Introduction

Brief Introduction

My name is Daniel Jolley and I'm an aspiring Games Developer. I have previously studied Computer Games Development at the University of Plymouth in the UK. During the past 6-8 months I have spent considerable time working on this game which I am happy to share with the public. 

Firstly, I must mention that this game is only a prototype with basic features and  requires additional work until I have created something I would consider to be a complete game. Creating this game has been a solo project and all game assets, textures and code have been created entirely by myself unless specifically stated otherwise.

Game Specifications

Hardware and Software

I have opted to use the free source Unity engine which is easily obtained online and provides many great assets and packages to aid in helping developers in addition to a fabulous asset store which contains a large catalogue of incredibly useful, user made, game assets and code. 

My 3D modelling tool of preference is Blender 3D. I have opted for this software really down to previous experience and familiarity with the software. The software, once again, is a free-of-charge software easily downloaded from their online website.

In order to create my textures for the game I have opted to use another free source software tool called GIMP 2.0. I have chosen this once again down to experience and familiarity with the tool and I have found that I enjoy using this tool much more than Adobe Photoshop.

SOUND TOOL TBD...

When creating games I always leave the sound creation until the end and therefore haven't yet decided on a sound software creation tool as I haven't began to implement sound.

Target Resolution

My main cause for concern when deciding a target resolution is that there are so many varied screen resolution sizes out there meaning upscaling and downscaling will be a factor. This means I needed to decide on a base resolution which if scaled will still allow my game textures to maintain their aspect ratio. I opted for the 1280 x 720 screen resolution which has an aspect ratio of 16:9 which a majority of the screen resolution share. 

As my textures will always be a multiple of 16 pixels in size I can easily find a percentage of the screens width and height which are equal to 16 pixels, 1280 and 720 are multiples of 16 pixels, and then use that percentage to add in pixel accurate textures which upscale and downscale perfectly on 16:9 aspect ratio screen sizes.

Target Platform

My initial target platform are pc's therefore I will be creating my user input features to work with mouse clicks. I am looking to implement touch screen features also so that in the future I would be able to release this game onto iOS and Android devices.

Network Features

TBD...

Given my base knowledge of networking coming from creating restful applications at university I am not entirely convinced I can create a secure networking feature which means I am reluctant in committing to adding this feature for my game.