Peer Review on my Map Today

Now that I have analysed my feedback from when I was developing my map, I am going to get some more feedback on my finished map today. I will be asking my peers Lewis, Leon and Jerome to review my map and provide me with some feedback. When asking them to review my map I asked them to comment specifically on what features I could consider adding Kismet like finding keys, toggling lights, etc., I asked them whether or not they feel my map works fine as a death match or I should consider doing a capture the flag match and finally on how I could reward the player for making it to the top of the skyscraper. Here is what Lewis had to say: 

“I think if you created your map like a sort of the first team who gets to the top wins it will work really well, you could use kismet to turn on the lights in the room everytime you walked into one i think that will be interesting for the map.

Also i think you should add your model to the skyscraper that will look really good.

Other than that i think your map is quite large and could benefit from adding more navigational aids such as jump pads and teleports.” 

 Here is what Jerome had to say: 

“I would consider maybe resizing the building slightly smaller, or adding more objects/walls to take out the open space, but I maybe you could keep the size of the building if you consider making the game so that when you fight the way through and reach top floor, you win the game, which brings you to your first point, 'Would it benefit from Kismet features'. You could add more triggered obstacles or puzzles so that you gain access to the next floor. You could find out and see if Kismet can be set so that the game finishes when you reach top floor.

When I pointed out about winning the game when you reach top floor, I guess that could be the achievement players get for accomplishing that, also the idea of capture the flag mode, in your case it could be capture the building.” 

And here is what Leon had to say: 

“I like the layout of your map, I also like your use of the lighting. I also noticed that you have fixed your third-person camera which now looks quite effective.

Your A.I however, seems to be all over the place which seriously affects your gameplay. your level seems to be quite complicated at times so you could maybe cut down the amount of levels that you have on it. You could add some jump pads and teleports as you don't seem to have any but I do like where you have added your lifts.

I also noticed that when you get to the top of the level, there is a vehicle that doesn't seem to work. Once you fix this, you could maybe try to play as it.” 

 Now that I have gotten new feedback from my peers my main focus after Easter break will be simply updating my map and making it a good as it can be.

Even More Early Peer Reviews!!!

After getting this great feedback I decided to scrap my first level and start over again by creating a skyscraper that was much bigger, after spending 2 weeks working on my new map I again got further feedback on my level on 21st October 2014 from Jonny and Catherine, when asking for this feedback I asked my peers to comment specially on the navigation of my level, the gameplay of my level and the lighting of my level. This is what Jonny had to say: 

“Really like the idea of fighting through a skyscraper! 

1. Nagivation - It's great with all the possibilities for cover points and the rooms to explore where players could be hiding! I'd reccomend having a significant object or even different lighting for each floor so players know exactly where they are! Even different jump pads on the bottom floor to act as elevators to each floor would be pretty cool! Love the idea of having a few more buildings that have toppled into it as well to give the impression of earthquakes and disaster! 

 2. Gameplay - would be great! Noticed lots of little hiding places such as in the rooms you created where a player could hide and kill people as they ran in or to be flushed out and killed by a group of players running in. The stairs were made really well with little areas which you could see through to shoot down from and it'd be really great if you were on the defense or protecting a flag runner! Really liked the idea as a whole for fighting your way through a skyscraper because it'd be like something from a film such as Judge Dredd where one team has to fight there way through to reach the top. 

 3. Lighting - Didnt notice much lighting but I know it wasn't a completed map yet! I love what you said about the night club and all your flashing neon lights! Like I previously said, having significant lighting on each floor so the players can determine where they are within the skyscraper would be better so no-one got lost. I think having the stairs well lit would be great so if someone was stood there shooting downwards then the opposing player could see them a lot more easily! With the lighting and the whole 'earthquake' style of the map I'd say having broken lighting such as blinking lights in the toilets to give off a sort of creepy effect possibly and then give someone hiding the element of surprise.” 

This is what Catherine had to say: 

“Navagation

your map remind me of Mall store area, with café or hotel that should be good idea. or you can put hidden room and create a wall that can walk through wall to see inside so many pick up that'll be good luck for players to find it.



Gameplay

I think this playability is quite enjoys and nice flows to find many different room with pick up or power up. and i find nothing glitches around your map. some texture will be good without glitches..

from ground floor this room may too large, why not you can put a float plane with new weapons some on it as player will try to reach to get it.



Lighting

the lightning looking good. maybe need add more lightning in other rooms because if you use "Build All" and the few lighting inside the building will be few light and dark and need many lights. ( just let you know )” 

Jonny then added: 

“Picking up on what catherine said about power ups - I think having a few discreet power ups in the bathrooms would be really good so if a player was trapped in there he could just storm out and blast his way through the enemy team and escape up a flight of stairs!” 

 Some more extremely helpful feedback here from Jonny and Catherine and I again took their comments on board and implemented a lot of their suggestions into my map. I light each floor of my skyscraper differently, added discreet pickups in the different rooms throughout my skyscraper and added a jump pad outside my skyscraper.

Some More Early Peer Reviews

After getting this very helpful feedback from Jonny and Charles, I again received more feedback from James, Chloe and Peter on 7th October 2014 when my level had slightly progressed. Here is what James had to say: 

“Map Feedback:

A flying vehicle or two, like a helicopter might work with your map. If your towers have windows, players could fly around them and shoot other players. This would another layer to your map flow but it would make capturing the flag a bit too easy.
The run down building idea would work as a vertical figure of eight, you could add a death box to your ground floor and add walk paths from building to building, and saving players from going all the way to the bottom of their building and climbing up another to get to the enemy flag.
Your map flow works a bit like a Deathmatch map flow and adding vehicles would only make it seem more like a death match, maybe if you add some invisible walls or floating obstacles to force players to move around the map it would feel more like a capture the flag map.” 

Here is what Chloe had to say: 

“I liked the idea that as you get higher up within your skyscraper the lighting gets more dark and intense.
I think you should have an opposing building near your skyscraper that has crashed into it, giving the players a quicker opportunity to get to the top rather than walking up so many flights of stairs; which would get repetitive after a while. You could have boosters the player can walk over that spring them up towards the smaller tower (the more realistic view than having them spring up right up to the top of the skyscraper).
At the base of the city you can have different paths or you could expand underneath the skyscraper to create some sort of basement layout.” 

Here is what Peter had to say: 

“liked you idea of using a sky scraper as you pillar design and bringing some verticality into your map. it would be a good idea to have jump pads linking the roof tops of each building to help navigation.

you could also add something like scaffolding/walkways on some exterior parts of the skyscraper so players get to see the scale of the environment and provide some alternative paths.

it might be a good idea to also consider adding teleports or a vehicle as your map has a large open area feel to it once you outside of the sky scrapper.” 

 Again, these comments were all very helpful and I took James, Chloe and Peter’s comments on board and actually used some of their suggestions in my map. For example I have a jump pad at the bottom of my skyscraper which allows the player to jump to the first floor, I also added teleports in two hidden locations for layers to find which will allow them to teleport up/down the skyscraper. I also added vehicles into my map however later removed them as they simply didn’t have much use in my map considering my level is a skyscraper and all the players could do is drive around the outside of the skyscraper.

Early Peer Reviews

I will now go back and look at the feedback I was given for my map, whenever I asked for feedback on my map on 1st October 2014 here is what Jonny had to say: 

“Liked the idea of the city landscape and having 2 opposing towers in which each team must infiltrate and capture the flag and then make it back through the tower and surrounding areas. Lighting in the building was great with lots of different colours. Would have had walkways along the sides and through the middle in a sort of X shape with a circular platform in the middle for increased vertical gameplay and a vantage point.” 

Charles then said: 

“I like the idea of the map. 

 1) Size of city: Looking at your map, I have an idea of what you are looking to do, however the size of the map might to be looked at as with moving about. I think if you section off like a T or H block off of this city, it might be easier for to build compared to an actual city. 

 2) Not a CTF map: I know you havent designed this as a CTF Map but there is a way to do so. I would keep the tower in your design, but I would half it and use the other half as another tower, having that as the two main points in the map could be interesting, specially having to cliam a tower just to get to the flag. Maybe some construction work to help create platforms to get across at the top? 

 3) Lighting: Having the different lighting on the different levels is cool, I like it; but I do think you will need to light the rooms in the tower a lot better for the players to see.” 

Jonny then made these further comments: 

“1. Loved the idea of the city with all the different buildings and each floor of the main skyscraper increasing with difficulty as you ascend and there being a giant boss at the top to fight. I would definitely increase the size as it looked cramped and tight, but that would be great for capture the flag because it would up the pace of gameplay. 

 2. I agree with charles' point that it isnt a map designed for CTF but adding in another tower opposite the one you already have and somehow connect them, maybe with walkways and platforms? I think you could make a really great CTF map with fast paced gameplay and lots of fire fights! 

 3. Really love the idea of the different lighting for each floor to aid player navigation of which floor they're on in the tower but would increase the brightness and space available inside as it was still quite dark and seemed very cramped (didnt know if this was just the camera field of view though)

Great map! Just need to add in a few little extras for CTF!” 

Having read both Jonny and Charles’ feedback I have taken their comments on board. They both really like the idea of making my map a capture the flag map. When creating my map originally I created it as a death map match, however I now have the opportunity to remake my map into a capture the flag match. When I received this feedback I originally had two skyscrapers in a city setting however I decided to use just use one skyscraper as it made it easier to find enemies as opposed to just running around an empty city looking for enemies. I could still incorporate some of Jonny and Charles’ ideas into my map, for example both like the idea of infiltrating opposing skyscrapers, so maybe I could have one team start at the bottom and one team start and the top of the skyscraper and they would then make their way up/down the skyscraper and then clash in the middle and battle it out to make their way up/down the skyscraper to capture the flag. They also liked the lighting that I used throughout my skyscraper however Charles’ said that I would need to light the rooms in a bigger skyscraper much better, I defiantly feel that I done this well when making my final level. Both Jonny and Charles provided me with very helpful feedback and I took both their comments on board when I was developing my level.

Improving My UDK Map

Today I am going to be revisiting my map that I made using UDK previously for unit 9.  I will be making modifications to my map based on the peer reviews given to me for my map.  As this map was a death match I will also experiment further by creating a capture the flag version of my map.  I will also be going back and revisiting some issues that I came across, mainly trying to get my enemies working.

Toggling Lights

Today I will be learning how to create light switches in UDK in which the player will be able to trigger on and off. You can see in the screenshots that I used Kismet to do this and shows how I did this process, now when the player walks up to the switch they can toggle the light on and off.

Experimenting with Functions in UDK

Now that I have experimented with using different camera types in UDK, I am now going to experiment with some functions that I could possibly use within my level.  I will be experimenting with functions such as creating toggles, toggling lights, collecting keys, creating a transparent key whenever a key is picked up, adding triggers, adding sound to my level and creating animations within my level for example lifts or opening doors.

Peer Review on Camera Types

Now that I have experimented with different camera angles in my UDK level I will be getting feedback from two of my peers Melissa and Leon.  Whenever I asked them for feedback I asked them to comment on how they felt both camera types worked within my map, if there were any changes that I could make to my cameras and finally which camera they felt worked best.  This is what Leon had to say:

“After playing both of your maps, I would suggest that you try out a basic third-person camera as both of your chosen camera's are not that easy to control and difficult to get the camera to move. I also noticed that there were problems when adding robots into the level to play alongside your chosen camera type.

As I said, a basic third-person camera would work pretty well within your level or maybe even stick with the original first-person camera type.”

After taking Leon’s comment into consideration I do agree that a third person camera is best suited for my map, however he stated that it wasn’t easy to control which personally I felt was not an issue, however I will certainly come back to this and try to make my third person a little easier to control wherever possible.  This is what Melissa had to say:

“After playing both of the camera types i think that the 3rd person view works the best. It made it easier to navigate around the map the only problem was not being able to see over the balcony. The first person view also worked well, there wasn't any problems with that but i still think the 3rd person view is more interesting with your map.”

After reading Melissa’s comments and taking them into consideration I again agree that a third person camera will work well in my level however she had a problem seeing over a balcony that I intended to be a vantage point and worked fine in first person mode however she could not see down to the ground in third person mode, this is defiantly an issue that I will work on resolving.

Experimenting with Camera Types in UDK

Now that I have talked about several different camera types that are used in video games I am going to implement two of them into a stage that I had made previously using UDK.  For this I will experiment with a third person camera and a top down camera.  I feel that my level looks really good with the third person camera, it gives the player a better perspective of my skyscraper and it’s also not difficult to aim at enemies.  Whenever I experimented with the top down camera I made a slight modification by tilting the camera by about 45 degrees so that the player would be able to see what they were doing and not just see the ground of the next floor up.  Whenever I put it into action I thought it looked great however had some problems, whenever I was shooting it would simply fire back at the player and whenever I would climb up stairs I could only get so far until the camera would go through the roof and I would not be able to see what I was doing.  Personally I feel that a third person camera is most suited to my level however to be sure I will ask two of my peers for feedback.

Fixed Cameras

The final camera type that I discussed with my peers was a fixed camera.  A fixed camera is simply whenever the camera is in a set position and cannot be moved.  Fixed cameras were often used for classic arcade games like Pacman, Pong and Space Invades to name just a few.

Top Down Cameras

My peers and I also discussed top down cameras.  Top down cameras are very commonly used in video games however a notable game that used a top down camera was the original Grand Theft Auto.  A top down camera is simply whenever the camera is placed above the main character and follows them around the games environment immersing them in the games map.

Side View Cameras

Another camera type I discussed with my peers was a side view camera.  A side view camera as the name suggests is whenever the camera is placed at the side of the games environment giving the player a side view perspective of the environment.  Side view cameras were very frequently used for video games on consoles like the original Nintendo or the Super Nintendo, most notably their Super Mario Bros. series with introduced players to side scrolling games.  Side scrolling games are whenever the player moves the games character in one direction (most often right) throughout the level with the camera following the character from the side.  Fighting game will also often use a side view camera, games like the Mortal Kombat series, Street Fighter series and Killer Instinct series have all used a side view camera.  However, whenever developers are using a side view camera even though it is a 2D game, the developers will very often try to make the environment look 3D to give the player the sense that they are playing in a 3D environment.

Cut Scene Cameras

We also discussed cut scene cameras.  Cut scene camera is used obviously for whenever the player encounters a cut scene in the game.  Whenever the player enters a cut scene the player will often have no control over the games character and the will often have no control over the series of events that will take place within the cut scene.  However, it is also often that the player will still have some control over the games character and the events that will take place within the cut scene thought interactions with the player, one example would be quick time events.  Quick time events are now used very frequently in modern day video games like the Far Cry series or God of War series, during quick time events the player will be given an often short amount of time to press a certain button, if the player hits the correct button within the time given the will usually advance in the game by doing something like overcoming an obstacle, dodging an attack or damage and/or kill an enemy or boss.  However, if the player does not press the button within the time given they will be punished often by either taking damage or dying.  Cut scenes will also give players the options of choosing certain paths, it can give the player the option to side with a certain character or it can give the player the option of either killing a character or allowing them to live.

First Person Cameras

My peers and I also discussed several other different camera types that are used in videogames, we discussed 1^st person cameras.  1^st person cameras is whenever the camera put the player in the viewpoint of the games main character or characters, examples include the Call of Duty series, Outlast, Doom or the Far Cry series.  1^st person cameras are commonly used in shooter games to the player having a better view of enemies when shooting.  In the majority games that use 1^st person cameras there will be something like a gun or another item that will be focused on the bottom of the screen as if the player is seeing it from the main characters point of view.  However this is not always the case, games like Outlast in which the player does not have the options to use weapons will simply see the environment in its entirety from the main characters perspective without anything on screen, they will however be able to see the main characters arm reaching out for pickups like batteries.

Third Person Cameras

Today I learned about different types of cameras that are used within video games and discussed them with my peers.  We started by naming some of our favourite video games and would then discuss the camera that these games used, my favourite game is Super Mario 64 which uses a 3^rd person camera.  A 3^rd person camera is whenever the player has the ability to not only see the environment around them but they can also see the games main character or characters.  For example, in Super Mario 64 not only can you see the various landscapes like Peach’s castle but you can see Mario on screen as well.  This means that you can see enemies coming from all angles and can make them easier to dodge or kill.  It is also a very common feature in 3^rd person games to interact with the games environment, for example in Watch Dogs you could use Aiden’s (the main character) smartphone to change traffic lights which would then cause vehicles in the game to crash or he could raise road barriers to evade a police chase.