Friday, 23 March 2012
Progress etc.
Uh, audio should work. instance audio and shooting on its way. busy with coursework due next week. so no progress will be made til Easter.must write like telegram.
Wednesday, 21 March 2012
Programming Progress
List of currently working functions: -
i have started to code the puzzle functions but have non working yet.
- Continues forward movement
- Standard jumping
- Double Jumping
- NPC movement
- Sound
i have started to code the puzzle functions but have non working yet.
Level Design Prototype
21st March 2012 Update:
Finished the cubed paper design for Level 1 and began to implement it into 3DS Max. Unity was our first option, (Using Terrain Editor) but quickly found out it was ineffective for what we wanted to achieve.
Using 3DS Max, we were quickly able to create a simple prototype to test our level against the core player movement mechanics. Using the extrude tool, we made cuboid representations of our level to scale.
Level 1 prototype has not been completed as of yet but with the tools we are using, should be completed relatively swiftly.
Finished the cubed paper design for Level 1 and began to implement it into 3DS Max. Unity was our first option, (Using Terrain Editor) but quickly found out it was ineffective for what we wanted to achieve.
Using 3DS Max, we were quickly able to create a simple prototype to test our level against the core player movement mechanics. Using the extrude tool, we made cuboid representations of our level to scale.
Level 1 prototype has not been completed as of yet but with the tools we are using, should be completed relatively swiftly.
Programme Test 1
Using Unity's terrain editor, while more aesthetically pleasing, proved to be far too difficult to manage. As such we have changed the program in which our platform will be to 3Ds Max and will be imported as an .FBX into Unity.
Sunday, 18 March 2012
OK guys, so:
From now on, we have meeting every Sunday, Tuesday AND Wednesday, unless otherwise specified by me. If you can't come, please say so in advance so I can get the word out to everyone. If you can't come that is fine, and even if meetings get cancelled that is fine, because then we will simply have an online meeting of sorts, via the blog. Does that sounds OK with everyone else?
So, we reeeaally need to get going. On Tuesday I want the designers to meet up at noon (that is 12 o'clock guys). We need something to put a player in that somewhat is reprasentative of our game, so we can do some user testing. Craig, do you have some idea of how you wanna do that? I.e. with who, when and where etc? Also remember, we are a team, so if you want any of us to help with it, we're here. In fact. I'm helping you with it wether you want me to or not. :P
Nick, how is the programming going? What do you have in so far? As in, if we had a platform, how much more would you need before we could actually run and jump through all of that?
James, keep doing what you're doing. :D So that means, we're gonna need to actually design the character, so bring the drawings you have so far (Dan bring yours as well)?
David, the sound stuffs you had, can you bring that again and either show us what you thought would be used for what, or we decide on that together?
Anyways. I want you all to read all the stuff that is here and use it frequently (That means the entire blog, not just this post). Everyone post stuff, and talk here or I will... I... I'll be sad, and write you a strongly worded letter... And tell your parents.
From now on, we have meeting every Sunday, Tuesday AND Wednesday, unless otherwise specified by me. If you can't come, please say so in advance so I can get the word out to everyone. If you can't come that is fine, and even if meetings get cancelled that is fine, because then we will simply have an online meeting of sorts, via the blog. Does that sounds OK with everyone else?
So, we reeeaally need to get going. On Tuesday I want the designers to meet up at noon (that is 12 o'clock guys). We need something to put a player in that somewhat is reprasentative of our game, so we can do some user testing. Craig, do you have some idea of how you wanna do that? I.e. with who, when and where etc? Also remember, we are a team, so if you want any of us to help with it, we're here. In fact. I'm helping you with it wether you want me to or not. :P
Nick, how is the programming going? What do you have in so far? As in, if we had a platform, how much more would you need before we could actually run and jump through all of that?
James, keep doing what you're doing. :D So that means, we're gonna need to actually design the character, so bring the drawings you have so far (Dan bring yours as well)?
David, the sound stuffs you had, can you bring that again and either show us what you thought would be used for what, or we decide on that together?
Anyways. I want you all to read all the stuff that is here and use it frequently (That means the entire blog, not just this post). Everyone post stuff, and talk here or I will... I... I'll be sad, and write you a strongly worded letter... And tell your parents.
NPCs:
Creepers: Basic zombies. They move at 50% of player speed, are bound to the ground, and will move back and forth between obstacles. They will hurt Drake and slow him down.
Sweepers: Large zombies, who are rather mindless. They run through the level at 150%-200%(?) of the player speed, and will hurt Drake and slow him as well.
Leapers: These zombies move as fast as Drake, but can perform a jump which is equal to Drakes jump ability. They will also hurt and slow down Drake if they hit him.
Creepers appear through all levels, Sweepers in levels two and three and Leapers only in the final level.
Creepers: Basic zombies. They move at 50% of player speed, are bound to the ground, and will move back and forth between obstacles. They will hurt Drake and slow him down.
Sweepers: Large zombies, who are rather mindless. They run through the level at 150%-200%(?) of the player speed, and will hurt Drake and slow him as well.
Leapers: These zombies move as fast as Drake, but can perform a jump which is equal to Drakes jump ability. They will also hurt and slow down Drake if they hit him.
Creepers appear through all levels, Sweepers in levels two and three and Leapers only in the final level.
Story:
Drake, the most eligeble bachelor duck in town, is clubbing it out in his favourite secret, underground club.
After a hefty, long night, he decides to head on home.
BUT! (Cue suspensful music) He emerges from the nightclub only to find the town in chaos. Cars are smashed, buildings are burning and all that standard apocalypse stuffs. Before he can get to grips with what he is witnessing, someone walks up to him, groaning and moaning (in a none sexy way).
At first he believes the person hurt, and in need of help, but after it tries to scratch his eyes out, and starts biting, Drake notices the blank expression on this persons face. Oh, and the fact that he is clearly half-rotten.
As it that wasn't enough, further down the street, Drake suddenly sees a horde of these ugly, half-rotten, you guessed it; ZOMBIES!
Drake is not a fighter, and as such, does what any sensible person, who is just too darn pretty to die, would. He runs!
He runs through the devastated streets he once knew so well, but now appears completely foreign to him, the zombies ever at his heels. Every now and then, a lone zombie tries to block his path, but he somehow manages to dodge them.
It's not long however, before he is at a dead end. Before him lies the Great Duck Pond Park, but the gate is locked and broken, and he needs to find a way across. Luckily, a building collapses behind him, momentarily cutting him off from the zombies.
Thanks to a few fortunatly placed trees, Drake manages to make his way across the gate into the park, but if he thought that meant safety, he couldn't have been more wrong. The park is as overun by zombies as the streets were.
So Drake has no choice, but to keep running, but this time, he has a goal. On the other side of the park, there is a factory, which his father owns, and Drake knows there is a helicopter on the roof, which could take him far away from the overrun town.
He runs through the park, towards the factory, but when he reaches it, the entrance is locked. Again he finds himself cornered, but luckily, a massive tree crashes down behind him, and again the zombies are cut off from their prey.
Drake uses every last intelligent thought he can conjour, and manages to get into the factory, only to face yet a new horror. All the workers are zombies too!
But Drake however, is a determined duck, and so runs as fast as he can, and manages to get all the way to the top level, where he finally reaches the helicopter.
(OK guys, that's what I have so far. Uhm... So yeah. The ending bit. I'm not sure what the final puzzle should be, and also not how it should end.
I feel the final puzzle should obviously have something to do with the helicopter, either getting to it, fixing it or whatever. Ideas? Also, story wise, does he escape? Does he die? Does he have to get past his father who is now also a zombie, or kill him? Does he escape in the helicopter with his father who then turns into a zombie and they crash? If each of you could write an idea in a comment below and the we go from there, that would be awesome (Oh, and I'm not asking, I'm telling :P))
Drake, the most eligeble bachelor duck in town, is clubbing it out in his favourite secret, underground club.
After a hefty, long night, he decides to head on home.
BUT! (Cue suspensful music) He emerges from the nightclub only to find the town in chaos. Cars are smashed, buildings are burning and all that standard apocalypse stuffs. Before he can get to grips with what he is witnessing, someone walks up to him, groaning and moaning (in a none sexy way).
At first he believes the person hurt, and in need of help, but after it tries to scratch his eyes out, and starts biting, Drake notices the blank expression on this persons face. Oh, and the fact that he is clearly half-rotten.
As it that wasn't enough, further down the street, Drake suddenly sees a horde of these ugly, half-rotten, you guessed it; ZOMBIES!
Drake is not a fighter, and as such, does what any sensible person, who is just too darn pretty to die, would. He runs!
He runs through the devastated streets he once knew so well, but now appears completely foreign to him, the zombies ever at his heels. Every now and then, a lone zombie tries to block his path, but he somehow manages to dodge them.
It's not long however, before he is at a dead end. Before him lies the Great Duck Pond Park, but the gate is locked and broken, and he needs to find a way across. Luckily, a building collapses behind him, momentarily cutting him off from the zombies.
Thanks to a few fortunatly placed trees, Drake manages to make his way across the gate into the park, but if he thought that meant safety, he couldn't have been more wrong. The park is as overun by zombies as the streets were.
So Drake has no choice, but to keep running, but this time, he has a goal. On the other side of the park, there is a factory, which his father owns, and Drake knows there is a helicopter on the roof, which could take him far away from the overrun town.
He runs through the park, towards the factory, but when he reaches it, the entrance is locked. Again he finds himself cornered, but luckily, a massive tree crashes down behind him, and again the zombies are cut off from their prey.
Drake uses every last intelligent thought he can conjour, and manages to get into the factory, only to face yet a new horror. All the workers are zombies too!
But Drake however, is a determined duck, and so runs as fast as he can, and manages to get all the way to the top level, where he finally reaches the helicopter.
(OK guys, that's what I have so far. Uhm... So yeah. The ending bit. I'm not sure what the final puzzle should be, and also not how it should end.
I feel the final puzzle should obviously have something to do with the helicopter, either getting to it, fixing it or whatever. Ideas? Also, story wise, does he escape? Does he die? Does he have to get past his father who is now also a zombie, or kill him? Does he escape in the helicopter with his father who then turns into a zombie and they crash? If each of you could write an idea in a comment below and the we go from there, that would be awesome (Oh, and I'm not asking, I'm telling :P))
Meeting journals.
Meeting journals:
I've typed up all the meeting stuffs, but I decided against posting it all here as it would be like twenty posts or one heck of a long one. so instead, here's a summary:
1. We got assigned groups, and we were happy with being awesome-supremo-groupnumberone.
More or less decided on who did what in the group, though this was revised later and ended up being:
Platoon of Radioactive Men:
Project Manager: Christian Lovdal (That is ME!! UNLIMITED POOOWAH! Ahem... Yeah...)
Lead Designer: Dan Bone
User Experience Designer: Craig Close
Art Director: James Pendry
Tech Director: Nick Abbs
Sounds Director: David Wallet
Obviously WE all know ths, but I'm putting it there anyways. Remeber guys, this does not mean you have to do all the stuff that falls under your "area", it just means your to blame if it goes wrong, and that you are in charge of it being done etc.
2. So, we got our pitch. It's ducks and zombies, and that's about it. They seem to want old ideas, made new and exciting.
We decided to focus on browser gaming, aimed at Cyber-Ducks own webpage, as they are the client, however we want to make it so it can be used on mobile devices. From this we thought it was a good idea to ask Cyber-Duck for their colour swatch and perhaps some assets which they are using for their new webpage.
3. Our game:
OK, so Cyber-Ducks colours are based around white, orange and blue.
In this meeting we mostly threw around ideas, brainstormed like a bunch of awesome dudes and got thinking.
We also started thinkign about the planning of the game, as well as key things we need to implement.
4. At this point we got our idea down. We wanted a 2.5D (3D graphics with 2D movement limitations) platformer with puzzle elements/stages.
This is essentially what we came up with in keywords:
- You play as a duck
- You escape from zombies
- Three levels devided in two.
- First half is a constant motion running phase
- Second half is a puzzle stage which must be solved to progress further
Beyond that, we narrowed down quite a few minor details such as ideas for where we wanted to go with the visuals etc.
5. The presentation was coming up, and we essentially prepare for that by making power point slides, setting up a gantt chart etc.
6. Finished off the presentation and decided on who was going to say what.
7. Our game was finally taking some form (in our heads). At this point we had quite a few concept drawing, giving us an idea of what we wanted it to look like. We had decided that our three levels would be something like a street, a park/forest and a building (and we didn't get more specific just yet).
We made a small story, which I will post in an other blog entry.
We now also decided on many of the smaller details, such as:
- Do we want points?
- Enemies
- Player abilities/controls
- UI
- Challanges
- Music direction
- Challanges
All in all, a pretty successful meeting.
8. Now came the hard part. We started on the basic programming of getting a character to move and jump etc. and tried to start on designing challanges and puzzles.
We found that we needed to do some research on puzzle and challange design however, and after a brainstorming session we narrowed down as much as we could, before we went each to our own and simply played games with similar gameplay to what we want.
9. Based on what we saw in the games we'd played since last time we managed to narrow down the type of challanges we wanted, and started expanding on that.
We also decided once and for all on character controls etc.
10. We now had a pretty good idea of, well, everything, and it was time to finally actually make it all. In the beginning of this meeting we decided on a last few things, such as quite a few level design features (windmill platforms, see-saws, holes in the ground etc.). NPC classes and the finalized keyboard layout.
That's pretty much it. We've spent a lot of time on our planning, and we really need to get workign on implementing this, but hopefully our extensive planning will make that much easier.
I've typed up all the meeting stuffs, but I decided against posting it all here as it would be like twenty posts or one heck of a long one. so instead, here's a summary:
1. We got assigned groups, and we were happy with being awesome-supremo-groupnumberone.
More or less decided on who did what in the group, though this was revised later and ended up being:
Platoon of Radioactive Men:
Project Manager: Christian Lovdal (That is ME!! UNLIMITED POOOWAH! Ahem... Yeah...)
Lead Designer: Dan Bone
User Experience Designer: Craig Close
Art Director: James Pendry
Tech Director: Nick Abbs
Sounds Director: David Wallet
Obviously WE all know ths, but I'm putting it there anyways. Remeber guys, this does not mean you have to do all the stuff that falls under your "area", it just means your to blame if it goes wrong, and that you are in charge of it being done etc.
2. So, we got our pitch. It's ducks and zombies, and that's about it. They seem to want old ideas, made new and exciting.
We decided to focus on browser gaming, aimed at Cyber-Ducks own webpage, as they are the client, however we want to make it so it can be used on mobile devices. From this we thought it was a good idea to ask Cyber-Duck for their colour swatch and perhaps some assets which they are using for their new webpage.
3. Our game:
OK, so Cyber-Ducks colours are based around white, orange and blue.
In this meeting we mostly threw around ideas, brainstormed like a bunch of awesome dudes and got thinking.
We also started thinkign about the planning of the game, as well as key things we need to implement.
4. At this point we got our idea down. We wanted a 2.5D (3D graphics with 2D movement limitations) platformer with puzzle elements/stages.
This is essentially what we came up with in keywords:
- You play as a duck
- You escape from zombies
- Three levels devided in two.
- First half is a constant motion running phase
- Second half is a puzzle stage which must be solved to progress further
Beyond that, we narrowed down quite a few minor details such as ideas for where we wanted to go with the visuals etc.
5. The presentation was coming up, and we essentially prepare for that by making power point slides, setting up a gantt chart etc.
6. Finished off the presentation and decided on who was going to say what.
7. Our game was finally taking some form (in our heads). At this point we had quite a few concept drawing, giving us an idea of what we wanted it to look like. We had decided that our three levels would be something like a street, a park/forest and a building (and we didn't get more specific just yet).
We made a small story, which I will post in an other blog entry.
We now also decided on many of the smaller details, such as:
- Do we want points?
- Enemies
- Player abilities/controls
- UI
- Challanges
- Music direction
- Challanges
All in all, a pretty successful meeting.
8. Now came the hard part. We started on the basic programming of getting a character to move and jump etc. and tried to start on designing challanges and puzzles.
We found that we needed to do some research on puzzle and challange design however, and after a brainstorming session we narrowed down as much as we could, before we went each to our own and simply played games with similar gameplay to what we want.
9. Based on what we saw in the games we'd played since last time we managed to narrow down the type of challanges we wanted, and started expanding on that.
We also decided once and for all on character controls etc.
10. We now had a pretty good idea of, well, everything, and it was time to finally actually make it all. In the beginning of this meeting we decided on a last few things, such as quite a few level design features (windmill platforms, see-saws, holes in the ground etc.). NPC classes and the finalized keyboard layout.
That's pretty much it. We've spent a lot of time on our planning, and we really need to get workign on implementing this, but hopefully our extensive planning will make that much easier.
The blog is up! Obviously...
Platoon rapport!
So guys, the blog is up. I expect you all to use it. Put it as one of your homepage tabs or something.
I'm sorry for having been a bit of a slacker so far etc., but now that is over. We're a bit behind schedule, and I can agree I haven't done much about that before now. However I'm now gonna drive you, and drive you hard.
Anyways, I'm gonna put up loads of stuff here now. :)
Those with drawings, could you please post them here?
In fact, I want to see a post by everyone here before Tuesday, about what they are doing and what they have done, merely for organizational purposes.
Sounds good? Awesome.
Platoon dismissed.
So guys, the blog is up. I expect you all to use it. Put it as one of your homepage tabs or something.
I'm sorry for having been a bit of a slacker so far etc., but now that is over. We're a bit behind schedule, and I can agree I haven't done much about that before now. However I'm now gonna drive you, and drive you hard.
Anyways, I'm gonna put up loads of stuff here now. :)
Those with drawings, could you please post them here?
In fact, I want to see a post by everyone here before Tuesday, about what they are doing and what they have done, merely for organizational purposes.
Sounds good? Awesome.
Platoon dismissed.
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