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Year 2, Game Design & Development. Vertical Slice, Post 9.

Last post, Final week - Presentations & wrap up:

This week we had to present our game pitch to the class.

Our group put together a presentation using guidelines given by our lecturer.

<presentation>

The presentation itself went well but we were told that we ran over time. We misunderstood the timer (as did many other students/groups). We thought that the Q & A section was an additional 5 minutes on top of the 10 minute presentation, but it was not. We did not have time for many questions.  

Gary asked one about balancing but I think it was misinterpreted by Aiden as he answered for me. We did not mention that we let friends try the base version of the game to determine a suitable balance of speed.

All in all Gary was happy with the progress we made and so are we.

My group members are proud of the game we made. Personally I see it as only a learning experience, I believe we could of done much better if people weren’t sick and we had a dedicated artist. Teamwork and time management issues aside I did very much enjoy the project and working in a team

<Video of Gameplay> .

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Year 2, Game Design & Development. Vertical Slice, Post 8.

Weeks 6+, Lighting and (lack of) Animations :

To give the effect of being in any kind of dark place, the first thing I had to do was remove the default directional light in the scene.

I then added some low ranged blue point lights into the scene, I added one at every spot on the background where light could enter from.

The end result was rather interesting and it is a technique I would like to visit again in the future for other games that involve complicated lighting or dark areas.

I had initially delegated animation of the character to Taha, as he has the most experience with animating in Unity, but we decided that animation was lower on the priority list and therefore did not get it done due to time constraints from both our team and Ishi (Yeti model designer). Ishi has said he wants to get the animations done but it would be after our assignment hand in.

I didn’t like the way the characters just slided along in the game so I created 2 separate scripts to similar waddling/walking with the characters. It’s not great but it’s much easier than learning to animate last minute.

https://pastebin.com/rrpayi7y

Basically a timer goes from 1 to 0 and resets itself. Every time the timer is at 1 the character rotates one way and when the timer is at 0 it rotates another way. (all numbers can be changed in the Unity Inspector.)

*Please note: To view the full version please click here as I have experienced imagine importing errors here.

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Year 2, Game Design & Development. Vertical Slice, Post 7.

Side note: Bugs I report are not getting fixed or looked at which is quite frustrating.

Weeks 6+, Player Model & Other Assets (References):

I used the following assets from the Unity asset store to complete our game.

Main Character

Heart Pickup & Red Medic Kit Texture

Skybox

Menu Background

Yeti Fur

I found it interesting that many assets can be created by using the same single asset and resizing it in different ways. I spent a lot of time figuring out the particle system to create the dash of the character and the effects from both the snowflakes and the heart pickups.

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Year 2, Game Design & Development. Vertical Slice, Post 6.

Weeks 6+, Issues + Final push:

Upon showing the game to Gary (our lecturer) a week before we were supposed to present it Both him and me had some concerns.

The game was barely a game, his words were along the lines of that our game was not much further done than our prototypes and in some cases one of the prototypes was just simply better.

We had to pressure Aiden to get the dash mechanic done. And polish up the game a lot. My role was to mainly focus on art assets and balancing while Taha and Aiden polish up the code.

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Year 2, Game Design & Development. Vertical Slice, Post 5.

Weeks 6+, Audio?: 

So you may be wondering why i’m helping with the audio…

Initially I had given Aiden a list of sounds we needed and descriptions to suit them.

Fairly late in the project and we had no sound still.

The lead programmer(Aiden) has informed me that the game is too mechanic intensive and certain things such as the dash will take weeks to code. As game designer I feel this is my fault for designing a game that was so challenging to create for the programmers. Taha has been doing half the code, mainly all the procedural generation and spawning and falling down spike mechanics. We decided to change the shield mechanic into just health pick ups because for some reason Aiden put health in the game and he wouldn’t of had time to correct it.  So even with Taha’s help if Aiden is struggling then I realised audio would not get done.

I decided I would do the music and ambience myself but let Aiden do the SFX so he would still have something to write about in his blog. He could also delegate the work if he chooses.

I found the following song and Ambience SFX:

Intense Music (Tactics by Alex Lisi)

This is the main track for the game while actively playing.

Wind (Howling Wind. [Sound Effect] by Sound Effects)

Level Ambience

Wind2 (Soft Wind Sound Effect by RoyalFreeSound)

Menu Ambiance

I took the liberty of finding some assets to make it easier for Aiden. I left him with a folder in within the project with a few SFX that he could pick and choose from and add to the game. Jump, collectible, mechanic, take damage sounds etc.

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Year 2, Game Design & Development. Vertical Slice, Post 4.

Weeks 6+, The Yeti:

*Please note: To view the full version please click here as I have experienced imagine importing errors here. Including early Yeti model variations + Final yeti model

The yeti is one of the main focal points of the game and we wanted it to look good and feel bad ass.  At his point in the game we have moved away from the alien idea and wanted to focus more on the stand alone ice cave level. We wanted the yeti to be big and almost ape like but also have some kind of unique flare that doesn’t just make it look like a white monkey.

Cyclops:  Our original alien idea involved 4 eyes however since the yeti was less of an alien now we decided to go back to 2. However 2 eyes was not only boring but made the model look too Ape like. After looking at some boss references, we decided one eye would look cool. Story wise it would make sense that the yeti is not as reliant on sight since it lives in dark caves.

This got me thinking that if the gameplay of the game was still fighting the boss instead of just running away from it, that the player could instead use a Flashlight as a weapon or mechanic to damage, slow or stun the boss.

Ice mutation/corruption:  From looking at bosses and more particularly elemental bosses (ie. bosses who can use fire/lava/earth/air/lightning etc. attacks), since we knew the yeti would have an ice breath / missile attack we liked the idea of the yeti being infused with its environment .  Spikes and horns coming out of the yeti could me made or covered in ice.

Ishi and I had many video skype calls to discuss the yeti and looked at references for bosses, yetis, ice monsters. Unfortunately I was unable to record our discussion but these are a few of the references he used.

Eyes & Jaw

Cyclops and Elemental Boss

Yeti (world of warcraft)

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Year 2, Game Design & Development. Vertical Slice, Post 3.

Weeks 6+, Artist discussion:

*Please note: To view the full version please click here as I have experienced imagine importing errors here.

I have enlisted the help of 3 friends to help with art for the game, they are helping out for free and for use in their own portfolios.

For other art assets we will find some online or in the unity asset store.

#1

Artist: Ishi Malle

Nationality:Japanese

Background: Digital Art student Art:3D models (Yeti, Ice spikes)

Ishi and I discussed many variations of the Yeti and how it should look like. Initially the yeti was more alien like and floated in front of the player.

We used the “Starcraft 2 Hybrid” models as inspiration for an alien yeti. We liked the theme of these as the hybrids were a combined race of the games Protoss alien race and the Zerg race. We wanted to take the same idea and mix A beastial alien with a yeti.

Starcraft wiki

Starcraft wiki

Some points we discussed: -We like the 3 toe/fingered claw look

-We like almost floating tentacles

-We like the big hunched backs with armour or maybe fur on them

We decided to leave it with these images in mind and let ourselves brainstorm for a while before moving on to the ice spikes.

We decided from the start we wanted to keep things simple and I had suggested a low poly art style for the all the ice related things in the game. Ishi took one look at low poly ice and instantly agreed.

<Low Poly Ice>

A week later ishi had a variety of Ice spike models ready for us to use, this was a huge help in using them on early versions of our game.

The team really liked this design! We decided instead of Ishi working on ground spikes too we could just simply squish and resize the models in Unity to get the Ice rock look we wanted.

#2

Artist: Sarah-Jane Leach

Nationality:British

Background: Freelance Artist Art:2D (Game Background - Ice Caves)

I discussed the game idea with Sarah and showed her all the images I had been previously looking at.

We discussed themes such as claustrophobic and cramped. Dark and dangerous.

The idea was straightforward and she got to work.

She sent me a sketch a day later and was pleased with the look.

Then a few days later she sent me the completed coloured version.

The team loved the look of the art, our only concern was how to use a 2D close up background without making it look like the player was running on a treadmill with a 2D background rotating behind them.

We decided to move the background up really close to the character to help counter this, it also helped with the claustrophobic feeling. I decided I would take a look at how to incorporate lighting with this background at a later date.

#3

Artist: Andrew Pacetti

Nationality:British

Background: Former Game Design student Art:3D models (Collectables)

Andrew was initially going to do all the collectables in the game however as the game changed and evolved we had him create the collectable snowflakes instead.

I mostly left the snowflakes up to him, anyway he wanted to do them was fine.

I gave him only a few restrictions. Keep it simple, Imagine a 2D assed stretched to be 3D (Like a thick coin)  and possibly look at low poly for inspiration.

Here is the model Andrew delivered:

I was happy with it and so was the group.

We began discussing the shield collectables and animation, however this slowly turned into just a health pickup which we didn’t end up using Andrews designs for in the end.

Andrew’s Idea for a fire shield pick up:

Idea for health pick up:

(Source unknown)

We wanted to keep the fire theme as it represented a contrast of warmth, comfort and light to the harsh,frigid and cold environment.

However due to time constraints from our team we decided to just use an asset for the heart. The final result had no fire element to it but I did add a light to make it stand out and still hold the values of contrast I wanted… Instead of flaming particle effects I used hearts to further emphasize the vision of Life.

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Year 2, Game Design & Development. Vertical Slice, Post 2.

Weeks 6+, Art Ideas:

My group members have been sick or otherwise unavailable.

I decided to take a look at art assets this post.

A great place to start is the background and setting in my opinion.

Using what I wrote in the GDD:

“Mood: Intense, cartoony, vibrant. Dark?

Contrasted with a cartoony, animated feel.

The ice caves can be bright and snowy with light coloured transparent ice or dark and scary with dark blues and a lot of shadows. We chose to go with the darker vision for the ice caves to give the player a sense of panic which further adds to the fear of being chased by the yeti.”

I had already begun looking at ice cave inspiration beforehand, these were my main sources of inspiration.

Image source <1>  <2>  <3>

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Year 2, Game Design & Development. Vertical Slice, Post 1.

Weeks 6+, Game Design:

Creating a Game Design Document (GDD) <CLICK HERE TO SEE OUR GDD>

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Year 2, Game Design & Development. Weeks 6.

We have decided to go with the second idea “the spiral tower theme”.

Because Pingu Robot is a robot we also decided to make the tower a factory theme.

A friend of mine who is doing an art course in Japan has said he will help us with art for the vertical slice.  The group has agreed to work with him.

Notes:

I have been sick this week with a cold and chest infection.  Progress on the game seems to have gone very slowly without me.  It is unlikely that this prototype will be finished by Tuesday however as this will likely be our chosen game we will continue to work on this version until the final hand in.

In hindsight this is quite a big game, where we have to design and program all the boss mechanics.  For this Slice we should have chosen 1 mechanic and just done that.

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Year 2, Game Design & Development. Week 5.

We showed our second prototype to our lecturer who said it looked actually fun, which is something that many other groups appeared to be lacking. This feedback makes me quite proud of my groups game design thus far.

This week I am Lead Designer and have prepared a Game Design Document for the 3rd prototype. We are likely to choose this idea for our final game/ Vertical Slice.

The GDD consists of 2 game ideas for the others to give their opinions on and for us to discuss which one we would like to pick for this and the final game.

My second role was tester and I created a Testing Checklist template that we can use for all our prototypes, at the moment it is quite basic but can be improved on later.

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Year 2, Game Design & Development. Weeks 4.

My other role this week was art.

My main focus was to acquire more food art assets as in our first game we only used sausages.  

I found these free art assets in the asset store:

https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/75494

Using the base version that Aiden as lead programmer had developed I edited the map and imported the assets I had edited from the free assets I found:

The egg was drawn/textured by using Taha’s ‘concept art’.

I also gave Pingu Robot an upgrade to make him slightly scarier.

Taha added the Start screen including doing the art for them.

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Year 2, Game Design & Development. Week 3.

The Pitch

This week we had to present our Ideas in a pitch to our lecturers. I was unaware that I had been nominated to give the pitch but I believe it went well.

I prepared a few slides the night before in order to help with the presentation, This is a good summary of our general idea concept thus far.

We also demonstrated our simple runner game.

Notes:

This week we also had to discuss our plans for our second prototype.

Taha has taken the designer role and wants to make a “falling down” game.

Taha has uploaded his design concept for the prototype:

As project manager I assigned everyone some roles and kept the trello up to date. I gave us a mini deadline for the base version of the game. I uploaded an image of another game as reference to “falling down” games: Doodle Jump

Taha and Aiden have been sick but progres on the game is still going well.

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Year 2, Game Design & Development. Week 2.

We now have a third member!

Me, Andre Leonard, AKA “Phantom”.

Taha Alzubir, AKA “Taha Jazz”.

Aiden, AKA “Aiden0109”.

We set up our group Trello, Discord and Google drive before we did anything.

We still need to sort out a bit bucket….

Anyways…

We explained our ideas to Aiden and I showed him what I had done at home since our last meeting. This was just a very basic runner where you could simply jump over blocks.

It did make it easier explaining our ideas tho; such as explaining a ‘chasing boss’ which we implemented during the meeting. Our lecturer has named our prototype boss as “Robot Pingu”.

Aiden liked our ideas or at least seemed to be content with them.

We decided to refine our first game idea as design wise we were behind. We also confirmed our roles for this game prototype as well as the next two.

Inspiration for our first game prototype: http://impossiblegame.org/the-impossible-game/

My second role this week is audio but we decided not to implement any audio for the first prototype but we did consider slurping sounds, jumping sounds and a retro 8-bit backing track.

The over all roles ended up switching around as we go our third member so in the end we all ended up doing everything for our first game.

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Year 2, Game Design & Development. Week 1.

Hello,

My year 2 Game Design & Development module assignment is to create a game with a group of 2 others. We will be rotating roles every 2 weeks and starting our game from scratch, in hope of making it better as well as adding variety each time.

Week 1: Our group currently only has 2 members due to there being an unsuitable number of other students showing up on the first day. Hopefully we will get a third member by next week although this means that we will be a man down for half of the development of our first game.

On a personal note I am worried about who this third member might be as someone who cannot be bothered to show up for the first week of class may also not be the most dedicated person to their work. With any luck they were simply sick or dealing with something very important and are a very hard worker!

I thought that we would be given 2 themes to use in making any game of our choosing as I had seen in previous game jams. Such as: “Zombies and Time” where you could make games about time traveling while fighting zombies or zombies decaying over time etc.

Instead we were given instructions to make a specific type of game; Infinite Runners.

At first I thought this was quite a ‘dumbed down’ or boring way to do a game jam themed module but after doing some research, Infinite runners are quite diverse and there are many interesting options available. Personally tho I wish it was just “Runners” so that we wouldn’t have to make them infinite if we didn’t want to.

After receiving this information we were given time to discuss within our group.

Meeting 1 notes:

My Group:

Me, Andre Leonard, AKA “Phantom”.

Taha Alzubir, AKA “Taha Jazz”.

TBC

Theme: “Bosses”:  We discussed many themes or styles of games and specifically many Infinite runners. Things we liked were multiplayer ideas, where you run against someone else and can mess with your opponent(s), such as Mario Kart.  However as neither of us had ever programmed multiplayer games before, we decided against it as we felt like we wouldn’t have enough time to create a polished game with interesting mechanics as well as learn how to make them multiplayer. Instead we said “Why not just play versus the AI and then we could later add an option for a second player to take control of the AI (assuming we had the time to figure that all out)”. While Both of us would have really liked to make a multiplayer game we ended up going with an only Player vs AI game which is how our ideas developed into a “Bosses” theme.

The most simple or noticeable Infinite runners with bosses are games where the player is being chased by the boss or in some cases the edge of the screen.

This will be the plan for our first game.