Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Information Overload - Progress Report

First off, forgive me for the HUMONGOUS wall of text which has just been posted, I've been a bit slack with the blog lately so this is just me playing catch up. A quick summary of what I've posted, they're all appropriately named so you should have no trouble finding what you're looking for:
Character Profiles, Descriptions for:
  • Abubu
  • Captain Beast
  • Professor Wulf
  • Geppetto

Settings have also been anounced and described

Lastly, I've done a quick mock up of our targeted audience and then given reasons for why we have chosen said audience.

Since blogger has kinda stuffed up right now, and is adding in extra lines everytime I push enter, I think that'll be it from me for now. As always feel free to comment, and you'll be hearing from me soon.

Dave

Target Market

Target Market
The audience that will be targeted by this product will be males, it should be noted that female game players are on the rise however, they are still the minority at this point and the game would be at a financial disadvantage if it were to aim at them, as we would not be capitalizing on the current market.

The average age of the focused demographic will be 15 – 40 years of age, who play computer games on a casual basis, somewhere between 2 and 7 hours a week. Research indicates that the average age of game players in the United States is getting older (it currently sits at 35). The game should be designed in a way to appeal to a broad age group, namely 15-40. By assuming that they are casual gamers the game can be tailored difficulty wise to suit the people within this grouping.

The audience will be capable of reading and spelling at a 5th grade standard. Unfortunately, this game is for entertainment purposes and therefore it won’t be suited, nor will it be promoted, to those who have any disability which may infringe upon their play experience.

This game will target the Australian market, and in particular those who are within the middle class. The Australian market is targeted because of its proximity and being that this is our first game release, we want to establish that the game is successful and marketable before off-shoring it to other countries. Other countries that could see deployment in the future include:

It is assumed they have a medium length attention span, and enjoy having their mind challenged and are expected to handle a medium amount of stress. Naming these properties about our audience again correlates to the challenges we will be able to design throughout the levels. It gives the designer a clear understanding of what is expected not only of the game, but of the audience as well.

Settings

Settings
The game will take place in a city environment where all of the settings involved in game will revolve around this one tormented city. Ultimately it will be broken up into three entirely unique settings: Ground, Crazy World, and Paradise. The setting the player finds themselves will be determined by their altitude. The Paradise will be at the highest level, Crazy World will be in the middle, and Ground will be street level.

Ground
The Ground setting is where the majority of the game lies, as it will show the decrepit state of the city. The setting itself is means to creating motivation for the player as their goal is to restore the city to its once beautiful state.

Description
The sky, replaced with a velvet fog that blanketed the city, blocking out the light. Every now and then a gleam of light would shine through only to be eaten by the monstrous fog. The main source of light came from the warm glow of the street lamps which would illuminate the remains of a once populated city. Now the streets were littered with unread newspapers from a day that everyone wished they had forgotten, and cars abandoned because they drew too much attention.

Every block or so there would be rubble where once a great sky scraper stood. The sight of this place is enough to send a man into shock. The destruction, the complete abandonment, it was frightful. There was eerie silence that screamed that something horrible had happened, this was only disturbed by the clanking of metallic feet from robot patrols.

Scenario: The player starts off in the city on the ground, they move through the street fighting enemies as they go. After seeing no other alternative they are’ forced’ to flee upwards towards the fog, they keep heading upwards until they reach the Crazy World.

Crazy World
The Crazy World will be shown only when the player character inhales the gas, and therefore, making them crazy. It is going for a completely abstract feel and is really trying to put the player off balance by playing with their perception.

Description
Thick layers of fog sandwich this twisted world in between. A world full of bizarre out of place floating rocks, which travel through the buildings like cars caught in rush hour (they act as platforms), and contorted upside-down buildings built from the sky downward towards the ground.

The strangest of all was the abstract carnival rides which popped up all over the place, a slide that exited one building and circles around several others draw the attention of some who visit. But the main attraction is the large and distorted Ferris Wheel that over shadowed the upside down city.

Some of the buildings contort themselves mid structure, some grew and shrink in width, while others rotate at impossible angles and zigzag through the streets. As always in between these are carnival rides and floating rocks which range from being the size of an eye ball to the size of bus.

Colourwise it’s a magnificent mix-match rainbow, with the most bizarre colours imaginable. So much so that it looks like a finger painting from a young Picasso.
Scenario: The player first arrives here on the roof a building, which they immediately fall onto a floating rock, from here they can observe the twisted world that it is, they then jump through a window and land in building inside they descend down three levels where the room opens up. They go across and have to jump onto the ‘roof’ of this building (Imagine it as an L – So far they entered in the long downward stroke and now standing on top of the short horizontal stroke).

They run along this roof and jump off into another building, as they enter the building transforms into a haunted house – scary and the likes. They make their way up through this building until they get out of the fog once more.

Paradise
Paradise, as mentioned above, is activated only when the player is on top of the tallest buildings within the city. This setting is meant to strike awe into the player since it is a complete contrast to the other two settings.

Paradise is the safe haven for all who visit, it’s where the cloud and the robots dare not to reach and sun shines down upon all and welcomes them to its light. Plants and animals flourish in this environment on the top of the tallest buildings. The most impressive feature about the paradise is the brightness of the sun and the warmth that it brings. It’s the only place in this city that the people can live in peace and harmony unaffected by the gas.
Scenario: Player jumping from rooftop to rough top, crossing over beams which serve as bridges between the buildings. The player finds themselves in a rooftop jungle looking for the rebel base camp, and then has to gain access to it through the means of a puzzle.

New Character: Geppetto

Geppetto
Relation to Player: Geppetto is a friendly, but blundering, engineer who always manages to get caught by the robots. It will be up to the player to free him from his mechanical captors, again and again, and again.
Relevance in Name: Geppetto while smart as an engineer is weak and brittle bodied, thus an appropriate character to represent him in the fairy tale world would be Geppetto who is Pinocchio’s grandfather in the early editions of the story.

Profile
Gender: Male
Age: 26
Look: A portly character whose backside is bigger than his head, and has small feet. His face is a collage of piggish features.
Apparel: On his face he has a pair of glasses which rest on the tip of his nose, while most of his body is covered in his lab coat, with the exception of his green and gold boxer shorts which can be seen from time to time.

Back Story
Geppetto once worked alongside Professor Wulf and is probably the reason his funding got revoked. As while Geppetto is a great engineer, he’s horrible at every other aspect of life. It was on the day the robots attacked that he decided that the best place to hide was in his fridge, the only drawback was that he got way too cold and started to dance to keep his temperature up – it was a good idea at the time. Little to say the robots were attracted to the noise coming from inside, and instead of opening it up, they just took the entire fridge back to their base. When Geppetto finally opened the door another door shut, and he going to get this door open on his own.

New Character: Professor Wulf

Professor Wulf
Relation to Player: The main antagonist, it is the objective of the game to subdue Professor Wulf and stop his evil scheme of polluting the world with crazy gas.
Relevance in Name: Like in the story of Red Riding Hood, the arch enemy is a wolf, only this time he’s a Wulf and not an actual wolf.

Profile
Gender: Male
Age: 43
Look: A very large robot, a third of the size of two story building that takes the rough form of wolf. On the top of his head he has a glass bowl where his brain is kept.
Apparel: None he’s a robot.

Back StoryIt all started when a professor, Moriarty Wulf, combined his hungering greed with obsession, he had been working on a way to create artificial intelligence for the army, but having no success. So much so, that the government was about to stop funding. Frustrated, he was pushed to the edge and in his madness he decided to do something unpredictable, instead of creating artificial intelligence, he used his own –putting his brain inside a machine. Although the operation was a success, the government halted their funding claiming that this professor was insane. Defeated, humiliated, the professor went into hiding, and that was the last anyone had seen of the Wulf.It wasn’t until ten years later, when professor wulf stepped out of the shadows, that the military could see the full realised potential of his ideas. As the Wulf was no longer alone, with him was an army of robots! And so the war began, it was an even fight for the most part but Wulf was more of a tactician than one to try brute force and poisoned the one thing humanity could not live without – air. Though it was a unique poison, one that didn’t kill people, instead it drove them mad.

New Character: Captain Beast

Captain Beast
Relation to Player: Captain Beast is the leader of the small resistance force, it is upon his order that the player must infiltrate Professor Wulf’s hide out, and ultimately save the day.
Relevance in Name: This character is a representative of the Beast from ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ whilst the name isn’t as convoluted as the others it does have a certain amount of appeal.

Profile
Gender: Male
Age: 38
Look: Tall, large muscular body, very hairy, stern eyes, large chin.
Apparel: The Captain wears his deep blue army uniform, which he keeps in pristine condition, the front pocket is weighed down heavily with medals won, and both legs are tightly wrapped in plaster.

Back Story
Someone from Mr Beast’s family has fought in every war known to man, so when the evil professor begun this war he knew that his day of reckoning had finally arrived. It is said that during the first battle he carelessly threw himself into a regiment of two hundred robots while his platoon escaped, as the platoon drove off one of the men saw him fall under a pile of metallic soldiers. A week later, Mr Beast returned hobbling back to headquarters, bruised and bleeding he looked up at the sentry and said in his deep manly voice “What’s for dinner?” before he collapsed in a heap.

It took him three weeks to recover and be promoted to the rank of Captain. This feat of his was so great that they decided to hold a ceremony in his honour, this would be his undoing. After he graciously accepted his medal and walked off stage he tripped, breaking both of his legs. So he is doing what he can for the rebels from the comfort of the base, not his call – he is still dying to get out and unleash mayhem upon the robots.

New Character: Abubu

Abubu
Relation to Player: Abubu is Rouge’s friend – a friendship forged in the heat of battle, as such they are part of the same resistance group fighting against the evil Professor Wulf and his robotic minions. His role is to guide the player to the resistance headquarters.
Relevance in Name: Abubu’s character is based off the fictional character Aladdin, the name itself is the pseudo name Aladdin gives himself in Walt Disney’s version of the tale.

Profile
Gender: Male
Age: 18
Look: Tall and skinny, although some parts have bulges of muscle (i.e. arms and legs), a long oval face to match his body. His eyes are somewhat absent and mysterious, his hair is wild and rugged, and stubble covers his face.
Apparel: A rugged grey mantle covers his shoulders. His dark green shirt is ripped and torn flashing areas of damaged skin. While the remnants of his white pants sagged down and puffed out around his calves.

Back Story
Abubu lived in the poor part of the city, where he struggled to survive. It was one of the many areas targeted by the evil Professor for bombing raids. He remembers seeing the bomb falling outside his window the red and black stripes which ran around the front stained into his memory, and then he remembers the heat, after that it goes fuzzy. He remembers waking up, and pulling himself free from the rubble. A mother and child stood still and watched in silence as he tried to stand up, the child looked at him “Look a boo boo” he said pointing at the wounded figure as it collapsed upon the rubble.

That’s all he can remember, the next time he woke up he found himself within the resistance stronghold with his wounds fully bandaged and a nurse looking over him.
“Where am?”
“At the Skyland the resistance headquarters, what’s your name?”
“I think it’s Abubu, I can’t remember”

Ever since then Abubu has living the life of a survivor, helping the resistance in any way that he can.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Schedule

For the meeting on wednesday the 22nd of April we discussed a timeline which we wish to follow in order to complete the prototype within the time provided. The results of this meeting is below.




Dave

Character: Rouge

Rouge
Relation to Player: Rouge is the main protagonist. As such she will be the character that the player will control as throughout the game.
Relevance in Name: Rouge is French for red which is the colour of the cape she wears, as she is a portrayal of a modern day Red Riding Hood character.

Profile
Gender: Female
Age: 14
Look: Short, and stubby with a bigger than average sized head. The rest of her body will be gowned in the signature red cape of the fictional character.
Apparel: A long red cape that shines with a brightest which seems unlikely within such a torn up world, the hood of this cape casts a shadow across her face showing only the murderous intent beaming from her eyes and her wickedly evil Cheshire grin. Under her cloak which dominates her features, was a pristine white shirt, now it’s tattered and stained like her deep blue pants.

Back Story
Rouge’s parents were amoungst the first to be captured by Professor Wulf’s army. She has spent the last three months scouring the war-torn city in a desperate attempt to find her family. In her journey she made friends with the resistance forces. There was one day that she was so frustrated with the hunt that she slipped, she tried to take on a patrol of robots – a few too many and when she killed one, another one took its place, and soon enough she was backed into a corner.

Nowhere to run she pulled her crimson hood over her head, casting a shadow over her features. The robots were drawing ever closer. As their clumsy metallic feet crawled over the rubble all the sounds of the world had been drowned out. Now within a meter, they reached out their cold iron hands. Her head was bowed, ready to give in; she was suffocating in her own despair. Closer they reached; she could feel the coolness of their arms grabbing at hers, wrapping their long fingers around her and dragging her off to an encampment. It was hopeless nothing could stop them now.

But something did stop them, it wasn’t a bullet, or explosion, or anything of the sort. No, it was a laugh – the laugh of this little girl surrounded by seven deadly robots. A laugh that cut through the air like a knife, the robots stopped out of curiosity, the closest one turned its head to side. “One one zero?”

The last numbers it said. The girls cloak flew open, revealing her power glove, and with one swift movement the robots head was in orbit. The robots started to react, but they were too slow. The girl was small and nimble, she leaped over the head of another robot, her arm outstretched she grabbed hold of its face and as she fell the wires holding it on began to break and electric sparks filled the air. Five left. She turned and quickly dispatched another with a swift punch to its middle. One robot turned and fired a grappling hook at her. She reacted. Dodging it by half an inch, she watched as it sailed past her eyes and into the eyes of another enemy. She grabbed hold of the rope, pulling it ferociously towards her - the rope came, along with a robot. Rouge roared back and with a mighty punch she turned this robot into a junk pile.

She turned again, looking for the last two, nowhere to be found. Cold arms swiftly wrapped around her, restricting her movements. Rouge had been caught. She struggled to get free, but to no avail. Once the robots were confident they had her secured they turned around and started to head towards the main road. The fight was over.

BANG! BANG! The two robots stopped, and did not move again. Rouge busted her way out of the arms of her captor and looked around.
“Up here” A voice called from above. She looked up, it was her friend Abubu. “Just on time,” he said.“Late as usual,” Rouge replied. It was then and there that Rouge decided that she had spent enough time on her own, and being alone will only lead in her demise.

And we're back

There were no updates last week being that it was a class free week (or mid term break) and contact was very limited due to people going away and the likes. So today was the first time we have met since tuesday two weeks ago.

Here's a basic update of our progress:
Josh: Has worked on a very neat looking prototype level, although at the moment it's just using alot of half life 2 graphics, weapons, and effects. The level itself is quite fun to play, and will really be enjoyable once we have our own weapons, graphics and effects as well.

Ben: Ben is own weapons expert... No really. He's been working on how to implement weapons into the game, although having no luck with our polarisation gun - which we may have to ditch (In the event of this we may have to make it more action-y and less puzzle base).

Adam: He's been bogged down with other assignments so he's had little to time help us, although he's worked a bit on the tech. spec. document.

Amy: Amy has been working on implementing models.

Dave (That's me): I've been working on the game design doc, currently finishing off the character section. I do admit I got carried away a bit with the stories, but I think that they give everyone an idea about the characters themselves.

Well that's all for now, I'll post up a character in just a few minutes.
Dave

Monday, April 6, 2009

3rd Person Camera prototype




Prototype Level Design

Prototype Level Concept Screens








Weapons

In this game we wanted to take an objective look at the third person shooter genre and come up with a new unique ( :P ) approach to the combat system. The weapons we have come up with so far are listed below. It is easy to note that most of these weapons are designed for a puzzle based game, which is essentially what this game is becoming (more and more each day). However, it is my personal opinion and something I'll be pushing for is incorporating a very generic gun, so when the puzzle doesn't work out the player will still be able to manage albeit being harder. The resoning for this is that it will take out alot of the trial & error which most puzzle games fall victim too.

Another thing that we would like to see happen is a leveling system with the weapons, so if you consistently use the same weapon it gets better. This idea is about giving the players something to aim for on top of challenges and objectives we give them.

This info comes straight from our forums, posted by Josh.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Power Glove
Melee Weapon
First weapon Scarlet is given in the game.

Magnetic generator powers the power glove
Used to electrocute robots and stun them
Pull metallic item to scarlet and pick up, fire away that item
Jumpstart electrical equipment
Power Glove Use:
LMB Click to punch
LMB HOLD to build up energy LMB RELEASE unleash built up energy in mega punch
Optional: RMB pull metallic item closer and hold. RMB again fire metallic item away.

Scenario: Scarlet is confronted with a patrol bot stopping her from passing through. She uses her magnetic power to pull a piece of metallic junk to her then fires it off at the bot. Bot is unfazed by Scarlets attempt at stopping it. She then runs at the bot, charging up a punch and unleashes on the bot, paralysing him for a moment.

Scarlet runs past only to now be confronted with a large gate. The gates activation switch has been destroyed. She needs a way to power up the gate to open. Scarlet then punches the gate switch giving it the electric charge it needs to open and she passes through victorious.

Virus Pistol
Stealth Weapon
Second Weapon acquired by Scarlet
Pistol fires viruses at enemy
Gun may be upgraded with new viruses

Used to stun robots for a period of 5 secs – upload time 3 secs
~ ~ destroy robots friendly fire recognition – upload time 3 secs
~ ~ format robots mind and re programme it to aid Scarlet. – upload time 4 secs

Scenario:
Scarlet sneaks up on two un-suspecting flying robots patrolling an area. Around the corner a whole battalion wait to attack a resistance stronghold. Scarlet must get past the flying bots without alerting the battalion around the corner. She equips her virus taser gun and sets it to stun.

Piew Piew both droids are momentarily stunned. Scarlet makes a dash for it past the droids around the corner and hides behind a crate. Warily she takes aim at a droid in the very centre of the battalion and sets her taser to the anti friendly fire mode. She fires off a couple shots into the crowd of battle bots. Instantly the effected bots start firing wildly at the other robots. All bots retaliate at these infected bots but some bots accidently miss and hit their comrades. This causes them to fire back in retaliation. After a very confusing battle with them selves a whole battalion of bots lay in pieces as Scarlet skip’s across the court yard and beyond.

Pistol Use:LMB HOLD on target to upload virus

Polarisation Gun
Main environment manipulation gun
Polarizes metallic objects turning them into magnets.
Used to:Solve puzzles by using magnetic physics Defeat enemies by turning them into magnets
Gun Use:LMB to + PolarizeRMB to –

PolarizeScenario:
Scarlet is on the run from ninja bots, they are closing in on her fast. She runs down the corridor towards a window, she dives through it turning around in mid air and taking aim, fires her polarizer gun at the two bots. Positively charging one and negatively charging the other. Both bots immediately are magnetically drawn together and explode.Scarlet burst through the window of the adjacent window in the next building.

The room was quite odd. A massive void lay before Scarlet with metal plates at the bottom of the void. Scarlet + charges all of the plates, they leap up off the ground and hover at the level of where Scarlet is standing. The bottom of the void is a giant magnet + charged. The Metal plates are at a perfect equilibrium of gravity forcing the plates down and the opposing magnetic force pushing up. Scarlet stepped on the first metal plate and found it wavered under her weight but it held. She had confidence to continue leaping from one plate to another until she reached the other side of the void.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Concept Art

Just a quick update, here are some concept art pictures done by our level designer Josh to explain the challenges the player will face in the first level.




Starting to look yummy :D. Another update coming soon.
Dave

Friday, April 3, 2009

Let the level design BEGIN!

Our original idea was to make the sanity/insanity of the player's character become a major feature of game play. However, this was deemed too much work for use to do during the lifetime of this project.... NUTS! Though, we have now discussed a way around this, and that's through the use of great level design.

Whilst the game is going to be quite linear (booo), we're going to make it quite vertical as well, where the players will have to climb buildings, both inside and out. To make this even more exciting we've created atmosphere levels, below the gas, the gas, and above the gas, each with a different environment. Below the gas will be very industrial and poluted, in the gas will be crazy (currently diliberating how crazy - possibly a theme park within the city), then finally there will be above the gas, which will be very natural - almost like a forest.

Diagram of this to be uploaded soon.

I'll keep endeavouring to get up to date with all the goss as we start heading towards our prototype.

Dave

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

The Look

We are aiming to have a unique look, where the bodies are weird shaped, and it has a cartoony feel about it. Although it is an oxymoron, we want it serious and not serious at the same time. Hopefully it will look somewhere between the Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy: And Psychonauts:

Back Story

This is the backstory so far, to explain what the state of the world is in, who is the bad guy and why he is bad. Whilst I personally wanted some mega awesome story for the game where the line between good and bad is blurred, however, to do this would be to go way out of our scope and would fall outside the skillset of the rest of the team. Which, in the end, would take away from the game, and the story, itself.

Once upon a time, in a world not dissimilar to your own, there was a terrible war between man and machine. It all started when a professor, Moriarty Wulf, combined his hungering greed with a dangerous obssesion. He had been working on a way to create artificial intelligence for the army, but having no success. So much so, that the government was about to stop funding.

Frustrated, he was pushed to the edge and in his madness he decided to do something unpredictable, instead of creating artificial intelligence, he used his own –putting his brain inside a machine. Theoperation was a success, none the less, the government halted their funding claiming that this professor was insane. Defeated, humilated, the professor went into hiding, and that was the last anyone had seen of the Wulf.

It wasn’t until ten years later, when professor wulf stepped out of the shadows, that the military could see the full realised potential of his ideas. As the Wulf was no longer alone, with him was an army of robots! And so the war began, it was an even fight for the most part but Wulf was more of a tactician than one to try brute force and poisoned the one thing humanity could not live without – air. Though it was a unique poison, one that didn’t kill people, instead it drove them mad. The war was almost loss, with most people having evacuated or been captured, few remained to fight. Those who did banded together as guerilla soldiers in their own city.This is where our story begins….

3rd Person Camera

For this game we've chosen the third person camera for two reasons:

1. It suits the game genre alot better, allowing the player to see more than if they were in first person - which they will need to do before the end.

2. It encourages the player to follow the story, rather then their own abition, although they might find this constricting. It is but a minor flaw it what will be a great game.

Dave