29th Jan Initial Ideas Outline

My goal for this semester is to focus on puzzles in games that don't immediately present themselves as puzzles. Games like Tomb Raider and The Legend of Zelda do this effectively, communicating to the player that they must get to a location using the tools and environment and they must figure out how to do it. This approach doesn't present its gameplay as puzzles as explicitly as other games do. Some games have a game board with objects to move and a clearly defined solution, very clearly communicating to the player the win condition and the mechanics of the puzzle. However, a game presenting the player with a gap in the road is a puzzle, provided they have the abilities and/or tools to get across in some way.

My aim is to explore games that present puzzles in such a way, how they do so, and and what the purpose of the puzzle is. If the purpose is to create an enjoyable gameplay experience for the player, I would like to discover how this is done, and tests put in place to ensure the experience is enjoyable.

To find experts to interview, I should look for developers of games that are specifically puzzle games, as well as developers that have worked on games that are less puzzle-focused, but still contain puzzles in some form.

Games to look into

Tomb Raider - Crystal Dynamics

Tomb Raider Go / Hitman Go - Square Enix

Hitman - IO Interactive

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Semester 2 Submission

Project Outline This project is an exploration into player feedback and player reward in game mechanics. I have explored this by creating mechanics in Unreal Engine, imagining how they might be used in a game, and how a player might feel when using them. This exploration progressed into player reward in puzzle scenarios, which links into my current area of research. I looked into how visuals can create a language that the player will learn to understand while playing the game, and will guide them through problem solving in the game. Project Context My semester 1 project was a core puzzle game, meaning the game was centred on a central puzzle mechanic and expanded from that point. I wanted to explore a mechanic that was more of a peripheral puzzle that exists as side quests to the main gameplay. Many popular game series have main gameplay mechanics with puzzles along the way, such as Batman Arkham, Resident Evil, and Tomb Raider. As these types of games are extremely popular and (a...

Design Inspiration Semester 2

First person adaptation I decided to switch the view of my game from third person to first person. I made this decision because movement around the levels would sometimes give the player a confusing perspective (if they had their back to a wall for example). I moved the camera to instead hover above a pair of arms, that would be used to show the hand movements from a first person perspective. The challenge now was to recreate every animation in first person instead. I looked into first person games that think have good first person hand animations. I think Dishonored (2012) is one of the best example, as it relies heavy on the tools and abilities that centre around the player character's hands. One of my favourite aspects of the design is the way the knife moves from a regular to a reversed grip when entering stealth. The knife is clearly visible and serves its purpose in both grips and it tells the player they are in stealth mode without the need for another visual prompt (there i...

Semester 2 Project Progress

13th January 2025 To begin this project, I am experimenting with creating different game mechanics. This is to build up a repertoire of skills in Unreal Engine and also see if any mechanics seem as if they can be adapted or incorporated into a game. I began by using free assets to make a character that can run around and execute an attack pattern. This was just to experiment with the assets and create a character that I could test other mechanics with. The first mechanic I created was one that lets the player grab an object and pull it toward them. When within a defined range, the player's reticle changes shape to indicate to them the object they're looking at can be grabbed. Grabbing it moves the object on an arcing trajectory toward the player. This could be used to grab a weapon to use, to bring an enemy closer to be attacked, etc. 14th January 2025 I added functionality for the player to hold an object and attack with it. When an object is pulled toward the player and reach...

Lewis Wray MA Games Design

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