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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