Blog 6

Starting to get a better idea of what I'm going to need to code for the projects menu system. At the moment I'm looking at making a stack of game states that are linked together and can be switch between the states by pushing and popping the states on and off the stack. I'm going to make a rough plan of attack for the code to keep on schedule. I'll try set some goals which I think will be reasonable and use them as a gauge for timekeeping purposes.  I've briefly been looking into the situation with physics based engines for the game later down the line past the prototype stage and it looks like there are definitely some good options available, but at the moment I can't say if I will be using them in this early design and alpha build of the project.

I believe Scott has drafted up the designs for the different game ideas. It's definitely the kind of thing that we could continue to expand or add more games into after this design stage. We will keep it as the five we have so far but could potentially add some more.

Blog 5

With the ideas for the games starting to get put into motion, I need to start focusing on learning some C#. The concepts that we want to implement are things that I'm unfamiliar with coding, so I'll need to start studying up on different resources. I recall there are a fair number of helpful tutorials and sites which I can learn these areas of C# from. My primary focus at the beginning will be on how to build up the menu system which will be the foundation for the mini games and will also be the main focus of the prototype required for the specification.

Since the game concepts need a lot of fleshing out, Scott is focusing on filling out the designs of the different games and he is going to be looking into some games across different platforms to see what has and hasn't been done before in these styles of games.

Blog 4

After looking into the various games that could be made from the range of events and activities at the Highland games, we have settled on trying to combine a bunch of these into one game. A mini games collection style package, were the player can choose between a group of events to play. At the moment we are going to design a stone put, hammer throw, high jump, bag-piping, and sword dancing themed mini games. Being mini games, we will want to keep easy and simple to undersand control schemes, but still capture the core mechanics of the events.

The rough concepts for each one are as follows. The stone put will be based on building as much power before releasing the stone, via rapid keyboard button presses. The hammer throw will use the mouse to spin the hammer and generate momentum to throw it. The high jump will involve timing a run up with the keyboard and executing a jump at the perfect spacing. The bag pipes will follow a guitar hero style game where notes fall down columns to a song and the player must time button presses which relate to each of the columns and press the keys as the notes reach the sweet spot. The sword dancing game will be a reactions based rhythm game where keys will come up and the player must press them as fast as they can.

The foundation for this mini game collection will be a menu system that allows the player to choose between the different games and view the various instructions and controls for them. As well as be able to view personal best scores in the individual games.

Blog 3

After looking into some of the more athletics style events that we could make our game around, we definitely see potential in the various kinds of games we could make. It's either going to be one of the heavy events where we could make the games quite physics based, or go with one of the athletics style games where there won't be such an emphasis on getting physics. The events which we would definitely most consider at this point are the hammer throw, stone put and high jump. It has also came to our attention that there is a third style of game we could do as well, which would be a more music based approach to the game.

The specification also listed bag-piping and sword dancing as potential game concepts as well. We discussed these as well, and this definitely gives us another avenue that we could implement for the game. A sort of guitar hero style game based on bag pipes or a rhythm game for the sword dancing. We will be finalizing our ideas in the next couple of days.

Blog 2

We brainstormed some initial ideas for our game. As well as just generally looking into the Highland games to understand what else is involved with the games. It was clear from looking at the specification and drawing on our small knowledge of the Highland games, was that there would be an obvious opportunity for a game involving one of the heavy events. Which I think it is fair to say the Highland games is probably most known for. So a bunch of our initial ideas looked at the potential in the caber toss, stone put and hammer throw. These games would be quite simple in concept since they are also very simple as a sporting event. On the other hand, there are also more common sporting events such as running and the high jump which also take place at the Highland games which we could do instead of one of the heavy events. There are definitely athletics style games out there but none particularly come to mind at the moment. So we will look into these a bit more before deciding which type of game to go with.

Blog 1

To make a start on the project, we first looked into the highland games since we would be basing the game on an aspect of the highland games. Looking over the specification there is a range of different sports and events that take place at the Highland games. So we will need to look into these and draft some initial concepts. We will be using XNA C# to implement this game. It will be made in 2D and I'm currently looking into possible physics engines to use for the game if we decide to go for a heavily physics based game, since a lot of the events are games involving throwing big weights around. At this point I'm not sure if we will require a physics engine but will keep it in mind.

We are working on this project as a two and will be working on the various components though I will be working more so on the coding for the project since out of the two of us I fair better with programming. Scott will be working more so in the design area of the project and is going to be starting with the game design document and then the technical specification. We will still be working on the different areas together, but these are the general roles that we will use and adjust them where we see fit later down the line if need be.