Author: Jingyue Gao

Research: Video Game History Timeline – Jingyue Gao

nintendo-characters

Video games have been with us for decades. It also spans the gamut of platforms, from arcade systems to home consoles, and then to handheld consoles and mobile devices. In the 1950s, early computer scientists use games to test the limits and potentials of their programs. In October 1958, Physicist William Higinbotham created the first video game: Tennis for Two (1958).

In 1972, with the launch of the first commercial home video game console, the Magnavox Odyssey, the humble television set became more interactive. Because of the development of technology and the spread of televisions and interactive game consoles, more and more video games became our fathers’ and mothers’ friends. Some famous games popped up in this period and established multiple genres for the game industry, including but not limited to Maze Wars (the first first-person shooter game, 1974), Adventures (the first text-based game, 1975), and Akalabeth: World of Doom (first role-playing video game, 1979).

I can recognize several familiar characters that were born from the 1980s to the 1990s: Mario (1985), Sonic (1991), and Lara (1996). Furthermore, I liked to play games launched with Windows, such as Solitaire (1990) and Minesweeper (1989). Then, of course, in the 2000s, the stars are MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) games. I still remembered my mom blaming my brother for forgetting to have dinner when playing World WarCraft (2004). Strangely, I thought Angry Birds (2009) was invented early than 2009 because I feel it has the same age as Pikachu (1996). 

The smartphone puts a game-playing computer in almost every person’s pocket, while online video streaming fuels the growth of Esports.

Video Game History Timeline

I cannot agree more with this sentence. During this pandemic, my friends and I regularly play Drawful2 (2016) online while using twitch to recruit strangers. We had a lot of fun. 

Since we play games a lot, I believe we are also a part of video game history. Because I always use my brother’s steam to purchase games (he will pay for everything), I would like to share our steam game list:

I really enjoyed the entire journey to review the history of video games, which refreshed my knowledge in a variety of fields and deepened my understanding of games.

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Categorized as Research

Scene Manager & Collecting Items- Jingyue Gao

I created ItemManager.gd script, added SceneManager.gd script, and updated the PlayerController.gd script.

There are three items that could be collected in the scene. The system would count how many items the main character has collected when collecting a new one.

Here is the demonstration:

Rewards – Jingyue Gao

Since I want to create a food-theme game, I designed two rewards: vegetable and mushroom.

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Categorized as Rewards

Character Animation – Jingyue Gao

Based on my design, the main color of one of my main characters is green (left one):

However, the combination of white and green looks a little boring. Therefore, I decided to add more details to the character by making the following changes:

  1. replace the curly hair by a green ponytail cap & a ponytail bun.
  2. introduce more shades of green & yellow to make it vivid.

Based on the refreshed design, there are five animations for the character, including idle, walk, jump, die, & being hit:

Here is the video, showing what it looks like when idling and walking:

By the way, these little cuties are created by Adobe Illustrator in pixel preview mode. For anyone who wants to use them in their project, please feel free to download them, you can change shape/color as you want as long as you claim the collaboration.

Download link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/zmv9hh1mnhevo5j/character%20animation.ai?dl=0

Character Design – Jingyue Gao

Inspiration

① The first character I want to share is Yoimiya from Genshin Impact: 

I like her cute costume because there are many fine details representing her cultural background, including but not limited to goldfish (a symbol of wealth, fortune, and good luck), Shimenawa (the red waist rope holding religious significance denoting points of spiritual convergence), and a lot of pyro elements. Also, her color combinations look like my favorite dish: stir-fried tomato and scrambled eggs.

★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★

② The second character I want to share is bird chef from overcooked:

Overcooked 2 Concepts Characters/Environments

This character design is simple but detailed. It personalized a bird to a chef. This design omitted lower limbs so that it emphasizes the key elements of this character, such as a huge chef hat and big mouth (represents it is a gourmet). 

★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★

③ The third character I want to share is the main character from Sky: Children of the Light:

This character design represents the character’s mode and abilities by changing their outfits or appearance, such as low energy (partially discolor the cloak from orange to grey) and inability to fly (remove wings).

★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★

Character Sketches

Inspired by these three amazing resources, here are my variations of the same character:

The character I create is gender-neutral. If it looks like a girl or a boy from your perspective, please try to rid of stereotypes. 

  • The left one is basic/peaceful mode. I used green and rounds to represent the peaceful mode. When nothing happens, this character has a small grass green bag to hold magic medicine that can heal energy and change mode. 
  • The middle one is attacking/aggressive mode. I used red and triangles to represent the aggressive mode. When this character needs/wants to fight, the color would change to red after taking a red pill. Also, the shape of the hair and bag would change accordingly. This character has a small bloody-red triangle bag to hold magic rocks that can hurt others, riddles, bricks, and so on. 
  • The right one is thinking/wisdom mode. I used blue and rectangles to represent the wisdom mode. When this character needs more clues to slove the pizzle, the color would change to blue after taking a blue pill. The long scarf and a pair of glasses are two signs of this mode. (My family member told me that this one looks like SpongeBob was eliminated from the Harry Potter audition. (╯°Д°)╯ ┻━┻)

My Avatar – Jingyue Gao

This is my class avatar. It was supposed to be a sun, but now it looks like a flying octopus. I guess she is a believer in Pastafarianism.

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Categorized as Art Intro

Skill Tree – Jingyue Gao

Hi Professor and Classmates,

Here is my skill tree. I want to create a strategy game, so there must be some different levels allowing players to challenge with. Therefore, I want to spend more time on level design, developer, and user interface design. Also, I definitely want to publish my game and invite more people to test it. So, I guess I can get the points from the publishing part. Last but not least, I feel it is important and necessary to explore more genres of games. Therefore, I would like to do some research on it.