them for the characters and enemies, as well as sounds cues for picking up items and breaking objects. There would be about 5 levels, however you would be guaranteed to never get the exact same floor layout or items, so the game would have massive replayability. The other mechanics would include things like Jack's projectiles ricocheting off of walls, making them explosive and increasing movement speed.

This is the screen you find when you first enter the game after clicking it it will bring you to the character selection screen. It is designed around the walls of the bar, as if someone has pinned it up.




This is Wang's bar from the story and it serves as the hub of the game in which a new characters show up they would stand in several positions around the room, an arrow would hover over their heads and their stats would show in the bottom right.

This is the layout of the floors, however in other rooms there would be objects like pots and rocks that you could break with certain items. As you can see there is a possibility for four different rooms to be adjacent to the starting one however there are occasionally dead ends and special themed rooms one being a bar in which jack can regain health. 

What the Customer wants

Before finding what the customer wants you have to find who the customer is, this is called a target audience. To find the target audience you first need to think about the game, in this case it is a game based on the movie Big Trouble in Little China. Since this movie came out in 1986 the people that would have seen it would now be around 45 years old, however it is also a video game so I would put the age of the target audience from 15 - 40 years old. The main gender that I think would be playing the game would be male due to the characters and how they were portrayed in the movie.