Unit 10 - Engaging with an Audience

Skills Audit

The purpose of this Skills Audit was to identify what areas we personally consider ourselves to be good at, so we can be assigned appropriate roles during the Pre-Production & Production phase.

 In my case, I put a lot of emphasis on 3D practical work and Game-Making, as well as putting Game Coding as one of the few Good ratings.

Audience Research

Of course, if we're making something for the college, we need to know who we're making it for.
We learned from our client that the College's Marketing Team appeals to these audiences:

  • 15-18-Year-Olds
  • BAME (Black, Asian, Minorities, Ethnicity)
  • Are currently doing or have completed GSCEs
  • Lives in nearby boroughs
This matches up with the Audience Research Survey that we conducted and the results we got from it, as the majority of people were 17, had an evenly split ethnicity, and mainly lived in Harrow.
We also learned that 50% of the media students use TikTok out of any other social media the most and that 71.8% of them prefer video games over animations.
The last point conveniently checks out, as we already planned to make a game at this point in time. However, our game's genre fits none of the most popular ones.

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Audience Profile

The aim of this session was to learn what Audience Profiling is, how it helps us understand our target audience and how we can make our own.

An Audience Profile is a profile with detailed information about a fictional individual that is based on a target audience.

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Idea Generation & Pitching

I played little to no part in the idea generation and pitching, so I have nothing to add in terms of my own ideas. However, I can still summarise the ideas and the class meeting.

There were a handful of ideas that were pitched, so here is a condensed summary of each idea:

  • Ad Campaign which instantly got shot down because our target audience is mid to late teens and there is absolutely zero chance they would want to be advertised to.
  • Mixed 2D-3D Animation that showcased the college and could be edited into a TikTok format.
  • A Walking-Simulator video game, where the rooms are created using photogrammetry and include student avatars and computers that can be interacted with to view student-created games and animations.

The most interesting idea was the walking simulator which is what we ended up going with.
The game was conceptualised to be a catch-all project--one that included elements from all other ideas and allowed people to work on whatever was most comfortable for them.

Of course, all those elements and ideas must be funnelled somewhere, and that somewhere ended up being future-me.


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Pre-Production

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Production

All Scripts used in Game Project (Google Drive)

19/12/2022 - Testing Area / In-Game Video Player

This week, I created a testing area and started coding the fundamental mechanics of our game will have.
 First is the 'Interactable' script, which allows the player to walk up to an object and press E to trigger something. The interactable script has a range check, which means you must be close enough to the object. This can be effectively used to trigger anything and is the backbone for the next few scripts.


Next are the numerous scripts relating to opening URLs and playing videos. Explaining every script I make would be nigh impossible, so just know that these allow you to open website URLs outside of Unity and play videos within Unity.
(If you are that curious, I've included a link to every script used at the top of 'Production')


All of this collectively comes together to achieve these results. 
The video player script has a defined action that is used to handle actually playing the video itself. This action/event can be added to an object that has the 'Interactable' script, which is triggered when you press E on it. There is a lot more to this, especially when it comes to dynamically changing what video is played, but this is the fundamental gist of it.

Overall, I hit my own personal milestones, but I'm unsure about the rest of the Engine team. This is because I am the only person actually working in Unity itself. 
The overall project schedule is currently on track, but I suspect that won't last for very long.
The issues I mainly faced were related to the scripting, but these were solved by searching up forum posts and guides on how to do a specific thing.
Any guides or resources I use will be linked at the bottom of 'Production'.

16/01/2023 - PG Room in Unity + Dialogue System

This week, I added the photogrammetric media room that someone on the Engine team created to Unity and implemented a Dialogue system.

The model, to my surprise, is both functional and usable--albeit barely. The room is an absolute mess, but this was expected. Thankfully, the room was cleaned up by someone else in the Engine Team.
 
The current plan is to change the texture of the room (depending on which avatars you possess) in such a way that creates an odd, stylised and surreal effect. 

(This was done by someone on the Engine Team)

I also added one of the Class Avatars for testing numerous things, like checking the scale of the room and testing the Dialogue system.


The Dialogue system is easily the most complex in the game. Again, I cannot reasonably explain the details of the script itself, except it's triggered using the Interactable script. The Dialogue system itself uses something called 'ink', a "narrative scripting language" as it has its own Unity plugin. 

The documentation of it explains it better than I can:
"At its most basic, it can be used to write a Choose Your Own-style story, or a branching dialogue tree."


Overall, this week was mechanically the most important, as coding in the Class Avatars and Dialogue Manager is critical. Interacting with the avatars is one of, if not our biggest means of engaging with our target audience--Mid-Teenagers.

Otherwise, I'm barely keeping up with my own personal milestones, while the team itself is doing fine.
The project schedule is still on track, but I don't think I can keep up any longer.
The issues I still mainly face are related to scripting. Learning how the 'ink' scripting language works was quite difficult, but thankfully there is documentation and examples for it.

23/01/2023 - Production Hell

This week, things finally start to get really, really bad for me. I cannot keep up with the number of assets being thrown my way, and I am mentally suffering from it. There is an entire collectable system that I simply do not have the time to add.
I'm working so much, that some teachers are trying to off-load some of the Unity work to others on the Engine Team. However, only I can fully understand my shoddily structured code, so that wasn't going to happen.

 I cannot designate any of my time writing down reflective logs on-site, so if I miss any details or get timing/dates wrong, that's why. That being said, this is how production went:

First, the 2nd PG Room was created and cleaned up by someone on the Engine Team.

As a result, this gives me just barely enough space to add all the class avatars.
Not only is every avatar in the game now, but all of them have their own dialogue--which means one of the fundamental parts of the game is in a complete state.

Next, we had a team meeting and it was ultimately decided that the collectables will be scrapped. The reason for this is mainly due to the deadline approaching rapidly and the system being too complex to code on time, but also due to me reaching a breaking point.

Overall, I'm probably the bottleneck that's limiting the project's progression. While I am hitting milestones, two more take their place.

Guides / Resources Used

GameAssetWorld. (2022). Unity Open URL / Links with a button Quick and Easy.. [Online]. YouTube. Last Updated: Jan 13, 2022. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3L8bDWLfO_8 [Accessed 23 February 2023].

BMo. (2020). How To INTERACT with Game Objects using UNITY EVENTS Tutorial. [Online]. YouTube. Last Updated: Feb 2, 2020. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLzG1HDcM4s [Accessed 23 February 2023].

Code Monkey. (2021). Simple Question Dialog in Unity! (Yes-No Ok-Cancel Unity Tutorial). [Online]. YouTube. Last Updated: Sep 27, 2021. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msCGC22vKQM [Accessed 23 February 2023].



Trever Mock. (2021). How to make a Dialogue System with Choices in Unity2D | Unity + Ink tutorial 2021. [Online]. YouTube. Last Updated: Sep 20, 2021. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vY0Sk93YUhA [Accessed 23 February 2023].

The Sleepy Koala. (2022). How to Use Gifs in Unity - Animator. [Online]. YouTube. Last Updated: Jun 14, 2022. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6mT8pBn0-k [Accessed 23 February 2023].

Final Outcome

Testing / Audience Feedback

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Project Evaluation

Audio Recording


Extra Notes


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