The game has moved towards having a more humorous bent. The story line has been written. It was written to be comedic and light hearted. This ties in with the comedic and colourful art style. The idea being to make the game cheerful and friendly to all potential players.
The control scheme is based around the tilt action of the Apple Platforms. The only other controls being a pause and jump action. These are going to be areas of the screen and not buttons that get in the way.
The enviroments would be varied. Level concepts so far are: Burning building, sinking ship, A jungle being consumed by a lava flow from nearby erupting volcano. Middle of a city during an meteor shower, Monster attack on a harbour and the escaping of a space station as it crashes to earth.
These enviroments should have enough variety to keep players playing on until the end.
Sunday, 28 November 2010
Apple App: Week 3
I've decided upon modifying the setting of the game. Originally it was going to be set in real disaster areas. However I felt that there would be difficulty in building a narrative structure that encompassed all of the seperate disasters that would make up the game's levels. So thinking back to what inspired me; ie 1970s disaster movies I decided that the game itself would be set following a series of disaster movies.
Most of the work this week has gone into the art direction. Art wise i decided to go with a simple sprite based look similar to 8-bit or 16-bit platformers of the early 1990s. This is in part due to wanted to free up the Apple Platform's processor to dealing with the enviromental physics more than the graphics.
I also felt that simple cartoony 2D graphics would open up the game to more potential gamers. It also lessens the fact that the game is taking place in disaster areas. Cartoony stylised graphics will sanitise the setting.
Most of the work this week has gone into the art direction. Art wise i decided to go with a simple sprite based look similar to 8-bit or 16-bit platformers of the early 1990s. This is in part due to wanted to free up the Apple Platform's processor to dealing with the enviromental physics more than the graphics.
I also felt that simple cartoony 2D graphics would open up the game to more potential gamers. It also lessens the fact that the game is taking place in disaster areas. Cartoony stylised graphics will sanitise the setting.
Apple App: week 2
Looking for a setting for my game I decided upon using disasters as a setting. That would then explain how the player can control the enviroment, if the enviroment is already falling apart. So I looked at disaster films including The Poseidon Adventure, Towering Inferno and Armegeddon. The idea forming that the main character would be someone trying to escape these situations and needing the player to control the enviroment to let him through.
Ideas for ways that controlling the enviroment could work: Tilting the screen allowing a suspended platform to swing over to the character's position for him to run onto then tilting it over to the other side of a chasm or something to allow the character to cross.
Tilting the screen to allow water to overflow a container to put out a fire
Shaking the screen to cause a wall to crumble and fall.
It occured to me that this could turn into a puzzle game with the player trying to figure out what could be done to bypass obstacles. I though if that was added to the side-scrolling platforming idea then you would end up with a very frantic timed puzzle platformer. This would make it more necessary to allow the player limited control over the main character. A stop/start button perhaps as well as a jump command. However I didnt want to cover the screen in buttons as the smaller Apple Platforms already have fairly small screens.
But due to the screen being touch sensitive the entire screen could be divided into invisible "sections" that act as buttons. This is used in the app Star Wars Trench Run and it works well. This means the player can keep the screen clear, letting him see more of the action and without the controls being limited to "button areas" but instead being an entire section of the screen it would be easier to make snap jumps as the player wont have to be accurate when using his thumb.
But with the inclusion of the pause to allow for puzzle solving there is a chance to increase difficulty by removing the pause button meaning the game can have two levels of difficulty adding to replayability.
Another thought occured to me, if the player had more control over the character, say movement as well as jumping, then it could be possible to make the game have a versus multiplayer. One player playing the character having to get from point A to point B in this disaster area and the other player controlling the enviroment, using the tilt controls to cause scenery to topple and fall and the touch screen to direct lightning or other disasters.
This could work as the Apple Platforms do allow for wireless multiplayer. However controlling the player character would go against the main idea behind the game and would be a completely different experience from singleplayer. I believe if the mulitplayer experience is completely different from the single player experience then that will cause frustration for the player as none of his skills acquired playing singleplayer would be applicable to the multiplayer game.
Ideas for ways that controlling the enviroment could work: Tilting the screen allowing a suspended platform to swing over to the character's position for him to run onto then tilting it over to the other side of a chasm or something to allow the character to cross.
Tilting the screen to allow water to overflow a container to put out a fire
Shaking the screen to cause a wall to crumble and fall.
It occured to me that this could turn into a puzzle game with the player trying to figure out what could be done to bypass obstacles. I though if that was added to the side-scrolling platforming idea then you would end up with a very frantic timed puzzle platformer. This would make it more necessary to allow the player limited control over the main character. A stop/start button perhaps as well as a jump command. However I didnt want to cover the screen in buttons as the smaller Apple Platforms already have fairly small screens.
But due to the screen being touch sensitive the entire screen could be divided into invisible "sections" that act as buttons. This is used in the app Star Wars Trench Run and it works well. This means the player can keep the screen clear, letting him see more of the action and without the controls being limited to "button areas" but instead being an entire section of the screen it would be easier to make snap jumps as the player wont have to be accurate when using his thumb.
But with the inclusion of the pause to allow for puzzle solving there is a chance to increase difficulty by removing the pause button meaning the game can have two levels of difficulty adding to replayability.
Another thought occured to me, if the player had more control over the character, say movement as well as jumping, then it could be possible to make the game have a versus multiplayer. One player playing the character having to get from point A to point B in this disaster area and the other player controlling the enviroment, using the tilt controls to cause scenery to topple and fall and the touch screen to direct lightning or other disasters.
This could work as the Apple Platforms do allow for wireless multiplayer. However controlling the player character would go against the main idea behind the game and would be a completely different experience from singleplayer. I believe if the mulitplayer experience is completely different from the single player experience then that will cause frustration for the player as none of his skills acquired playing singleplayer would be applicable to the multiplayer game.
Apple App: Week 1
When looking for inspiration for my apple app concept I wanted to focus on utilising the apple platforms accelerometer technology. It is the tilt-detection that I think makes the apple platforms stand out so I wanted to make them the star of the show.
Taking a look at games already on the apple platforms there is one called Canabalt. A side-scrolling platformer where the only control is jump. I liked the idea of a constantly side-scrolling platformer and wanted to impliment more control into it for the player. Originally I had thought about doing something atmospheric, maybe have a horror or survival horror game. However I felt the screen for the platforms was too small for a truly atmospheric game, that and the speakers aren't of a high enough quality for really atmospheric sounds
Linking these two ideas together I thought about designing a game where instead of controlling the character moving across the screen you instead controlled the enviroment via the tilt controls of the apple platform.
The idea being a switch of the classic platformer, instead of navigating a character through a level, you navigate a level around the character.
Problems with this would include the ipad possibly being too big and unwieldy for the tilt controls to be useful.
Also how much control should the player be given over the character? Would just jump be enough?
Another issue with the Apple Platforms. The screensize. With the Ipad it's not as big an issue, but with the Iphone and Ipod Touch the screen is just a bit small. This is another reason why I wanted an app completely controllable through tilt motions. If the screen is kept clear of a control scheme and interface then the player can see more of the action and feel a bit more immersed. Also with a platformer where timing is essential I believe being able to see whats happening on the screen would be very important.
Taking a look at games already on the apple platforms there is one called Canabalt. A side-scrolling platformer where the only control is jump. I liked the idea of a constantly side-scrolling platformer and wanted to impliment more control into it for the player. Originally I had thought about doing something atmospheric, maybe have a horror or survival horror game. However I felt the screen for the platforms was too small for a truly atmospheric game, that and the speakers aren't of a high enough quality for really atmospheric sounds
Linking these two ideas together I thought about designing a game where instead of controlling the character moving across the screen you instead controlled the enviroment via the tilt controls of the apple platform.
The idea being a switch of the classic platformer, instead of navigating a character through a level, you navigate a level around the character.
Problems with this would include the ipad possibly being too big and unwieldy for the tilt controls to be useful.
Also how much control should the player be given over the character? Would just jump be enough?
Another issue with the Apple Platforms. The screensize. With the Ipad it's not as big an issue, but with the Iphone and Ipod Touch the screen is just a bit small. This is another reason why I wanted an app completely controllable through tilt motions. If the screen is kept clear of a control scheme and interface then the player can see more of the action and feel a bit more immersed. Also with a platformer where timing is essential I believe being able to see whats happening on the screen would be very important.
Board game development: Play testing
Our playtesters ranged from 18-26 years old and were a mix of male and female players. Some had experience playing board games before and some had very little interest in board games.
When playtesting our game we found that at first the combat system was a bit confusing. It was a rock-paper-scissors type of combat with certain equipment combinations beating others. This however caused a big concern with game balancing and our playtesters found the system itself fairly daunting.
So we went back to the combat design. Instead of equipment being good against one thing and bad against another we decided to make it a simple bonus system. This equipment will provide a bonus to your dice roll during combat. This was found to be much simpler and let the game flow much more. Play testers preferred the new combat system to the old and it made balancing the game much easier.
Aside from the combat, there was little else that needed balancing. A couple of issues, for example hyperdrive making it too difficult to defeat a player, were tweaked in order to make the game easier and more enjoyable.
Play testing the game at the beginning found that a game would last around 2 to 3 hours. However this could be put down to many things, a lack of familiarity with the game system, a convoluted combat system (that was later fixed). However after a couple of fixes to the system we found game time went down to about 1 to 2 hours on a full size board with smaller boards cutting the game time down even more. This was indication that the concept behind an adjustable board would work. Smaller board meant a smaller, less time consuming game.
By taking on board what our playtesters said we ended up with a game that played very tightly, it didn't drag on and everyone enjoyed it. One constant piece of feedback from every playtester was: "This is a fun game".
When playtesting our game we found that at first the combat system was a bit confusing. It was a rock-paper-scissors type of combat with certain equipment combinations beating others. This however caused a big concern with game balancing and our playtesters found the system itself fairly daunting.
So we went back to the combat design. Instead of equipment being good against one thing and bad against another we decided to make it a simple bonus system. This equipment will provide a bonus to your dice roll during combat. This was found to be much simpler and let the game flow much more. Play testers preferred the new combat system to the old and it made balancing the game much easier.
Aside from the combat, there was little else that needed balancing. A couple of issues, for example hyperdrive making it too difficult to defeat a player, were tweaked in order to make the game easier and more enjoyable.
Play testing the game at the beginning found that a game would last around 2 to 3 hours. However this could be put down to many things, a lack of familiarity with the game system, a convoluted combat system (that was later fixed). However after a couple of fixes to the system we found game time went down to about 1 to 2 hours on a full size board with smaller boards cutting the game time down even more. This was indication that the concept behind an adjustable board would work. Smaller board meant a smaller, less time consuming game.
By taking on board what our playtesters said we ended up with a game that played very tightly, it didn't drag on and everyone enjoyed it. One constant piece of feedback from every playtester was: "This is a fun game".
Board game development: Board
We had trouble with the board originally. The original prototype ended up being a bit too complicated for what we wanted. So after a redesign we came away with a board that fixed the problems of the previous board and retained what we wanted from the concept: A board that could be assembled in many different ways to make for a changeable playing area.
The end result was tighter and more visually pleasing than the original prototype too.
Board game development: Playing pieces
These are the game pieces for our boardgame. The Player pieces are made of a self-drying clay and primed black, before being painted in bright acrylic paint. The idea of making the pieces look different is so players feel like they are playing their own adventure. Also it means when the game is replayed the player gets a choice as to the asthetics of his playing piece, it makes every new game feel different.
The die was bought as part of a set called "Blue Star" it was chosen because of the cosmic and space like look to it. It felt as thought it gave the game a stronger cohesion, it felt more complete than if we used just a white die.
board game development: Cards
Board game development
Having decided upon a space theme we've come up with art for the tiles that the players will have to explore.
The art direction was chosen to be bright and colourful, to counterbalance the idea that space is a dark void.
Thursday, 4 November 2010
Red White and Blue
The producer, Bob Portal, of the American indie film Red White and Blue made an interesting point in regards to genre. The film itself isn't easily genre definable. It straddles the lines between horror, thriller and drama. Bob Portal made it clear that in terms of genre, big budget films are by rule of thumb only agreed upon on the strength of how close they are to genre conventions. He said that a non-genre specific film like Red White and Blue could never be made with a big budget because big studios like to stick with formulas they know work.
This has got me thinking about the role of genre in game. It is well known that the most commercially viable genre is the First Person Shooter, with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 being the largest selling form of media in history. The games market is flooded with shooting games, mostly because the large studios know they will sell well. It seems that the larger studios are now focusing on emulating Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 to the point that many people have pointed out, a lot of the FPS's coming out are becoming more and more homogenized.
Meanwhile two of the most original games out on the PC right now are very non-genre specific and infact aren't backed by large developers at all. One is Minecraft a game in its alpha-stage right now. Originally coded by one man, known as "Notch", he has gained enough money to hire more coders to help him out. Infact this independant game has earnt "Notch" in excess of $3,500,000. The game itself is best described as a Sandbox/adventure/survival/mining simulator/block building game.
The second game is a completely independantly coded one. It is Dwarf Fortress. Coded by "Toady One" alone. It has made over $30,000 a year from donations alone as the game is free. This game is also genre straddling going from adventure/simulation/strategy.
It is interesting to see these small independant coders/developers making such large amounts of independant games that you would never see from EA or Activision Blizzard. It certainly makes looking at the developer and to an extent publisher of a game to see what there is to be expected. Whether a more "by-the-numbers" approach by the bigger corporations. Or an entirely new/unique experience from a single bedroom coder.
This has got me thinking about the role of genre in game. It is well known that the most commercially viable genre is the First Person Shooter, with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 being the largest selling form of media in history. The games market is flooded with shooting games, mostly because the large studios know they will sell well. It seems that the larger studios are now focusing on emulating Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 to the point that many people have pointed out, a lot of the FPS's coming out are becoming more and more homogenized.
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| Courtesy of Cracked.com |
Meanwhile two of the most original games out on the PC right now are very non-genre specific and infact aren't backed by large developers at all. One is Minecraft a game in its alpha-stage right now. Originally coded by one man, known as "Notch", he has gained enough money to hire more coders to help him out. Infact this independant game has earnt "Notch" in excess of $3,500,000. The game itself is best described as a Sandbox/adventure/survival/mining simulator/block building game.
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| Minecraft |
The second game is a completely independantly coded one. It is Dwarf Fortress. Coded by "Toady One" alone. It has made over $30,000 a year from donations alone as the game is free. This game is also genre straddling going from adventure/simulation/strategy.
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| Dwarf Fortress |
It is interesting to see these small independant coders/developers making such large amounts of independant games that you would never see from EA or Activision Blizzard. It certainly makes looking at the developer and to an extent publisher of a game to see what there is to be expected. Whether a more "by-the-numbers" approach by the bigger corporations. Or an entirely new/unique experience from a single bedroom coder.
Chris Goodswin's Lecture
What I gained from Chris's lecture was the importance of research that goes into a project. Apparently 90% of his time doing projects was spent researching. He also mentioned how important it was not to specialise too heavily. To branch out and try things outside of our respective comfort zones as prospective employers would prefer to hire someone with more than one skillset.
It was interesting to see the evolution of Chris's work from 2D concepts to 3D modelling. It conveyed to me the sort of work we'd have to be taking on for our course. How our art would change and it made me wonder if that would be a difficult thing to do. It goes into leaving our comfort zones.
I found it very informative to see how 2D concepting has fallen out of favour too, as developers seem to want to see what the concept is in a 3D medium.
It was interesting to see the evolution of Chris's work from 2D concepts to 3D modelling. It conveyed to me the sort of work we'd have to be taking on for our course. How our art would change and it made me wonder if that would be a difficult thing to do. It goes into leaving our comfort zones.
I found it very informative to see how 2D concepting has fallen out of favour too, as developers seem to want to see what the concept is in a 3D medium.
Video Game History part 2
In 1995 I was exposed to PC gaming proper. To replace our failing BBC my dad bought a Windows 95 machine. It appeared so modern to me. The first game I played on the computer was Ultimate Doom.
This was the first time I'd played such an adult-game with an actual age restriction. The blood and gore however didnt bother me as much as the story did. I was much more interested in the story of future mars colonisation attacked by hellspawn. It seemed like such an interesting concept. The fact it was the first ever first-person-shooter I ever played also caused it to stick in my mind.
The change of controls from a gamepad to keyboard was also quite profound to me. I found myself a lot more at ease with the keyboard. Having so many keys made me feel as if I had a lot more input options. It again immersed me more, as I felt I had more control over Doomguy.
For the next few years I was a sole PC gamer. I had no interest in the Playstation, Sega Saturn or N64 when they came out. I was firmly in the belief that the new 3D games looked horrible. That 2D sprites had a higher level of detail to them and were more pleasing to the eye than the rough polygons of the 5th generation consoles.
Metal Gear Solid 3 made me love the Playstation 2. The introduction of analogue control sticks to a gamepad gave me the feeling of control I felt I was missing in the 16-bit era. The game introduced a brilliant espionage-thriller with homages to Bond films, the plot was easily the equivalent to anything out in the movies at the time. The gameplay was varied and allowed for choice which I as a player loved. Being able to choose how to deal with problems the game gave me how I wanted was brilliant and made the game feel incredibly immersive.
For the next few years I was a sole PC gamer. I had no interest in the Playstation, Sega Saturn or N64 when they came out. I was firmly in the belief that the new 3D games looked horrible. That 2D sprites had a higher level of detail to them and were more pleasing to the eye than the rough polygons of the 5th generation consoles.
Metal Gear Solid 3 made me love the Playstation 2. The introduction of analogue control sticks to a gamepad gave me the feeling of control I felt I was missing in the 16-bit era. The game introduced a brilliant espionage-thriller with homages to Bond films, the plot was easily the equivalent to anything out in the movies at the time. The gameplay was varied and allowed for choice which I as a player loved. Being able to choose how to deal with problems the game gave me how I wanted was brilliant and made the game feel incredibly immersive.
Video Game History
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| So cool |
A year later the household gained a Sega Megadrive. It was a christmas present to my mum but it was played by everyone in the house. It was the megadrive that really showed me how much deeper gameplay could be compared to the old BBC.
Again, I was terrible at it, I would watch my dad play all the way through instead. I couldn't get past the third level. The problem was I didn't feel connected enough through the controller. It was also the first game that got me to extensively read the manual for the background story and unit descriptions. I wanted to know as much as I could about the game-world.
Wednesday, 27 October 2010
Project 1. Design and Development of a Board Game
Game conceptions
When coming up with a concept for our game project I decided to look at what board games were considered popular within the community. Boardgamegeek.com is considered the online hub for boardgame hobbyists. I started by looking at the reviews there, the reviews on amazon.co.uk and at the reviews on boardgameratings.com
The idea was to see what gamers liked in their games. What sort of features were found amongst the best selling games and would those features be transferable to a new game.
The results of this research showed me that family boardgames (ie. Monopoly, Cluedo, Risk etc) rarely were in the top ten games of any of the sites I looked at. A couple of variations of monopoly did appear however.
There seemed to be little pattern to the top ten games as well. They were roughly split amongst gameboard-based, tile-based and card-based games. Tile based games did have a small increase over the other game-types but not by anything significant.
One thing the top selling games had in common was that resource gathering/management were at the high end of the review lists across all the sites I had viewed. This wasn't too surprising as I have worked in a boardgame hobbyists shop before and know from personal experience the games that we always sold, or never had enough stock of were the resource management games. (Carcassonne, Agricola, Settlers of Catan,) The majority of these games tended to be tile based as well.
When coming up with a concept for our game project I decided to look at what board games were considered popular within the community. Boardgamegeek.com is considered the online hub for boardgame hobbyists. I started by looking at the reviews there, the reviews on amazon.co.uk and at the reviews on boardgameratings.com
The idea was to see what gamers liked in their games. What sort of features were found amongst the best selling games and would those features be transferable to a new game.
The results of this research showed me that family boardgames (ie. Monopoly, Cluedo, Risk etc) rarely were in the top ten games of any of the sites I looked at. A couple of variations of monopoly did appear however.
There seemed to be little pattern to the top ten games as well. They were roughly split amongst gameboard-based, tile-based and card-based games. Tile based games did have a small increase over the other game-types but not by anything significant.
One thing the top selling games had in common was that resource gathering/management were at the high end of the review lists across all the sites I had viewed. This wasn't too surprising as I have worked in a boardgame hobbyists shop before and know from personal experience the games that we always sold, or never had enough stock of were the resource management games. (Carcassonne, Agricola, Settlers of Catan,) The majority of these games tended to be tile based as well.
Monday, 25 October 2010
Boardgame Reviews
Scotland Yard
In this game published by Miltion Bradley, one player takes on the role of "Mr X" and has to elude the other players, who have taken the role of "Detectives", across a map of London. Mr X's movement is hidden from the other players, only becoming revealed every three or five turns. The idea of the game is simple. It is a form of Hide and Seek. Where one player must hide his movements and outwit the other players trying to catch him. The game comes down to deception and teamwork.
Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers
This game is one of the most highly rated on Boardgamegeek.com, with an average rating of 7.2. The game itself is an offshoot of Carcassonne. It mainly differs in art style however, the base gameplay is basically unchanged with just a few new additions. The game is tile-based so the gameboard is built up as you play. The objective is to gain points based on gathering resources. I really enjoyed this game, the fact that the gameboard was made up as you go along, meant there was a lot of replayability. Strategies had to change on the fly making for a very dynamic game. The fact that there was no aggressive competition was a nice touch. Having a game where there was no player vs. player mechanic felt like a nice change of pace from most boardgames.
When playing this game, everyone had a lot of fun. I had to teach the other players how to play the game, as I was the only one who had played it before, and the instructions were all in finnish. However the rules are simple enough and after 5 minutes we were away. Everyone had a lot of fun, working out strategies to the tile laying and choosing which resources to go after. Overall this game was the best recieved out of all those we had played.
Monday, 27 September 2010
Project 1. Design and Development of a Board Game
Earliest Board Games
Chess, Go, Checkers and Backgammon are well known games that have existed in various iterations for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Even 5000 year old dice have been found. Showing that contemporary six-sided dice haven't changed for millenia. What is it about these games and gaming paraphernalia that lasts for so long?
The oldest known game is Senet an ancient Egyptian boardgame thathas been dated to 3500BC. Unfortunately there has not been a complete set of rules found for the game.
The above dice were found in The Burnt City in Iran along with backgammon board from a 5000 year old civilisation. - http://www.payvand.com/news/04/dec/1029.html
Chess, Go, Checkers and Backgammon are well known games that have existed in various iterations for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Even 5000 year old dice have been found. Showing that contemporary six-sided dice haven't changed for millenia. What is it about these games and gaming paraphernalia that lasts for so long?
The oldest known game is Senet an ancient Egyptian boardgame thathas been dated to 3500BC. Unfortunately there has not been a complete set of rules found for the game.
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