Project Journal Week 14 to 19

Project Journal Week 14 and 15

Weeks 14 and 15 were spent revising for the exam in Games Design Theory and no group work was undertaken.



These were the weeks over the Christmas period which were spent developing the level and doing the appropriate research so that the lights and fear elements in the game could be referenced.

Project Journal Week 16
7th to the 13th of December


This week was spent initialising the first steps of the artefact with each member undertaking various roles in development. I, with the group’s approval, was allowed to stay home for another week in East Anglia. I felt I needed some time to relax before I began work. The team agreed with this decision and stated themselves that this week was going to be fairly slow paced so that each team member could do a good amount of work but also enjoy their time off. As I was home it would have been difficult for me to work on the map so the team decided it was a good idea for me to do the write-up of the lighting investigation. My deadline for this was the Friday, and was given three questions to answer. The team decided that this document should initially be around 1500 words in draft form, and then around 3000 once various other parts were inputted into the document e.g. picture descriptions , conclusion. The three questions that were chosen for me to investigate were;

1.Write a short piece on how films elicit fear through lighting Roughly 300-400 words.
2. Then write the next section on how games create fear/tension using lighting. Roughly 300-400
3. Then write how we can use the lighting systems or types (static/dynamic) in HL2 can be used in our level to elicit fear based on the last two paragraphs.


I managed to finish the draft copy of the document on time and the weekend was spent amending the document for errors or highlighting parts that needed changing. The plan was for me to come back the next Monday to help with the level construction and also refine the document that I had written.


Project Journal Week 17
14th to the 20th of December

This week was spent finalising the light prototype write-up and the work on the artefact shifted from primarily being worked on by Phil and Nick to me and Matt. The first few days the team sat down and discussed the changes that needed to be made to the lighting document. The rest of the week the time was split between me and Matt working the level. The main focus for when I had the map was to implement objects in the corridors and apply decals where I felt they were needed. Additionally to this me and Matt prototyped the first lighting system.


Project Journal Week 18
21st to 27th of December

This week the shift again swapped to Nick and Phil. It was primarily spent optimising the map, adding audio effects and refining the level. It was decided that some extra research was needed in order to create a map that was showcasing the best of our abilities. This meant for me researching some academic papers I had previously read, in particular Zammitto’s Colour Emotion. The team also discussed the next stages of what was needed in the prototype lighting system and how they could be documented in the write-up. This meant detailing all the parameters of all the lights available in Half Life 2. Additionally to this, it was decided to take a section of the artefact, the top floor, and showcase the differences between having white, static lighting, and coloured, dynamic lighting. This was then shown in the document in the form of pictures showcasing the differences in each room of the top floor.

To show that each light/ room had been thought about, it was decided that each light be recorded into a table into the document. Overall the lighting document took a vast amount of time to complete, but as nick has stated on his blog, it was done so that each member had equal amounts of work to do. Although I did not have as much input into the level as other members, I made up for this with my lighting write-up. It should also be noted that Matt was given the task of assisting me in prototyping the lighting system and I found his help to be very useful.

Project Journal Week 19
28th of December to the 3rd of February

This past week saw the finalising of my document, the prototype lighting system that I had created and also the refining of the level. The time spent was mainly used to make sure that each light was placed in the correct place and had the appropriate object placed near it e.g. a lamp. The aim was to have the map completed for the Friday so that Nick could render the Maps on a full compile which would be a very lengthy progress. We were thinking of the maps taking around 24 hours to complete but thankfully they only took around an hour to fully compile. That weekend nick spent capturing the two different lighting prototypes and also placing the level recordings side by side to show the differences. On a personal note it must be stated that I had proposed to the team that I be able to go back home this weekend as it was my Aunties birthday 40th Birthday. My reasoning behind this was the fact that during the next semester break it would be unlikely for me to return home as I would be undertaking the Milestone Manger role and the testing phase would be quite lengthy. So my thinking was that it would be nice to see my family at least once until I finish University.

Overall I felt the progress made during our time off and the first week of semester two has been fantastic. I believe the level has been constructed to a professional quality and all members have worked extremely hard. This next week plan is having the preliminary tests done on a select few individuals.