Games Development: Reflections
29/9/2025
ALTAIFI, LEEN MAAN A (0367698)
Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media, Taylor's University
Games Development
Table of Content
3. Reflections
1. Instructions & Tasks
Module Booklet Information (MIB):
Week 1- Task 1:
Individually come out with a game idea (or many ideas, remember the limitations), and make your first game pitch. Some lucky (or unlucky) students will be selected to do a 10-minute presentation of their game idea(s) next week on Sept-30. No specific format for now (we’ll do Game Design Document in later class)
Brainstorming ideas:
I first brainstormed the idea of my game based off my interests. I'm not a big gamer, but I love world-building narratives and illustration, so I already knew I wanted to make a game that reflects that.
Brainstorming Presentation Deck - Early Draft
Week 2- Task 2:
Planning:
In class, we were supposed to create our game assets already in blender, but since I planned my game to be 2d, I asked the lecturer, if i could sketch out my designs and create a concept board, because i personally thought that fit the linear progression of ideation and design planning, and he agreed. I love the simple process of jutting down my ideas with a pencil on paper, so that allowed the creative juices to flow better.
And I briefly planned out the storyboarding and game mechanics. The storyboarding begins with the title sequence of the game, an animation sequence, which follows into the beginning of the gameplay when it focuses in one carriage and enters the carriage. I also sketched out the basic game mechanics of movement and interacting with objects.
Game Concept Deck
Leen's Game Concept Deck by ALTAIFI, LEEN MAAN A
Task 3: Game Design Document
After I've gotten my concept deck approved by Ron, I felt more motivated to fully fleshing out this idea into the game design document. At first, my idea was very abstract and I had the existential message set up, but not the technical aspect of it. Therefore I had to do more brainstorming and visualizing how the game looks like to make it all more tangible. Visualizing my idea was the easy part, filling in the gaps in my story was one thing i struggled with.
Final Assets
Animating Cutscenes
Final Cutscene Drafts
As the leader of this project, working on it taught me a lot of about teamwork, resilience, and the importance of planning. I had to carry so much of the heavy lifting due to this game being my idea; trying to translate my vision to 9 people wasn't the easiest, but we managed to make it through. Some of my groupmates, whom i so appreciate, worked with me throughout this whole project and i couldn't have done it without them. And others, barely did anything. I am quite disappointed that the marking is distributed equally no matter the amount of contribution, it is unfair for those who have put so much effort.
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| Fig.1.0: Brainstorming & Designing |
I very roughly sketched out the basic design ideas of the game; including the environment, levels, and character design. The game setting is essentially in a moving train, and the character journeys across the carriages. Each carriage has its own design since it embodies different stages of life: childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and the last carriage.
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| Fig.1.1: Ideation, storyboarding, and mechanics. |
And I briefly planned out the storyboarding and game mechanics. The storyboarding begins with the title sequence of the game, an animation sequence, which follows into the beginning of the gameplay when it focuses in one carriage and enters the carriage. I also sketched out the basic game mechanics of movement and interacting with objects.
Game Concept Deck
Leen's Game Concept Deck by ALTAIFI, LEEN MAAN A
Task 3: Game Design Document
After I've gotten my concept deck approved by Ron, I felt more motivated to fully fleshing out this idea into the game design document. At first, my idea was very abstract and I had the existential message set up, but not the technical aspect of it. Therefore I had to do more brainstorming and visualizing how the game looks like to make it all more tangible. Visualizing my idea was the easy part, filling in the gaps in my story was one thing i struggled with.
Since the game is mostly based on the visual experience and the narrative part, I wanted to have a stronger, more interesting story and message to tell rather than building impressive technical game mechanics. That's when the idea of 'breaking the fourth wall' came in. It may be a bit of a cliche, but I always love a meta layer in an interactive experience, especially in a game, where a player and a character being played is involved.
Having the title being 'the last train', and the whole concept of going through life stages through a moving train makes it pretty obvious it's a play on 'life flashing before your eyes'. And I wanted to play on that dramatic irony of having the player already skeptical of the state of the character (whether dead or alive) and the character not knowing anything. So then the twist is not that the character is actually dead and this is her going through memory lane; rather, it is that the player thinks they are helping the character remember her identity, but in fact, they were building a deception for her to believe in to avoid the harsh truth: she is dead.
Since I've done a lot of rough sketches in the ideation process, doing the illustrations was basically simply refining it and adding the colors whilst building the atmosphere. One thing i love, is playing with lighting. I love painting and evoking emotion with colors, lights, and shadows, so i had fun trying to evoke the feeling of each carriage with the color palettes.
Since I was the creative director, i decided i will take the whole responsibility of creating all the assets of the game. I drew them all digitally by hand because i wanted to maintain that authentic, human, raw feel towards a game that inherently describes the human experience.
Planning
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| Fig.1.2: Planning Carriages |
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| Fig.1.3: The Last Train Game Flow Chart |
Early Drafts
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| Fig.1.3: Early Drafts of All Carriage Themes |
Process
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| Fig.1.4: Asset Creation Process on Procreate 1 |
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| Fig.1.5: Asset Creation Process on Procreate 2 |
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| Fig.1.6: Asset Creation Process on Procreate 3 |
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| Fig.1.7: Asset Creation Process on Procreate 4 |
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| Fig.1.8: Asset Creation Process on Procreate 5 |
Final Assets
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| Fig.1.11: Asset Collection - Childhood Carriage |
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| Fig.1.12: Asset Collection - Adolescence Carriage |
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| Fig.1.13: Asset Collection - Adulthood Carriage |
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| Fig.1.14: Asset Collection - The Last Carriage |
Importing to Godot
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| Fig.1.17: Visual Setup on Godot- Adolescence Carriage |
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| Fig.1.18: Visual Setup on Godot- Adulthood Carriage |
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| Fig.1.19: Visual Setup on Godot- The Last Carriage |
Animating Cutscenes
For vital moments in the game, like the beginning and the end, it is portrayed with an animated cutscene, that i animated frame by frame and post-editing with after effects.
Final Cutscene Drafts
3. Final Submissions
Art Asset Development
Game Prototype
Final Game
Game Design Documents
Video Presentation
3. Reflections
A lot of the concepts of this game was inspired by my personal thoughts, so it felt kind of embarrassingly revealing to publicize this idea, it felt like reading my own diary aloud lol. The thing is, I'm not used to showing all my emotions through my artworks publicly, except this time, I had to quite literally write things down, and that left no room for interpretation. There is no backing out now, though, I am committing to making this game happen. I have a vision, and I'll make it exist.
As the leader of this project, working on it taught me a lot of about teamwork, resilience, and the importance of planning. I had to carry so much of the heavy lifting due to this game being my idea; trying to translate my vision to 9 people wasn't the easiest, but we managed to make it through. Some of my groupmates, whom i so appreciate, worked with me throughout this whole project and i couldn't have done it without them. And others, barely did anything. I am quite disappointed that the marking is distributed equally no matter the amount of contribution, it is unfair for those who have put so much effort.
I wish we collectively spent more time on this game to polish it, not everything came out our way, but i am proud of the hard work we've put in to make this project exist, and i wish to continue and finalize it one day.
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