Personal Reference Note

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--- Note: This is just a personal list of reference ideas I've found various places, none belong to me. All rights go to their respective owners. ---

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Video Clips:

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Kinetic Typography



What Program to Use

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Links:
Raising Your Profile as an Artist
Introduction to Fluid Simulation
Tangled Clip Progression Album
Make Your Own Magazine
Lightwave Tutorials
Working with the Video Sequence Editor
Matte Painting Example

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Programs:
Flame Painting
Autodesk Maya 2011 -- Free Legal Student Edition 3 Year Licence by Autodesk
Blender Download
25 Free 3D Modeling Apps Your Shouldn't Miss

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Just for Fun:
Funny Animal Clip
"Every" Anime Opening Ever Made
Cartooning Socioeconomic Problems

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Search Keywords:

ASCII Art-----Animation-----Computer Animation-----CG tutorials-----Stop Motion Animation-----Claymation-----2d Animation-----Traditional Animation

Note: CG is an abbreviation for Computer Graphics.

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The Beginning Finalé

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Game Overview!

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Download the full low quality version here!
Download the full high resolution version here!

^ Files hosted by Mediafire

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Characters

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Homework 20: Balancing, Story, & Indirect Control ---> The End is just the Beginning

Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see." - C.S. Lewis

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- Q1:
What is the relationship between the main character and the goal.
~ A1: The main character of our game is Ro, an odd, otherworldly being captured by lab scientists for experimentation. His main goal is to escape the laboratory he was captured into by whatever means necessary. The original idea for our game was that Ro would quest thru different levels in a side-scrolling platform game to discover objects that would lead to his freedom while maintaining his heal via energy bottles which sustain him from becoming overwhelmed by delusions in his misguided states. Another idea we had was for the character to find his Mom at the end of the game but we decided coming across a final boss, the leader of the laboratory organization would be more interesting.

In our game's current state, the main goal is to clear as many levels as possible utilizing Ro's various forms to escape towards the end goal, which would be his home planet or wherever he was native to escape a life of imprisonment. We had to simplify the game greatly due to time constraints.

- Q2: What obstacles must the character overcome to reach the goal.
~ A2: Our game involves defeating, avoiding, and tactically outsmarting enemies despite an overall weaker character in comparison to overall enemy strength. The player will need to travel through different laboratory confines in order to get to the final destination and escape the lab. In our current gameplay, the user just plays to defeat enemies and endure further into the game with increasing enemy barrages.

- Q3: Do the obstacles increase in difficulty (if more than once)
~ A3: Yes, the obstacles of Ro, the lab scientists you fight to escape increase in difficulty as the player progresses thru the stages. The further in the game, the greater the skill of the enemies and the greater skill is needed to progress further in the game.

- Q4: Does the protagonist transform in some way throughout the game? If so, how?
~ A4: Our protagonist transforms into three states throughout the game, a light, normal, and heavy form. Each form has different abilities and personalities. Since our main character is known from a history of disease and faces conflict with delusions, his other states are an embodiment of those illusions. In reality, Ro has only one form, his normal state but is separated into different states of mind and in our game, these states of mind also transform him into different states of being, his light and heavy forms.

In the current state of our game, the player can choose when to transform Ro into the three states but originally we were planning on him collecting items to retain the states and from that we could have had him only be able to transform when a meter for each form other than his normal state was filled as a bonus ability instead of a standard ability for the player.

The normal state has relatively balanced stats for combat, the light form is more evasive, and the heavy form has the greatest defense but overall, all forms are on average weaker than the opponents causing the player to think carefully what form to defeat each enemy.

- Q5: How is the game world simpler than the real world?
~ A5: Our game's world is greatly simplified from the real world because we assume there are no aliens, or otherworldly beings, and if there were, their capture would not be done by lab scientists.

We would probably assume that we cannot judge an "alien's" intentions and therefore must take action against them to protect ourselves so we might sent in a special CIA/FBI team to investigate their presence. Rarely do we ever deal with things so directly when they are unfamiliar to us. For example, for many years we have thought other forms of life may exist, how do we search for an answer right now? Technology mostly, not barrages of lab scientists bent on toppling every living thing for "knowledge." Looks can be deceiving though, sometimes the most detailed answer is found in the simplest of places and forms and those simple forms can create a great game.

- Q6: Does the player ever get transcendent power? How could that be achieved without removing challenge from the game?
~ A6: No, the player can only switch between forms. They cannot take the form of an all controlling being without manipulating the game for purposes other than it was intended. The player could given such powers with some game manipulations to cause infinite health, infinite strength in all areas, or if the enemies we treated as punching bags, where any damage would destroy them while they could be rendered to have no offensive or defensive abilities.

- Q7: What is the weirdest element in your game/story? (as opposed to surprises)
~ A7: The weirdest element of Team 1's game is the use of a character who is delusional and those delusions manifest into three different states of being. The concept of a character's mental conditions transforming their physical state really has not been done in virtually any game I can think of. There have been many transformation games but almost all involve the use of power-ups or temporary transformations from a magic of some kind. I think this idea is very original and could be taken a long way, especially with cut scenes(short breakaway videos which take the player to a scene furthering the storyline of the game) to immerse the player in the story further so they understand the character they are playing as and their true goal in the game.

- Q8: If your game does not have a story, would it be better served with one?
~ A8: Our game does have a story but it could be better defined. Our player's history causes a player to be more immersed in the game by better understanding the character's situation and point of view.

- Q9: If your game has a story, would it be better serve without one?
~ A9: I think our game would be deteriorated without the storyline, true it would appeal just from raw "button mashing" fun but without the story, the player would become lost why they are playing the game at all other than to beat each level.

- Q10: What forms of control on the player does your game exert (direct or indirect).
~ A10: We have direct control over the character making contact with the lab scientists because both will come towards each other even if the player does nothing. Indirectly the player is controlled to used all three forms of the character to get through levels more quickly and to find the final escape battle.

- Q11: Address control (in your game) through: Goals, Interface, Visual Design, Characters, Music, and Collusion.
~ A11:

Goals: The only controls our game offers from goals is the approaching and eventual defeat or battle with enemies.
Interface: Our game interface causes the player to choose from a variety of options (Play, Help, etc) which manipulates the player to do only selected actions available.
Visual Design: Our game's 2d background encourages the player to keep traveling forward, the direction of the final goal.
Characters: The characters lead the player to be controlled by their surroundings. Since the player is set in the place of an escaping delusional being, they are somewhat of the underdog of the story by default.
Music: Currently our game does not have any music. If our game had music it would be somewhat mysterious and paced according to how the character is supposed to move. For example, when there are large amounts of enemies programmed, the music would be faster to encourage the player to move more quickly instead of lingering behind and becoming defeated causing a game over.
Collusion: Ro's sense of collusion is that indirectly the player fights enemies for an immediate goal, to pass further in the game while also learning more about Ro's various states which in the end could have the goal of combining to one superpower, normal state cured of delusions which involves putting together the pieces of Ro's conscious by better understanding the aspects of his delusional light and heavy forms.

- Q12: Suggest a change to your game that would involve each of the 6 elements above (of course, you will not implement these).
~ A12:

Goals: If our game had more defined goals it would help balance our game's interest curve. We could do this by creating different levels each with different goals, the player would have to defeat enemies in every level but the tactics to defeat them would change every time. With each conquered level, Ro could gain a piece to his normal self, weakening the two delusion formed counterparts.
Interface: The interface could be more interactive. We could just have three buttons on the main menu, Play, Help, and Quit and the help menu would be very basic. Meanwhile we could mark the in game elements and the user could mouse over them from more information while playing so no pop-up menu would be necessary.
Visual Design: Short 10-15 second cut scenes could immerse the player in our game more, the could happen before each level start to give players a vague idea of what they are supposed to do.
Characters: The characters and enemies of our game could be controlled further by random transformations from laboratory chemical mixture explosions. These transformations could be for better or worse on both sides.
Music: A soft mysterious song in the introduction could create interest in our game. A different sound could be played when the player moused over each menu option. In gameplay, the music would vary by level to give the user a more emotive feel that they are getting further in the game, with patterns of faster and slower rhythms.
Collusion: Another way to guide the player thru the game in various ways would be to show small but distinct paths to follow thru each level in the textured surroundings. These paths could also be manipulated to guide the player in the wrong direction so the player would have to be wary of trusting them completely.

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Image Copyright Note: The image above was from one of the projects I did in Drawing II. ; )

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Homework 19: The Balancing Act

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- Q1: What elements of balance are you using in your game? How is skill balanced against knowledge/thinking?
~ A1: The most important elements of balance in our game are the ability to switch between characters, having various enemies as challengers, and simple but interesting contexts to play in. Skill is balanced against knowledge by the ability to clear levels more quickly as time passes.

- Q2: Do you have an economy. Please explain? How is it balanced?
~ A2: No, Ro does not involve an economy. It was too complex to add given the time frame. It doesn't have a sense of balance because we do not have one.

- Q3: How do you control boredom versus frustration curve?
~ A3: Players will feel accomplish when getting further in our game with the difficulty of enemies and the challenge of using different skills from Ro's forms.

- Q4: Are there quantitative elements in the game (scores, hits, health, et.) How are they monitored?
~ A4: We are planning on having a scoring system where player receives points for defeating enemies, the points are gained exponentially throughout the game as well as a life system where the player will have to restart after three lives. Players lose a life when a health meter goes to zero. The health meter is affected by enemy attacks where certain attacks cause more or less damage in different forms.


- Q5: What kinds of reward system or punishment are included in the game?
~ Q5: Players are rewarded for understanding both Ro's forms and the enemies abilities and punished for the lack of that knowledge with damage to their health.

- Q6: How simple or complex is your game? Explain.
~ Q6: Our game is very simple but it should still interest players on a basic level because of the image complexity.

- Q7: How long would you expect your game to last assuming all levels were constructed. Explain why this is good.
- Q8: I would guess our game would run about 5 minutes for what we have right now, about 30-45 minutes for all completed levels with an average skill level.

- Q8: Consider two objects (not the main characters) in your game, and enumerate their purposes (the more the better). Establish an elegance rating
~ A8: One item we planned on having in the game was an energy bottle for the character to collect. Players would receive a health bonus for collecting them and they would help maintain the character's current state.

Another item we planned on are keys of some kind to open an upcoming level.

Elegance Rating:

- elements: 1-2 player characters with 2-3 forms (we are planning on one character with 2-3 forms), 3d play area, 2d backgrounds, intro screen, simple but multiple attacks with animations.
- purpose:

~player: allows the user control of the game, character choice
~ play area: field to interact with
~ 2d background: simplifies 3d design and increases gameplay speed
~ intro screen: introduces the player to our game world, offers them the rules of the game.
~ attacks: a form of control and choice for the player
~ animations: entertainment value
- rating: 6

- Q9: Go through the various section in Chapter 11, and address any aspect of balance contained in your game, and not included in the previous questions.
~ A9: Another aspect of balance is our game's idea imagination. Eventually in a full version our game, I would like to have the background be animated with bubbling concoctions from a secret laboratory which randomly affect gameplay. For example, the potions could explode to give bonuses or penalties to either side to make the game more interesting. The detail would be limited to the amount needed for the player's imagination to take over.

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Team 1 -- Final Poster!

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Preview Thumbnail:This one is just for viewing, the high quality for printing is below. =D

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Download the full low quality version here!

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Download the full high resolution version here!

^ Files hosted by Mediafire

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Update -- Backgrounds

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Hi guys I've been working on some things for our team's game and here are some works in progress I have right now.


Our main background with different effects applied

Note: even though these might look 3d, they are 2d images made with Photoshop CS5.

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This is just something random I was doing that we might want to use for the title screen background.


Note 2: All of these images were created 100% by myself using standard tools of Photoshop CS5, all textures were edited and obtained by myself and not taken from third parties.

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Homework 18: Modifiers!

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What does blender have to offer that is premade for scripts and modifiers? What exactly is a modifier or script?

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A script is a text file containing code with a certain intended purpose in mind, for example, if you want to duplicate an object 1000 times with one click, a script could do that with the right code to create that action. In Blender, scripts are written in Python, a scripting language.

A modifier? They are built in options in the Blender program which can speed up the "Blending" process. One use of Blender's many modifiers can be seen below.

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Did someone say conveyor belt?!

What if you wanted to create a conveyor belt for whatever reason. How would you traditionally do it? Take the default cube, duplicate it tons of times and work from that maybe. Here's a faster way to get the job done with modifiers!



Duplicating Objects Modifier

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The first trick with modifiers that avoids Shift & d (duplicate) is to do the following(seen in the first image on the left):

1.) With the default screen, divide the main portion of the screen into three windows, the 3d View(the grid), the Buttons Window(two rectangles), and the IPO Editor Curve(the graph) by right clicking the edge between the main window and the subwindow and "Split Area", do this twice. Your view should look similar to mine in the screenshot.

2.) Using the Buttons Window(in the left screenshot, it is the top right window), click in the window and press Control & up arrow (maximizes the view, control & down arrow restores the view).

3.) Go to the Editing Panel(F9) >> Modifiers >> Add Modifier >> Array >> Count: 12 (on the default cube creates 12 cubes at once)

4.) The result should look the like screen shot on the right.

From here you can continue to model the conveyor belt design and add motion with the help of modifiers as necessary.

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*Note: This post followed this tutorial, check it out for more info --> Conveyor belt with Blender's modifiers Tutorial.

Unfortunately it does not have sound and does not show hot keys so it is a little hard to follow, for that reason I would suggest having an intermediate knowledge of blender to understand this tutorial fully.

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Updated Poster -- Version 2 Beta

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Preview:

Download the full version here!

^ File hosted by Mediafire

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Tutorial Surfing 2: Characters-a-hoy!

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Hi everyone, these are some of the tutorials I tried out to get a little more familiar with modeling and the main uses for the tutorials.

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Tutorial 1: Blender 3D Tutorial - The Basics-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Description: The most basic tutorial on modeling I could find. This one creates three objects, adds a solid color, manages basic lighting, and basic planes as backdrops.

Skill Level: Complete Beginner
Rating: *****
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My version preview:

Important Tips from this tutorial:

Hot Keys:
Moving the Screen's View:
Shift & middle mouse => Moves the screen
Alt & middle mouse => rotates screen
middle mouse => zoom on main window or moves sub-windows in the panels area

Selecting & Deselecting Objects:
[ objects have a pink halo when selected and no outline when unselected]
A => select/deselect all objects
Shift & right click => select/deselect multiple objects

Screen View Numpad:
0 => Camera View
1 => Front View
3 => Side View
7 => Top View

Key Commands List:
1.) create three objects, two spheres and one cube( Add >> Mesh >> "Object Type")
2.) Tab (go to Edit mode)
3.) A (unselect all)
4.) B & left click over area (select a surface of the cube)
5.) E (extrude) >> region
6.) F5 >> Material >> Add new >> add color
7.) F10 >> Format >> SizeX: 360, SizeY: 240 (Resizes the rendering window)
8.) Numpad 7 (Top view) <--- gives a good view for lights and cameras
9.) View your objects in camera mode(Numpad 0) and fit objects within the second dashed line. Move lamps and lights as needed to created a better rendered view.
10.) To avoid "hovering" objects in renders, create a plane (Add >> Mesh >> Plane) and move it below the objects but make sure the objects are touching the plane since it's not too common that we find spheres 2 inches above a table right?
11.) Continue to adjust the objects, plane, and lamps/lights to create a well lighted, non-hovering final image in the rendered view!
12.) Congratulations, you have completed your first modeled objects!

Important! => Anything outside of the second dashed rectangle in camera view is not shown in a rendered view! Check the camera view before rendering!
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Tutorial 2: Creating a Cartoon Effect in the Game Engine-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Description: A short tutorial on creating outlined objects for a cartoon effect in the game engine.

Skill Level: Beginner
Rating: *****
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Preview of the Effect from the tutorial:

standard view <---------------------------------------------> game engine view
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Important Tips from this tutorial:
1.) Creating this effect can be visually appealing but it also increases the polygon count of the game by twice as much when applied. This technique is useful only when used sparingly or with a high power system to run a game.

Key Commands List:
1.) With the default cube, Shift & d & click ( duplicate the object on top of itself)
2.) z (wireframe)
3.) s (scale up the cube a little)
4.) z (out of wireframe mode)

With the larger cube selected:
5.) F5(Shading Tab) >> Links & Pipeline Tab >> delete default material (with x next to material names) >> Add New Material >> Select a black color (any color can be used but will be partially black from shadows)
6.) Make sure all objects (the two cubes) are selected by pressing A (it should leave a pink halo when selected)
7.) W (specials menu) >> Flip Normals (turns faces inside out so they do not appear in the game engine)
8.) Viewport Shadings (The odd box shape next to the display box for what mode you are in) >> Texture mode
9.) p (play in the game engine to test)

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Original Tutorial 1: What Improvising Can Do -- Setting up a Character-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Description: This tutorial is a put together collection of how I have been creating the characters for Team 1's game in Blender. It includes adding a background reference image and the basics of modeling a character without textures or character rigs applied.

Skill Level: Intermediate
Rating: ??? <-- Feel free to rate this tutorial in the comments!
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Preview of the Effect from the tutorial:


Blueprint Image ----------------------------------------> Blender Background Image Reference
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Important Tips from this tutorial:


Key Commands List:

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Homework 17: What's the Chance?

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- What elements of chance are you using in your game?

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---> Some elements of chance used in our game are planned to be the chance to what enemies appear to attack, how many, and how skilled they are. Also the player's skill in attack is also a huge chance since they may learn quickly to slowly and develop game skills in a different ways. For example, given the choice to switch between two character states with different abilities, the judgement of the player to take certain risks affects the gameplay dramatically.

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- Describe the skills used in your game, and their relationship to chance and probability.

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---> The skills needed for our game are a sense of force, how much strength you have in different abilities and how to use those abilities despite what they are set to in order to get past obstaces and get to a certain goal(escaping a lab). For example, overall the main character generally is not as strong as the lab scientists in all skills in all states, the player must choose to balance the different skills knowing that a goal is, for example if you are fighting a heavy researcher, you might choose a heavy form knowing attacks from your light form are not as affective and take a great about of time to defeat that type of enemy.

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- What elements of your game are out of the gamer’s control?

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---> The enemies abilities and the rate of emersion are elements the player cannot control in our game.

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- Can the player influence chance in some way?

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---> The player can influence the game's probability of winning or getting further in the game by choosing skillfully which attacks to use, what form to take, and what route to take. Also the game will force the player to fight so total avoidence isn't an option but the path of least resistance could be a good game strategy.

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- Is there a way that the player can estimate his opponent’s (the computer) skill

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---> Yes, the player will be able to determine the skills of an enemy by their character type. For example, our main character in his various forms will be fighting different types of scientists and eventually a end boss. One scientist will be a heavy type, similar to "Mall Cop" or the sterotypical cop. The heavy enemies will have a greater attack power but will also be slower. There will also be light researchers with weaker attack power but faster speed. We will need to determine the right mix of enemies and enemy types to make the game interesting. The boss will be somewhat of a mix between the two and the player will generally assume he is stronger than the regular opponents but the actual abilities of the boss will be unknown to the player until they experience the first few attacks. On the other hand, the researchers will be somewhat predictable since they appear more often and therefore the player can determine their abilities more accurately.

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- Estimate the probability of drawing a king of diamond AND an ace of spades from two full decks of cards (that are shuffled).

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---> If the probability of drawing a king of diamonds is 1/52 per deck and an ace of spades is also 1/52 per deck, then the following calculation could be done to compute the probability of drawing both a king of diamonds and an ace of spades: (2/104) + (2/104) = 1/26 or about 3.85%.

Note: the probability cannot be calculated by multiplying since the events are dependent.

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- Throw three dice (with faces 1-6). What is the probability that the sum will be 10? 12? 14?

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---> The following can be used to calculate the odds of getting a 10, 12, or 14 from 3 dice.

Possible range: 3-18

=====================================================================================
3----4----5----6----7----8----9----10----11----12----13----14----15----16----17----18
=====================================================================================
1----3----6---10---15---21---25----27----27----25----21----15----10----6-----3-----1
=====================================================================================
out of 216
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Probability of getting a:

10 -> 27/216 or 12.5%
12 -> 25/216 or about 11.6%
14 -> 15/216 or about 6.9%
=====================================================================================

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Tutorial Surfing!

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I've been going through some tutorials seeing what I could find to help with our group's game. These are some of the tutorials I've been going though and what they have to offer.

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Armature(Character Skeleton)

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----> Testing it out:

Note: Music used is offered as a free default with windows computers, no copyright infringement intended.

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Game Poster - Draft 1

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Notes: Fonts used in this poster were from either free open source font libraries or Photoshop Essential 6's font gallery with the exception of our game's logo. I created the logo, art, and the story is based solely on our team's design with only small references to other past games.

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Homework 16: Skill & Action! -- Wait?! There are the Rules?

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- State the rules of your games.

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(1) Controls: A - left/backwards, S - down, D - right/forward, W - jump, SPACEBAR - fire weapon.
(2) Ro's state endures as long has he has available energy.
(3) Warning: Attacking real scientists may cause physical injury, do not attempt.

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- There are 8 kinds of rules (see book chapter). Consider each of these, and discuss each one of them with respect to your game. All games should consider at least a few of these 8.

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---> The eight types of rules are:

(1) Operational Rules
The operational rules of Ro are ASDW move the character, A- left/back, S- down, D- right/forward, W- jump, Spacebar - fire weapon.

(2) Foundational Rules
Ro's state endures as long has he has available energy.

(3) Behavioral Rules
Warning: Attacking real scientists may cause physical injury, do not attempt.

(4) Written Rules
Players guide Ro, an endangered lab experiment through moving trials using his two states, heavy and light which each have their purpose in the game. Collecting bottles helps Ro gain energy to escape the lab while depleted energy leads to game over and being captured as a lab experiment! Attack enemies to travel from room to room to the final destination. Items are important in furthering your quest so keep a look out for them!

(5) Laws
Ro does not have any laws involved in gameplay since it does not involve success of failure of a player does not hold highly competitive tactics as its most important factor.

(6) Official Rules
Official rules would not be used for Ro beyond the basic controls and goals of the main character.

(7) Advisory Rules
Most advisory rules are overlooked in Ro to make the game more challenging for the player but in general players should look for objects and collect them while being aware of their surroundings.

(8) House Rules
There are no general house rules but players may decided to play with an element of time or other challenges to make the game more or less difficult.

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- What is the ultimate goal of your game. Is the goal achievable?

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---> The ultimate goal of Ro is to guide the character to safely although our group is not currently sure if the entire goal will be playable in the span of the class. For example in a full game Ro would travel through various levels and finally emerge from the lab in the final level after defeating the "boss" scientist bent on capturing him but we do not currently plan to incorporate a great deal of levels due to the time involved in creating those levels.

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- Is there more than a single sub-goal? Are they related to each other? Why? Why not? Would it help your game if they were?

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---> Yes, there will be sub goals throughout the game since it is somewhat puzzle/adventure based. Events will not be listed here because it would take away from the gameplay but they are related to each other in that they must all be overcome to travel further in the game and towards the character's goal of escaping the lab. However, they will not be identical because players would not be challenged unless they were somewhat different obstacles. It would probably hurt the game if they obstacles we very similar in every point to go further.

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- Are the goals rewarding? How?

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---> Overall the goals should be rewarding generally to players by giving them the "Ah ha" feeling about solving quick-witted puzzles to avoid an unfortunate game over! No one likes losing after all and make it even a little further when it is difficult can be very enjoyable as long as the difficulties are balanced and not too overwhelming from the start.

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- Can the players control their own goals?

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---> Players can create a set of house rules such as "So and so can you beat my time of XX:XX minutes for the whole game?" A new level of strategy would be involved to solve the puzzles on an even more strenuous time limitation. However other than goals the players come up with, most goals are programmed or planned into the game from the start.

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- What forms of balance does your game have? Describe them.

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---> The sense of balance Ro has embedded in the design is the level of detail. We carefully planned out what to detail and what to hold back. Although we would have loved for everything to be detailed it was beyond both the power of current standard computers(a non-gaming computer) and too time intensive for the time given in this class. Although we know everyone love something nice to look at so we are detailing certain easier to control elements of the game such as the backgrounds and possibly floors with 2d art and and more detail on the characters in comparison to the level's fixed objects(such as ledges for the player to stand on).

The book also mentioned "Familar worlds do not need too much detail." Although I'm sure many of us could debate that, on a basic level that is true and since our game takes place in a lab, most people are familar with the objects found there and can imagine the detail.

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- What are the operative actions of your game?

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---> The main actions of our game are maneuvering obstacles in various ways with ASDW and firing with spacebar to defeat enemies.

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- What are the resultant actions of your game?

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---> A cleared path to go forward from defeated enemies and openings from blocked obstacles result from the operative actions.

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- Discuss the real and virtual skill developed in your game.

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---> The real skills developed in Ro are thinking tactically in short time frames which can cause people to view real world problems in a more abstract way instead of always relying on the "tried and true" methods which always work.

The virtual skills a player recieves are weapon tactics, object manipulation, and virtual problem solving.

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- Discuss the notion of balance in your game (chapter 11)

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---> Some things Team 1 is doing to physically balance our game is documenting our game design model and modifying it as we go further. Also we have a plan to balance the game, for example not long ago in order to balance the game we somewhat got rid of Ro's normal state. He might be used in the storyline but will not be used in gameplay at least at the current state we are using the characters.

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Homework 15: Where are We? -- Game Update 2

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Hi everyone, what have I done and what am I currently working on to further Ro, Team 1's game for DIG3725?

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- Team Game Document: I wrote the ideas of our team in an on-going game document to organize our game design a little. The document includes overall game descriptions, object descriptions, game and character concept art, a designer's chat section, suggestions box(which is open to anyone!), as well as many other examples of what various members of our team have done so far.

Download Game Doc -- Online Version Here!

Homework 14: Mechanics of the Mind

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- What about the real world is modeled by the game?

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---> Some of the main aspects of Team 1's game which are mirrored in the real world are the ability of drunkenness, inhibition against difficult situations, and the use of experiments and their results.

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- Give some ideas on how you will control the Challenges versus skill graph.

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---> Some ideas for controlling the challenges vs skill graph could be: forcing the player to acquire the main character's forms, forcing them to choose between flawed characters in order to solve problems and using those flaws in creative and time-based gameplay, and possibly losing various forms after numerous defeats against the capturing scientists.

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- Where in the Maslow Hierarchy of Needs does your game lie?

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---> Ro falls in two categories of Maslow's pyramid: Safety and Self-Esteem. From one view of Team 1's game, safety is the primary concern of our main character to avoid mistreament from unknown lab experiments. However, meanwhile, our misguided hero also deals with many problems within himself which would fall under self-esteem to conquor those problems which the player has the ability to lead Ro through.

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- List some of the objects of your games

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---> Ro: our main character right now has three object forms, a sphere, cube, and one last default shape as placeholders. We have decided that he will now only have two forms because characters would be inclined to play as his normal form all of the way through unless we got rid of it and to make the game a little more interesting and challenging for the players. The light and heavy forms of Ro are currently a work in progress. We have a demo model created by one of our group members which looks simlar to the characters seen in "9" the movie but after the decision to use only the light and heavy forms of Ro, the final version of Ro's characters are in production.

---> Bottles: Our main character collects these to gain energy.

---> Enemies: there are two planned types of enemies, lab scientists which will be human and lab experiments which may or may not be human.

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- For these objects, list their attributes.

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---> Ro - light form: white, light density, faster and more moveable form, high damage, low health.
---> Ro - dark form: black, heavy density, slower but enduring form, high health, low movability.

---> Bottles: gives energy to sustain character forms.
---> Enemies - scientists: various body type characters, one is planned to be similar to Dr. Crocker from Fairly Odd Parents, greater enemy of the game and more enduring threat, large amount of damage, tactical attacks.
---> Enemies - lab experiments: various body types, small amount of damage, brute force attacks.

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- Ro - State Diagram (following pacman example).

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- What is the space of your game? Discrete? Continuous? What is its dimension?

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---> The space of Team 1's game is 2.5D and continuous.

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- Will players see all game data, or is some of it secret?

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---> Players will not know all information involved in the game, for example time, but it will be inherently known from the style of the game that it involves timed gameplay since not moving causes the player to lose the game.

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- List some of the operational actions in your game?

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---> switching character states, collecting bottles, avoiding enemies, and moving twords a goal

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- List a few anticipated resultant actions in your game?

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---> defeated enemies, escaping lab scientists

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- List some verbs that apply to your game?

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---> jumping, clearing, avoiding, persisting, enduring, changing, morphing, switching, attacking, strategizing

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- Game rules:

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---> Starting rules:
(1) All key items must be collected to go to the next stage.
(2) Players can only select one form to play as at a time.

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Epic Mickey: Animation in Game Design

Wii Games - E3 2011 - Disney Epic Mickey

Homework 13: Imagination is Iteration, Play with a Purpose

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- Where is Team 1 right now in the game design process?

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---> Our team is currently prototyping Ro, a science-based puzzle/adventure game. Right now we have been working on modeling characters, creating an introduction gameplay screen, a sample level, and working game document. The next steps in our game design will need 2d backgrounds for level design, modeled game objects, and just working with what we have so far and making it better in one way or another.

One thing I have found particularly difficult is balancing the complexity of characters, items, ect with the game engine. I always like to add lot of detail to things, and with the latest games as comparison, I guess a lot of people come from the idea that good characters need to be extremely detailed and high resolution. Although, I've learned a lot about the complexity of characters. It's not how detailed they are, it's what you can do with them, knowing what to add and what to leave is part of making a great game and what can make it an art. Doing complex things with simple starts can create amazing results, don't underestimate the power of small!

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- How is iteration used in Team 1's game design?

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Our group has been using iteration to develop our game by constantly throwing ideas back and forth between members. For example, technically I am considered the artist or graphic designer of our team but overall our group is very open to new ideas and members who want to switch up jobs. Just because one member is good at something doesn't mean others don't also enjoy it and having something to offer. The main way I help with the iteration process is developing ideas after talking with the group to see what our general goals for the game are I might create several versions of something and the most liked ideas as a team go further into the design process and prototyping. So far some of my contributions to the group were creating character concept art, creating a beta version of the team's game document(with a tentative team game overview in mind). Meanwhile other members of my group are constantly play testing beta levels seeing what we might want to add next.

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- What could go wrong in your team’s game?

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In a few words, a lot, but to list some:

- Gameplay Lag
Tentative solution: Avoid high polygon count objects and characters

- Boring Gameplay
Tentative solution: Advanced textures on characters, new and changing low poly graphics(2d image backgrounds, character animations, cut scene animations?

- Character State Change Errors
Tentative solution: play testing, beta testing, creating objects, ect to avoid the player's view from small glitches

- Short Gameplay
Tentative solution: create more levels, 2 player option after beating the game?

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- What are some changes that “might” have to make to be made?

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Other than the tentative solutions above, we might have to make compromises in the final version based on how the actual gameplay works. It's hard to stay what else would have to be tweaked but keeping characters and items low poly will save our group headaches in the long run with where we are right now. If our game can handle the high resolution characters, they might be added later but overall gameplay > graphics, graphics are secondary but must have a level of quality even at a low level.

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- What are you doing that “might” not work as expected?

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Right now I am working on 2d backgrounds for the side scrolling gameplay. It may or may not work as planned but depending on how things work I can create something else to keep improving the game.

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- What are the characteristics/experiences/features that players will like and not like? What are your expectations from the players of your game?

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Some characteristics players 18-24 may like from our game in the escapism element of our game. Many students struggle while in college or finding job after job and might be able to relate to our main character's lost drunken state.

This game is not meant for people below age 21 but as with most games that are rated mature, kids from about 10+ years old seem to find a way to get a hold of the games and the element that the game is restricted might cause that group to like it more, for the suspense and strategy needed to even get the game.

Some features a general audience may enjoy from our game is the strategy involved in gameplay and how it is integrated in a normal side scrolling game. Most side scrolling games are first person shooter games and the added strategy of our game should make it more interesting to any player.

Overall, our game may not be liked by parents, schools, and agents against violence and alcohol abuse. Although our story does offer a lesson from gameplay which may make up in part for the disliked public elements of alcoholism and "drunken bum syndrome."

Some things players might except with a side scrolling game are limited time to complete tasks, a sense of distance, repeating and non-repeating elements(example, platforms might repeat, but a repeating background becomes monotonous).

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- Will men and women like your game equally? What could be done to enhance the game for one or the other gender?

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Generally men and women will not like our game equally. Generally women are more against alcohol abuse than men or to phase that better, men are normally more willing to play games that involve alcohol and drug abuse than women. However, this has been changing depending on the content of the game. For example, Grand Theft Auto, a game which allows players to steal cars, kill others, and steal money was generally seen as a mature game when it came out, restricted for adults and not to be played or viewed by anyone under 18 but as the game fell more into the hands of "underage" players, the age and gender bountries of the genre of mature games has been greatly blurred. Now that women have been more desensitized to alcohol abuse, killing, ect they are more willing to play games which involve those aspects if there are enough elements which draw them to the game.

Some ideas of appealing to men and women:

Men: defeating enemies, search and goal gameplay, strategy, time based, unappealing conditions --> more appealing conditions.

Women: cartoon-like characters, vivid backgrounds for gloomy settings, goal based gameplay, rythmnic gameplay, background and introduction music

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- What would have to be done to your game to make it appealing to 15-18 year group. Same question for group between 40 and 50.

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The 15-18 year old group generally will probably enjoy our game as-is but turing the main character's problem into drunkeness from soda might make it more G rated for people in that group from strict households which do not approve of alcohol related games. Having the main character become drunk from soda is kind of an ironic twist with a slight reference to "drunken bum syndrome."

To make the game appealing to 40-50 year olds, we could slow the game down more, create more problem and puzzle based challenges, and possibly include mini-games of board games or simple strategy games to appeal to that group.

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- What pleasures does your game provide to the players (Chapter 8)

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Some pleasures our game offers players is escapism, endurance through difficult situations, opportunities to be creative, restricted real world experiences with no negative consequences(ex. killing, drunkeness with no responibility), enjoyment of visual asthetics, button-mashing for enemies(for some people this is one of the main reasons they play), and freedom(by helping our main character escape).

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Blender Homework 11: Bring It To Life!

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If I had to name the one thing I enjoy most in Blender it would be animation. I love to animate things and spend a lot of my free time on animation projects just testing things out and trying to make something cool. <-- Note the word "trying." xD Not everything turns out great at first, well actually almost nothing does but my best suggestion for those who are new to animation in general is to read or watch lots of tutorials but only after you have some idea of what you would like to make(brainstorm if you don't know!). Going into it blindly can waste a lot of time and effort, not to mention frustration. Many great Disney animators suggest visualizing what you want in your head(yeah actually imagining it as silly as that seems sometimes) and then trying to find a way to create what you imagined.

Ah but let's get on with it right? Here's my latest project in Blender dealing with animation, nothing too impressive but any start is a good start right?


In this project I made an area that might be similar to something in the final version of our game. This is a rough demonstration with basic objects but I still think the idea could be used somewhere. I created moving blocks the character would need to use to collect bottles like the rotating silver one shown in this scene. The bottles are needed to get farther, you the player would need to keep any eye out for them!

The only catch for the player: they'll need to control the cubes to reach the bottle! Yeah, yeah very predictible right? Maybe, maybe not, the motion of the cubes throws off the player's judgement of what to do next and meanwhile the internal clock of the game will be ticking since our game is planning on using sidescrolling motion! One missed button and you'll have to try all over again! I used spacebar as the button to control the cubes. You'll have to watch the motion of each cube closely to reach the bottle!

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New Blender Short: Sintel

Who said Blender is a loss of potential? Check out what this team made! ;) Direct link here.

Homework 10: All Aboard to Themeland and Idea Island!

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Theme!

Every game needs a theme right? Well technically speaking, I wouldn't say so but incorporating a good theme helps a game out with solving some of the tight spots when the player starts to loses interest. The main theme of team 1's game is a fantasy adventure of guiding an escaped lab experiment.

Reinforcement

So what did your math teacher do when your were trying to learn multiplication? Reinforcement! They forced you to practice so much that you started to dream 2x2=4 in your sleep. What is our game going to do to keep you drawn in to the theme?

-- 1.) Our main character's characteristics have a "lab-generated" feel. Who naturally can change forms?
-- 2.) Level backgrounds: our game play will have a lab designed background.
-- 3.) Enemies: the enemies of our game are lab experiments gone wrong
-- 4.) Sub-characters: the main character is presued by mad scientists and guided by one good scientist
-- 5.) Weapons: the main character's weapons to attack are lab-creation based.

Experience!
- One experience I am always facing is an approaching deadline to meet my goals. You know what they say about goals, they are dreams with a deadline.

Incorporating Experience?
Deadlines are a well-known experience of mine that could easily be inherently added to our game with an internal time by closing in previous spaces for new ones. The ideas of approaching deadlines for goals is well known for 2d sidescroller games like Super Mario Brothers and could be used for our 3d sidescrolling game.

Problem Statement
How can I create a Blender computer game for 21+ that will be compelling and satisfying?

--> Problem Constraints: The problem statement causes our game to be contrained to using Blender as the final game engine but meanwhile does not limit what we can incorporate into Blender. ;) If you think Blender doesn't do enough, be more creative with it and work to make it better! The game also must be a computer game which is both compelling and satisfying or just fun to play, with however the player wants to view fun.

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Tip: Great software does not make a great game designer only in some cases a more effient one.

Although we all love using expensive software instead of a free open source ones, sometimes everyone does not have the means to buy expensive software(or the computer to run the memory expensive software). As Theodore Roosevelt put it, "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."

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Blender Homework 9: Game Start!

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Menu System Concept 1:
Click for a better view!

HUD (Heads Up Display) Concept 1
Click for a better view!

Capture your screen in seconds

This Blender post was on creating a basic menu screen for a game. In this one I created four headers, Start, Prologue, Help, and Quit. Each should follow to where they are supposed to go and in the case of prologue and help, there are brief messages about the game.

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Homework 8: Elements without the CG?

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A great game = amazing CG(computer graphics) right?

Well... not necessarily! Some games are extremely popular even now without CG, characters detailed to the point of mind-burring details, and reality changing gameplay. At this point about half of the people are thinking... such as? Haha well, you want examples, here they come! These are my top 10 non-CG games of all time!



Wait.. a Pokemon board game is my favorite all time non-cg game? Haha well to be honest, I'm not really much of a board game fan, for me, board game = bored games but I still like to play these every once and awhile even though they don't have all highlights of cg games.

What do non-CG games like Pokemon Master Trainer Game have?

Well for starters, the four starting elements of a game:

1.) Mechanics: The Pokemon Master Trainer Game has a huge book of rules which mainly come down to collecting pokemon, moving twords the elite four(the end point), and beating the elite four(main boss of the game) to beat other players.

2.) Story: The story of this game is extremely drawn out. Pokemon was brought to the US in about 2000 to a world without "pocket monsters." The main idea of the game follows a series of episodes which is still in production. The game puts the player as the a new trainer of pokemon, monster-like creatures with special abilities, with the goal of catching all pokemon species and becoming a pokemon master(by defeating the elite four, the main boss of the first season of the show).

3.) Aesthetics: The box of the game is covered with all 150 original pokemon or the main monsters of the original tv series along with the main character, Ash Ketchum, the pokemon trainer on a quest to become a pokemon master. The entire game board is designed with the show in mind, all pokemon are made of circle coins(except the starter pokemon, the first pokemon the player recieves from the beginning to start the game) to resemble poke-balls, the objects which the monsters are held in.

4.) Technology: To play this game you control plastic figurines in the shape of Ash Ketchum on a game board, the main character of the tv show and move across a game board collecting small cardboard coins with images of pokemon. When a player gets to the final boss(the elite four, which traditionally was 5 trainers a player would have to beat, is instead only 1 of those 5 and the challege is determined by drawing an elite four card).

Likewise, my team's game also uses these four main elements of game design:

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• Game Overview:

Where are we so far?
1.) Mechanics: Players will control our main character and need to change forms in order to get from place to place. The goal of opening up new sections of the game in order to eventually escape the lab can be done by changing the character form in order to take advantage of various trials the player will have to complete to get further. If the correct tasks and forms are not completed in time, the player must start over!

2.) Elements: Our game will be made up of levels which include the main character, various lab rooms and possibly also terrain, enemies(lab experiments), items, and weapons.

3.) Story: The game takes place in a science lab where our main character, a defected lab experiment is found who is bound for freedom. Although, little does our friend know that his journey will have quite a few transformations and turns, literally!

4.) Aesthetics: Overall our game is going to have a more cartoony feel than realistic in order to maximize gameplay and level design. We have the main normal character planned out(shown above) but we are still in the planning stages for the other character concepts.

Theme: All of our game elements are working twords the main theme of a fantasy adventure of guiding an escaped lab experiment.

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Article: Entrepreneur Pushing Innovation to Subliminal Gaming

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I found a pretty cool article on a recent enterpreneur who thinks about gaming a little different from most people I thought I'd post so everyone can check it out if they are intersted.

Sound Byte:

“Scvngr is a game that you play on your phone, and playing Scvngr is incredibly easy,” he begins.

The game allows you to compete and win rewards at stores, gyms, theaters, museums and so on. A Mexican restaurant, for instance, might offer half off your next soda if you fold the tin foil on your burrito into origami, then snap a picture of it.

If this sounds like little more than a gimmicky way to lure in consumers, well, you haven’t listened to Mr. Priebatsch long enough.

“We play games all the time, right?” he says. “School is a game. It’s just a very badly designed game.” American Express cards, with their escalating status, from green, to gold to black — they are a game. So are frequent-flier miles.

“But game dynamics aren’t consciously leveraged in any meaningful way, and Scvngr does that.”

Check out the full article here!

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Homework 7: Elements: Of Games and Toys!

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• What game is a game without some suprizes! So what's the cat-in-the-bag tricks for team 1's game?

>>>>>>>>>>>> interesting characters! What's not suprizing about controlling something that changes forms?
>>>>>>>>>>>> tactics! You'll have to use your brain to get out of this mess with our game! Just the run-of-the-mill run, jump, smash game isn't quite going to get you through things, you'll have to look out for special objects or events throughout the gameplay to get our main character home free! (Don't worry for those jump & smash game fans, there will be plenty of that too, just with some added twists!)

• The overall goal of our game is to guide the main character out of a research lab safely and back to his Mom, which he was seperated from.

• Why do you want to help our main character out? Aww because just look at that face! *points to the main normal character of the game* I mean who wouldn't want to help our new buddy out while having a blast(literally) on the way?

• So you're probably wondering, what am I supposed to do to play right? In our game special items or triggers are valuable to the character's various states in order to unlock the next stage and get one step closer to escaping the evil scientists' lab! There will also be items for the "normal" state character to use to defeat enemies blocking your path which will prove very helpful, very helpful indeed! *the main character grabs a bazooka and fires it while laughing menacingly*

• The main problem of our game is finding a way out of a top security lab. In order to get though players will need to put their innovation into action to figure out how to get from place to place in the tick of time or else it's game over! As most games there will be enemies to fight, which will be the various "experiments gone wrong" of the mad scientists' and the opening of various parts of the game which the player will need to figure out with help occasional help of our friendly scientist helper of course! (You didn't think we'd let you guys get completely lost without help now did you?)

• So why are you going to want to keep playing after 5 seconds in? The fun of the chase? There's that or the satistfaction of beating our increasingly mind-blogging adventure puzzle game!

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• Game Overview:

Where are we so far?

1.) Mechanics: Players will control our main character and need to change forms in order to get from place to place. The goal of opening up new sections of the game in order to eventually escape the lab can be done by changing the character form in order to take advantage of various trials the player will have to complete to get further. If the correct tasks and forms are not completed in time, the player must start over!

2.) Elements: Our game will be made up of levels which include the main character, various lab rooms and possibly also terrain, enemies(lab experiments), items, and weapons.

3.) Story: My group's storyline for the game is extremly interesting and makes me want to hear and play more! Who wouldn't want to help our oddly shaped lab mutant find his way to freedom?

4.) Aesthetics: Overall our game is going to have a more cartoony feel than realistic in order to maximize gameplay and level design. It looks good so far!

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Blender Homework 6: And Then There Were Two...

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Capture your screen in seconds

In this blender project I created two characters, the purple octopus looking thing, which with a lot more work could be something my group could use as an enemy character for other escaped lab experiments. I was having trouble getting this video to youtube today so I just uploaded the screentoaster version, if you are having trouble with it please just leave me a comment and I'll repost a youtube version.

The purple characters can attack each other and be moved around, not nessarily in the most realistic way but since they are aliens they could be floating instead of rigging them so they could more more realistically. The keys I used to control the characters were:

Left character:
W => forward
W, hold E => run/ faster forward
A => left
D => right
S => backwards
Spacebar => fire

Right charcter:
up arrow => forward
up arrow, hold right shift => run/faster forward
left arrow => left
right arrow => right
down arrow => backwards
mouse left click => fire

I created another blog for tips and tutorials for the various projects I've been working on in Blender, to help the posts on here from becoming too long. If you would like to see my other blog, please click here.

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