Dev Blog on //shark_with_legs

Unity Tutorial - Masking objects in the water using stencil buffers

Sat, 08 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This tutorial will show you how you can clip out parts objects from being rendered, alongside this I will give a simplified explanation of how stencil buffers work.

Stencil buffers can be thought of similarly to how clipping masks work, In this case they will be used in 2 ways firstly they can exclude whats inside the mask from being rendered and secondly they can do the inverse of this and only include the contents of the mark depending on the logic that is applied in the shader.

Frog island - 2k Download, Fan-art & Wireframe magazine

Tue, 07 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Just before the release of 0.4a we hit many amazing milestones.

We hit 2k download
We had a small review in Wireframe magazine
But most importantly we received a photo of some fan-art from someone in the speed running community (sorry I forget who it was)

Edit: This is a retroactive post based on the updated main blog page to point to version 0.4a of frog island.

Unity - Thermal printer dungeon crawler

Sun, 09 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Myself & Oliver Pope made a tiny thermal printer dungeon crawler game where you play mostly blind, i.e. where you make 3 inputs +1 level beaten and then once N inputs have been made we print the game state.

The idea is you would only get a single run and you would get to keep the receipt paper of your run as a “prize” to take home.

Our game was accepted into bonus stage Live London, but then COVID-19 happened and as a result it was never played by the public.

UX Research - Spaced repitition for teaching in games

Wed, 08 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Ensuring that users retain information over long periods of time and save them to long term memory has the potential to be useful within game spaces as it will all players to compare their previous knowledge in context.

It has been observed that there is an effective learning methodology ‘Spaced Repetition’, this method re-teaches users information at set intervals, this is done to best insure that the information such as words are archived to long term memory (Ebbinghaus, 1885). Building on these findings, Pavlov (1927) observed that there is possibility to save other types of information into the users memory such as associations. This was done by creating an associations between a ringing of a bell expressing that there is food for the dog. The spaced repetition methodology could now be seen as one that was more dynamic than what was initially presented. From this it could be argued that there is possibility to teach humans information that is not inline with the initial methodology.

UX Research - Getting users to play

Tue, 07 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

By gaining an understanding of what is a fair amount of time for players to react to events within video games, there is potential to apply this knowledge to ensure that the difficulty of interaction between players and enemies are possible for progression.

It could be argued that for a reaction input to be made there are multiple stages should be taken into consideration; firstly the amount of time it takes for the player to perceive an action in the environment, secondly how long it takes for a user to register an action these can be defines as the processing stages. finally how long it takes for the software or game to register the action the user made this is know as the response (Bjørklund, 1991).

UX Research - Interaction design in games

Mon, 06 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Ensuring that players can interact with user interface systems quickly and easily is of utmost importance when designing complex interaction methods that contain large amounts of different interaction methods.

It can been stated that when large amounts of choice are presented to a user the amount of time it takes for a choice to increases on a logarithmic curve (Fig.1)

(Fig.1, Hicks Law Expressing a logarithmic curve showing the relationship of as choice increases as does time, until it will eventually plateau (Hick, 1952).)

UX Research - Getting users to play

Sun, 05 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Getting users to initial play and return to a game is of utmost importance when the gameplay is either to continue progression to the end of an experience or short periods of play over long periods of time.

It has been observed that there are two main motivation models that contrast from each other the initial operant conditioning, mainly Variable Interval Reinforcement discovered by Ferster and Skinner (1957) this method of giving rewards is unpredictable and due to this the user is more likely to check if they will be rewarded for their actions. Secondly the other motivation type is Self Determination Theory (SDT), this is an internal motivation type that does not rely on external rewards, but instead on the betterment of a skill, social status and the control of ones life (SDT)

UX Research - Cognitive biases in games (IKEA effects)

Fri, 03 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

There is potential within games to use the effects irrational judgement known as cognitive biases. This can allow for players to assign large amounts value to the work that they create within game spaces.

It has been observed that humans share a cognitive bias that assigns disproportionate amount of value to objects they have made over ones they have purchased, known as the IKEA effect (Norton, Mochon and Ariely, 2012). Alongside this bias, it has been seen that humans outweigh negative effects such as losing objects or having them taking away from them in comparison to when humans make or find them. This is known as Loss Aversion (Tversky and Kahneman, 1992).

Project Bounce - Game released

Thu, 28 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Project bounce is a endless game where the player must protect the heart at all costs as the difficulty ramps up.

playable on itch.io Here:

Bauhaus - Game Released + Game design document

Mon, 01 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0000

PDF of the game design document for the game bauhaus Bauhaus_GDD

We released the game Bauhaus on itch.io Here:

Project Red - Title screen & Release

Wed, 02 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

UAL Collaborative project: how to get around

Project Red - Tutorial UI

Wed, 02 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

UAL Collaborative project: A little more guidance

Project Red - particle effects / Line renderer redesign

Tue, 01 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

UAL Collaborative project: How we express our controls

Project Red - Basic UI

Tue, 23 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

UAL Collaborative project: basic controls

Project Red - Finished level

Mon, 22 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

UAL Collaborative project: The world is alive

Project Red - First arted level build

Sun, 21 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

UAL Collaborative project: look into our new world

Project Red - Half way presentation + storyboard

Sat, 20 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

UAL Collaborative project: The half way point

Project Red - Prototyping puzzles

Fri, 19 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

UAL Collaborative project: puzzle prototype

Project Red - The game and the mechanics

Thu, 18 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

UAL Collaborative project: Locking down the core mechanics of the game

Project Red - One minute to sell ourselves

Wed, 17 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

UAL Collaborative project: What could we possibly say in one minute

Project Red - Time game prototype

Wed, 17 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

UAL Collaborative project: Partners in time? a puzzle game prototype

Project Red - Shadow game prototype

Tue, 16 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

UAL Collabrative project: Can you see the light? a puzzle game prototype

Project Red - Making some prototypes

Mon, 15 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

UAL Collaborative project: Selecting 2 design ideas

Project Red - Physics game concept

Sun, 14 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

UAL Collabrative project: Physics game concept

Project Red - Puzzle game concept (shadows)

Sat, 13 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

UAL Collabrative project: Puzzle game concept (2)

Project Red - Puzzle game concept (time)

Fri, 12 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

UAL Collaborative project: Puzzle game concept (1)

Project Red - Action game concept

Thu, 11 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

UAL Collaborative project: Action game concept

Project Red - Action Game concept

Thu, 11 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

UAL Collabrative project: Action Game concept

Project Red - Git this

Wed, 10 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

UAL Collaborative project: git-ting it together.