To ensure our project started strong and remained organised, I took the initiative to book the library study rooms for our meetings. Furthermore, I set up a Trello board to distribute our workload effectively. I took responsibility for populating the board with the necessary tasks and estimating the required time for each, which helped the team visualise our schedule and deliverables.

During our team meetings on Thursday and Friday this week, the group settled on a cooperative fighting game centred around elemental characters: Fire, Air, Earth, and Ice. I took an active role in finalising this roster. I liked this idea the most because it allows for unique combat mechanics. I compared this idea to other ideas, such as 3D forms and different character game styles; however, in the end, elements felt the most correct to me.

While James drafted the temporary sketches, I provided the conceptual ideas and direction for the art style. I gave ideas for the mountain at the opening of the story mode and for how it would proceed.

When we were sorting out the mechanics, I proposed including unique background arenas tailored to each character. This gives a nice, consistent theme throughout the game.

To get ahead of the implementation phase, I independently started on the introductory Unity tutorials on YouTube.

During week 1, I contributed potential game ideas in our team meeting, weighing options that balance between realism and creativity. I analysed each idea based on technical complexity, implementation risk, and how feasible it is within our time frame and skill level.

We decided to develop the game as a 2D project in Unity rather than in 3D. This strategic decision was based on technical feasibility to get a polished game released by the due date. Working in 2D diminishes complexity, such as that in 3D games, which have greater implementation complexity in areas such as camera systems, movement logic, and environmental setup, which overall creates higher debugging overhead.

We are taking inspiration for the structure of our game from the classic Street Fighter series. This format is found to be an engaging style of game for a wide range of players, has a wide range of accessibility, and is very capable of being finished in time.

During this period, roles were distributed across Programming, art, music, and menu design to align responsibilities. I was appointed as the team operator and programmer, which places me in a position of organisational responsibility. From this point, it is my responsibility to keep track of every team member’s progress, and ensure the project remains within a realistic scope. This early planning phase has made me more confident in maintaining a realistic standard for development.

Hello! My name is Aaron, and this website serves as my development diary for the Games Modelling Development Design module. Throughout this page, in this diary, I will document my individual progress, contributions, learning process, and critical reflection throughout the development of my team’s game project.

At the beginning of this module, I would say my skills are, as of right now, on the inexperienced side, with no game development experience, as I have never worked on one. I am currently learning Java, and I hope to apply this skill to C# within Unity.

Within this project, I am mainly focusing on programming, I wish to improve on the feedback I get from teammates, strengthen my technical problem-solving, improve communication, understand research-driven design, and to learn to critically evaluate decisions.

Rather than just describing my weekly progress, this diary will analyse my decisions rather than just describe them. I’ll document challenges I face, research undertaken, and the impact of feedback on my progression as a game developer.