https://hackmd.io/@MKLzYDLARp2xAVEqa7JVzw/S15n6zTcT

### gdd
https://hackmd.io/@heljackson/rkPEDhWZR/edit

# Games for good

# Week 1
To begin with I had an idea that I'd thought of for a while for a fire escape game that would see the player leaving a burning building, used to familiarise yourself with the overall layout of the building, but we thought in the end we could make something that hits the brief better. We eventually settled on a more environmental theme with social and economic tones as well.

The idea is to have you the player be the mayor of an alien bug themed city making decisions on various districts choosing which ones to build more of and which ones to reduce either to make money for yourself or benefit the people and it all takes place inside a space ship terrarium which could eventually break if you make too many wrong choices or have the people kick you off the ship.

We came up with the idea of having various districts to interact with agriculture, education, power stations, public infrastructure and so on. Each of these would have a central character that would represent the district and would appear on the players screen with some form of dialogue and a prompt for funding or de funding. These characters would be aliens, but ultimately bug themed. They will have slightly more expression, hence the alien part to convey more emotion to the player and be more relatable. Me and Helena will be designing these since we are the character artists, whilst Jack and Juno will make more of the environment. However, I will also be making the world feel more lived in. Since this is an advanced civilisation, they need various bits of machinery and that's where I started.


Beginning with a drawing of a water scorpion, I then started adding robotic appendages like some sort of power loader suit, then quickly jumping into a bipedal walker with a combine harvester attached, however, I wasn't quite convinced by two legs as it wouldn't make sense for intelligent insects to suddenly change their stature, so I went for something more insectoid.


The M44 Locust combine harvester is one of my first and favourite designs. Originally having front feet, I was inspired by Juno to have an interchangeable set of equipment that could be swapped out depending on the job. This also meant I could use it for different districts rather than just the agricultural district for farming. The design itself features a large front window for the driver bug and 2 moving "wings" that both can shoot out the grain, this could be modified for other tasks. Some of the feedback I got from the other group members was that maybe one of the prompts for the player was to go solar powered or to just increase the amount of them for more profit, but at the cost of more pollution. So, I could design in solar panels somewhere.
The bug tractor is an all purpose vehicle designed to be a work horse across multiple sectors. Inspired by the Hercules beetle, the long horn is essentially a sensor block to give situational awareness to the driver, whilst the back wing covers can open up to reveal the trailer like component where items can be stored and carried. These would work along side the combine harvesters, but also as bin trucks or anything else that requires larger transportation.
The bug transport is designed to carry the inhabitants around the city and is mainly there as I thought it could be cool to add a sense of verticality to the city, but now we know the scale a bit more, I doubt we will be using this one.
Another personal favourite design, the police\fire truck, is a stag beetle, Rhino beetle, hybrid with a large horn for breaching and jaws for freeing people from broken buildings, with parts on them able to be swapped out depending on the task, like the rear camera being removed for the fire service version and instead being a fire hose.

One of the only bits of feedback that has been in favour of changing these designs so far has been to maybe tone some of the detail down, as we are doing something more stylised, but some members of the group quite like how it is, so I'll make multiple versions and let them settle on what they like the most, as I think they should look more stylised with some bright colours.

For references so far, I have been looking at some RTS games like Halo Wars 2 to get a feel for how detailed I want my vehicles to be, as they are quite simplified versions of the original "full size" versions on the main line Halo games.

### Gantt Chart

We also planned out a basic set of ideas for how the game would play including main screens, camera angles and what art style we were going for, so we will stick to this early on and develop our ideas as it isn't completely final, but a starting point.

### Conclusion
Next job is to make sure everyone likes the designs, then come up with some of the main district characters. If Helena hasn't already, then I get into modelling as fast as possible, so I can have these rigged and moving, which should be easier, since they are hard surface which means no weight painting.

## Week 2

To start off the week, we discussed more of the designs I'd created last week, and we all agreed they needed to be simplified with more of a Zelda links awaking style, a style I wasn't quite accustomed to so I quickly got to work on some new designs. I realised it was harder for me to draw something simple than the more complex designs. I was quite frustrated with how the bugs were coming out as I was trying to get a mix of robot and bug, but not an overly complex bug and I spent most of Wednesday night working on them. There was none I liked and they all took way too long. The next day I had a discussion with the group and had a look at the bugs Helena had drawn up. I came to the conclusion to just go back to the originals and trace over the designs but simplifying them along the way.

This turned out to be a great idea as the first re design of the combine harvester was a hit, as everyone much preferred the re design with it having much more reduced detail and more smooth straight lines and a colour palette that better matched the stylised theme.

The M44 locust as I'm now definitely calling it, is not as big as I'd made it appear. I added a little bug man for scale as the driver would most likely lie down inside the cockpit to drive it. This isn't that big, or it might just be autonomous instead. I haven't really decided, but it certainly makes it look less intimidating.

In a similar vein, the PZ 24 Hercules named in reference to the Hercules beetle is a more friendly re design, with the long nose spike being removed along with the open mouth and the leg armour is far smoother and less aggressive. This vehicle would be a crucial part of the world as it would be used to transport all manner of things.
Lastly the AMX Cobra 6x6, one of my personal favourites, serves as the fire truck of the world and has the appropriate features, the jaws of life on the front for rescuing people and a water canon on the back for putting out the fires. The horn on the front also has a radar inside for detecting people inside buildings and the eyes can also act as warning lights with multiple sets for lidar scanning of the terrain.


I used this mood board of bugs and vehicles. I wanted to lean into a more simplified version of the Gundam concept art drawings, mostly drawing from the way they are coloured and shaded. Gundam's Mecha designs at times can be fairly simple without too much surface detail in comparison to something like Titanfall, which I'm more familiar with. I followed this more closely when I was working on the designs. It's also worth noting that some of the early designs for Gundam were intentionally simplified for childrens' toys and the colours changed around, especially if they were main characters, whereas villain Mechas were typically more realistic in design and colour, so me designing my Mechs to be more detailed and then scaling them, is quite a similar process.

public spending statistics: November 2023

This week I began researching into our core government budgeting theme. Looking at what sectors were being funded and which aren't. This provided a great insight into which sectors, mechanics and statistics we should have in the game. Inline with what we had been looking into, the environmental protection sector is underfunded, this linking in with one of our core ideas that al ot of the social issues are coming from government budgeting and this is where the problems should be tackled equally. Surprisingly, housing and community amenities were at a similar level, which leads to the problem of homelessness. There are some benefits seeing that the health sector is still receiving plenty of funding, though it has dropped slightly from 2022 to 2023, which is understandble as things would have increased dramatically over Covid.

This provided an interesting metric to look at and gave me a clearer understanding of how the game would function, with these being our key districts that you as the player would be managing. One of the other things I thought about after going over the article itself was how overwhelming the statistics are and its quite hard to really figure out what you are looking at, with the use of acronyms also adding to that confusion and since we are making a game around this, we will need to make sure this is not the case for the player and trying to keep it at as manageable and understandable as possible. Simplifying some of the sectors may be required, but also laying everything out on the screen in a simple and understandable manner.

I also started researching more heavily into sustainable vehicles. One of the things I delved into more was building sustainable cars. One of the most interesting of these was the Japanese car built by their government. Made out of nano cellulose wood, which was interesting. In the article, Continental tyres wrote about sustainable materials in cars as a whole. I read manufacturing the body of the car out of different materials is often difficult because of safety regulations, but cellulose wood is 500% stronger than steel. This was something I wanted to incorporate into my designs, also the angular shape of the car lends itself better to the low poly look I've been working with.

One of the most interesting bits of information for me was the piezo crystals which capture the energy from moving objects and convert it into usable energy like a dynamo in a watch. I found this to be quite fascinating, but I couldn't really have it in my design as it's an internalised part, but it could be an interesting upgrade mechanic for the player to choose to invest into, but would be more expensive than the standard manufacturing process. One of the partial downsides from and artistic stand point is that you would not think that it was made of wood at all, as from the outside it has been painted like a regular car, which makes it difficult to convey the idea that it is made of cellulose wood to the player, meaning it would need some other factor to show that it has a sustainable background, rather than a regular manufactured vehicle.

Combining both bits of research together, I also looked into the government proposing to have farming and construction vehicles changed over to hydrogen vehicles, which fits perfectly with the section of the game that I'm working on. It detailed how these vehicles would be able to use main roads to decrease the emissions, which I thought could be functional for our game and would give more of a reason for why the combines are working around the main streets of the bug town. It would also function as a great upgrade option, as I had been considering hydrogen or solar. Up until now I'd gone with solar as it fitted with the space theme better, but either could work for a more sustainable variant of the combine harvester.


We also went to the Manchester Museum and got some references for terrariums so that we had a better idea of what we were building. It also gave us a better idea of scaling the bugs to the plants, as we could either make them human size compared to the plants or make them bug size. I think since they are already in space, having them be human size would just be easier with the buildings, but we can change this around as we work.

### Conclusion
Next week is the presentation, so I'll be getting some more feedback on everything, and I'll probably design some final versions of the robots and then move on from there. I'll hopefully research more into the materials that these things could be from, to make them more sustainable.

## Week 3

Figure 1
This week I started on blocking out the locust design. I thought this could help in the design process as the team could actually spin the design round and get a better feel for how it looks. I built it in Zbrush as eventhough its hard surface, I'm still more familiar with Zbrush's toolkit which made it easier to make what I wanted. I had a few issues with topology that you can see in Figure 1. The hard edges are crinkled. To fix this, I re dynameshed the parts so that the topology was better but way to high resolution, then z remeshed it to reduce it. Its not as optimal as I would like and will probably need a re topo job in Maya, but just to get it looking nice in Maya. I was happy with it shown here in Figure 2
Figure 2
In Maya, I added some standard colours just to get a look at it and it informed me how it would look in the end as we are going stylised, so I'm not going to have any fancy textures and I really quite liked the result. I intentionally kept the joints simple so that they could be animated as simply as possible. I also added some extra detail like discs to the wing joints so they can rotate outwards.
Figure 3

Happy with that result, I built the rest of the main combine harvester section which could be swapped out for another tool, if necessary, as the front arms end on a simple joint piece so I can simply add a new tool on as needed. Looking at combine harvesters, I quickly realised that the main combine is far more complicated with the scoop essentially being a sieve, so I took the core parts and simplified them to fit the stylised look. With this being a stylised top down, no one is going to be analysing whether the combine is actually sieving out the wheat. I just opted for some core parts, plenty of combines had these ridges running down their scoops so I added those for extra detail. They also had spikes on the bottom to help the plough, but those looked a bit too threatening, so I decided not to include them. Rotating part of the combine on a small arm so it can move up and down and rotate which I think seals the look quite well. There are still some topo problems, but I can fix them in Zbrush or try Maya, but I'm bringing the file in first so the whole team can play about with it and give feedback. I have already posted it in our group Discord and had some good feedback, so that's a good start.

Also, this week was our game pitch which was useful as it gave us some good feedback to work with and more ideas for research. Some of the feedback I got was directed at the fire engine bug, which was described as too threatening, which is understandable as it does have large pincers for a mouth which is probably contributing the most, but I felt like thematically, it made sense with the jaws of life aesthetic, but it probably means it won't be chosen as the vehicle I make, as it's not quite on the correct art style. Maybe I'll find a use for it later as I still like the design, but I'll take the feedback for now and progress with the combine.

We also got feedback on various other games to look at, such as Terra Nil, a game in which you bring the land back to life by purifying the It. Its top down perspective and builder aspects lends itself to what we are looking at, but we want to make it a bit different with the city builder aspect and want to show the difficulties that come with making a more sustainable city. Another interesting one was Plasticity, a game where the consumption and use of plastic has left the world barren. I like the stylised look of this game and it also lends itself to how we envisioned the game looking when you start making the wrong decisions and the world becomes more bleak, so that was another good game to look at.

### Conclusion

Next week I'll be bringing the model to the session for more in depth feedback with the group, then finalising it and hopefully taking those design aspects to take forward and help influence the other designs.

## Week 4

After getting feedback on the Locust last week, I decided to act upon it and make some changes. First of those being to smooth it out and removed the hard edges, this was actually quite helpful as it made it much easier to optimise and helped keep the poly count down. Jack recommended that I curve the top fins on the front, so I did that. I think this certainly helps with the more ergonomic look, however, I kept the back wings straight as they need the pipes to carry the grain, so I chose not to bend them as they will be bending anyway.

I also tried out a slightly brighter colour for this quick test and I quite like the more vibrant look. I think when I come to texturing this thing for real, I will probably paint on some panel lines especially round the cockpit so that it feels more integrated, but overall, I think for something that is going to be a small asset in a top down game, it actually looks alright and certainly less imposing, with the smoother edges, just gotta see what the team thinks. Once they confirm its fine, I can add the last few details, then get it textured. I'm thinking about having a coloured wood texture, perhaps only faintly showing through, like it's been painted over by a lacquer paint to seal it in.

### Conclusion
Hopefully the team likes the design, if not I can keep iterating on it to take it forwards. Once I know how they want it, I should be able to make another and get them animated and into the world.

## Week 5




This week I completed the model for the Locust adding the pipes on the back and then optimising the topology and finally texturing the model so that it's ready for rigging. That's the next for me to work on now as I'm pretty happy with how its looking. As much as I would love to make a super detailed version with panel lines and decals, this stylised look is growing on me. I did also add a curve to the back wings, so it flows better with the front antenna. I also painted on some face detail on the cockpit, as in the early version it never felt quite as connected as I'd wanted. I used the same colour as the main hull and painted a little border round the window, so it looks a little more integrated. I then threw it into a render scene just to show it off more and get some proper photos.

### Conclusion
Next week is the mid term presentation, so I'll be preparing a few slides for that, showing off the progression of the model and then its onto getting this guy rigged so I can build another.

## Week 6

Not too much for this week as it's been mainly me trying to rig up the Locust to get it working and moving, but I haven't yet got it quite right, so I'll be bringing it in for Jack to have a look at as he's made an animated robot in the past, so he knows the correct method to get it working. Other than that, this week we presented our work so far and got some feedback on the robots, mainly focusing on making it modular, so I don't have to model a whole other vehicle. I can just use it again with some extras which is something I will probably do. Hopefully, next week I will have the robot all working. It's just being a little more complicated than I expected.

## Week 7

Whilst I'm working on the rigging, I decided to look into the next mech to work on. I decided to go back to the design that I was using as a fire engine. I really liked the design, but the feedback I often got was that it was a bit two intimidating, so instead of changing that, I decided to go with it and instead made it into a riot control vehicle which I think suits the look better and after showing it off, everyone liked the idea.

It would become available to the player as they go down the bad route and the city might start to protest against you; thus, the theme of the game would be more negative. I wanted that to be reflected in the vehicle design, contrasting nicely against the smooth combine harvester design which I liked, and everyone agreed that it would suit that point in the game. The design matched a number of tasks, that being the riot control role and also as a counter terrorism unit, if we wanted to go down that route of the bugs rebelling against you and tearing down what you have built. The design already had a water cannon installed on the back of the vehicle which is present on real life riot trucks and other vehicles. As well as this, the jaws on the front were initially meant to mimic the jaws of life used by fire fighters, but now can be used to clear rubble or tear down barricades or breach into a building if necessary. I had also considered using the Locust for this and giving it a dozer blade on the front and re colouring it, but I wanted to make a whole new asset instead.

### Conclusion
I'm taking a break from the rig for now and just trying to get a few more assets made, but I'm happy with how this one is turning out hopefully I'll get it textured next week.

## Week 8



This week I worked on getting the riot control mech finished and textured and I quite like how it has turned out. The colour scheme still has some vibrancy, but is distinctively more negative which I think helps the overall look of the vehicle. I also added some extra panel lines as I thought I needed some extra detail. This was also my first time using decals, so I made those in Photoshop and took them into Substance and they came out great, especially the no stop around the feet of the mech and the police writing as well. It's overall a more harsh looking vehicle than the original, but that's what I was hoping to do and the group seems to like it so far and I quite like the riot aspect with it being an interesting game mechanic. The mech itself is also much larger than its other mechs as shown in the first picture next to a little concept I drew up with one of Helena's bug designs in riot gear, which I will talk about next.

This little guy was just a little concept I drew up to help build more around the riot stuff and was really just there for a height comparison, but I quite enjoyed working on this little design. He's a mix of a riot body armour and counter terrorist gear, mostly taken from the Russian FSB gear from the 80s and 90s with a helmet themed after the Russian Altyn helmet and the British body armour I'd seen at Leeds Armouries and the shield inspired by the French GIGN (National Gendarmerie Intervention Group), though I'm doubtful we will ever make him in Zbrush. I quite like the little character and it was an interesting point of research.

### Conclusion
I think I will be mainly focusing on the main project over Easter, so I'll come back to this project after that.

## Week 9
Easter
## Week 10
Easter

## Week 11


I decided to start working on Games for Good again and Helena asked if I could make the riot bugs from my concepts from a few weeks ago. I asked her if I could use her bug as a base model then built all the accessories afterwards. I built up a slightly stylised Alytn helmet which was really fun to work on and then sculpted the cloths, simply masking out the body and smoothing out and building up the creases. The group really liked what I'd done, so I decided to build up another.


I then built up another variant with a belt and a Vityaz helmet, commonly used by the Russian Tax Police back in the 80s and 90s. I thought it would be a fitting addition to the line up of bugs. I then did some simple posing to re-create one of the more famous images of the Russian Tax Police with 3 men stood in a poorly lit room. This was more for fun than on theme.

### Conclusion
Made a good bit of progress this week with having a new set of characters to use, which is great and everyone really likes the designs which is good when I don't normally do stylised stuff. Next week will be re topo and getting them textured.

## Week 12
This week I retologised the helmet and started to retopo the rest of the bug, so that should be done soon and ready for texturing.

## Week 13



This week I started and finished the buildings. I started with some basic sketches. I wanted to retain the simple organic look, rather than anything too complicated. I looked at the designs for the buildings on Kamino in Star Wars with their large saucer shaped appearance and windows layered in them. This provided an excellent point of reference. as I started sketching out various designs which I simplified further once I got to Zbrush.

I kept it fairly simple and just went with organic designs that I could make in Z brush. With them being for a top down game, I could keep them very low detail and mainly focus on bright colours and I think it works for what we want. I was never supposed to be making the buildings, but under the circumstances someone had to, so I got them done and sent over to Jack so we can make a little mock up.


Also, this week, I finished texturing the riot bugs. I used the UCP camouflage as I thought it would add some extra interest to the design and applied the decals I'd used for the riot vehicle to give it a cohesive look. I'm pretty happy with how this character came out looking on the whole.

### Conclusion
Getting close to the end now with pretty much everything I'd planned to do made. I never really got round to rigging the combine, but other things needed making and I wasn't expecting to have to make all the buildings in the second to last week, but on the whole we are almost there now, just need to throw it all into the ue I've sent all of my assets over to Jack to put into his build in engine. He is to build up the scenes for screen shots and put the game together. We aren't going to make actual working mechanics, but what we agreed to aim for would be screen shots that you might see on the Steam store page to give someone the basic idea of the game, which should convey the ideas nicely. project.

## Week 14

figure 1

figure 2


Figure 3


Finally for the last week, I designed the UI. I've never really done anything like this before, so I started by looking at the other city builder games that I'd had mentioned previously. I also had my research into government spending to use as inspiration for all the various meters which helped me figure out what statistics I should use. I wanted to keep it simple, whilst telling the player what is going on, as this was something I'd touched on whilst researching budgeting to begin with as its quite overwhelming at time, especially to someone who doesn't like numbers and metrics.

One of my initial concepts had a visible happiness meter and after discussing it with the group, we felt it would be more thematic to have the happiness to be an invisible metric that should only be observed by the player through watching the colour palette of the game change. This ties in better with the overall theme with the game demonstrating the difficulties, those being power and how it can be hard to read the world. With budgeting being a core theme, I also wanted the largest thing on the screen to be the amount of money you have; thus it seems the most important, whilst the actual important stats are down below and not as prominent.

The three tabs are meant to look like the tops of files leading into that management theme. Each of them each having their respective screens. The build screen (figure 2) would be for when the player wants to place down a new building and when moused over, would display the relevant stat sheet for that building, displaying what statistics it affects, such as how much pollution it makes and how much health it provides. I made a stat sheet for all of these buildings, but it's hard to show them all at once. I really liked how these work, just giving the player an idea of what they provide and most importantly how much profit you can make from them.

Secondly, the management screen, (figure 3) would take you out of the build menu and into the office layout where you would be greeted by the different bugs that represent each district. They would then have some short dialogue and then you would be presented with the option of funding that district or not. This would increase the stats of all the buildings under that district. Shown here with the + to education, so this would be used to represent the teacher bug asking for funding. If you manage to keep the balance, then you would just keep going trying to appease the bugs, but over time you might choose to fund the police and that's when the riot bugs I designed might come in to remove any bugs that might come in, as they get more desperate for funding over time. These decisions will have the most effect over the invisible happiness meter and not showing it makes it more of a moral decision on the player's part.

Lastly, the upgrades menu. (figure 1) This is where the player can individually upgrade various buildings, rather than entire districts. This gives the player the option to up the production rate on something, like the industrial building and creates more pollution, but it's significantly cheaper than upgrading to a nuclear power plant, which produces significantly less pollution. However, things like nuclear power can only be unlocked whilst your education is at a certain threshold, thus it's important to maintain your education, but if you're greedy, you could ignore this completely and choose the cheapest options. This gives the player another level of control as to what decisions they want to make and would have some of the largest impacts on the game and lead to the interactions that you have with the various bugs throughout the game. If they see that you haven't funded or changed their district in a while, that would trigger them to ask for funding.

There is of course no winning screen only a fail state which could be brought on through any of the main meters falling too low. If health is too low, your population may die or will riot against you. Throwing the ship into disarray, but by this point you will have unlocked access to riot control, but all that does, is make the situation worse. If education falls too low, you won't have access to any advanced upgrades and no one will be maintaining the ship, since they won't know how. Leading to it eventually breaking down. Pollution would cause the terrarium to fill up with smog and eventually the sphere would crack, and lastly the economy would lead to mass rioting and even your own police would turn on you and the ship would fall into confusion, so there are multiple ways to fail, thus it is important to maintain your stats. Happiness being the invisible stat that contributes to the bugs requests and the amount of riots and crime in your city.

figure 1


These are the final screens that represent how the game would look if it was fully functioning. figure 1 shows the player placing the base housing infrastructure and starting to populate the town, adding various buildings like the industrial plant and the shopping district. I quite liked the larger plants, as having them die back would be much more noticeable. We didn't quite get that mechanic working, so this shows more of the early stages of the game as the player is starting to build up, with the pollution meter slowly rising. This would be the same layout if you were in the upgrades menu and you would be taken over each building as you select it to be upgraded.

figure 2


This shot shows one of the more important screens with the player deciding whether to fund or defund. The bug representing its district. In this case, the librarian as they have the option to defund the education. This would also go grey over time and if you had chosen to go down the bad route, one of my riot bugs would be stood by the door to remove more troublesome bugs as they become more desperate and the situation would gradually worsen. Sadly, we could not get a screen shot of this as the project file corrupted, which meant some of my other parts didn't get into the screen shot, but the buildings did, which was arguably the most important thing to get in the game.

However, me and Juno didn't want my Locust and his corn fields to go to waste, so we instead rendered them out in Maya to give an idea of what the corn fields might have looked like, which we thought came out quite nice. If we had managed to get it fully functioning, we would have liked to have had the corn fall over as the combine collects it. We were really happy to get this little render together just to demonstrate what it would have looked like in game. We just unfortunately couldn't get it into the main project.

That makes up for the core mechanics of the game and is something that we as a group probably should have nailed down earlier, but it's helpful to make now that the everything is finalised, and we know what we are working with. It's quite an essential part of the project, as it ties everything together and is conveying most of the points that we wanted to make. So, I had a lot of discussions, as I was making it, so that everyone agreed that it made sense.

## Conclusion

On the whole this has been quite a difficult project for me, trying to include stuff I like, whilst also conveying a message and nailing down what that message is. I don't normally work with stylised stuff either, so that was something I had to get used to, as I normally pack my stuff with detail and textures, whereas, here I had to strip that away which often gave me the feeling that my stuff looked unfinished, even with colours and textures applied, I was never quite happy with the outcome, especially early on when I was designing the vehicles. That was in the grand scheme of the game, quite a small detail and once we figured out that we were going to just try and get screenshots to give the impression of the game, I decided not to rig it and instead just focus on getting other assets made, as it would function fine in the state it was in. I was hoping that having little machines working in the field would add more life to the game, but it wasn't as necessary of a detail, but I did enjoy researching into the sustainable vehicle side and anytime I get to work on vehicles is fun, especially bug walkers. I had far more of a connection working on that since it's something I'm genuinely interested in and hence why I wanted to include it, as its a particularly interesting topic with no clear solution and as someone who loves vehicles, be it cars, planes or tanks, seeing them evolve is always interesting to me, since its one of the more grounded parts of the game with more people going towards electric or sustainable modes of transport, I thought it was important to include.

The riot control vehicle was meant to represent the game changing from colourful to grey and this was something I did quite enjoy, with making the assets for the more corrupt government way of playing the game, as it wasn't something we had explored and thus was something I could do fine. The buildings were also quite an important asset that originally Juno was going to complete, but wasn't able to, so I had to jump on and get those made in time as they are arguably one of the most important assets and lastly the UI also fell to me to complete, which was again something I wasn't familiar with, but I think it's come out alright.

Looking back through the project, the social issue was what we were working to develop and we added more and more on. Starting with sustainability and then developing into this more governmental project, looking at how problems are difficult to solve and how greed and money is typically the root cause of all these issues. There is no winning state for this game, just a constant juggling act. Maybe, we did try to tackle more than we realistically could include, but I tried to focus my key research into the sustainably to begin with, which later developed into the UI game mechanics. Choosing to upgrade your combine harvesters to solar power instead. The hardest part has been trying to integrate the message into the work, with most of it coming together in the end with the UI, which really put the pressure on me to make something that accurately conveys everything. Overall, I'm happy with what I've been able to create for this project as I've been able to test my hard surface skills in Zbrush and do some environment work, which I don't normally touch and UI which is something completely new for me.

When it comes to group work, it's quite hard to really evidence much. We had a group chat to put stuff in, but we were in Uni all the time, so we normally discussed work in person and actually bounced ideas around live. We all worked together really well and communication was clear, other than me having to jump in on some of Juno's stuff, but he had his own reasons for that, so I didn't mind and I wanted more stuff that I'd been involved in anyway, so it wasn't too big of a concern. Collaboration wasn't an issue, if we were not there in person we did have our discord.


Early on in designing the robots, I often worked on them in the evenings, so I would send my iterations over to see what the group thought of the designs, which was always helpful, but I tended to prefer bringing the stuff in to properly explain the next day.

## Bibliography

Kizuna (2021)
Plant-Derived Material Will Change the Future of Automobiles* [Online] [Accessed on 18 Feb 2024]
https://www.japan.go.jp/kizuna/2021/02/plant-derived_material.html

Continental Tyres (Unknown Date) *Sustainable materials in cars of the future* [Online] [Accessed 13 Feb 2024]
https://www.continental-tyres.co.uk/b2c/stories/sustainable-materials-in-cars/

Steam Games (Unknown Date) *Plasticity* [Online] [Accessed on 18 Feb 2024]
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1069360/Plasticity/

Steam Games (Unknown Date) *Terra Nil* [Online] [Accessed on 18 Feb 2024]
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1593030/Terra_Nil/

Gov.uk (November 2023) *Public spending statistics: Total Departmental Expenditure Limits, 2022-23(£millions) (2023).* [Online] [Accessed 3 March 2024] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/public-spending-statistics-release-november-2023/public-spending-statistics-november-2024

Gov.uk (March 2024) *Farming and construction vehicles set for hydrogen-powered revolution* [Online] [Accessed 7 May 2024]
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/farming-and-construction-vehicles-set-for-hydrogen-powered-revolution#:~:text=Greener%20construction%20and%20farming%20vehicles,reducing%20emissions%20from%20the%20tailpipe.&text=Tractors%2C%20diggers%20and%20forklifts%20powered,today%20(27%20March%202024).

#### Books

Japan Works (2013) Mobile Suit Gundam MS Illustrated + Drawing Art Book Encyclopedia. Japan: ASCII Media Works

Christopher F Foss for Jane's (2000) Tanks and other Combat Land Vehicles Recognition Guide. London: Harper Collins

Barbara Taylor, Dr Jen Green, John Farndon (2002) The Big Bug Book. London: Anness Publishing ltd

Respawn Entertainment LLC (2016) The Art of Titanfall 2. London: Titan Books

Nintendo (2018) The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - Creating a Champion Art Book. America: Dark Horse Books