2.5D Platformers

Sonic Rush
Sonic Rush is a 2.5D platformer released for the Nintendo DS in 2005 developed by Dimps. It was the game to introduce the boost system to the series, which would later be brought back in Sonic Unleashed. It's often referred to as a spiritual successor to the GBA games, Sonic Advance.




Mighty No 9

Mighty No 9 was a kickstarter project from 2016 by Level-5 Comcept, which was funded $4,069,579. It was advertised as a spiritual successor to Mega Man, and even had the character designer of Mega Man, Keiji Inafune, work on the concept art.



Prices

The price of Sonic Rush at launch can't be found, however I'm assuming it must of been £20-£30, like the price of most DS games at launch. However now it can be found for just around/under £10 from most places, such as CEX. Mighty No 9 costs £15.99 on digital stores, and around/under the same price in physical form.

Target Audience

Sonic Rush had a wide target audience. It was aimed at fans of both the main series, and fans of the Sonic Advance games on GBA, and the fans of the classic Sonic games with the special stages. It was also aimed at almost anyone, since it was easy to pick up and play. The target audience for Mighty No 9 was also aimed at anyone, but classic Mega Man fans in particular, since it was a spiritual successor, and had parts of the original developers working on it too, such as the soundtrack composer, and the previously mentioned character designer.

Platforms
Sonic Rush was released as an exclusive to the DS. However, it can be played on 3DS through backwards compatibility, and PC/mobile through emulation. Whereas Mighty No 9 was released for a wide range of consoles:Windows, PS3, PS4, Wii U, Xbox 360 and Xbox One. However, it was also supposed to release for 3DS and PS Vita, which it still hasn't. They were said to release at the end of 2017, and there still hasn't been any updates. They weren't cancelled, and the 3DS version is still available to pre-order on Amazon.

Reviews 
Sonic Rush was received a lot of positive reviews, and was the ninth best selling DS game in 2006. It received a Platinum sales award, meaning it sold over 300K copies in the UK. It was praised for its "gorgeous graphics" and for its soundtrack, composed by Hideki Naganuma, who also composed Jet Set Radio's soundtrack. It was ranked #17 in IGN's top 25 best DS games.

Mighty No 9, on the other hand, received average reviews, with the Wii U version getting the worst reviews due to technical issues. It was called "charmless" and had "poorly executed ideas". There was apparently too much content recycled, copy and paste designs and failed to entertain. It continued to receive more bad reviews due to the constant delays. It was originally announced in 2013, but got pushed back to 2016. The Xbox 360 version was pushed back a day later than the other versions. The game was considered a scam, considering how much is lacked for the amount of money it was funded, and not receiving the PS Vita and 3DS versions, which still haven't been released to this day.

Game Engines

Purpose
Game engines are used to build video games. Their purposes are that they provide a suite of development tools. For simplified and rapid development, the tools are usually provided in an IDE (Integrated Development Environment). Game engine developers try to develop robust software which includes many elements that are required to build a game. Most game engines include graphics, sound, physics and AI functions. Sometimes these engines are called "middleware" because of the flexible and reusable software they provide the required core functionality. This helps with the critical factors in the video game industry. They feature tools such as renderers, animation and scripting, and programming languages such as Java and C++. A game engine's purpose is to give the developer(s) a wide range of tools for production

Examples of game engines 
Some examples of game engines are:
Unreal Engine
Construct 2
Frostbite

The constraints
Unreal Engine
 Polygon count - The polygon count for Unreal Engine depends on how many models are in the game at once. If you don't have many characters in your game, the recommended polygon count is around 30k, whilst that would be too much if you have over 50 characters.
 Real time rendering - Unreal Studio has a tool called Sequencer. It is used to create cinematics and videos with the game.
 Hardware - Unreal Engine started off as an engine for PC, until Unreal Tournament for PS2 and Dreamcast. UE4 had a rough start on PS4 and Xbox One, however now it works well. Epic Games has began to focus on UE4 for mobile and Switch too.
 LOD's - LOD (Level of Detail) is used to limit the detail of the graphics depending on how far the camera is.
 File size - UE4's file size is 15GB.
 Collision detection - Every model with collision has an 'object type', letting the creator choose whether it can affect, be affected, or none.

Construct 2
 Polygon count - Having a certain number of sprites in a game can cause it to lag and crash.
 Real time rendering - Since Construct 2 is a 2D game creator, it is unable to create real time cinematics.
 Hardware - Construct 2 games can run on PCs through HTML5 and mobile.
 LOD's - The LODs for sprites cannot be altered in Construct 2.
 File size - Unknown
 Collision detection - The sprites have many options for collision.

Frostbite

 Polygon count - Unknown
 Real time rendering - Frostbite Engine uses real time rendering for cinematics.
 Hardware - Frostbite Engine is compatible with PC, PS4 and Xbox One. It's also rumoured that it's getting support for Switch.
 LOD's - Frostbite switches from using LOD to not using LOD for different games.
 File size - Frostibite is currently only available for EA.
 Collision detection - The engine doesn't stop players from walking through the floor/wall. 

3D Modelling Software

There are many software used for 3D modelling. A few examples are Autodesk Maya, Cinema 4D and Blender. Autodesk Maya is a 3D graphics application, used to create assets in films, television, video games and architecture, originally released in 1998 but bought by Autodesk in 2005. Cinema 4D is a 3D modelling, animation, motion graphic and rendering application. It's used for modelling, animating, lighting, texturing, rendering, and other common features found in 3D modelling applications.Currently, there has been 5 variants, and was originally developed for Amiga computers in the early 1990s. Blender is a free open-source 3D computer graphics software, first made in 1995. It is used for creating animated films, visual effects, art, 3D printed models, interactive 3D models and video games. It includes 3D modelling, texturing, sculpting, rendering and much more.

Geometric Theory
Edges - Shows each line that went into making a shape. Certain shapes, such as curved shapes, have a large amount of edges, because they are made up of a large amount of straight lines.
Vertices - Where two edges meet. There will be two vertices on the end of an edge's straight line. Curves need a large amount of edges to be made, and they also need more vertices to be created. They're given coordinates to calculate their exact location.
Polygons - Turns a 3D skeleton into a shape and makes up the surface/faces of the shape. 3 sided shapes are known as trigons (triangle), 4 sided shapes are known as quadrons (square), 5+ sided shapes are known as n-gons (pentagon).
Face - Used for flat surfaces of 3D shapes, and creates the boundaries of the shapes. The faces make up the overall look of the shape. A 3D solid made from flat surfaces is known as a polyhedron.
Co-ordinate geometry:
 2D co-ordinates - The length and width of an object. Needed to create objects at a specific size, and to pinpoint where objects will be placed.
 3D co-ordinates - The length, width and depth of an object. Has more outcomes than 2D co-ordinates. They are important because they can be used to create 3D models and make them into different objects.

Mesh Construction 
Mesh Construction is creating objects with polygon meshes. The polygons are different forms of elements. The elements are the ones in Geometric Theory.
Box Modelling - A primitive shape (e.g. box, cylinder, sphere) is used in the final model as the basic shape.
Extrusion Modelling - Similar to Box Modelling, but is also a lot different. It starts with a single object, and the object is extruded and can be shaped in any way. It isn't able to create complex objects.

Constraints
Polygon Count - Having a certain amount of polygons in a 3D polygon.When creating a model, you need to keep control of how many polygons it has. The amount of polygons could affect how the game runs. Because everyone has different processors in their computers, the polygon count is also different.
File Size - Available in many sizes. The smallest file size can load up the fastest, whereas the biggest file size can hold more polygons.
Render Time - Using a certain render engine will cause a longer loading time.
LOD - Level of Detail. A concept in 3D modelling used to indicate how much detail needs to be modelled.