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Xb3992 - Opening Retrospective/comparison

Before any of the paths were done i had to take time to create an opening to the game that would somewhat explain what was going on and explain the games mechanics to the player without feeling to much like a slog or a hand holding experience.

To this end i looked upon games which had both terrible openings and good openings and examined them

Which lead me to the opening of kingdom hearts 2 and the opening of the original dark souls as major examples in worst and best respectively.

Now its always better to end on a high note so why not get the bad out of the way first?

Bad - Kingdom Hearts 2

The bad in this instance being the opening act of kingdom hearts 2 which dont get me wrong is a fantastic game however the opening does most things wrong in bringing the player into the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWmUqFIBB5s

If you click on the link above you will find the entire opening of Kingdom hearts 2 which as you can see is a whole 2 hours and 16 minutes long which in itself is a problem especially for a game that already has hours upon hours of game-play and content waiting for you outside of the intro, it makes you want to rush through the 2 hours, it makes you want to get right into the meat of things instead of being stuck in a slow tutorial part of the game.

But hey length isnt an issue if the intro is engaging and fun or even interesting...but this is another short coming of this introduction. While at times it is intresting due to an ongoing mystery of the town your in and the character you play as alot of it is played as an odd town life that is far form kingdom hearts, you spend time doing simple busy work such as putting up posters and moving boxes while having your hand held with instructional messages for the simplest things that honestly never really go away.

Even when you do reach a section with combat in it it is played as this odd ball collecting tournament in which its nearly impossible for you to lose at any point unless you really try to do so which is both boring and patronising to the player.

This is without mentioning the story or the character you play as. While the story of the intro section is interesting with an intriguing plot about a black hooded figure and a mansion nearby it is clogged with filler sections that drag the run time out and make it tedious to go through, the story also suffers from ‘if you havent played the previous games your gonna be confused’ syndrome which could make the already tedious intro more so

Finally we move to the character you play who is a newcomer named Roxas

Roxas is in terms of the game a nobody, he just simply appeared one day however this is not truly the case and through the course of the intro you do eventually find out what his purpose is and his entire presence in the game itself. However its an odd and somewhat counterproductive move to have him be the first character we play and to play him in such a long boring part of the game, it makes his story seem dull in a sense and it becomes hard to care about roxas at all and it makes players yearn for the original sora (which they get later on). Even attempts to make him seem ‘cool’ in the intro seem shallow and generic with him defeating a large boss and this black hooded person twice with one time fighting inside a ring of fire while wielding two key blades. While the moments are exciting they dont nearly make up for the intro’s boring slog and the new character.

Taking all of this into account however is what counts, it made me make my intro short in terms of the story, quick to establish the main character being whoever you wish having that done in the first minutes, introducing tutorials the player can skip if they so wish and finally giving the story of the game a very quick run down without boring the player or making them lose interest.

Good - Dark souls

Now i tend to praise dark souls any chance I get but the design of its introduction section known as the undead asylum is genius and a masterclass on how to do an intro right. 

Ignoring the introductory cut-scene which is one of few in the game for the most part, it tells you simply you are an undead, the world is screwed and everything is kinda hopeless which is when the game begins with you hopeless and undead in your cell before having an item/corpse dropped form the roof of your cell by a knight.

This instantly forces the player to learn some very simple game mechanics without telling them anything, it teaches them to move and how to pick up/what items look like as well as how to use them.Then without saying a word to the player it proceeds to teach them to move and attack in a few moments using a single weak enemy that will never attack the player, this enemy is also facing away form the player allowing them to quickly learn how back-stabs work. These creatures will never attack you so it gives the player a safe space to learn their controls without danger of dying.

As they make their way out they can see a rather large beast walking around, one that they cannot fight but it cannot fight them showing that perhaps they can come back here later?

Then after a very small intro to bonfires the player runs into their first boss which instantly puts a roadblock in the players way showing them maybe some things cant be overcome with brute force and maybe there is another way (though if the player picks black firebombs as a starting gift or maybe just pokes this giant demon with your broken sword you can escape and get a sick weapon for your troubles).

No instead the game subtly funnels you to an open door on the left to avoid the boss and get a new bonfire as well as getting some fresh new gear you picked at the class menu, this corridor you get your gear in teaches you how to block/dodge with an archer at the end of the hall.

Then not long after that the game lets you learn about shortcuts, traps and secrets within a few seconds of each other once again without saying a word or holding the players hand.

Finally the player receives their first lot of healing items and will find a new challenging optional enemy before they are taught how to plunge attack form above onto a boss or enemy (a skill which will be used on the boss after this if you remember it).

Once the player beats the boss the ‘tutorial’ is over and the game begins true, to add to this though the player can come back to this area and will find tougher enemies, a new boss to fight and some extra items to collect 

All of this without saying a word to the player unless the player looks for the note’s upon the ground.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvqeNu7RmxM

https://youtu.be/apmr8I4xaOg?t=3m10s  3:10-4:55

What I learnt

what to take away form this is that my opening needs to be short and sweet, let the player dive right into game-play without to much exposition yet dont tell them nothing as you dont want them feeling list.

Make tutorials optional, if the player wishes to learn through a tutorial that holds their hand they can, if not they can skip them and learn on their own

Keep the player safe, introduce the game and its mechanics in a safe space to the player, never put them in true danger the moment they start the game

Do not patronise the player, its possible some people might not have played a visual novel before but dont spend hours explaining what one is in the simplest of terms

[jackaccletonhonours-blog]

Xb3001 - Main character artwork

The main character i designed for our game, both an eye and eyeless variation. I didnt want the main character to be human but at the same time wanted them to be...relate-able, seem somewhat human?

This is generally why it has a somewhat cute appearance what with its mostly rounded body shape and floating body. In later iterations placed into the game the character had a more demon like structure with horns added in which odes somewhat tie into our game’s theme.

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XB3001 Asset/Enviroment artwork

From left to right : Brick, brick, broken pillar, bush, geode, meteorite

The environment was meant to be a mishmash of floating objects that looked like they were just thrown together yet somehow like they fit and work as an environment together . 

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VNM- Love

Inside of my game is a love system in which the characters will slowly like or dislike you depending on your actions/choices. It works to a similar way to health and sanity in that it works on a variable that can be set, lowered or raised at will to instigate events to happen based on its level (Example being if the player is loved a certain amount and ending can be triggered with the opposite also true)

Originally i wanted to use a bunch of heart images that would change through certain thresholds of the variable however through unknown reasons it wouldnt show any image past the default one however below are the images i was going to use in order

Bad Hearts

Hate heart, this would have been shown between 0-10 love and shows that the character is hated.

This heart was the dislike heart and would have shown between 10-35 and signaled that the character did not like you but didnt outright hate you yet

This heart was the annoyance heart and would have appeared from 35-49 and showed that the characters were annoyed with you or thought you were annoying.

Neutral Heart

This is the default heart and the only one that was able to be show, it was suppose to show when the player was slap bang on 50 love and would say that there were no strong feelings either-way.

Good Hearts

This was the Ok heart and would appear between 51 and 75 love, it showed that the player was on good terms with the other character or that they were having fun with you

This was the like heart and would have shown up between 76-90 love, it told the player that the character was liked alot and that they were close to getting the true love heart

This was the true love heart and would have been the best one to get the good endings with, it would have shown when the player reached 90-100 love and showed that the other characters would love the player and enjoy them very much so~

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VNM - Mouse SFX

Visual novel maker for some reason doesn't have a mouse SFX but does have a sound for one so i had to implement it myself for a little extra touch.

This was done above by setting a label at the beginning that could be called later to make it so that it isnt a single sound one time thing only, next was an input command in which when the left mouse button is pressed it will move onto the next command which was to play the mouse sound...however this would only work once per scene.

What i had to do then was finish that bit off with a jump to label in which the next label would repeat all above and then jump back to the label at the beginning of the first chain of commands creating an infinite loop

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VNM - Health and Sanity

For my game to function the way I intended originally i required a set of variables to trigger as health and sanity, inside visual novel maker this was not the easiest task and it took me at-least a day or two to get it done with constant experimentation 

Originally working inside of ren-py i was going to use a tutorial set p by another game developer on the platform to work with health and sanity and turn these images below into the health and sanity bars

With renpy it would have worked simply by creating a full and an empty bar and it would do the rest for you however in VNM its not that simple

Starting off here we can see the working form of the health system in the top right of the game screen, it is currently set as a common event that the game can call upon when needed to show and set the health. when the player take’s damage the variable of health or sanity are commanded to change via a subtract, addition, multiplication or divide and when at 0 the player will die simple

However getting to that point as i said wasnt all that simple

Here we can see what looks simple enough however it took awhile to get to this simple place. But the basic’s of what is shown above is that the game will call upon the background of the bar, then the text and finally give it a colour however alot of time was spent trying to perfect and fix this as most of the time the text would appear behind the picture  or the picture wouldnt appear at all (fixed when the layer of all of them above was changed to 1, similarly with sanity but changed to 2).

In the future if time is on my side i hope to have the health and sanity change as the player drops below certain health/sanity thresholds.

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XB3001 prototype analysis 400 word blog post  - 2/2

For our third and final prototype we looked to create a arcade style bullet hell game in which the player rode around on a bike defeating aliens and saving the day, this went into the theme of trade as the player could upgrade their bike and abilities through trade to better progress in the game. in terms of artistic style it shifted from something somewhat SCI-FI to a vapor wave and 80′s VHS inspired artistic style. During this third prototype i was tasked with once again creating conceptual artwork however this time i was tasked with the environment only which i ended up drawing a small cityscape that could visualise what the game world could look like and a general feel for how the game could even play.

In the end this was the prototype we ended up following through wth yet it took another drastic idea change and instead of a vaporwave inspired world we shifted to a Hebrew angelic inspired boss gauntlet game in which the player transcends so to speak to become god along with everything else. My role here currently was once again that of a concept artist, i would be drawing the bosses and explaining what they do, how they work and what makes them beatable. After Christmas however and even during the Christmas break my role will switch to texturing them and ensuring the look good as well as fitting the art style.

Finally when moving forward we have constantly updated the trello board and kept up to date with our work and roles without any roadblocking or struggles and have been using facebook messenger to keep in touch 

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S.O.V route plots

Wrath

With wrath the player decides to go out drinking on thier first night in the holiday and happen to end up in a bar full of really tough looking people including wrath, if the player chooses to act tough upon entering and to wrath himself its possible for wrath to fight and even kill the player here. However if you do not act to aggressive and just look to have a drink wrath will sit next to you and the two of you will have a drink and chat some.

With drinks in your system you either drunkenly flirt or drunkenly try to fight him, if you flirt he will take you back to his place, if you fight he will win but take you back to his place to ‘mend you’

This is the point where you will be kidnapped in a sense, if you fight you will instantly wake up tied up in his garage, if you flirt you will get a small scene explaining what happened however you will still end up in the garage when you try to leave. Wrath is of course a very aggressive man so after this point alot of the time spent will be you being attacked, shouted at, almost killed and trying your best to calm him down in hopes of survival.

Endings

He won the fight - Challenge wrath to a fight before you go drinking with him (Death)

he needed a parking spot - make him so angry he uses your head as a parking spot for his bike (Death)

Blood brothers - You survived his punishment and he thought you had what it takes (Survival)

Lust

With lust the player decides a similar path however they choose instead to drink at a fancier lounge club where lust is preforming, lust will always approach the player however her reason depends on what the player does, if they ignore her singing she will come over to comment that she hasnt see you here before and to asks if you liked her performance, if you payed attention she will comment that your new but instead skip right to her sins.

She will offer you small talk for a moment or two before inviting you too the backroom of the club, if you accept you and her will leave to the back and have some ‘alone time’ but this will lead to your kidnapping

If you refuse she sees to understand however when you get home later on two large men will visit and take you to her starting the kidnapping.

Once kidnapped you will awaken handcuffed to a bed in her private backroom where she wants to make you submit to her and embrace the lust through her sexual torment and domination

Endings

You couldnt keep up - lust cannot get enough of you and in her lusty state for you she doesnt stop having ‘fun’ with you (Death)

you need practice - She choked you to death...but it wasnt with her hands (Death)

Petplay - You became her loyal pet ready to play with her whenever she wants - (survival)

Envy

Envy occurs when you decide to stay at home and relax instead of going out, when that is the option envy will eventually knock on your doo asking to be let in and also welcoming you to the neighbourhood. If you choose not to let him in he will try twice more but then back away, you can also choose to ignore the door which has the same effect, choosing this path will make it so that in your sleep he will break into your home, do something to you in your sleep and when you wake up the kidnapping will begin with you trapped in your own home.

If you let him in you two will cha on the cough and then he will tyr to advance on you, if you deny he will not take no for an answer and continue, if you say yes he will go to your bedroom with you and have fun. in the morning when you try to leave he will keep you in your home thus kidnapping you.

after that he becomes extremely possessive but tries to make things seem like you and him are an item and have been for a long time. 

Endings

If i cant have you - Envy kills the player if they wont conform to what he wants, if he cant have you no one else can (Death)

Did he say you could leave? - You tried to escape and envy caught you (Death)

Only his - You broke and settled into your role as his property and significant other (Survival)

Gluttony

Gluttony’s route occurs when the player wishes to make a meal for thier firts night on holiday, the fridge/freezer has been stocked with all you need except for the meat so you go out to get some which leads you to Cale’s Cleaver a small nearby butchers shop.

When the player enters they can either be a nice and understanding customer or a very poor and hate filled customer, the second will lead to you eventually being attacked in store by the butcher leading to your kidnapping. If not however he will give you recommendations and help you find the meal you want.

However when you get home and eat it you find he has drugged it, your world becomes trippy and hazy and he even appears to you at home before you pass out and are kidnapped and taken the the butchers shops back room where you must survive gruesome attacks and his unending hunger

Endings

A slow burn - Gluttony cooks you alive (death)

Rotten meat - He deems you bad meat to serve to himself or his customers and kills you (death)

seems you found a job - Cale hired you as his ‘willing’ assistant (Survival)

Pride

If pride is the route you wish to take then you must go out and look for some culture for your first night, look to learn about some art. You will head ot the art gallery where depending on your choice pride will either be watching you drawing your form as you explore or she will come up to you and talk to you if you look at her art in the gallery.

the two of you talk for a long period of time before she asks you what you thought of her piece before, if you praise it she will eventually offer for you to come see more of her pieces at her home, accept to be ‘kidnapped’ decline to set yourself into the other path in which if you critique her work she will seem upset and when you are going home later she attacks you form behind.

When you are kidnapped you will be taken to her messy art studio where she will obsess over you and try to turn you into a model or her next masterpiece

Endings

Blood, sweat and tears - she will drain you of to much blood to use for a painting thus killing you (death)

the perfect pose - You wouldnt play along so she was forced to make sure hurt you (death)

Modern masterpiece - through your combined efforts her art becomes a masterpiece over time and she wants to work with you more and more (Survival)

Greed

Greed begins if the player decides to spend their first night on the town gambling some of their hard earned cash away, the casino will be a lavish golden place where the layer can either opt to get attention by shouting and screaming about their money or being quiet, either way greed will approach sooner or later and he will invite you to play a casino game with him however it is rigged. 

The first two times you win big but the last you will either deny to play and try to walk away or greed will make you bet big and lose. if you walk away greed will accuse you of cheating and security will take you to the back room or he will take you himself on a private matter which of course starts the kidnapping

Greed will have you in the basment of the casino that has clearly been used for this thing before, he will torment and torture you like he were a member of the mob to try and squeeze every last bit of money and possessions from you.

Endings

Life debt - You lost everything, even your life (death)

rigged roulette - You played Russian roulette and lost but the game was rigged from the start (Death)

Luck be a lady tonight - you got you r money back and then some escaping the casino (Survival)

Sloth

sloth is the path that happens if the player decides to stay home but instead of relaxing they opt to go straight to sleep, in the morning the player character will go to a local gym to conduct a morning work out at which point they can choose to work out alone or with an instructor, if they work out alone they may feel eyes on them, if not the instructor you get will be sloth and he will help you work out.

Another option to change this path is how you work out, if you go all in with it sloth will ambush you late on in the shower knocking you unconscious and jamming you into his work out bag because he finds it odd how pumped you got and wants to learn more, find out your secret so to speak. If you half arse it he will kidnap you the same way but he will kidnap you both proud and somewhat annoyed at how outright lazy you are

you awaken inside sloths home which is a messy barely looked after apartment where you now find yourself locked up and suffering through the foulness of sloth.

Ending

He forgot - He forgot you needed water or food to survive or was to lazy to care (death)

Hell of a workout - He worked you to death (Death)

He just couldnt keep up - Exhaust him enough that he himself dies (Survival)

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XB3001 prototype analysis 400 word blog post  - 1/2

in the group projects out groups consisted of Adam, Sam, Sean and me and for most if not every prototype i kept my role to concept artwork and visualizing artistic style. 

Project 1 : Transcendence 

For project number 1 i took most of my time to conceptualize a main characters design making sure they fit into the sci-fi yet dark and horror alien centered style of the game, not only that i made the character mutate through artwork to fit into the games mutation mechanic as well as the games puzzle solving. two mutations were drawn in total however they eventually were scrapped in favor of a more slime like transformation into a formless boneless blob of humanity. finally on workload i worked with Sam to create a small diorama that slowly transformed from a clean.

For this project and the rest we used trello to link our work together and avoid roadblocking and having the risk of presenting unfinished work 

Project 2 : Fate  

Prototype 2 placed me once again into a similar role as the groups artistic lead going through concept art and visual style. The prototype itself was a narrative driven and focused exploration game in which the player explores a sunken lost city where the memories of the dead rest.

For work i created a design concept for what could become the main character as well as small design doodles of the environment as well as combing my efforts and abilities with Sam to give the player character a backstory, we did this by Sam writing a generalized idea of the character story and then i expanded upon it between his paragraphs, this allowed us to combine our writing styles and made sure that we were not roadblocked easily by one another. the artwork completed here would not have affected others however the story Sam and i constructed would have affected other work and our presentations quality if not done correctly so we had to be very careful in our Creation of it

The work mentioned here was uploaded to tumblr and to the trello and has been analysed accordingly making sure to note my short comings and strengths

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Updated sprites/Comparison

At this point in the project i have asked for help with artwork and will be comparing the differences here between mine and my friends.

Here we compare the bottom crazed sprite with this crazed sprite done by my helping friend, as you can see it is far more detailed and emotive both in body and facial features, it gives off a creepy vibe and feel that i was unable to portray before.

not only that but a main complaint with my art was that the proportions were off and didnt look right and it isnt hard to see why, the arms are like wet noddles, the head is shaped like a beach ball and 90% of his body is legs, that has been fixed and bettered with my friends help with a properly done head, arms/hands and legs too.

Lets compare a second to further the example

here we can better see the characters body and his general proportions, instantly its a good place to note that this one seems 10 times more expressive than the happy emote i created, the general facial form and structure make it seem like he is over the moon, meanwhile the one i made can be seen as a happy emotion but its just missing an edge, it seems off and doesn't quite have the impact this one does.

The body proportions also look alot better on this one overall, the legs dont take up to much of the body, the arms are not miles away from the body and actually look like arms and the hands are actually gripping onto his side instead of just awkwardly placed there. Finally the sprite shown here due to shading and colors seems to just pop out at you and looks more defined . 

XB3992 - Gluttony Sprites

Quick to note that all the characters will have variations of the same emotions in their sprites.

His default sprite, this is seen the most and is a general state of being

a happy sprite, this is of course shown when gluttony is happy in any way

This sprite shows when he is extremely angry or upset with you and more than likely is followed by some horrible words or violent action against the player character.

Shocked facial sprite, this occurs when you say something horrible or mean towards the character without warning and before they kidnap you

This sprite is displayed when the character i talking horribly or thinking of doing something horrible to the player, different name for each sin however, called hungry for gluttony here

Crazed (Starved for gluttony) is usually reserved for when the player has reached certain endings or criteria such as filling up the sins specific stat 

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XB3992 - Gluttony Sprites

Quick to note that all the characters will have variations of the same emotions in their sprites.

His default sprite, this is seen the most and is a general state of being

a happy sprite, this is of course shown when gluttony is happy in any way

This sprite shows when he is extremely angry or upset with you and more than likely is followed by some horrible words or violent action against the player character.

Shocked facial sprite, this occurs when you say something horrible or mean towards the character without warning and before they kidnap you

This sprite is displayed when the character i talking horribly or thinking of doing something horrible to the player, different name for each sin however, called hungry for gluttony here

Crazed (Starved for gluttony) is usually reserved for when the player has reached certain endings or criteria such as filling up the sins specific stat 

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XB3992 - Mock up images

Scene begins - enter main character into the scene which for now is cale’s cleaver on gluttony’s path, this background forms the entire scene for the mockup

Player speaks to advance scene thus parts of the gui appear in the text box, pause menu, save button and the next icon

Gluttony speaks back to you with more ui elements appearing, players name shifts to his and a heart appears next to his name. Depending on the players choices/actions this will either shade more towards red for interest in you or grey/pitch black for hatred.

Gluttony finally appears in the scene who is himself a singular saved entity

Shortly after his first line more ui elements appear in the form of your health which decreases when the sin does something physical to you, sanity which decreases as you see and are subjected to more horrifying stuff and then each sin has their own bar and in this case thats gluttony’s hunger in which it will fill the hungrier he gets (triggered by his violence to you and mentions  of food off working hours).

Player sets up a choice, the sin can also set up choices but for now the player sets up this one

An example of some of the choices in the game, this is the first and most basic choice as one he will enjoy, one he will not and one is a neutral option but all of them lead down a semi different path and could still influence the ending you get.

Above shown is the good options path

shown here is the Neutral

and here we see the negative option

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XB3992 - Locations

Gluttony 

The Gluttony sin is located In his own branded butchers shop known as Cale’s Cleaver, It is a small butchers shop located close by to the players holiday rented home. It will have been recently open by time the player makes it to the store. The inside is what is expected of a butchers troe, meat in guarded by glass under the counter for people to see, meat and little bits of veg hanging from hooks behind the counter as well as meats being currently cut up ready to be sold and served by Cale

As for the backroom where Cale will be taking you later on, it is a bloody gory mess of a place with bloodied slabs of eat on tables and hanging on hooks all around the place with you now tied to a table….though not all the meat back there is of animals you should be eating. Back there is also a closet full to the brim with his little tools ready to have fun and do his job.

Pride

Pride can be first encountered inside an art gallery, that place is littered with famous artworks and sculptors from artists of old as well as people of new, the general feel of the place is awe and respect yet quietly.

Pride will the kidnap you to her art studio which is a messy place covered in paint and clay and all sorts of art supplies yet it also seems to have alot of disturbing elements to it…alot of red paint and oddly sculpted items out of a material you cant seem to place.

Greed

The Greedy Gold Casino is a glamorous and glitzy place that is one of the lights of tne nightlife, it attracts hundreds of patrons per day and night and rakes in   untold amounts of money…yet it has an air surrounding it of sleaze and that something is wrong with the place, bouncers all seem like they are a little to hands on and the pit bosses as well as The manager himself are always on floor.

As for where he kidnaps you it is a damp dark room in the back basement of the casino very similar to that of a classic movie torture room a single flickering light as your tied to a pole in the room, the floor covered in drops of blood and a few notes of cash with of course a table of instruments.

Wrath

Wrath can be found at a nearby bar to the players holiday home, it is a very tough and tumble looking location having alot of hard looking men and Ladies hanging around in there but apart from some of them perhaps fighting outside they all just want to have a drink and have a nice….ish time

As for where wrath kidnaps you it will be his messy garage filled with tools and bike parts as well as his own bike from time to time.

Sloth

Sloth is located at a nearby gym as a fitness trainer and will be possibly instructing the player while they are there, it is a clean pristine place despite the hot and sweaty nature of a gym, the place would be filled with all kinds of work out machines from fitness bikes to rowing machines.

As for where sloth takes you he simply takes you to his home and locks you inside to lazy to chain you up or anything, as expected from sloth his home apart from his exercises room is a filthy mess with stains and food littering everything.you the player are free to roam however sloth isnt lazy enough to not attack or kill you if You go somewhere he doesnt like.

Lust

Lust can be found at the love lost lounge, a club for people looking to simply relax and drink the night away while listening to some old fashioned jazzy tunes. The place is brimming with personality and always has atleast one customer or two that come daily to drink and say hello to the performers. Every wall is decorated with some form of trinket or sign.

As for where lust takes you later she will bring you back to her home and more specifically her bedroom which as you can expect is very based on sexual contact and love, the bed is a double king size, toys and NSFW items litter the place and the place is colored a nice dark hue of red and you the player are chained to the bed unable to leave her room.

Envy

Envy is an odd one as he can be found at your home and traps you there. The home you rented for your holiday is nothing to large and luxurious or even special infact the most noteworthy thing about it is that it is clean and well kept even before you got there, everything is exactly where it should be and how you want it and it makes it feel like a true home to you

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XB3001 - Evaluation blog 2 What went well and the future

Prototype 1

During this prototype we were beginning work as a team and thus it’s good to mention here that throughout the projects general teamwork went well, we kept organized and coordinated as a team and worked well together making sure all of our work never roadblocked one another and we kept in touch through Facebook messenger. we achieved the none roadblock goal by splitting into two smaller groups with art and narrative being left to Sam and me and programming and the game itself being left to Sean and Adam, this made ti so that if say i ended up being rather slow my work would not slow down the game itself

As for our general work and work flow, time was used effectively by all members ensuring that there were minimal stops and distractions and that everyone was working according to the trello schedule of the group and all work needed was done on time. All group members work was done to a good standard for what was needed and the prototype we had had solid form to progress into a full-fledged game if need be.

To evaluate on my own work it went better than expected, i am not the strongest artist however i was able to piece together a decent looking human and environment with mutations. What went well specifically here was that it looked to a professional quality in terms of structure being a turn around image with different mutation variations in the same style as well as labeled explanations. In terms of what went poorly is that the art itself looked bland, the colors were somewhat dull and there was little to no shading making ti seem 2D and flat, moving forward i will have to consider correcting these issues with future more detailed artwork. 

Prototype 2

During this project there were some issues such as the boat the player could use would capsize a lot and when game would begin sometimes unreal would keep the player model as the human and the boat would be none existent causing the player to fall through into the endless ocean, this was a massive problem as the boat was a central mechanic of the game and without it it would  both issues were eventually solved however by Sean and the game could continue as planned.

Though outside of that there is nothing to mention here that hasn’t been mentioned, general work flow was well and fast with everyone pulling their weight when and how needed, work was at a good quality for the prototype we created coding especially was done quickly and to a top notch standard so all went well.

As for my own work it went better than expected and past ability I believed I would have been able to produce with the image being proportionate and somewhat human as well as the colors looking more in tune to what we were going for with dark and saturated golds and browns.. As for what could be improved, the air tank on the back seems rather small and there is no light coming from the top of the helmet, not to mention shading once again is missing and it seems flat once more.

Prototype 3

During this final prototype it’s hard for me to tell what went well for my group as for a good chunk of the prototype I came down ill and was unable to view what was worked on and presented, however in terms of my work it went well once again with me being able to create a well done coloured environment for the game.

But it wasn’t perfect there were inconsistencies I could have done better.

Like for instance the fence in the bottom left that goes nowhere and has no sidewalk next to it and the blank spaces for the background. For this I could keep a better artistic awareness of what the environment is like and how everything structures itself together.

Eventually i did give it color of my own accord however once again it is lacking alot of shading and key components however this time it doesnt seem 2D with perspective helping that out majorly

Plan for the future

Going forward we will be working on prototype 3 and developing it into a more fleshed out game as well as changing the style and central theme of the game with it instead becoming a game based on hebrew myth and not a vaporwave VHS game, by Christmas this year we hope to have at least the first area and boss fight done and ready for presentation as well as artistic assets that go with it, after that we hope to continue and advance the game further until completion or atleast near completion..

[jackaccletonhonours-blog]

XB3001 - Evaluation blog 1 Prototypes

Prototype 1

For our group’s first prototype we went with the theme transcendence and decided to construct a 3d Metroidvania style puzzle game in which the player begins life as a simple human mutated into some alien blob of mass that is looking to go through the ship to the command center.

This project however started life as a slightly different idea with the player slowly transforming as the game went, this made it an interesting tale of transcendence in which the player would start as an ally to humans eventually and slowly becoming something they had to attack on sight and the aliens would become your allies

It fits into the theme of transcendence due to the constant human change towards more alien abilities and mentality instead of having any sort of shreds of humanity, this is an opposite form of transcendence in the sense that you are not working to something holy but instead towards something horrific.

For this i mainly tooked time to research more aggressive alien like mutations such as necromporphs in dead space or prototype 

Dead space 2′s ubermorph, a creature that has fully mutated and inhuman in form, its hard to say or tell if this was even human once.

Dead space 2 divider, a more human form that can split into multiple smaller limb forms, visibly once human so more in line with what our original idea was.

During this and all of the projects I created artistic assets and I believe I contributed well to the team and constructed work to a good standard. For this one I worked on character art and designs for the main character and possible mutations the character could take throughout the game, in the end the mutations were scrapped in favor of a single blob form for the main character.

Player turnaround ref

The first idea/example of mutation i did, would have been used for melee combat and climbing

The art shown here i believe is atleast heading somewhat towards a professional quality if only for the layout of how it is drawn and the explanation centered nature of the piece (though i do like the blood effect on the arm mutation).  however it still has some way to go. The line work is very boring and the colors dont really pop out without shading so the images seem very 2D and flat. 

Prototype 2

For our second prototype we decided on the theme of fate and for this we opted to create the prototype for a 3d oceanic exploration game in which the player must dive down into the ocean and into a lost civilization to find out what lurks down there and discover the memories of the people no longer alive.

The theme fits as there are questions of the player’s fate as well as showing the ultimate fate of the people of this place in which the player will hear their fates and stories as the game progresses. To add onto story during this me and Samuel worked together to create a fully realized backstory for the player to add to the game and to show they before this they did infact have a life.

Once again in this I created the main character’s design and general attire as shown below. I looked into very old and weird diving suits and equipment as shown below also

Diving helmet

2 divers wearing diving suits

a very odd diving suit which has been affectionately called ‘The Banana’ which is very obvious to look at this and come to that name

To compare this to professionals in the industry as well as artwork form other people closer to me and on tumblr, most of those are of a much higher quality. There is little to no shading on this piece making it seem rather flat and boring, the hands seem very odd and the proportions seem slightly off

Prototype 3

For our 3rd and final prototype we decided to go with the theme of wonder I believe this was shown by creating a vapourware style bullet hell boss rush shooter game with the wonder coming into the backgrounds the player has to fight through and look at.

This game was based on games in a similar style such as furi in which the player must move from specific area to specific area only ever fighting a difficult boss in the area before moving on to a small walk/break and fighting another boss.

Each area and boss much like furi would be relegated to their own area specific to them in which they are interconnected to one another for a player to go to.

Enviroment art in this style is something i believe im good at however looking at other peoples pieces i see issues i didnt before in this, the fence in the bottom left simply connects to nothing here in the line work. If i add the colour down below

we can see that it did add some life to it and gave it some character however the shading is still lacking and an issue and some of the glass doesnt really look liek glass plus those 2 smaller bridges under the larger one seems like they lead no where

[jackaccletonhonours-blog]

XB3992 - Character Bio (Mary Ann Spencer - Pride)

Mary Ann is the sin of pride and thus responsible for humans boastful and arrogant sins and feelings, in the human world she has taken to showing off work she has pride in to humans that could learn from it and worship it which means she has become an aspiring artist.

Mary Ann is a woman of two looks, when showing off her art she looks and dresses as what can only be described as a very formal look, formal dark blue business suit and skirt,pantyhose/stockings and a nice pair of matching dark blue heels. While like this she also wears a pair of round framed glasses and wears her brunette hair in a bun.

When working on her art pieces she tends to swap all that out for letting her hair down and a nice apron with some easy to throw away pant and shirt combo that always seems to be stained with paint or ink no matter how recent she put it on

Mary Ann at first is a ball of sunshine and sweetness motivated by her work and desire to learn, she is always cheery and smiling and proud of what she does no matter what others thing…..too proud some say, those that criticized her art have told stories of her going berserk on them later on or even some of them have simply vanished. When someone criticizes her art it enrages her and she will lose Sunshine and rainbows and become fire and brimstone.

Finally she has a demonic form as her fellow sins do

[jackaccletonhonours-blog]

XB3992 - Character Bio (Frank Mammon - Greed)

Frank is the sin of greed and is thus responsible for humanities lust for money and material possessions, he takes great pride and greed in his own possessions and will not allow anyone to take them form him.

Frank is a rather portly man who at all times has some very tack suit on with an equally tack tie and cigar as well as a few rings on his fingers, under   that there aint much special to him really, no scars or blemishes or anything. In terms of facial appearance his structure is rather strong yet gives of a very sleazy  appearance what with his  golden tooth and slicked back blonde hair and green eyes.

Personality wise Frank is your typical slick and sly business type who will talk up a great sales pitch to try and get you to drop your hard earned cash into one of his casino’s games, willing to lose a few times and even act all buddy to build confidence before rigging the game int his favor and putting people into debt they can never escape from, considering his sin and the way he works he is also rather manipulative making sure that people come to him and spend every penny of their money.

Like his brothers and sisters he has a demonic form he can take.