twistedhopeproductions

[twistedhopeproductions]

Evaluation of Team work

Over the last few months there has been many ups and down but we have got a demo out there for our game now, this has both been fun but hard….manly hard. When we started production for our game we had many different issues that would prevent us from moving forward for some time, one such issue was finding out what everyone wanted to make as we was still waiting for the writers to finish their story, how we sorted this out was by talking to the writers about what the base concept for the story was going to be and then go work on a level layout map, this did and did not work at the same time, the issue with it is that it took a lot of time up that we did not have to start off with. The plus side is that we had many iterations of levels that would allow us to mix and match good ideas to make better levels.

One of the other obstacles we had to traverse was the fact that we had so many levels but not much time to make them, due to us not being able to get unity working on the computers for the first 2 months we were unable to practice as a team and work on things together. This became a massive issue due to us not knowing how to work in a cohesive unit and as a result we all splinted off to work on our own level and did not focus on making one very good level. This affected me as the technical director as it meant I had to keep track of many different problems at once and every ones different styles of game design, as with every one having a different style would cause different issues.

One of the last issues is that we had a massive blocking in the pipe line (as professionals call it), this is where we got stuck in development limbo for some time as we are waiting for different teams to get stuff to us that we needed, but they were waiting for a different team who might be waiting to get their skills better and so on and so forth. This became a massive issue half way thought the project where we still did not have a 3D model for our main character but it was not just the modeller to blame as it is a team effort that did not work the best. Something I put in place to help myself and my team so we could filter ideas in and get work done was to have a chain of communication where the level designers would go to Jon (creative director) about ideas and issues they were having and he would then discuss them with me to try and get a good outcome for all.

The main issue that we ALL felt was the time that we had to do this project; we had all together including holdings was 6 months,  which may sound like a long time but while learning new skills and implementing them to make a game it does go very fast. This was a massive issue for my team as each week we were only allowed to work on our game for 6 hours for the first 4 months, this slowed us down as we did not have much time to work and improve our level and we just had to rush everything at the end. The only thing we were able to do was make a compromise with our tutor to allow us to go and make the game for an extra 4 hours a week which allowed us to have 10 hours a week.

 Something that went well is how we reflected the story in our levels, for example the sewer level was made in mind to keep the feel and theme of the writer’s story and attempted to hit the feelings they were trying to convey, it worked due to the lighting used and the ambient occlusion I modified into the file.  A different example of this is my level the broken down asylum, from the brief I was given I was told that the level was very dark in its theme and was meant to be this old building that would have been used in WW2 as a hospital, so what I did was have most of the colours being a dark brown but contrast it with bright colours to try and complete the style of low poly. And with the information I was given about the level I was able to tailor the traps and puzzles around that old broken down style that would be around in that time zone.

Something we could have done better is work more as a group to try and make one fantastic level and not a few low standard levels, coming from my opinion as I have worked in a few different companies to do level design, there was much we could have improved upon for instance, I think if we focused more on the larger blocking out of the level first we would have been able to play test the level and see how it all flows and if it all works for the player.  However some level designers went straight to the deep end and started making the level and adding extreme detail for the first try of the level which meant that we were not able to complete much.  Something else I could have done better was to keep an eye on what my team was doing and to give them a set objective for each lesson, sometimes I lost track of my team and it was hard to try and catch up to what they have done and change stuff that has been made if it did not fit! As a team I think communication was in a lack for most of the project, I think that if I could go back now I would have set up a good pipe line of communication that would have worked better and enabled us to maximise our time.  

As you can see there have been many issues that have affected the outcome of the game which makes me feel like we have not hit the target audience, my reasoning for this is that we were only able to get one level a part of the way done, the main issue is that yes we may have a base for how the level would have looked it just feels like it is dark and has comedic factor in it. Something else I feel like makes the game inappropriate for our target audience is the use of sound in the level, it felt very faint and dark and did not have the kind of swing esc music that would have been needed to bring the level up in tone. A game that uses music well in a dark situation is Clockweck boss fight from Sly Racoon, the music in here is very dark but has a very good up beat under tone to it that both gives a feeling of dread but happiness, I think we should have had this style of music to hit our target audience and communicate the correct emotion.

Something I am responsible for that I feel like I failed to bring to the project was the combat system, the issue with this is that I feel like the game is very empty and void of any content. So for next time I will be focusing more on those than other things.

In conclusion from this project and experience I feel I have gained an understanding of how a team should function and the impacts and repercussions that poor communication can have on an overall project.   I believe that even though we were not able to successfully hit our target audience we still did ok for our first attempt at creating a game, and now we all have a better understanding of the industry.

[twistedhopeproductions]

16/05/2017 Choke points in our game!

While I was looking into my level I came across an issue that I would have to find a solution for to make the game work, the issue is how to make the player go through the level and find it fun! First of all I looked at the level map that I had designed beforehand at dissected the way the level flows from place to place. While I was making the map I made connecting corridors to connect room to room, I have had some ideas about how to make this more interesting traveling through them and how to get the play to go through them!

One of the first ideas I have had is that you would have enemy encounters just before the corridor that would push you through them, so in a way it would act like a choke point like what I spoke about in my overwatch blog post, as well as the overwatch blog post I have found a book that talks about this style of game mechanic within a map. The book's name is, The ultimate guide to video game writing and design, the book is written by Flint Dille & John Zuur Platten. In the book they said “ultimately, you can elegantly determine where and when you will allow story and game progression to take place” This quote is very useful as it helps reinforce the idea that choke points help determine when and how the story can take place and move on in the game! I am going to take this quote and implant its principles into my level!

So what will happen is, when the map first loads up there will be a small cutscene of the shadow man wondering away from the player to try and find his real body but as he goes he takes Eliza’s bag with him what is her only defensive weapon to protect herself with! The reason I am doing this is so that the player will feel the fear of not being able to attack the enemy’s so if they get captured there will be no escape and the will have to reload! So when you are moving the character towards the corridor entrance you will hear a sound behind of some of the enemy’s talking and or giggling as you turn around you will see that there is a small group behind you and due to the player having no weapon to fight with they will have to turn around and run down the corridor to try and escape the enemy’s. I would like to do this a few times to try and push the player down areas that they need to go down and it will make them believe that they are getting followed by these ghosts.

My next idea is more of a subconscious idea and I would like to make it less obvious what I am dong but still have it work very effectively! I would like to have lights over the corridor entices that will start to glow when there is an enemy inside of them, this will make the player go down a different corridor. This will help me to progress the game as it will push the player down an area that I would like them to go down just like a choke point but it will be less obvious where the enemies are coming from. This will help to cut down production time as well as there will be no need to code any ghost monsters as it will all be light based.

Out of both the ideas I think the second one will fit the game more as it will 100% keep us on our pegi rating as there will be no need to model any monsters that could possibly breach the conditions we have to meet! As well as that it will be easier to add into the game we will not have to code any AI into the level that would take a lot of time to do! So going on from here I will be working on getting a lighting system to work and allow the entire idea to work!

[twistedhopeproductions]

08/05/2017                           Overwatch and its level design...

So, a few days back I was playing a few games of Overwatch but it hit me that this game has a very good and unique way of doing level design, so I have done some research into how they produce there maps and the different ways they make the game have good flow from point to point!

The maps in Overwatch all share a few common themes, those being the ability to play any character on any map, and to have an emphasis on choke points and breaking through them. The maps them self are very asymmetrical what is very new to FPS shooters as most of the past games try and stick to a symmetrical map to try and not confuse or disorientate players, but I think that Overwatch does a fantastic job at distinguishing between what side you are on, weather that be attacking or defending, and what section of the map you spawn on.

While asymmetrical maps make up most of the maps in Overwatch, It's not all of them. The control maps are where both teams are on completely symmetrical maps, fighting for one central objective. Among the community, they are considered the weakest maps of the game. Since the maps are completely symmetrical and focused on one portion, the matches usually tend to play out similar no matter what map it is, this is a massive bug bear for lots of players.

This is not to say that the asymmetrical maps aren't without there issues. The main issue with these style of maps is that because they must consider every character, they all feel somewhat the same. This is of course better than the alternative of having certain characters play better on certain maps while the rest of the roster gets no play time! Some characters will always perform better than others on different maps like Pharah will always be better on large open maps as she is one of the only characters who can fly in the game but she might not play as well in the small end capture room of route 66 where it is closer than other areas of the map!

As I said before about you being able to play any character on any map this is a very true fact indeed, as there are 134596 different team combinations if you can only have 1 of the same character on a team of 6 at a time in the game! Each one will give different results on how it will play, for instance on the map temple of Anubis there is a choke point right from the start, it takes place as a massive entrance way that is large enough to fit your team under but does allow for the other team to stop you from going past it. There are different options like you can play as Reinhardt and slowly push forward with your shield to get you and your team past at once, or you could play as a sombre who can go invisible and sneak past the opposition and capture the point before they notice. As you can see that is just two options! So, for such a simple area it can give many different options, and those examples are standalone members and have nothing with team work.

One thing that allows team work thought the map design to be achieved is where different advantage points are given to different teams on different areas that will both give an advantage to a team and make it harder for the other, but this hardship will make players try even harder as I have noticed in the times I have played the game. Let's make Route 66 an example. At the start of the map, the defence has a very good advantage. The destroyed train carts let the close-range characters have cover and have the ability to surprise the attackers, yet the open area that the payload is placed in gives snipers and other long range characters a chance to shine and take a few of the attacks out before the game truly starts. Once the attackers break through this defence and get around the corner, then the advantage swaps to them. Both the upper rock path to the left, and the building on the right gives many options to the attackers, while still being close enough to the payload to be able to have it moving at almost all times. And the maps do this at all times to try and keep teams working well together and mix the game play a little!

Other maps like Volskaya industries have some very amazing points for team work thanks to their very different routes you can take! On the final capture point on Volskaya industries there are 4 different ways to get to the objective, you can go in the front door that is always maned by at least one player, you can take the lift to the high ground that is watched heavy due to people trying to sneak around that way. There is however one-way that allows for some fantastic plays as a team, there are moving platforms that will do loop around the point and allows for people to ride them to the objective, due to them being high in the air people sometimes don’t see them. Due to how small the area of this checkpoint is it allows the defenders to set up some very deadly placements that allow them to defend it very easy if a team does not work together!

One of the ways me and a few friends tackled this capture point is by timing are ultimate’s to work in a way that we can combine them all to wipe (kill all their team) them. We started by having me as Sombra teleporting into the centre of the capture point and doing my EMP that stops their team from being able to use their abilities and then I had my friend come in as D.va and set off their self-destruct that will instant kill everyone in sight of it, then my last friend came in and cleaned them of by using his ultimate that looks on to people and starts shooting for you. So, as you can see due to how small their area is, you are able to combine different play styles into one attack that allows for some devastating results.

I have looked into the new map that Overwatch has just realised, called Oasis what is a control map. This is important as when we spoke about control maps I explained that most of the community disliked the style that they were going for before, so the team behind Overwatch took all the information that was given and worked on a map that works better for the players. Jeff Kaplan who is the head of the team of Overwatch gave this interesting quote about how they want the map to fill "The philosophy that we used on all three of the points in Oasis is that we'd have an arena inside an arena," He continues." And so, the map's middle area is its own little arena, and you can do a lot of fighting here, but then it's surrounded by a whole ring that's connected to this space in various ways. I like this piece of information that he gave as it seems like the map encourages people to take the fighting off of the point and either push into enemy territory if they've taken the point or use it as a flanking area to get the point back.

So, in conclusion, Overwatch plays with the convention meaning of level design and makes it into a good fouler that works well for that style of game, but I feel like what I have been looking into here is very applicable to any style of game as it can make some very interesting game playstyles!

So, after looking through all this information I have come up with a few different ways that I would like to take my map in our final project! before I was thinking of making it a very symmetrical map have rooms that act the same on opposite sides to another and to have rooms flow in the same way from corridor to corridor, but now I would like to take my map in a more of an asymmetrical way. This includes having different levels of elevation that will allow the play to move form area to area easier but to have its own different game play style, so you might be able to get though the room by beating 4 AI controlled enemies or you could climb up a ladder and do some jumping puzzle. This will also effect how I lay out the rooms in terms of the world, I am now thinking of having different types of objectives in different rooms for you to complete then just the same style of thing, this will be utilised by using the shadowman and the cat more, like having the cat go under a bookshelf and push it away or have shadowman use himself as a ladder. All these changes I feel like will be better for how the player things about team work, as without the other two you would not be able to complete the objective!  

Something else I am thinking of is having the play get placed in choke points in the map where the enemies will pin the player to the wall and they will have to think of a way to escape without any sort of weapon! I have taken this idea from the Temple of Anubis map as I liked how effective the chokes work in that game, even if our games are massively different from Overwatch, if I can implement it well and seamlessly it will help improve my design a lot more than before!

[twistedhopeproductions]

Shadowman Boss mechanics and game play

I have started to design what I would like the shadowman boss fight to play out like, I have got many sources of inspiration but my main and the largest of all is the High Lord Wolnir boss fight from the game Dark Souls 3!

In Dark Souls 3 the boss plays out different from most of the other bosses and here are the reasons. When you are about to start the boss fight you spawn into something called the abyss and you can’t see anything more than 3 meters ahead, this is a good thing as it brings the scare factor up as when you move about 10 meters down the slope to get a random item you will be met by a glowing of wrist bands of a skeleton king who’s first attack will be a AOE (area of effect) attack where he will breath poison and toxic over the player what will do chip damage the longer you are in it!

The next main factor about this boss fight is how you beat it, When Wolnir does his melee attack sometimes his hand will get stuck in the abyss and you will have to hit the 2 bands on his wrist that are holding him to that realm. Once you take him to about half health he will start to crawl towards the player what will give you 2 minutes to kill him or you will be pushed off the edge of the map, and on his second part of his fight he will draw a sword from the darkness and will prosed to heal himself and do AOE attacks to knock you back.

This all relates to my boss fight as in the grand scheme of things this is how I would like the boss to play out and I feel like it would match the feel of our game. What my design for my boss fight is that after doing all the puzzles in the level you will climb up the spire and get to the top of the clock tower where the small shadowman will be waiting, from there he will confront you about things and what his true plan was and after that he will get very angry and violent towards the player and he will grow in size to fill half the room. After he has grown I would like for him to start to power a orb in the centre of the room hovering off the floor that will when activated after 5 minutes will send the player back in time to the point the fight started, he does this so he can vent his anger for as long as he wants and will never start to lack in power, with this the player will be under pressure to beat the shadowman as fast as they can!

For his ranged attacks that I am going to have at the back of the room he will pull pillars of shadows up from the floor to hit the player, I would like one to spawn every 4 seconds as it will keep the difficulty at its peak but allow the player to have time to dodge the attack and counter. For his melee attack I would like him to slam his hand on the floor to both try and grab you but to knock floor boards out from under you, I am wanting this as it will give a new obstacle for the player to avoid.

All this mechanics and stuff is all good and well but would like to think about how the player will feel and how they will experience the gameplay.  I believe I have a good combination for these reasons. I believe I have hit the good middle ground between difficult and frustrating, I believe this as while looking at the audience and their age range get bored of the younger style of games due to how easy they are and the lack of challenge but they get easily annoyed by hard obstacles that they struggle to overcome, so what I am going to do is do vigoro’s testing of the level and its mechanics on the target audience and get feedback from them on what they hated and loved and then I can tailor make the difficulty around that. Something else I am going to do to keep their attention and them playing it again will be to add a procedural generation of some of the mechanics, this means I will have some of the boxes that you can use as cover move location each time you play and if you die too many times his anger and agro will start to lesson so it will become easier for the player.

[twistedhopeproductions]

02/05/2017 practicing art work

Over the last week I have been working to improve my drawing and shading skills in Photoshop to help improve the AR cards I am making. Here I will explain the processes I have taken to make these bits of art and how they will help my work in the final project!

First off I would start off by drawing a rough sketch of what I would like to be happening in the image, I do this so I can get a good understanding in real life of what I am going to be doing on paper. After I draw the rough copy on paper I will photo copy the image onto the computer where I will start to do hard line drawing so that I can get a more refined copy of the image.

After that I will start to add a base layer of grey so that I can make a clip map that will allow me to not colour the image outside of the line. I found this out by testing and messing around with different Photoshop tools in a few of my past projects. Once that was done I started to add base colours in areas that will have different colours, for example on the shield I would do a base yellowish colour and on the weapon I would use a mix of red and yellow.

When that is all done I move on to adding darker highlights to the composition. I did this to be able to bring a more realistic feel to the peace of art and bring in true depth into the photo, light was the next part that I needed to do.  I started by looking where the light was coming from and tried to highlight the areas but I made a mistake when I started drawing it, I never added where the source of light was coming from. I went back to the original piece and added in where I would like the light to come from and when I had done that I reworked the shadows and then was able to add the highlights into the art.

When that was all done I would make a background that would fit the same style of the art, in this case I had the feeling that trees would be the best idea. I did the exact same way with the trees as I did with the main image expect I used one of Photoshop’s tools that allows me to change it colours and shading without having to do it again.

In conclusion I felt like I have done a lot better in the art style that I work with but I still feel like I am able to improve my skills if I watch a few more tutorials on how digital artist work. One of the tutorials I follow is a video made by https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmEh0riZLc4 it has helped a lot to improve my skills by showing me the different colour techniques and how to go about doing it in a professional way.

Faebelina (2016). Digital Painting Tutorial (Photoshop) [Online]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmEh0riZLc4 [Accessed on 08/04/17.

[twistedhopeproductions]

3/5/2017 level work flow

So today I have been working on the final level for our course project! This included blocking out the level and design what area of the map will lead into what area, this is important as it means i will be able to get a good understanding of the level and how the player will navigate the surroundings.

I started by selecting the area I would like to start o work on! I desired I would work on one of the many linking corridors that would lead to one of the jumping puzzles, i made his decision as it is one of the main links to a few other rooms of the game and when i have his done i will be able to start working on other areas of the map.

Next I started added in different colors that I felt like would match the mood and the style of the level that i have been tasked to work on, then I started the process of adding in floor planks into the environment, i did this to brake up some of he contrast in the colors of he level and so that it would give more depth. 

 After all of that it was time to add details to he main section of it. I started by adding the dirt and small rocks on the floor so that I can show the age of the building and how long it has been braking down due o it being abandoned by its old owners. Next I started adding different types of vegetation into the area, i did this as when i did my past research into these type of buildings, while they was under construction many different type of seeds from different flowers and vegetation would be mixed into different items and when they started o brake down the seeds would fall out and start o grow if it had not already. 

 I started adding the lighting into the area so that I can give the feel of a human or creature still living here. And then I started to render it out and here is the finished result of 20 minutes work on the level. What I wash I could have done better is add partial effects and add post processing volumes into the area so it can make the game pop a little more.

There was a few issue i came across while making this level, one of them was a clipping error where the entire corridor duplicated and it coursed the lighting and other objects to start shimmering and to give off this wired texture that did not suit the game at all. The way i fixed this was by deconstructing the main corridor out-bases in its interrelate and then just built around the assets so that it would all work seamlessly, so now that issue has been fixed it all looks how it should.

There was one other issue, it was that when i got close to any sort of asset the lower quarter of my screen would start to glitch and would start to make funny colors, i fixed this by reverting back to a older save file, after reloading it was all sorted so now it all works fine again!

[twistedhopeproductions]

loss of work 21/04/2017

So a few days ago we was hit by some deviating news about some of our coders work he has been doing, it was all lost. When I was first told I was shocked but as technical director it was my responsibility to try my hardest to try and fix this issue and get us back on track. First off I started by looking over all 16 computers in the room and looked into all their folders and was looking in the bin folder just in case it was just an accidental loss of work but I was unable to find any sign of it apart from a few screen shots of his work.

We called IT down to the room to see if they have backed up the systems and unfortunately they had not set up the auto backup yet as this is a new computer room so they was still setting it all up, so with that option out of the way we started to look at different solutions to what we could do to rectify the issue. We started off by looking at what we had, we had three screen shots of code that he had taken before we broke up that we could use to reconstruct the code, but as fate would have it we was missing the first screen shot that had all the main variables to the code and without that we could not remake it with the screen shots we had.

After that idea I took the option to move the movement system onto our other coder who had just finished his past code, the reason for this is that the person who was working on it felt very demotivated and was very upset that his work had been lost so we gave him the option if he would like to redo the code or if he would like to work on 3D modeling, he made the decision of wanting to do 3D modeling  and we fully support his decision. As well as this me and a few others set in place a new rule that every time you make anything you MUST place it onto a portable hard drive as well that the tutor would have at all times. So now that this is all in place we hope that it will help to prevent any more loss of work that might affect our game and peoples work!  

[twistedhopeproductions]

Fran bow comparison 19/04/2017

Today I came across the game frambow that in my eyes is very similar to our game in terms of the characters and the style of game-play, I started to look deeper into the game and came across a few features that I feel like could benefit our game as it would give more motivation for the character to keep moving and for he player to keep playing.

One of the mechanics that I started looking at first was the pill mechanic, this interests me as it is able to change the world perception for both the character and the player as it changes this they dark and somber place into this crazy but extremely dark atmosphere where you are not sure what is and is not real. The mechanics works by you collecting pills around the world and then when you press he pill button on the bottom right of you screen it will switch the world into this creepy modified version of the game for a select amount of time, while in this world you will have to complete puzzles that will somehow effect the real world in a small or large way. I like this mechanic a lot as it gives the player a very different way to see each character in there more real emotional state, I feel like the puzzle aspect of the game is very well done as it gives the player a very good reason to make their way into this darker world, while in the dark world the puzzles make a lot of sense as it effects how some characters see you and act towards you that will give the character different interactions with different NPCs.

I would like to add this mechanic into our game but in a different way as I feel like the way pills are represented would not be suitable for our PEGI rating as it would break one of the few rules that can’t be broken for our game to be put into our target range. I would like to implement this mechanic as some sort of shadow form for our character to go into so that she can see things that others can’t, this could make for some very interesting jumping puzzles and interacting puzzles in the way that when you go into shadow foam it gives you 5 seconds to look into this vision and has a 10 second cool-down. While in this foam you will be able to see different ledges and different type of collectibles and maybe some different paths you might not have seen before.  

The next thing I liked about the game that can affect my level a lot is the way the maps art style flows from place to place very well, as well as the art style and mood it gives off I like the location as it is a form of orphanage /hospital, this interests me as my level is a foam of church and hospital combination. What they do very well is show a form of isolation and loneliness for the character and this can be felt by the player, they do this by making most of the characters in the game have a very dark and depressing tone about how they talk and move let alone the actual rooms that give of this very dark and “boring” feel about them that makes the player feel isolation though the use of colors. The do this technique by limiting the amount of colors that can be in a room to a range of 3-4 very dull and dark colors that have little to no contrast.

In conclusion I have got many different ideas from this game, from the way the creators went about the level design and used so little colors that the style was consistent but gave the feeling of sadness and loneliness, this is going to be key to may level as I want to try and make the player feel like they our alone and that the shadowman will not be there to save her if anything goes wrong. Something else I would like to do and I am going to talk to my team about is some sort of shadow form that will allow the player to see different things that they might not be able to see other ways.  

[Killmonday Games AB,  2015]  

[twistedhopeproductions]

Invizimals and AR games 8/4/2017

All of last week I was working on my marketing project for this Elizer, I am going to be working on a AR card project so that people can see a 3D models of our game on the phones. I have been looking into lots of different videos into how to improve my art skills and Unity so that I can make a good looking AR HUD and make the art work for the cards. The game I am taking most of my inspiration from is he Invizimals games due to it being on a large open platform available o many people.

This game has very good mechanics that allow the PSP’s camera o be used to is fullest potential. Some of the things that I will like to add into the app are the option to have both characters interact when hey both come onto the screen; this game has that in there what gives me good ideas on how to get it implemented into the app. While looking at this game I noised hat he HUD that was getting used was very poor in quality, this could have been improved by allowing the player a larger screen so that they can touch with a fine point where they would like to go.

From looking into this game it has helped me a lot so that I can make my marketing project a reality. It has helped give me ideas like having a particle effects around the character when they are coming into frame and allowing both characters to talk to each other. So I will now be adding both of these features so that I can make a better AR experience for people.

The other thing I was looking into was the art side of things; I looked at lots of tutorials as to improve my skills in that core discipline. I looked at a few YouTube videos and here are a few that helped a lot;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmEh0riZLc4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJU6RAEMxGM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lV3whC1k-Us

From these tutorials (Faebelina, 2016) I have improved my art skills tenfold more than I was able to from working off my own back. I am now able to draw in my own style that I have not seen many people use before, I am able to add colour to my art on a more professional way that saves more time then what I could do while doing it in my old style! I have found these tutorials useful they have helped me to improve my skills so that I can make the art for my AR app.

I will be taking all the skills I have developed from these 3 tutorials so that I can make a very effect experience for users, it will help me to work better inside of the game industry itself due to art being a very core subject that is very much so needed to progress in my journey upwards

[twistedhopeproductions]

Level design for the final level

So today I started work on my level of the game. Here I will be discussing the 1st section of the map and why I made the decisions I made and how they will be affecting the experience for the player and how it will affect the game play!

When you enter the level you will be greeted to a small corridor that will lead you into the first staring room, this room will not hold any of the puzzles but will give the player the feel of what they will be moving onto. I did this to give the player an experience of what the rest of the level will feel like and so they can get used to the lighting and the mood of the area. From there, there will be 2 different corridors that will lead you to 2 different rooms that will have a puzzle in, one of the rooms will have a finding puzzle in a small sky opening where you will have to get small plates shaped as different moons and you will have to set them in order, this puzzle was inspired by the game Skyrim and its dawn guard DLC where you had to do the same thing to open an entrance up in the centre of the manner.  This puzzle is for testing people awareness and if they look out in the surrounding and if they can find out what the real pattern is.

The next puzzle room will be a sound puzzle, the idea is that there will be a sound and a coloured light in each side of the room and when the sound comes on you will have 6 seconds (one second for each puzzle in this level) to get to that corner and you will have to do this 6 times to finish the room. This puzzle is to try and test the player’s memory skills and direction skills. When you finish both of the puzzles you will go back to the main room and there will be a key hanging from a string and there will be a noise que the it is there so people will not get confused. With this key you will be able to open up other doors that where locked before.

At the top of the map there will be a door that will have a photo of different locations that the main character has been to in the past; this is to remind the player of how far they have come and how much they have accomplished in the game so far. The door will be locked until all the puzzles have been completed and when you have found 50% of the collectables on the first floor, I did this to give the player a challenge and to give a throwback to the old style of games like banjo and kazoo where you would need to find puzzle pieces to move to the next area.

The other 3 puzzles in the level the one following the sound puzzle will be a number pad puzzle where there will be 6 different numbers there will be scattered around the room and the player will have to work out the combination though notes that will be on the wall around the number pad. I am doing this as a level as I feel like it will make the player move around the room a lot and will be able to explore the area to take in all the scenery.

The puzzle room at the bottom right of the room will be a simple jumping one where the objective will be to jump over small obstacles or you will fall into a pit that the shadowman will have to pull you out off, the objective of this puzzle is to see how good the players hand eye coordination is. When you complete the puzzle you will touch a ruin that I would like to give the player a flash forward into the future where she sees the large shadowman boss start to grow, the reason for this is so that it will give the player some foreshadowing

The last puzzle will be a simple find the key among the boxes puzzle, in this one you will have to smash through a room full of boxes but different boxes will have goodies where others will have enemy’s that the player will have to eliminate to get to the key, the idea for this one is to give the player a game where it is more laid back but they will have to have a full sense of security or they will be in for a surprise.

As you can see from all these different puzzle rooms and ideas i have been keeping the player in the back of my mind for the entire thing, i have thought about how difficult it will be for the player and what i can do to try and keep the RNG (random number game) to a minimum but still have some to spice it up. all together i think i now have a solid outline of the first part of the level to a point now where i can start to come up with more detailed plans of where i want things to go and how the lighting will work.

[twistedhopeproductions]

Today i was working on a small sample for what my level in the game will look and feel like, i started by setting out the size and scope of my level and made my destitution on what areas i would like to highlight more then others. after that i placed in all my modeled assets into the viewing area and set them in a way that they will look good and so that the player can navigate easy around all objects that you should be able to move around.

I ran into a issue that i did twice by accident, it was that i started building the map in play mode, this means that i was building the game while it was running, this does not sound like a massive issue until you relies that while in that mode you cant save at all and that when you click to play button again to turn play mode off it will go back to what ever it looked like before you entered, so it reset the entire map. I did this again by mistake, so what i did was made sure i did not enter this mode unless it was 100% needed. after 3 attempts at the area i was able to make the map work!

[twistedhopeproductions]

Marketing game

So, over the last few days I have been working on my marketing peace that is a 2.5D running game that takes place in the fantasy world of our final project. The game has been designed for our target audience in mind and would be placed on mobiles if I was to realise the game to the public.

The game takes place a few days before the event that took Eliza’s parents life’s, it follows an unnamed person who is in procession of an artefact that if used in the wrong way can change the course of the world, the artefact has been passed down from person to person and what it contains in side will later effect Eliza’s journey in the world without her family, the down side to the carrier of the artefact though is that it will slowly drain the person’s life force as if it is some sort of parasite but more on the story later.

The demo for the game takes place about half way though the game where the objective of the level is to try and escape so golems that are following you though the forest. So far, I have made all of the short level, the way I have designed the level is to try and portray that even in times of trouble that there is always beauty around you, I have portrayed this by making sure that the colours of the level our nice and bright and contrast each other very well. A different step I did to try and bring a more mystical effect around the level was to add some yellow particle effects around the screen that will make out that the character is in a dream all along.

From a game play point of view the main objective of the game is running sliding and jumping, I decided to go with these mechanics as I have considered many different games that our target audience play on phones and one of the popular ones was temple run as it gave the feeling of suspense and tension to not mess up. What I have done is design some of the puzzles to be based around pumping on the right combination of stones that will move a pillar and some basic jumping ones that will challenge the player to be able to judge distances well and to know when to step back and take a second look at things.

The next thing I had to add to try and bring the feeling of darkness following the character was to have at different locations this shadowy figure looking at the player from a distance and after 3 seconds he would disappear into the void, I did this to try and bring some mystery to the world and for reasons I will explain soon. Something else I did was the more times you “lost” the contrast of the level would start to dim increasingly as if the life force of the character was draining.

To clear up how this links to the main game its self is that after the man escapes the woods he comes across this old building that looks like a safe place for him to place the relic, so he places it at the top of the clock tower and leaves but what he does not realise is that some of the artefact had broken in his pocket, as he leaves he finds a car that is broken down but seems to still be in a working condition. He gets about a mile away from the old clock tower but this black shadow figure appears just behind him and out of panic he swerves the car and gets into a head on collision with a different car, that contains Elizer and her family, as the crash happens the fragment fly’s out of the man’s pocket and lands with Elizer but as it touches her skin it is absorbed into her. This relic is found out to be the physical version of the shadow man.

The reason I have made the story follow this loss path is to explain some of the events in the game, like in the clock tower why the shadowman can grow larger than normal or why he wants to find his owner, it’s because Elizer is not part of the origin family that he finds it hard to stay with her and struggles to take her life force. So, as you can tell I have linked the story into game play aspects as when you see the dark figure following you in the level it is a manifestation of the shadowman.

[twistedhopeproductions]

Today I have started to look into 1920s hospitals and the churches, In the 1920s churches would be converted into hospitals to be able to accommodate for the amount of casualty’s that there was in the war.

As you can see from this photo churches back in the 1920s where very large of size and had a bell tower that would have been used as a point of communication for the allies to send information about patents from place to place.  By the 1920s, the hospital was a place where one could hope illness might be treated and even cured. Not-for-profit hospitals at this time began reducing their clients down from the upperclassmen to the middle class of the county, this is very important as it means they would be able to treat more people and push the life expectancy up. 

From this photo it has given me a few ideas as to what i can do on my level, due to the large open space that is given in this photo it makes me believe that in some churches there could be a 2nd floor that would be used as a upper level for stock of food and medical supplies. With this in mind i had a idea that in my level there could be a second floor that will allow there to be parkour puzzles that could have a mechanic that when you touch some of the board they will fall what means you will need to learn what style of boards will fall and what ones will not.  

[twistedhopeproductions]

Collectables in spyro

Based on my previous research into games that will fit our target audience, I have come across a game that I used to play as a kid and it could fit our 3D game. The game is Spyro that was made for PlayStation 1 I’ve decided to look into this style of game so that I can get a better understanding for our target audience and the style of games they like. Spyro has a Global Total of sales as of 13th May 2017 (units): 5.00m sales, as you can see the game had a large reception for the time it came out.

Common collectables: the most common collectables that the player will come across in the game are Gems, these items will be used to pay for different services from money bags and when you collect them all you will unlock a Skill point, these will allow Spyro to have an upgraded ability. And Gems are needed to 100% the game

Gameplay collectables: The next collectibles the player will come across will be dragon eggs, these will be used to unlock different portals that will be needed to access the rest of the game. There are many ways to find these Eggs some will just be in plain sight but some you will have to actively look for.

Special collectables: There are some special collectables in the game Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! In the first two of three Homeworlds the player will be playing in, Talismans were needed to free the worlds' castles from the villain Ripto's. There are fourteen in total, one for each world. These will be important for the player as they let the play take back places and enter areas they would not be able to otherwise.

Health collectables: While playing the game you will come across fire fly’s around the areas and all you need to do is run up to them and sparkz will eat them to get all his health bag as without him spyro cannot do his journey.

From this information I am going to talk to my team about the different collectables available to us and what type will fit our game and target audience, but from the information i have got today i believe that this type of collectable system would work well and make the game fit our target audience. 

1- Sony 1998 , Spyro the dragon, video game, Playstation 1, Insomniac Games.

2- VGChartz 2010 , Spyro the Dragon , VGChartz, accessed 15 February 2017, http://www.vgchartz.com/game/6436/spyro-the-dragon/

[twistedhopeproductions]

AutoDesk MudBox

--coloured version--

This was the work that I could do in AutoDesk MudBox in 1-2 hours, I feel that the program is very…. different to learn and was harder than Maya to learn how to do. I had to consider the different mussel groups of real life humans as that I would be able to reconstruct that in a 3D space, I had to consider different type of creatures in video games. 

My main source of inspiration was a undead hunter and hollow from bloodbourn and dark souls. 

If I was going to do this again (I am going to) I would hope to have more time to be able to do the project and have more time to add the textures that I would have liked to have. In conclusion I will be using AutoDesk MudBox more often for my soft poly modelling and only use Maya on hard poly.

--Not coloured version-- 

--Not coloured version--

This is going to help our game in a few ways, for one it now gives us the option to work with other sort of assets that are not just the Low pol kind so if our  information about our audience changes i can help the class to adapt to the new situation. The other is that now i will know how to add bump and bit maps onto different surfaces. 

[twistedhopeproductions]

Unity day 2

So, on my second day of learning Unity I came across a small issue that though me off track for a little bit, the issue that I had was that when I was trying to find my testing level I was unable to find it on the unity database so what I had to do was reset up the path ways into my folder that was set up wrong when I first loaded unity. After I sorted the paths it all worked fine and I could find my test level with no issue and continue to learn unity.

The first thing on the engender today was to look at the different ways that someone could make terrain for the player to travers, I started by selecting the world layer that is essentially a flat piece of clay that can then be moulded by the sculptor, once I had selected it and activated it I was ready to start testing out different brushes. The main brushes like with most other engines, the raise, collapse and smooth (goes by different names in different engines) once I had Identified the what each one of the brushes was equivalent to I was able to use the brushes easy as I knew what I was looking to do with each one. The reason I looked at this feature first is since a flat terrane is not pleasing to people’s eyes and that people want variation in level of elevation so this will be a very useful thing to know as it means I will be able to better engage the audience and keep them interested.

The next thing I started looking at goes in conjunction with terrain building and that is the vegetation system and how that can work to deepen the players view of the world. I started to research into foams that would be able to help me learn this very different style of vegetation from other engines. I started by looking at this foam post that took me over how he goes about making photo realistic games (http://polycount.com/discussion/149632/forest-lighting-study) after that I switched over to YouTube and found a video made by Wicked Cat Studios the video is called Unity 5 - From Beginner to Pro #7 - Paint Tree Tool, where he does cover the basics I have got about terrain but covers how to access the vegetation tool and how to get all the settings up and running. The only issue I had is that I was running the Newer unity so all of it was changed a little bit but I tinkered around and got it to all work with my work flow.

The last thing I was able to look at for the day as I had to work was water effect and how to implement it into unity, I started off by testing different methods myself and yes I was able to import my animations and water textures but for some reason it would not flow well together so what I did was loaded up a tutorial made by   Wicked Cat Studios again as he has seemed to cover loads of different parts to do with the working of unity the video was part 9 of the series and it was called Unity 5 - From Beginner to Pro #9 - Water Basic. In the video, he covered the way that he adds very minimal water into games what is all well and good but it did not cover how to make it yourself so I will have to look tomorrow at how I would go about doing it as I ran out of time today.

So, in conclusion I have covered 3 prosses today that will allow me to start making low poly levels for our game and will allow me to get our target audience to like our upcoming game.

[twistedhopeproductions]

Learning Unity.

Due to us having some issues with unreal engine which meant we were unable to use it at the college we have made the decision that we will be moving over to unity which will bring both positives and hardships, one of the issues is that me as the technical director must know as much as I can about the engine before we start production, which is difficult as I have no prior experience with this engine.  

I started off by looking at a tutorial called How to make a Video Game in Unity - BASICS (E01) made by Brackeys, this video covered the fundamentals of using unity and the basic controls that would be needed in the game dev work flow. From this tutorial I was able to very quickly learn the basics of unity and once I knew that it would be easier for me to learn the rest of the engine as I could use my knowledge of other similar engines to allow me to know exactly what I’m going to need to learn to complete the task.  

The next step of my proses of learning the engine will be learning what type of lighting system I will be working with, I know it sounds silly but to me and many others lighting and the effects it give can be very important while making any sort of level big or small, and can add atmosphere and increase the players emersion into a game. I did this by loading an empty map and placed a few assets into it and tested different form of lighting from baked and unbaked to LOD and LODSS lighting and from my testing and examining it seems that going the non-baked LOD route will fit our game the best!

After that I watched a few time lapses of people making games in unity as from these type of videos I am able to watch industry professionals use the program and see how their work flow differs from unreal engine users and from what I was gathering it was not much change due to the similar style of lay outs and how you move about the engine view point.

One of the last steps on my first day of learning the basics was to look at the different ways to import and export assets from one program to a different one. This is very important as if you can’t get the assets from the likes of Maya or Blender into Unity we would have had to move engine again what would have not been ideal for any one! I looked at the tutorial Maya to Unity Tutorial: How to Import Autodesk Maya Models into the Unity Game Engine made by The CGBros. This tutorial covered all I would need to know about exporting from Maya to Unity, this helped me to develop my understanding of both unity and Maya to a better understanding as I was now able to import and export with no issues.

In conclusion, on my first day of learning this new engine I have been able to learn different skills for this from being able to use a basic control flow to sorting out exporting and importing. I feel like all the knowledge I have gathered with be useful to me as it will help me make an amazing game for the player and will be able to help make give them the best experience!