16.03.2026 – Guest Lecture
Guest speaker Dan Emmerson gave us a presentation specifically about the game art pipeline – how to approach making game assets. He has a strong background in both games and animation for over 15 years, with multiple noteworthy games he has worked on such as Flock (2024) and the upcoming game Shutterbug.
I think the biggest key takeaway from his talk is how important communication is in games development. Simple processes go through so many different people at different stages that being able to keep hold of a central vision is extremely challenging, and requires excellent communication skills to see through.
He also notably gave us a range of tips on how to approach making game assets from a variety of perspectives.
Making Assets
- Communication is KEY
- Programmer art should be all greyboxing – don’t waste time
- The softwre you use isn’t particularly important; it’s how you use it
- Always plan ahead
Exporting Assets
- Channel packing: using PGB channels for specific functions to save resources.
- Don’t rely on automation and plugins (unless you’re willing to fix them!)
- Agree on naming conventions early, and stay consistent to them. It will make development significantly easier.
Importing Assets
- Implementation is never linear -> one and done is very rare.
- ALWAYS group assets by type. Keep things neat and tidy.
While I found the talk very insightful, I worry that it won’t have much of an impact on me right now as we are fast approaching the very end of development for Soul Keeper. However it was still very useful, and I fully intend on making use of this knowledge in future projects and prospects.
19.03.2026 – Second Playtest
On Thursday later that week we held our second playtest. Unfortunately, I ran into some major bugs relating to a non-linear mouse offset (see this page). I sought Ross’ help but we were unable to fix it in time, meaning we had to compromise and use an much earlier version of the peacock minigame in the playtest.
While it was an unfortunate occurance, there are lessons to be learned from this: primarily to always test integration early with teammates and maintain strong communication. If I had tested the game earlier with Misty and communicated it clearly then we would have probably been able to fix it in time; this all demonstrates how key of a skill communication and planning is in games.
During the playtest we maintained our roles from the first test, rotating consistently between explaining the game to players, taking notes and playing other students’ games. Below are the notes we accumulated:
Misty also organised the feedback digitally on our shared web page:
Week 8 Developments
Over week 8, most of my development work was spent preparing for the second playtest, rethinking scripts to circumnavigate bugs, and refining/polishing my facets of game development where I found neccessary. You can find my developments for this week below:
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