PDP assignment

Description of work done

One morning, I found myself in England, in the accommodation of the University of Bolton. No relatives, no friends, no one and nothing familiar. Pretty soon after that, we jumped straight into the course – everyone has been given an assignment to create an idea of a game, and we had to do it in separate little groups. I don’t like trusting people with my future (university grades in this situation), so I thought that suddenly starting to work on my grades with people that don’t even know where my country is was a bit hard, dangerous perhaps.

During this assignment I obtained an understanding how these students work, why they do what they do and when. We have finished the assignment at the last minute, but I know that if we would have started working earlier and more, this “Blade of the Immortals” idea would have been perfected and kept for future reference for when we start working in the industry. We’ve build the monster hierarchy, story of the game, figured out the combat system, mechanics and even a bit of DLC’s. We used “Prezi” for the presentation and pictures from the internet in the presentation. The main idea was not stolen, we did not try to copy anything from other games (except the genre, you can’t reinvent the wheel, can you?).

In the end, I was really happy with the work we have done. It was a complete presentation, longer than any other groups’, interesting, a bit different. Unique.

Reflection and Issues Identified (SWOT)

The presentation looked good, informative, complete. We even managed to find out the PEGI and ESRB ratings for it. The combat system, story, visuals, monster hierarchy, travelling, character personalities etc. were hammered out nearly perfectly. It was good teamwork, except that one of our team members fell out at the end.

Our worst part was procrastination, which made us turn in the work we had on our hands, instead of the one we had in our heads and imaginations. A couple of times our organisation between each other was really bad. I might have been responsible for that, because I am foreign, and sometimes it’s difficult to understand the people I work with.

Positive opportunities would be sticking together and having more and more contact with each other, starting to do the work on time (planning our workload and the time that we have to squeeze that in accurately), I know I will get used to the language over time anyway, that is a more practical thing than theoretical. The work could have been finished earlier and better, like the actual presentation for example. We didn’t bother practicing the presentation, which took some impact on our mark.

The threats would be that each of us has the game differently in our imaginations, so if we would start putting everything we have in, the game idea may become imbalanced, with parts not agreeing with each other, edgy and overall, impossible to understand.

Plan of Action (SMART)

The best plan of action would be reconsidering every idea, every aspect of the game, from the basics, and only start serious work on it when the foundations are rock-solid. We should also start doing a lot of practice before any kind of presentation, and not just jump in at the last minute, because this way we simply mess everything up in our heads and get lost between our own ideas.

The only way evaluating it would be comparing to the idea we had before, and maybe comparing certain digits to other games’.

It’s realistic, the only thing we actually would need to do is get a grip of ourselves and start putting a lot of work into it.

Most (if not every) weaknesses would be defeated by this plan, and would make the game a lot better I think.

The game idea could be perfected in one month’s time, if not taking part in any other activities.

Completion/Review/Conclusion

This planning, even if not the best at the moment, is showing its potential to me. When games are created, I truly believe that these plans really help make them better than before. Writing these is difficult, for me personally it is difficult to understand some parts of this planning and why some parts are there, but I am positive that after a couple uses, the PDP will help me achieve better results.