Friday, November 5, 2010

Best Words I've Heard Today


It's early, but hey, I just heard the best words from a video game yet. At least with what the game was shooting for. It told me straight out that "Do not play this game to win". The game is meant to be an experience rather than gameplay. Yes there is gameplay, but it is being use to accentuate the experience, rather than it being solely meant for the player to interact with things in the game.

I'm enjoying the fact that you as the player cannot fight the monsters in the game, rather, the player has to think about what they will did when they encounter enemies. Will they run, hide, do a bit of both. Slow down the monster so the player has a chance to hide? The possibilities of what to do are endless because many things are interactable in the game. It's almost like a modern day Myst. It's a 3D environment, but the player is experiencing the world, and trying to figure out what is going on with the character they are playing as. Very interesting stuff.

The name of the game is Amnesia: The Dark Descent and I hope to be frightened by it more when I play it again. I forgot to mention that the game has a very large horror vibe to it. It really plays on the "your own imagination is your worst enemy" and I really enjoy that type of fear. Especially since I do it to my self all the time. I just thought I would share my thoughts on the game. It's great, so far, and I hope to continue enjoying it!

Successful Prototype presentation!


We made it! Our prototype is amazing, and we were actually told by the game teacher that the game we're working is the best he's ever seen at the prototype stage! Wow! That is a really big compliment. The game was graded in 5 categories, each of them having a grade from 1 to 11, and our game received 3 11s and 2 10s! It's the highest we've had so far, and our game will only get better. We were also told that our game is getting close to being considered a mini-triple-A title.

We still have a lot to go to reach the polish that a triple-A game has though, and that is the stage that our team is in. Polishing the game. All we have to do now is tweak values, and experiment with different ideas for the game. First polish though. Then we'll experiment with the game, and see if we can find some more interesting gameplay.

I'll be sure to post a video of the game as soon as possible to show how far we've come since our summer tech demo. Thanks for reading, I'll try to keep you posted on any new developments!

Friday, October 22, 2010

Prototype is coming soon!


We're preparing for our prototype milestone next week! It's only going to get more and more hectic as we get closer. There are so many things that need to get done for this milestone. We basically need to prove that we have all of the basic functionality in for the core game. What this means for our game is that our car needs to be able to boost, glide, and jump, oh ya, it needs to go extremely fast as well. Everything is truly aesthetics.

What this means for me specifically, is that I need to finish up the game design document(GDD) and I need to build a level for the game. It's going to have to be in boxes, rather than our road pieces, and this is due to the fact that our physics programmer is working on triangle collision, which is some pretty nasty stuff I might add. On the side, I also need to find sounds for our game, and we have someone who is actually creating a music track for us! This is awesome because now we don't have to make music, which would probably turn out horrible anyways if we were even to try. I've also been drawing up concepts for our modeler/graphics programmer to have an idea of what each obstacle should look like in the game. That's it for now, thanks for reading, and I'll keep you updated on anything new that comes up!

Monday, October 18, 2010

More and more work


That's all there is to it. Our entire team is still working hard to get our game to a prototyping phase. The physics engine is having an overhaul to all of its systems, and just about everything else is being improved. Other things are just being implemented as well, such as the camera system, and lua scripting.

Game design is still in a flux, since I'm not quite sure about how to portray some things on-screen to the player. Because of this, I may have to change how the car ability mechanics work. I had the idea to have the car abilities on cool downs, but it may be too complicated to have the player tracking multiple cooldowns. Especially since the game is meant to be fast paced. The interface needs to be minimal and streamlined to be easily read and understood.

For prototype I'll be working on a song, the GDD, and a level for the game. Still not sure about the song, I'll have to tinker with the sound application I have. The GDD is roughly 13 pages right now, and there is still more to write about. I'm hoping to have it clear and concise for the programmers to read quickly and understand fully what they need to implement. Most of the explanations for why they have to do something will be in the appendix rather than the original explanation for them. I'll keep updating this blog, whenever something new comes up.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Engine Proof Presentation


Nitronic's, the team I'm on, engine proof presentation went very well. I'm pretty sure that we stunned a few people as to where we were with the game, and where we planned to go. We are very close to having a prototype of the game up and running, and we're only 5 weeks into the semester. Granted, we did work on the game over the summer, and it is most definitely why we are as far as we are, but we still have a lot to do to get to first playable. We need to get the physics to feel right for the car, and we need to improve the level editor so we can quickly prototype levels. All this is going well, and hopefully we'll be able to prototype levels soon.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Update


With the mention of making a game that is an interactive poem from my teacher for GAM 302, I came up with a concept for our game that would be in the vein of a poem. The player is a spark, they are essentially the "spark of life" and they are giving the world light where there is none. In fact, they are within a computer system that has been dead for a long period of time, and the player is bringing it back to life. More systems come on as the player goes through the game. Throughout the game the player will receive hints as to what happened previously; how the computer stopped working, or went out of use. That's the basic idea of the game.

Gameplay will be more puzzle-esque, and platform-based. The experience I want the player to have would be death in the beginning and life at the end. Sort of an opposite way of thinking, but it could be a profound experience for the player. Granted, I highly doubt my team will switch over to this idea, we are going with our current idea, especially since it is sound, and we already have a bit of the technology up and running. But, this could be a good fall back idea.

This is my third idea, and I actually just came up with it no more than a few minutes ago. Other than the idea, I have to create music for our game, I experimented with the sound program that I will be using and it seems pretty crazy, but I think I'll cope. Especially since I know some talented people to look to for help. Not much else to say about the development of our game. Our graphics programmer has created a texture that looks like a cityscape, and it looks like there are particles moving all over the place, but technically speaking they are not particles, which is really cool.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Playtest meeting

We play tested a prototype that was created for our game, and the results were pleasing to say the least. Players enjoyed the game to a very high degree. Many enjoyed the flying mechanic of the car, and because of this it will probably become our core mechanic (I already had an idea that it would). The main thing that players were having trouble with was the controls when it came to flying. I knew this was going to be an issue, especially since the controls were based off the center of the car. The left joystick controlled spinning, which is completely unintuitive, and the right joystick controlled the camera. So, the only way to move around while flying was to rotate the car and then pull down on the joystick to go up.

Obviously it was just a prototype and our real game's controls will be much better. I'm glad that the overall feedback was favorable to our game idea. Players also enjoyed the other mechanics, and some even said that we don't need to add anything else, the game is good as it is. One person did give a pretty good idea about wall gripping though. I'm thinking about the idea, and it sounds like it really could be fun. You know, driving up the sides of buildings and such when the player has the wall grip ability, stuff like that.

In this same meeting, our team setup what we wanted to finish for our engine proof in week five. It basically dwindled down to getting physics implemented to the point of being able to have a car be able to drive around and go up hills. We also wanted to get a true level into the game. Basically a level that is created by me, which requires a level editor. Another thing that was speculated, and something that I am working on personally is original music for the game composed by me, and my producer. We'll see how that goes. Not much else to say, thanks for reading! I'll keep you posted on any new updates.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Meeting update

Today I had a meeting with my team. We went over the usual stuff, how everyone is feeling and what we've finished over the week. We also spoke of some things that we need to get done, such as the level editor. The team I'm on kicked around the idea of having the editor within blender, it seems sound, and it will be much less coding on the programmer's part since all of the editing is pretty much in place. I also proposed two fall back game ideas to my team. One of them stuck. The other was too close to our core game idea, so I have to come up with another, which is probably what I will be doing in the coming future.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

First Post!

Currently, I just finished a video that I was cutting up for my game team. We're called "Team Nitronic". Here's the video


Everything that is in the video was created from the ground up, excluding the music. That is from OCremix. Good game music site by the way. Other than the video I've also been designing the game. Our idea right now is to have a driving game where the player is trying to get through the level. Within the level there will be obstacles, such as walls, blocks, and a changing track. Jumps will also be in the level. I want to have the jumps send the player really high into the air to give a sense of flying. Especially since we plan to give our car wings. There will also be massive downhills.

The player will have powerups as well. Powerups include, hopping, boost, and gliding. The art style for the game is actually going to be similar to Tron, neon lighting and such. I plan to have the track notify the player what is coming up. I'm doing this because I want gameplay to be so fast that it is a requirement to have the notifications. We'll see how that goes. I'll have to play-test it to see how well players adapt to the mechanic.

We plan to play-test our game very soon. We're going to focus on controls for the first few play-tests to get them down. Controls are very important when it comes to a driving game. Also, when I say controls I don't just mean the controller layont. I'm talking about the feel of the controls, how well they correlate to what is going on screen, and the feedback that the controller gives to the player.
Thanks for reading, I'll do updates at least once a week.