On April 1st 2020, Overwatch introduced new patches for their damage heroes. But before I get into that, a quick description of Overwatch;

Overwatch is a 6v6 FPS game (created by Blizzard) where teams have to complete the objectives given to them to win (e.g attackers take a control point on the map while defenders stop the attackers until the time limit expires). There are 3 roles that players can choose from; Tank (who can take a lot of damage), Damage (who do most of the damage dealt) and Support (who are the healers of the team). At time of this post, the default team composition is 2-2-2 (2 tank, 2 damage and 2 support). However, Overwatch has recently introduced a new mode to change the formula of gameplay; Experimental.

Experimental is a mode that allows Blizzard to test new mechanics without putting them into permanent play, acting as a public test room (PTR). This new mode is where the new patches have been applied, and these patches focus on 4 damage heroes and 1 tank hero; Ashe (who can deal damage short and long range), Genji (a ninja who can double jump and reflect damage), Mei (who can freeze and slow down enemies using ice), Pharah (who can fly and fire rockets that can send people off the map), and Reinhardt (a tank who can defend teammates with his shield and focuses on melee attacks).

The patches for each hero in brief are the following; Ashe gained more ammo per round and is able to fire quickly while in scope (which deals more damage compared to attacks not in scope), Genji’s secondary fire recovery rate was lowered allowing faster reload times, Mei’s primary fire got decreased, meaning her ability to freeze enemies is more difficult, but her secondary fire’s max ammo got increased, allowing her to fire more long range shots, Pharah’s primary fire got a damage boost but her knock back effect got lowered, meaning that while her rockets do more damage, it is now harder for Pharah to knock enemies off the map, and Reinhardt’s knock back resistance got decreased, making it easier for him to be knocked off the map.

As mentioned above, these patches are not in the base game yet, which allows Blizzard to see what works and what doesn’t. If players do not like these changes, Blizzard usually listen and they react accordingly. Experimental mode allows everybody to play the game and have an opinion as Xbox, Playstation and Nintendo Switch players can now try these new features, while previously these patches were exclusive to PC players.

Blizzard typically releases large patches once a month, they do smaller bug fixes every couple of weeks and they introduce a new character every 3 to 4 months (although Blizzard recently confirmed that their newest hero being introduced, Echo, would be the last hero released until the game’s sequel, Overwatch 2). The team who work on Overwatch typically focus on making the game as smooth and as enjoyable as possible for their players, whether it be fixing hero balancing, fixing bugs or adding new modes such as cooperative modes that give players an insight into the lore of Overwatch.

If I was running my own studio (and I hope I can someday), I would take inspiration from Overwatch and focus on what makes my players happy. I would listen to my audience and if there was a feature in the game that the player base collectively did not enjoy, or if there was a feature that everybody wanted in the game, I would do my best to complete their requests. I would also encourage any and all feedback on the game, and (depending on the game) I would add a mode similar to Experimental, allowing players to test new mechanics for my game and allow them to give their thoughts on what they think was good and what they think didn’t work.

So thanks for reading this post, it was enjoyable to write about one of my favourite games, and I hope you enjoyed reading it too! 😀

Hey Everyone!

I finally updated my Sound Cloud to include one of my new specialism briefs! This one is a Retro NES inspired Main Menu theme. Click on the link to head over and listen, I hope you enjoy it 😀 there’ll be more updates on my Sound Cloud once more projects are finished 🙂

Hi Everyone!

For this of you who don’t know, I love to make music and and write stories. I’ve been making music since 2016 and I’ve been writing short stories on various topics since I can remember! I’ll put something up soon to demonstrate my narrative work, but right now I want to show off my music!

There are 6 songs on my SoundCloud, so when you click the songs below, you can listen to all of them. Some I made for fun, some I made for my module, but most of them are unused tracks for a video game I am planning on making with my friends!

I hope you enjoy listening to the music, and my SoundCloud will be updated soon with more music! I’ll put something up about my narrative soon so stay tuned! 😀

Hello again!

I thought for this entry I’d try and keep it short and sweet; I wanted to show off a contest I’m planning on entering!

The aim of the contest is very simple; create a level for a game using the assets that they send you. The winner of the contest will be given various prizes, including having their level being put in the game and the creator bring recognised in the credits of the game. Obviously that would be a huge personal accomplishment for anyone, but I wanted to enter because it looked like fun, because that’s what video games are at the end of the day; fun!

I got recommended this contest by a friend and she is a genius for finding the contest! If anybody wants to participate, the link to the website is located below!

https://terrorarium.games/contest

I hope you enjoyed reading and if you want to enter the competition as well, good luck!

I understand that the title might sound strange but let me explain;

A few days ago, I got invited by my friend from university to go along to a game testing event near our university. I had no idea what to really think of this. I’ve never been a fan of going along to something if it’s not a few days in advance and if it’s something I don’t know about. But my other friends seemed keen (and had also been invited), and seeing as they were all excited, as well as my friend is a pretty trustworthy dude, I decided to go along with them.

I got slightly suspicious as we entered the beginning playing area; a graffiti covered tunnel, like something you’d see out of a modern day crime TV show. “I thought this was a video game testing studio or something! My friend lied to me!” I thought. But then the person in charge came up to us and introduced himself. This wasn’t testing a video game at all; this was testing a real life game where teams of 2 or 3 would walk around the streets finding clues and working out what they had done the night before. It suddenly became very intriguing. I had just been getting into puzzle games, so this seemed like it would be fun.

Once we were in our groups, we were tasked with finding locations on a map and figuring out clues that related to the location and other parts around it. I was paired with my friend who is a very big puzzle enthusiast so I thought she would enjoy it the most. However, as the game went on, I started to get into it more and more, asking questions to the characters who were posted at some of the locations, trying to figure out more of the story and the puzzles as we went.

After an hour and a half, we got a notification on our phone, telling us to meet at a “secret location” which was given to us. Once we made it, we found out our ending; it was the good one! (even though we ended up getting arrested in storyline). Our ending was better than our other friends however. One group ended up as test subjects for experiments while the other group got locked away in an insane asylum.

Overall, the experience was different and a lot of fun, more than I first expected! I would definitely try out that experience again (as long as it’s not horror), and I recommend everyone reading this blog entry try out experiences like that as well in the future. They might not be what you expect, but sometimes a little bit of mystery makes the event a lot more exciting.

Until next time!

To myself from 1 year ago;

Starting university is always tough. Going into a new environment and meeting people you’ve never met before is a hard challenge to overcome. However, it’s also a time of excitement; starting a video game design course has been the dream since childhood.

I remember one year ago I was very nervous; I didn’t know anybody and I felt like I didn’t belong. But as I started to talk to more people and start making friends, I started to realise that we all had one thing in common; we all loved video games, regardless of genre or company.

Even though the work was hard, I always managed to keep my head held high and keep working, creating new ideas for my projects and putting my own personal interests into my ideas.

If there is one message I can give, it’s that you should never give up when the work seems too hard, as there is always light at the end of the tunnel. There will be a lot more challenges for both of us, but I hope that we can achieve our goals!

Your friend from 1 year into the future.

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