d3dman

[d3dman]

Update on Garbage Dump Dan. 

I did some tweaking and added a background. 

And made a Horror version...just for fun. :p

[d3dman]

So in my online Photoshop course, I had to make a caricature out of at least 5 items related to a series of names, out of which I chose “Garbage Dump Dan” for what I feel should be obvious reasons. This was the result. A new little monstrosity to add to my collection. :)

[d3dman]

Titanfall 2 Analysis

Daniel Duby

Ashley Godbold

GADA101 – Intoduction to Game Development

1/17/2017

Week 2 Assignment 1: Game Analysis

Titanfall 2

*minor spoiler warning*

Titanfall was Respawn Entertainment's first game released in 2014 as their own company and was published by Electronic Arts. The founders of the company, Jason West and Vince Zampella, were responsible for the Call of Duty franchise at Infinity Ward before founding Respawn in 2010. The game is a first-person shooter that puts you in the role of a Pilot, a specially trained and highly skilled soldier with a jump-kit, an arsenal of specialized equipment along with the military rank and clearance to call in and pilot the game's namesake, Titans. The Titan is a devastating, mech-style exo-suit and essentially a vaguely human-shaped tank with its own set of various abilities and weapons. When a Pilot calls in their Titan, it's delivered to an open area on the map via orbital drop; the deployment method known as Titanfall.

The game featured quite a few interesting innovations to the shooter genre, the most noticeable of which was its movement system. With the pilot's “Jump-kit”(essentially some miniature rocket thrusters attached to the Pilot's back) the player could double-jump and run along walls and parkour over obstacles. This was something I was very much a fan of. When asked to describe it the first thing that came to mind was: “Imagine Call of Duty + simplified Mirror's edge”. Another interesting innovation was the A.I. Grunt soldiers and various robotic units which accompanied players on the battlefield. These computer controlled forces would make battles feel far larger in scale and gave players more to shoot at while running around the maps hunting for enemy players.

Unfortunately, for Respawn and fans of the game(myself included), the lack of variety in game modes and community features, the disappointing artificial intelligence, and the lackluster attempt at delivering story through radio chatter over the multiplayer matches, rather than through a cohesive single player campaign, left a lot of players underwhelmed. Soon after its release on March 11th  of 2014, its community started dwindling rapidly. Two or three months later it was difficult to find full matches on any platform. It looked as though Titanfall would be one of those great ideas that wasn't quite executed properly and would fade into obscurity, but Respawn wasn't done with it just yet.

Enter Titanfall 2. This game is everything the first one should have been. It features a new and improved multiplayer with far more Pilot abilities and a greater variety of Titans to choose from, a wider variety of maps and game modes, and better artificial intelligence that makes the ground forces on each side much more useful and the battles feel like war-zones. In addition they made some additions to the movement system with the ability to slide, and pilot abilities like the grappling hook and invisibility cloaking. The movement system has definitely been refined and feels awesome to play in the first-person perspective.

Alongside its improved multiplayer, Titanfall 2 also has a fully fleshed out, singleplayer campaign in which you take on the role of Jack Cooper (voiced by Matthew Mercer), a rifleman in the Militia and aspiring Pilot. During a battle gone horribly wrong, the Militia is over-run and Jack watches his mentor, a Pilot named Tai Lastimosa, die in front of him. In his dying breaths Lastimosa transfers control of his Titan, B.T. 7274, to Jack and gives him a field promotion to Pilot. From there Jack must travel and work with B.T. to survive on the hostile enemy planet named Typhon, uncover secrets of an experimental weapon designed to destroy planets, reconnect with the Militia and deliver this intel to his higher ups, and finally to destroy the weapon before it can be fired on the Militia's capital planet, Harmony. Throughout the game, Jack and B.T. begin to get closer and develop a real tangible friendship which is an interesting dynamic to have between a smart-mouth soldier and a giant, mostly logic-based robot. There's a simplistic dialogue system to reinforce this bond where occasionally the player will get to pick between 2 or 3 things to say. This system is really effective at allowing the player to step into Pvt. Jack Cooper's shoes when combined with the first-person perspective, the training being cut short just before the Titan section during the tutorial, and the lore-dump the player is given via voice-over at the beginning describing the bond between Pilot and Titan. Thrown in to the role of Pilot with nothing but the basic training, forced to survive on an enemy planet with this odd A.I. partner, you really do start to feel a connection to B.T. and begin to trust him as Jack does. This in itself is interesting, as “Trust me” is a line said many times by the metal giant throughout the game and sets the player up perfectly for the final twist and B.T.'s final words.

I played through the campaign on Regular difficulty even though, after running through the gauntlet in the tutorial a few times, it had recommended I play on Hard. I was very glad for my decision as the game is truly challenging and makes you master both its movement and its combat, forcing you to put them to use in tandem in order to progress. Along with this, the game will occasionally throw a curve ball at you, such as the level where you get a device that can alternate the player between the post disaster, creature infested present and the pristine, well guarded, and heavily armed past. You can do this at will and must do so in combination with the game's core mechanics to effectively deal with all threats across both timelines. This was a strange but welcome little diversion from the otherwise fairly standard Titanfall fare and I thoroughly enjoyed it as I did with the rest of the game. So much so that prior to writing this report, instead of the recommended “four hours” from the assignment instructions, I actually just played through the whole game and a couple of the multiplayer matches too. I couldn't put it down.

Although your experience may vary,  I played on PS4 as I prefer the way the movement feels on a controller as opposed to a keyboard and mouse, though I'm sure the PC version would be much more accurate to aim with. The multiplayer communities are very different between platforms as many people find the PC crowd more skilled and harder to compete with along with reports of longer wait times for servers indicating a potentially smaller community.  The game is also available for Xbox One but as I have not, nor do I know anyone who has played this version, I am unable to comment on it.

In some ways, I think the first game was a test to see if there was an audience for a fast paced shooter with more depth than just run and shoot, while still keeping those mechanics very polished. Many of Respawn's employees being former Infinity Ward devs, it only made sense that they'd want to expand on that experience, but perhaps they weren't sure players would accept the extra depth and added mechanics. Luckily, people like me exist! An audience who craves more depth and mechanical complexity from our games. That's not to say that Titanfall 2 doesn't appeal to all C.o.D. Players or those who like simple shooter fun. The game supports a wide range of play-styles and does each very well, but teaches you that the high movement play is where it truly shines through its campaign. Titanfall 2 has a very wide reach, and rightfully so.

The game was rated M for Mature, deservingly so due the graphic violence of war and the enemy pilots' foul mouths in the campaign. I give this game a rating of 9 out of 10 as its mechanics (the perspective, movement, ground and Titan combat) all work so well with its story and aesthetics (characters, dialogue, world building and sound design) and the technology brought to the table (the innovations in the movement, the time switching between two different, parallel versions of the same level and the A.I. for ground units and Titans) all come together to make something that, to me, was nearly perfect. Unfortunately it didn't quite make it as I do have some minor gripes with the game. Certain animations can be buggy regarding the hacking system with certain robotic enemies and sometimes when attempting to “Rodeo” enemy Titans, resulting in deaths that feel undeserved and frustrating. Otherwise Titanfall 2 is a great game. Highly recommended.

[d3dman]

From Software Organization Analysis

Daniel Duby

Ashley Godbold

GADA101 – Introduction to Game Development

1/12/2017

Assignment 02: Organizational Analysis

FromSoftware Inc.

From Software Incorporated [FromSoft] is a Japanese developer founded November 1st, 1986. It was originally established in Sasazuka, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo as a business application sofware developer. They were founded under the parent company Transcosmos, but bought by Kadokawa Corporation on May 21st, 2014. In 1994 they had their first taste of games development as a response to Sony's launch of the Playstation with the release of 3D real-time RPG “King's Field” and from there, their library grew at an impressive rate.

Their “Armored Core” franchise would receive its first entry in 1997 and makes up much of their history with 15 entries in 16 years. More of their titles include:

- [1999] “Frame Gride” [Dreamcast]

- [2000] “Eternal Ring” [Playstation 2]

- [2002] “Rune” [GameCube]

- [2002] “Murakumo” [Xbox]

- [2003] “Tenchu 3” [Playstation 2]

- [2004] “Another Century's Episode” [Playstation 2]

- [2005] “Adventure Player” [PSP]

- [2006] “[eM]-eNCHANT arM-” [Xbox 360]

- [2007] “Hello Kitty NO OSHARE PARTY SANRIO CHARACTER ZUKAN DS [Nintendo DS]

I couldn't help but laugh at that one but I guess you gotta do what you gotta do to make money sometimes.

- [2007] Bikkuriman Daijiten [Nintendo DS]

And from there they just get more obscure.

Finally in 2007, From Software began development on “Demon's Souls”; a third person action, open ended, dark fantasy, RPG, dungeon crawler and spiritual successor to “King's Field” franchise. It was a very ambitious game and publisher Sony Entertainment had it slated to be a Japan-only PS3 exclusive. It was very new in its style and gameplay and, in a demo shortly before its release, bad player reactions to the abnormal control scheme and vague plot posed concerns. Upon its initial release date of February 5th, 2009, it only sold 20-30 thousand copies in the first week and was seen as a commercial failure for Sony and FromSoft's then director, Hidetaka Miyazaki. Sony then ported its Japanese exclusive game to China and Korea to attempt to make up for the lost revenue and get some return on their initial investment.  All the while, “Demon's Souls” was quietly building a cult following and began to spread like wildfire. Soon North American players would import the Chinese or Korean versions, which had English settings, just to see what this new game was that claimed to revolutionize the JRPG. Seeing this interest  FromSoft approached Sony's international division for a worldwide release, but were turned down. Then Atlus Co., Ltd. stepped in as publisher for the international version of the game as of May 20th,  2009 and even released the collector's edition, jokingly titled the “Stop Importing It Edition”, to promote buying its version instead of importing the original release. “Demon's Souls” was officially released in North America on October 7th, 2009 and became the first entry in what fans call the “Soulsbourne Series”.  It was followed by its spiritual successor “Dark Souls”, published by Bandai-Namco this time, in Novemeber of 2011. “Dark Souls 2” would come along in September of 2014 followed by “Bloodborne” in March, 2015 and finally “Dark Souls 3” in March, 2016.

Nowadays, FromSoft seems to just be a games developer, though they do seem to have an offshoot branch called FromSound Records which I couldn't find much about. Their current parent company, the previously mentioned Kadokawa Corporation, is a publishing, film and video game company owned by yet another company called Kadokawa Dwango Corporation, which itself is also a publishing, film, copyright, mass media and video game company. FromSoftware Inc. itself seems to make the majority of its revenue from the sale of games and investments from their parent companies and, based on some digging through a november 2016 financial report, from copyright sales.[Merchandise]

They currently have 3 new games in development, one of which is speculated to be a new entry in the “Soulsbourne” franchise and another being a new “Armored Core” title. The third is a mystery but is supposed to be “very ambitious” based on quotes from Miyazaki in several interviews. I personally look forward to seeing what's next for FromSoft and hope they don't bankrupt themselves pursuing realism graphics like so many modern companies seem obsessed with these days.

Sources

http://www.fromsoftware.jp/pc_en/company_history.html

http://www.fromsoftware.jp/pc_en/company_about.html

http://www.giantbomb.com/fromsoftware-inc/3010-760/

http://www.giantbomb.com/demons-souls/3030-24057/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoTCBh7bPZA

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FromSoftware

http://info.kadokawadwango.co.jp/english/ir/pdf_kd/financial/20161110.pdf

[d3dman]

Firewatch Analysis

Daniel Duby

Ashley Godbold

GADA101 – Introduction to Game Development

1/10/2017

Game Analysis

Firewatch

*minor spoilers ahead*

I've chosen to analyze Firewatch, in which you take on the role of Henry, a mid 40s man in 1989 who takes a job as a fire lookout in the Shoshone National forest in Wyoming county, USA. The main game-play consists of first person exploration of your temporary wilderness home and communication with your boss, Delilah, over a hand-held radio. This radio is the only human interaction Henry has throughout the game which makes the Shoshone feel very serene, but lonely, and makes the player happy to hear Delilah's voice, encouraging them to interact with her more, advancing the plot.

While the experience of Firewatch isn't necessarily “action packed”, the enjoyment comes from wandering through beautifully rendered vistas of nature, finding and examining a variety of things along the way. Some items like the flashlight or climbing ropes are kept and added to Henry's inventory, giving the player new mechanics to explore with. Others are simply notes between rangers or old missing posters found long abandoned in cache boxes that serve to flesh out the world around you. Yet more items are simply there as decoration such as pine cones or an old antler. Something I found very interesting about these physics objects was that if the player takes the time to run one of these all the way back to their tower, the next time the game changed days, that object would be placed somewhere in the tower as if Henry had put it there to start a collection. It's a nice way to make the player feel as though they really do have agency over their little corner of the wilderness.

However, this is not to say there is no intrigue or action in Firewatch. These things come from the narrative beats throughout the story. As you progress, bantering with your ever-present yet faceless companion and reporting whatever you find along the way, events begin to unfold. From a couple of teens shooting off fireworks during a particularly dry season to Henry returning to his tower to find it broken into and ransacked, the game does a really good job of keeping you interested by throwing little twists and turns at you that are only enhanced by the fact that you're isolated. As the plot progresses further, things begin to turn conspiratorial and the player is forced to think about whether it's truly something to be worried about or if the isolation is simply messing with the main characters perceptions and perhaps even their own. It then becomes a game of investigation, where the more things the player finds and reports, and the more of the wilderness they explore, the more they uncover of the mystery.

Many people found the ending of Firewatch to be unsatisfactory as the final reveal leaves the player disappointed, scuttling the grand conspiracy the rest of the game works to establish. But I feel this was the most appropriate ending. In the beginning of the game you're taken through a series of text screens explaining Henry's life with his wife Julia in which she contracts early onset dementia and Henry does his best to look after her but ultimately cannot. He takes the lookout job as a way to escape from his bleak world for awhile. Delilah later reveals that she comes out here every summer so she doesn't have to think about her life back home. In the end, each of the characters, and in some ways the player, is forced to admit that even though they came here as an escape and to have some adventure, they eventually have to return to their lives and face their problems. The summer ends. So does the game. That's the true value of Firewatch. People need time to relax and heal, but shouldn't allow themselves to get lost in that time as eventually it will end.

I adored this game all the way through and highly recommend it to anyone. The visuals, the writing, the banter and the game play all came together to make Firewatch a beautiful experience.

[d3dman]

What is a Game Designer?

Daniel Duby

Ashley Godbold

GADA101 – Introduction to Game Development

1/10/2017

W1 Assignment 01: Game Design Analysis

As a gamer most of my life, when I first started looking into what went into game development, I started seeing game designers as these celebrities who, single-handedly, made the games their names were attached to possible. Names like Ken Levine, Todd Howard, Shigeru Miyamoto, Satoru Iwata and Hidetaka Miyazaki have such a presence in the public eye that it raises designers to this “genius-like” standard that seems impossible to live up to. However, if you start to research the industry more, as impressive and influential as these men are, they are still just part of a team and like the rest of their teams, they have particular roles to fill.

What is the role of a game designer? A designer is someone who makes sure that everything put into a game is implemented properly and in a way that will make the final product give the player the team's intended experience. Okay, so what does that mean? Well the answer to that probably varies from studio to studio, but I'll try to cover it generally. The Game Designer's job is to define the core elements of a game and then communicate those elements and the vision of how they come together to the rest of the team. This requires them to understand the fundamentals of the mechanics of their game as well as, at least, the basics of the fields in which each section of their team works in order to effectively work together as a unit. They need to work with coders, artists, writers, CEOs and other designers to make the final product as cohesive as possible. They should have good communication skills, both verbal and written, reasonable visual design and drawing abilities as well as some fluency in some 2D and 3D graphics and animation software and some basic programming abilities, at least at 'scripting' level.

On their own a designer also draws on their knowledge of game play theory, storytelling and narrative development, and user interface design. The designer should think creatively, systematically, and strategically to build, borrow or overhaul mechanics in order to deliver the best version of the game to their intended audience, the player. The designer should also be able to keep their intended audience in mind. Be it age range, cultural backgrounds, casual or hardcore or recreational or educational, the contents of the game should always speak to the intended audience, or it fails to reach its potential.

To sum up, a Game Designer is responsible for how a game feels and plays, and for communicating that between all sections of their team to ensure the best result in the final product.

[d3dman]

So wow it’s been awhile...

I’m gonna be resurrecting and restructuring this blog a bit. I’m taking Game Art & Design in Vancouver and I’m actually gonna post my weekly game analyses and any other projects I liked on here. Starting with everything I’ve done since the beginning of this month, then one post every 3 days or so after that. 

Here goes nothing.

[d3dman]

Alright. So he's not much to look at, but here he is in all his glory :p Not sure how much more sculpting I can do with him, but we'll see. I'm liking him a lot though. :)

[d3dman]

Week 5 Wrinkles and facial detail and tweeks. Lookin good so far. :)

[d3dman]

AAnd week 4 (day 4) 3 hours each day? I'm not doin too bad! Starting to get the face right and the folds more accurate. Here's where it gets trickier. Yay Details! XD

[d3dman]

This is after 2 weeks (really 2 days) of work (I'm bad -.-) But I'm Having a lot of fun with Zbrush so far! :) Base Mesh has been reworked into a more Walrus-ish form. 

[d3dman]

So this is a base mesh for a Zbrush project we're doing this quarter. I'll be updating it every now and then.

[d3dman]

This is My 3rd Quarter Demo Reel. A lot better than my previous one I think. :) Almost through a year! After this quarter I just have one more year to go! Also, I've started using my DeviantArt Account, Finally. :p I'll be using it way more frequently in the coming year.

[d3dman]

My 2nd quarter at Centre for Arts and Technology in Halifax. Just a rough. Will be improving upon it as I go.