My game of Shape Man

Morten Holland

Games Design L3

Teacher: Wayne Gallear

My Game of Shape Man

Rules:

You start as a circle in the middle. The enemies will rotate between each shape and you can only kill a shape if you look the same as it. To change shape, you must touch the shapes in the corners of the room. There is also collectibles which increase your score.

Controls: ARROW KEYS to move

Bugs
There is only 2 bugs in my game, but one of them is pretty game breaking. A huge part of the game is the rule that 'if you are a triangle, you can kill the enemies when they are also a triangle'. I couldn't figure out how the code for that, so there isn't a way of killing the enemies but they can kill you. Here is a clip of this bug in action.

The second bug is during the rotation of the enemy sprites. The enemies change sprite when the countdown hits zero which is normal, but sometimes they turn invisible. I couldn't figure out how to fix this either. Here's a clip of that right now.

Sketch

When I started creating my game, I first created a sketch in 'Paint' of the first room. 

Sprites

My sprites consist of all the shapes that you and the enemy can be, my sprite, the walls, lives(heart), collectibles,  and the numbers for which sprite will be next. I made all these shapes myself in GameMaker Studio and each of them has an animation. The animations are flashing colours, spinning clockwise, shrinking and wobbling.

obj_me (Player)

There are a lot of parts to my player object. <left> <right> <up> and <down> all controls the movement of the player (arrow keys). There is also collision events with every corner shape, so i can change into that shape. There's a collision with the wall so you don't go through it, and there is a collision with the player so when you touch it, you will die and respawn. When you die, you also explode, with audio. And finally, i have a draw event which displays a the amount of lives remaining.

Objects

Here is the rest of my objects. The ones with white sprites are invisible and are only made so they can be put in the room. 

'controller' contains the global variables i used. 'spriteto' is the shape the enemies are currently, and 'spritenext' is what they will change into next. 

'obj_ecircle' is the name of my enemy. The create event lets them move by themselves, the collision with the wall makes them bounce off the walls, and the collision with the player draws the number of lives. Here is the code i used for the draw event on 'obj_ecircle'.

Room

This is the first room in the game. It looks almost identical to my sketch. I made this just after i made my objects and added things to it as I went a long. 

Background 

This is the image I chose to use. I got it from a royalty-free website. I chose this one because it suits my game and matches the 'Shape' theme.

Sound

I've used 2 audio files for my game. One is an explosion sound which happens when the player dies, and the other audio file is my background music which plays on a loop. Both of these audio files were gathered from a royalty-free website.

How it turned out, and improvements
In conclusion, I think my game fits the client brief apart from the 2 bugs i have reported. If they were fixed, my game would match the brief much better. I looked into making the walls move and morph, but sadly it wasn't a success so I kept that part out of the game.

Here's a clip of my friend play the game.

After letting my friend, Wyatt play my game, he said how I could improve it. He recommended adding in a sound effect for when the player picks up a collectible or kills an enemy, and a way you can use the score from killing enemies and collecting balls. He recommended a shop screen after you complete the first level, where you can use your score to improve movement speed or the ability to carry more lives. I completely agree with these recommendations and think they would improve the game.

Here's the game manual i made for Shape Man. Sorry if its bad quality.

Gaming Trends

Morten Holland
Games Design L3

Gaming Trends

The gaming industry has changed a lot over the past 10 years, which means lots of trends have appeared to either improve the gamers’ experience, or to help game creating businesses. Here are some of the trends.

Streamers and YouTubers

The amount gamers play and watch other gamers play games have drastically changed in the recent years, due to the popularity of the Twitch.tv and YouTube commentaries. 100 million people watch people play games on the Twitch.tv service a month which shows just how much time people watch people play. Game creators now have to think about if a game will be enjoyable to play and watch. Some games may even incorporate the fans in some way.

Some games such as ‘Gang Beasts’ and ‘Goat Simulator’ are aimed directly at streamers and commentators. The companies of these games provide wacky and fun content that’s entertaining to watch and play. Something that's easy to watch, that you don't have to pay attention to a story or characters.


Second Screen Experience

Studies show that a huge percentage of gamers use phones and tablets for a considerable amount of time, so it would only make sense to incorporate those devices to the gaming experience too. Many gamers can now link up their devices to gain extra content in  hundreds of video games, such as 'Assassins Creed Unity'. This game has chests placed throughout the map that require progress from the mobile game to open. These chests contain outfits and weapons that cannot be gotten any other way, which can be good and bad. It can be good because it adds more content to the game, but it could be bad because it excludes some players from content if they do not own a tablet or mobile device.

Some games such as 'Skylanders' have restricted content that can only be accessed by using toys. Some of these characters are only playable if the gamer owns the right toy.


Storage

Memory sticks and USBs aren't the only ways of storing your game saves now. With the advancement of the gaming industry, game saves can now be stored in the 'Cloud' which is a non-physical storage device that's free. It basically allows gamers to save their games and profiles right onto the internet, so they can be used elsewhere or even as a backup save.' Cloud saving isn't just for gaming, but it can be really helpful if you are going to a friend's house to play a game.

Also, the amount of space a storage device can hold is becoming ridiculous. The newly released consoles such as the 'Xbox One' come with a built in storage device that has 500GB of space. For an Xbox One, that won't hold a tonne of games. The console before that was the 'Xbox 360' and 500GB would be an unnecessary amount of space. This shows how quickly the storage devices are expanding but also how much space games are taking up. External hard drives for Xbox One can be as big as 4 TB (Terabytes/1000GBs).


Social Networking

Now in gaming, the social and communication aspects are pretty big. For example, the Xbox One has an 'Active Feed' where people can share video clips they made in-game, screenshots and statuses, similar to 'Facebook' or 'Twitter'. You can also share your clips or screenshots straight to Twitter and Facebook.


Early Access

Companies such as 'Valve' and 'Microsoft' have made early access programs that allow players to play games that are still in development or early stages, so they can help make the game better. The gamers voice their opinion on what they like and dont like, and can even report bugs. This helps both the game developers, and the fans of the games.

'Steam' has an early access feature and 'Microsoft' has 'Preview Program' which is the same, but this also lets you use apps that Microsoft have started working on.

Players as Creators

Due to the high success of the hit game 'Minecraft', companies have been implementing the 'Players as creators' feature. This is where games are highly focused on creating levels yourself, as a player. A good example is 'Mario Maker'. This game gives players the assets for a game such as sprites and images so gamers can make their own levels, and share them online for others to play which creates a huge bank of player created levels.

Another game that has this feature is 'Grand Theft Auto V'. This game also has a bank of player created races, deathmatches, capture the flags, etc.

eSports and Tournaments 

Competitive gaming has come a long way since split-screen local games. Gaming events all over the world attract huge amounts of gamers to watch people compete for thousands of dollars over games such as 'Call of Duty' or 'Counter Strike'.

I think the main reason people enjoy watching these events are that people like to follow a team that plays a game. Someone to root for. The two most famous teams in 'Call of Duty' are named 'FaZe' 'OpTic' and they compete in gaming events a lot and earn money from it too.

Very similar to the Twitch.tv services or the YouTube sevices, these events can be free or can cost money for tickets or even entrance tickets to participate in the event.

Client Brief and My Brief

Unit 78 - Digital Graphics for Computer Games
Games Design L3
Start: 03/11/2015
End: 10/11/2015
Morten Holland
Teacher: Josh Rai

Client Brief: 

Create a platform game of your choice. Come up with your own design brief, it should have at least 5 levels or rooms and one main character and several monsters to avoid.

My Brief

My brief is to create a 2 dimensional platform game with 5 different levels, with a pixel value of 32 by 32. I  must create all the assets for the game such as sprites, objects, backgrounds audio files, etc.

I then have to create concept art ideas for that game that are imaginative and creative. The game will be made for PC and mobile devices.

My game will be an action adventure and will include features such as a currency which the player can collect, animations when running and audio files for when the player's character dies and when enemies die. There will also be a message that will appear when the player dies, or when they advance to the next level.

Artistic Style

The artistic style for my game will be abstract. The character will be blue and the background will be white/grey with a square pattern on the wall.

Plot

 The character wakes up in a white room, not remembering a thing. The player will guide the character through levels and slowly uncover why he is there and if he will ever get out, through messages received after each level.

Audience

 The target audience for my game will be males aged 10+ due to the difficulty of the game as it will progress.

Legal and Ethical Considerations

Make sure to copyright the name of the game, the logo, characters, sounds and audio. I will make sure my game does not portray any gender, race or nationality negatively.

Inspiration
The game 'Portal' is very similar to what i want my game to look like. The rooms in portal are what I want my game rooms to look like. White, black and grey walls, with colourful platforms, doors and objects.

Here are some hats too that i was thinking of adding to the character after each level:

Here is the sprite I'm going to use:

unit 78 pre planning a computer game

Unit 78
Games Design L3
Morten Holland
James Tedder

Pre-Production and Planning for a Computer Game

I will be outlining the pre-production and planning stages that are included in the creation of a computer game, such as the one I’ll be making in my ‘Games Design L3’ course.

Finance

Self-Financing

Making a game will cost a lot of money, to buy development kits, recording software and expensive equipment. So if you make a game that lots of people really like, then publishing companies will want to buy it, which will return lots of money and maybe you’ll make profit. It can be risky though because if your game isn’t popular, no publisher will want it, all the time and money you put into making that game are essentially wasted.

Indie Funding

Indie funding is very smart because it can cost nothing or cost very little to create a good game. The creator can create the game in their spare time whilst gaining money from a day job. This may mean that the game will take longer to make. There’s a funding source called ‘The Indie Fund’ which was created by a group of independent game creators that are widely successful.  

Crowd Funding

A hugely popular website called ‘Kickstarter’ is a crowd funding site that gathers money from donators of the public for certain products or services. Lots of games get funded this way because it obviously funds the game, but also shows how many people are willing to pay for the game which means the game already essentially has been bought by some people. 

Grants

Grants are basically loans, where people can loan money from grant companies so that the people can create their business and start earning money, then that company will pay back the grant so others can take out loans. However, grants aren’t always given. Lots of people want grants so grant companies give the grants to people that they think will be successful.

Publisher

Publishers will find games in development that they think have potential and they will help them create the game and distribute it. Video game publishers are responsible for their product's manufacturing and marketing. A huge publishers such as ‘Activision’ publish thousands of games.

Equipment

Unreal Development Kit – this development kit is very popular in the gaming industry due to the fact that hundreds of games have been made through this development kit.

The unreal development kits are free, but you will have to pay royalties when your game is released. If you earn £3000, you have to pay 5% to ‘Unreal’.

The minimum requirements for Unreal Development Kit are:

Processor:                     2.0+ GHz processor

RAM:                                2 GB system RAM

Hard Drive Space:       3 GB free hard drive space

Operating System:      Windows XP SP2, Windows Vista or Windows Vista 64 SP2

Unity Development Kit – this development kit is also very popular due to the high quantity and quality of games produced that were created on this kit. There are version that are free, but some features aren’t available to those users unless they pay.

The minimum requirements for the Unity Development Kit are:

OS: Windows XP+, Mac OS X 10.7+, Ubuntu 12.04+, SteamOS+

Graphics card: DX9 (shader model 2.0) capabilities; generally everything made since 2004            should work.

CPU: SSE2 instruction set support.

Web player supports IE, Chrome, Firefox, Safari and others.

iOS: requires iOS 6.0 or later.

Android: OS 2.3.1 or later; ARMv7 (Cortex) CPU or Atom CPU; OpenGL ES 2.0 or later.

WebGL: Desktop version of Firefox, Chrome or Safari

Windows Phone: 8 (available but deprecated for 5.2), 8.1 or later

Windows Store Apps: 8 (available but deprecated for 5.2), 8.1 or later

This development kit costs £75 a month if you have the professional kit, but there are other kits to choose from such as the free version.

Game Maker Studio – this development kit is more for starter game developers and it only can produce 2D games. This kit is free, but there’s a professional and a collection version which requires payment. It also costs to port your game to consoles and devices.

The minimum requirements for Game Maker Studio are:

Program:

Windows XP or above

512MB RAM

128MB graphics

Screen resolution of 1024×600

Internet connection for some features

Windows:

Windows XP, Vista, 7 or 8

512MB RAM

128MB graphics

Mac OS X

Mac OS X computer required for export

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard

1GB RAM

Autodesk Maya 2015 – this development kit is mainly used to create and modify models for a game and render them. This kit is free, but there are alternative options.

The minimum requirements for Autodesk Maya 2015 are:

Operating system

Microsoft Windows 7 (SP1), Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 Professional operating system

Apple Mac OS X 10.8.5 and 10.9.x operating system

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.2 WS operating system

Fedora 14 Linux operating system

CentOS 6.2 Linux operating system

Browser

These browsers are recommended to be the most recent version.

Apple Safari web browser                                          Google Chrome web browser

Microsoft Internet Explorer web browser              Mozilla Firefox web browser

Publishing

Steam

Once finished, games will have to be posted onto websites so that they can be bought. Popular places such as ‘Steam’ have a section called ‘Steam Greenlight’ which is where independent game developers can be discovered and become successful. They can even be bought while the creator is still creating it, or while it is going through Alpha or Beta stages.

ID@XBOX

ID@XBOX (standing for Independent Developers) is a program made by Microsoft where independent game developers can post their games so that other scan play, give feedback and buy them. The new Xbox One can also be used as a development kit.

PlayStation

Users can sign up, register their company and then start to publish games for the public to play and give feedback on. The PlayStation 4 can also be used as a development kit.

These are the requirements to self-publish:

Proof of Corporate Entity

Obtain an Employer Tax ID Number (see www.irs.gov) (Recommended)

Static IP to access Developer Support Systems

You must be physically located in US, Mexico, Central America, South America, or Canada.

Personnel

The personnel team you will need will include the following job roles:

Animator                                                                Lead Programmer

Assistant Producer                                               Level Editor

Audio Engineer                                                     Marketing Executive

Creative Director                                                  Marketing Manager

External Producer                                                Product Manager

Game Designer                                                     Public Relations Officer

Game Programmer                                             QA Tester

Games Artist                                                         Technical Artist

Lead Artist                                                            

Here’s a link to my blog-post on what each of these jobs are about:

http://mortenslc.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/unit-78-games-design-l3-james-tedder.html



Time Constraints

Making a game can take a very long time and your client brief may ask you to meet a deadline. It is crucial to meet deadlines and manage your time efficiently because it makes you look very unprofessional and problems may start to occur. For the game I am working on, I am trying my best to meet all deadlines.

In a company, you will have to consider the times certain employees/co-workers are available encase you need them for a project. This also goes for equipment and work spaces. You will have to plan ahead of time so nothing gets done late.

In the process of making a game, its important to the get the basics (sprites, animation, movement etc) working first before adding extra features. This is important because if the deadline date has been reached and the game doesn't work, the client won't be happy because you will have wasted a lot of time.

Materials

To create a game, you will need a lot of materials for the staff and some programs and software for the devices used in the process. Some physical materials needed may be keyboards, monitors, mouses, mouse pads, chairs. Some non-physical materials may include Maya Autodesk, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Fireworks, Unity, Unreal Engine. Materials also links with finance a little, in the sense that you need money to buy other materials to use.

Facilities

You will need a some sort of facility to create a game. Usually, the better the facility means the better the quality of working space, which means your game's overall quality will be better. For more in depth games, you may need spaces for motion capture, spaces for recording audio, spaces for testers, artists etc. For the game I'm making, I will only need a classroom with a computer to produce my game.

Contributors
Contributors are heavily linked with the financial part of game creation. One form of contribution is a sponsorship. Sponsors help you promote your game and can provide you with money to create it. Sponsors can help a little, or a lot depending on how well known the company or product is. I will not be using any sponsors in my game.

Codes of Practice

Codes of practice show the views of the company on certain subjects such as equality (of races, gender, religion), contracts and duty of care. Having a good set of codes of practice is good because that way, the public can't slander the company or accuse them of unethical acts, because of the protection of the company's codes of practice.  'Ofcom' and 'Press Complaints Commission' are most commonly referred to but here are a few that are more specific for the gaming industry:

Advertising Standards Authority (ASA)                   British Interactive Media Association (BIMA)
 Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB)      Pan European Game Information (PEGI)

Job Roles

Unit 78
Games Design L3
James Tedder
Morten Holland

Job Roles in the Gaming Industry 

Animators

The animator’s job is to create multiple frames which then can be put together to give a character or object the illusion of motion. Animators tend to work on 2D games, 3D games and stop motion animation. 

Computer generated animation also appears in the film industry and television.

Animators also create the movements of the characters when they interact with other people, props or environments.

Things that may be helpful for this job:

Have knowledge of traditional and computer 2D and 3D animation techniques

Be creative and imaginative

Have knowledge of full motion video (FMV)

Be able to work as part a team and also on your own initiative

Be able to take responsibility for organising your work within the production schedule, managing files and meeting deadlines

Understand the production process

Be able to communicate effectively with other teams and disciplines is essential

Have some knowledge of programming

Be able to reveal attitude, emotions and mood through a character’s movement and behaviour

Understand the timing and appearance of human and animal movement and facial expressions, and be able to lip sync

Be able to create memorable characters that will appeal to players

Have spatial awareness and a feel for movement over time

Have knowledge of the relevant health and safety legislation and procedures

Audio Engineer

The audio engineer creates the soundtrack to the game, along with the character voices, ambient sound and the background music. The audio engineers will talk to the creators and discuss what sounds and music is needed, find source material from audio libraries, create new sounds with specialized equipment, and finally use equipment to integrate the sounds into the game.

This job also requires someone who will follow the client brief in a very in depth way so they can produce the right music for the right part of a game.

    

For this job, you will need:

Be able to create music

Have sound engineering skills and have the technology to do so

Be able to work independently or effectively as a group

Have a sense of timing

To have a feel for the atmosphere of games

Be able to work to deadlines

Creative Director

Creative directors are in control of the overview and look of a game. This role plays a big importance when it comes to making decisions on big parts of how the game plays, or is played. 

They are also in charge of the quality of a game, which means managing the assets such as the type of music, art style, audio and gameplay used.

For this job you will need:

To be able to help, guide and inspire workers to create the best product possible

To be able to make hard decisions about a game that may affect its budget or quality

Have a passion for games

Understand what the public finds appealing in games

Have great communication skills

Have great presentation skills

Have a big imagination and creativity

Have an understanding of the financial aspects of game development

Game Designer

A game designer will create the core aspects of a game, such as how it looks, how it plays and what the story is. 

This job will require the ability to work with lots of groups in this industry such as the artists, audio team, programmers etc.

For this job, you will need:

Have storytelling and narrative development skills

Be creative

Be able to receive and give constructive feedback

Be able to communicate with all members of a company to produce a game

Have an awareness of the various games platforms and technologies available

Be able to think systematically and strategically

Have an understanding of the basics in programming, such as ‘Scripting’

Have a good grasp of a range of 2D and 3D graphics animation packages

Have basic drawing and visual design skills

Be able to present an idea visually and on paper

Game Programmer

The game programmers are the technical side of the gaming industry. These people are in charge of making the game actually work by inputting codes for each character, object, enemy, etc. this job can be very hard because it requires lots of trial and error and a big understanding of real world physics so the game can seem realistic.

For this job, you will need:

Skills at programming at C grade or above

Be highly organised

Be able to work independently or as a team

Have good communication skills

Have a good experience working on different devices or consoles

Be able to listen to instructions and meet a deadline

Have a good understanding of game play

Game Programmer

The game programmers are the technical side of the gaming industry. These people are in charge of making the game actually work by inputting codes for each character, object, enemy, etc. 

This job can be very hard because it requires lots of trial and error and a big understanding of real world physics so the game can seem realistic.

For this job, you will need:

Skills at programming at C grade or above

Be highly organised

Be able to work independently or as a team

Have good communication skills

Have a good experience working on different devices or consoles

Be able to listen to instructions and meet a deadline

Have a good understanding of game play

Level Editor

Level editors create interactive playable areas for segments of the game. This includes landscapes, architecture, structures and objects in the level.

For this job, you will need:

To be able to visualize areas and layouts

To be able to 3D model

Have a grasp on video game design principles

To have an understanding of programming and scripting so you can work with other members of a company

Have a good understanding and experience in using world editing tools

Have a good knowledge of different gaming platforms

Be well organised

Be able to work independently and as a team

Be creative and be able to use your own imagination

Have excellent communication skills

Have a passion for games and an understanding of its theory

Be able to pay close attention to detail

Market Manager

A market manager is in charge of promoting a game to increase the amount of the public that know of the game and increase the amount of game sales. You will need to have the management skills to lead and motivate a team.

For this job, you will need:

A great understanding of the market in the gaming industry

How to promote a product effectively

How to conduct market research and be able to understand what it shows

Have very good communication skills

To be able to work independently and as a team

Be well organised

Have great managing skills

Product Manager

Product managers are very similar to marketing managers, in the way that they both operate to increase game sales through marketing. The product manager implements marketing campaigns to further increase game sales.

For this job, you will need:

To be able to work well as part of a multi-disciplinary team, both in terms of being managing relationships and communicating within a company

Have strong negotiation skills in dealing with external partners and suppliers

Have a good working knowledge of the games market, in terms of market breakdown, targeted audience and competing products

Be able to manage a marketing budget

Be able to predict product sales and analyse sell-through performance after a game is released

Have strong presentation and communication skills

Have good knowledge of games and the games industry

Have knowledge of the requirements of the relevant health and safety legislation and procedures

QA Tester

This job involves the tester to test the game, looking for bugs and reporting them so they can be fixed, essentially fine-tuning the game to give it a better final quality.

For this job, you will need to:

Be analytical and methodical

Have a good knowledge of games titles on the market so that you can evaluate a game against its competition

Have an understanding of how games are put together and how the different elements of a game contribute to the playing experience

Be able not only to identify and record a problem, but also to try to work out what is causing it

Have excellent communication skills, including tact in dealing with other members of the team

Pay close attention to detail

Be persistent and patient

Be able to play games for long periods

Have good negotiation and conflict resolution skills

Have a passion for game playing

Have knowledge of the requirements of the relevant health and safety legislation and procedures

What is a brief?

Unit 78

Generate Concept Art Ideas for Computer Game Graphics

What is a Brief, your own brief and market research?

A brief is a set of instructions given to a person about a job or task. For the topic of gaming, this may be very short and may let the person be creative, or the brief may be very in depth saying exactly what the client wants.

Someone's own brief may include an idea someone has been looking into, including some concept art, an idea for a game, scripts, textures, locations, mood-boards and more.

Market research can be done a few ways. One way is for someone to look into what games are successful at the moment, and maybe create one of those types of games. You can also look into what makes those games successful such as a game's progression system, mechanics or modes. 

Generating Ideas

The very start of generating ideas for a game starts with brainstorming. Start to think what game you think you would enjoy making, or a game that lots of people would enjoy. Then you would start to think of game assets such as character names, back-story and their goals. What the player's character will try to achieve and how they would go about doing so. Writing information or sketching characters can then progress your idea of the game until you have a basic idea, which can then be put into more detail.

Some people will find generating ideas much easier after finding inspiration from music, television, films or other games. This is known as research. Many people find inspiration and then collect lots of images and put them into a mood board.

Thumbnail sketchings can be very useful to a creator because it lets the creator show what they have created to others and ask for people's opinions to make the character more likable. 

This is very similar to concept drawings. Concept drawings are basically drawings of anything in a game or related to a game. This can be a character, enemy, weapon, location or object. Concepts can also show for example the progression of a character in someone's head.

Copyright Act
The current act is the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. The law gives the creators of a game or game assets in this case, the rights to control the ways in which their material may be used.

Libel

The terms 'libel' and 'slander' are commonly referred to as "defamation." It is deemed as a wrongful act to harm another's reputation by defaming them or their product/services. 

Females in Gaming

Females in a huge amount of video games are often portrayed negatively by exaggerating their sex appeal to please a mostly male audience. A very obvious character which has been exaggerated is 'Lara Croft' from the game series 'Tomb Raider'.  Most female gamers find this offensive and this must be taken into account when creating female characters.

Equality in Gaming

Lots of different races, genders and religions have been used in video games but not all games portray the topic positively. Some religious individuals may find the way a game promotes a religion offensive, which is another thing which must be taken into consideration. 

Generate Concept Art

Be Able To Generate Concept Art Ideas For Computer Game Graphics

What are Computer Digital Graphics?

Computer digital graphics are essentially are the assets that create a game.
Digital computer graphics can be any image that is on the internet or on someone's computer, but in gaming, this can be:

Concept Art
Sprites
Textures
Backgrounds and Playable Areas
Heads Up Display (HUD)
Print Media

Concept Art 
Concept art can be of anything in a game such as character models, weapon or object models, locations etc. They are drawings and sketches of
They can also be shown in different artistic styles such as 'Cell-Shaded', 'Retro/Pixel', 'Abstract', 'Exaggerated' or most commonly Photo realism. Here's an example of concept art:

Sprites
Sprites are a series of digital images that create the illusion of an entity such as a human or animal. Here's an example of a sprite:

Textures

Textures are an image that is wrapped around an object, character or landscape. It is used to make something in a game look more realistic and to suit a theme or picture the creator has in their head. Here's a few examples of textures for a landscape:

Backgrounds

Backgrounds are images that can be put behind a playable area to simulate a more realistic game. Some games use a blue sky with clouds for example. The playable area is in the fore ground, and the image is used as a background. Here's an example:

Heads Up Display

Heads up displays are what graphics are fixed onto the screen such as a health bar, stamina, lives, ammo etc. Some games use a lot of these, some use a little amount of these. Here's an example:

Print Media

print media is essentially anything that is printed that is used in the gaming industry. this can be anything used in advertising such as a poster on a bus or bus stop, or it can be the images on the front and back of game covers, Here's a few examples:

Graphic Specification 

Client Needs

Client Needs are the same as a Client Brief. A client brief is a document a client will give to a worker so that the client's ideas can be put into action. the client can say what they need such as 3 levels for example. The client could ask for a character concept or maybe a weapon sketch.

Thumbnail Sketching

Thumbnail sketches are basically sketches such as concept art for weapons, locations and characters. Here's an example of a thumbnail sketches:

Audience 

This is the target audience of a game, meaning who it is aimed at. This may involve a PEGI rating to determine what ages are suitable to play the game. This can be effected by how much drugs, violence and nudity is included in a game. Another specific to think about when thinking of your target audience is the gender of the audience. 

Composition
composition is the way you create a type of art such as music composition, artistic composition, or in this case, digital media composition. To compose some form of art, the creator must be inspired by something else such as a piece of music, an image or a maybe a film.


Visual Styles
Visual styles can be based around lots of different themes such as Cell-Shaded, Photo realism, Retro, Abstract etc. They can also be heavily influenced by types of colours too, such as a photo in black and white may be about a serious topic, and a colourful photo may just be there to be visually appealing.

Typography
Typography is a type of art or an art form in which the creator uses words that make up the shape of an object. This is a good art form i think because people can really show their opinions on subjects through typography. Here's a image of a piece of typography art:

Technical Considerations
These are the things that need to be considered for creating or saving digital graphics. They may include:
File Format - JPEG, PNG, GIF
File Size - Kilobyte, Megabyte, Gigabyte
Names of Files
Management of Files - Organisation and Storage of assets
Intended Output