a-d-phasey-blog

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Post Mortem for Total Knockback

Thumbs Up - Angus Phasey

Overcoming Issues:

Adams disability (arm issue) was the main issue we had to overcome and it had an easy solution. We made him the review and particle man, so he would look over all the artists work and I’ve feedback along side making particles for the game.

Problems:

Communication was the biggest contributor to things not being completed. People were assigned task yet they would disappear and not say whether or not they completed it. This lead to things being rushed and when it came down to it make the game look unfinished and unprofessional.  

Review:

Total Knockback is an extremely rushed game and at time broken and not fun.

The  playable characters: Both the striker and the sweeper where highly polished and had amazing animations and where fun to play as at times. They could be fixed to be more enjoyable. The animations could be sped up slightly and given little puffs of dust or dirt behind them to add more player feedback. The icons for the players were boring and lifeless, the colours chosen for the bars were also boring and didn’t add anything to the game itself.

Player feedback would have been the next big thing I would improve. This just makes everything better within a game making it more visually appealing.

Most of if not all of the textures and materials within the game could be redone to add more life to the game.

As the game progression more levels can be implemented and this will allow more replayability also adding the original story that was written for the game would add the depth that TKB is missing  

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Something fun we found while messing with post processing :)

When you try turning up the blur and your knight turns into a ninja

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Inside: Try, Die, Complete!

The second hit title from Playdead Studios, Inside. Continuing with the idea of die untill you get it right is a fresh new experience for games in general as some/most mainstream games avoid doing this.

Main Loops: Run - Die - Complete Puzzle - Die

Something that Playdead Studios does extremely well is introducing the player to enemies and mechanics. For instance the Dogs (pictures below) it shows you them in a safe environment letting you know they’re there. You can also tell that they are more than likely to be an enemy as well as they are next to and being held by one.

The artistic nature of this game is amazing drawing emotions from their choice of colour. The red shirt shows and brings life to the player while letting you bond with him over this. It just hurts a little more every time once this happens :(

-ADP-

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Limbo - Game Analysis

Limbo, one of the few games that encourages you to learn by dying. Published by Playdead, the developers created the puzzles within expecting the player to die before finding the correct solution.

The mechanics are quite simple but in depth, having the basic move and pull/push allows the game to explore new grounds with its art style and narrative structure.

Main Loop: Move forward - die - complete puzzle 

The entire game you are placed on edge because of the first few minutes of this monotone thriller/horror game isn’t like anything you normally see in a game.

-ADP- 

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Can’t believe we are this close to finishing our game Total Knockback! We’ve got so much work done today so why should we stop now! 

Floating rocks for our floating islands

each rock, animated by hand, now i hate rocks

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Total Knockback Catch Up!

The beta of our game Total Knockback is coming along swimmingly and I couldn’t be happier! this is what we have so far.

The game itself has changed throughout the beta process but it wasn’t anything the team couldn’t handle, from changing the level entirely to new models and textures the day before the milestone we pushed through and I’m ecstatic about everything!

Some more highlights:

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Nuclear Throne Analysis

Nuclear Throne is a rogue like top down shooter based in a post apocalyptic world where the goal is for you, the player, to become ruler and sit on the Nuclear Throne by any means necessary.

- Core Mechanics -

Combat/Character: The combat relies heavily on who you choose to play because so picking a character with better perks may get you further but not always. This ultimately changes the way you play the game overall not forcing you to play a certain way but you will be at a disadvantage if you choose to go against it. 

Random Weapons/Levels: Every level is generated and filled with enemies which have the chance to drop health/ammo or a random weapon which will change the way you fight and face your enemies. This also makes every level a new experience.

Main Loop: Kill enemies - Get Loot 

:)

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Working with my class-mate @nicholasbarnett to create teams (Thumbs Up) game Total Knockback and almost reaching the Alpha milestone

Spinning our way to Alpha

Mad dash towards alpha, have to get a lot more done in very little time. WE CAN DO THIS! @a-d-phasey

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Moving Forward

So building levels for a game is a test of skill, but leading the player within that level is a challenge.

Having the level continuously go upwards allows the player to feel like they are progressing naturally through the game. Also having multiple paths that eventually lead to the same spot is a harsh push against the player but it makes them feel like they get to chose which way they would like to go when they actually don’t.

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Talk about it!

Total Knockback is the new game made by Thumbs Up (I’m the designer) and today I pitched alongside the team to Industry Professionals and boy oh boy was it an experience! 

This is Total Knockback so far: 

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Sell Sheet Iteration

After asking one of the my teams artist to create some key art depicting our new game Total Knockback, lets just say that this wasn’t what I was expecting. He gave me more than I needed to create our teams sell sheet. 

This is the design I have chosen so far and I can’t wait to get this printed!!!

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Communication is key

Working in a large /small groups the main thing I say to keep everyone happy is to reassure them that they are doing a good job and keep them happy!

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Thumbs Up: Character Design

This is the character concepts for our game, just finishing off the last few things in pre-production then its full steam ahead!  

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Thumbs Up - things just got real.

Logo: Thumbs Up

So the end of year project has started and over the past two weeks we’ve had our struggles just like every other group but we are all extremely excited to work on our game called Total Knockback. 

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Firewatch Analysis:

Firewatch is a narrative focused adventure game which connects to the player by the rich story telling that develops overtime.

As you progress’ through the game you come across paths that only you can dive down. You can choose how much or how little you are told as you travel through the forest, whether it’s breezing through without a care in the world or opening each crate to look at the letters between two rangers from previous towers. 

As the core mechanic is to reply to Delilah (your supervisor) in the way you choose this slows the gameplay. Talking brings the player to a halt and allows them to be immersed in the environment  and really feel apart of the game and pushes you to explore and dive into the depths that is Firewatch.

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This is me.

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Terraria Analysis

A game that allows you to build whatever your heart desires and explore into the depths of hell Terraria will let you do anything. A 2D action, survival game where you start small and finish big by either looting or fighting. With hundreds or NPCs and items within the game this allows for hours upon hours of gameplay.

Combat, Movement and Loot mechanics.

The movement a player has is fully up to them, they can choose to sprint, fly, float you name it and you can probably do and most of the higher tier equipment is just found from chests or bosses and the loot that they drop.

The loot you gain throughout your play through will guide you to a certain play style but that is entirely up to you but there will be disadvantages to this. 

Fighting people up close or afar has pros and cons but as you progress you will learn to jump and dodge your way to victory by running side to side etc.

Game Loops.

Core - Explore, Fight, Loot. - Progressively gets harder.

M2M - Explore, Fight, Loot

Session Loops - There isn’t a general time span of a single session, you are in a world in which you choose what you would like to do and this can be as little or as big as you wish. With the right people you can easily play for hours on end and not be bored.

Exit  -  Terraria lets you pause and save whenever you choose and if you’re in danger you can always trap yourself in a hole to be safe.