I began by hunting down audio, looking for a backing track to my game that would suit the mood I'm trying to convey. I discovered a piece on Soundcloud aptly titled "Sad Ambiance" by Aric-misc. projects and promptly asked for permission to use. I also looked for a sound effect for my NPCs, I wanted something more abstract than what royalty free sites like SoundBible were offering, something memorable and strange to fit the game and the NPCs themselves. I decided on a clockwork sound, as I felt within the game it wouldn't be easily identifiable, more of a strange crackle that players would hear as they entered the NPCs trigger box.
I also worked on some aesthetics for my game this week, to make it start to look like something.
Implementing my walk cycle proved difficult due to settings I had in place, but it was soon fixed by simple scaling. I painted the enemies that appear throughout the game, warping the player to the start.
I quite like the idea of some kind of mound, like in the Mutual Core video by Bjork, covered with theatre masks.
Im thinking of calling them Notions, or bad Thoughts as that's what they represent, catching up to the player and having them start at square one- they could also be seen as Ennui, that creeps and consumes the player.
I also wanted my collect orbs to appear as something, small suns or lights. The first being a failed attempt, the second a more workable sprite.
The player having to collect three minimum to pass through the gate at the top of the map, there are more to collect in the game if the player chooses to explore more however. I also tried to create a backdrop for my game, something simple.
However these were far too dark and parts of the first world and NPC text weren't appearing. I decided to leave it for now and use the default texture, until something more workable comes up.
Mechanically, a lot was going wrong with my game. When swapping worlds and hitting an enemy, an Ennui, the teleport co-ordinates would warp the player further along, so one world where you weren't meant to fly you could, and the other was the mapless dark void. So a simple actor with killzones attached was needed. I looked into these nodes, as i needed the game to restart in case the player did fall through the game world, and a node to end the game with the Death Interactions
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Whilst trying to get the harp to work, the pulse was acting as the collision necessary to warp the character to the beginning, so this needed to be changed to the player capsule, containing the character so the warp would still be effective.
To solve the enemy problems, I set up two pawns, one for each world. Which worked fine, but to make it more efficient I used one pawn with a boolean instead, based on world. This too had snags, but it was an issue of swapping nodes around- Ennui were taking the player to wrong world. The harp mechanic worked, but they no longer warped the player on a simple touch, they have to really get up close to the player. I tried to amend this with changing the dimensions of the capsule component with limited success. Through play-testing I'll judge if this is too much of an issue.
In regards to exit gate and collecting orbs, I learned that I needed two instead of one variable, one assigned to the character of "orbs" and one assigned to the orbs themselves as orb amount, so they can be added together upon collision, tested by the end gate.
This resulted in the exit gate working. So my harp now worked, the enemies worked correctly, as did movement and there's a way of winning the game. However for sake of metaphor, the other way of ending the game had to be implemented. The interactions with death.
It turned out what I had tried to lay out was far too convoluted, so I was taught about text arrays and linking a widget.
An array is a collection of variables accessed via a single node, simply referring to the number of the variable you need from the array is how these blueprints work.
By then referring to the order in which these words appear, and where within the widget...
This is how the interaction takes place, with a choice of two, or one options. This is how the player can choose to die.
Having now achieved a basis for all my working mechanics, I tried to visually polish everything to the be left with Pitch Document to work on solidly, however this shouldn't have been how I divided my time, they should have been worked on simultaneously. This can't be helped now however.
I tried setting each block that made the separate game maps a solid colour, by changing the texture of the material, that worked for a while, however it also destroyed my game. Each block that made my map expanded to the point of ruination, nothing could be navigated due to this texture change. I luckily had a backup but had to redo a lot of things. Having a black world and a white one would have to wait.
To get it playtested, I also roughed up some instructions, something I want visually present in the game, so players can wander immediately. NPCs, now called Notions, were also blocked in.
With these, I had my first playtest, leaving them in the room alone to connect more with the game, as intended.
Feedback
-killzone needs to be bigger
-game works fine until you world swap into part of the other world, then you fall out completely
-theres a glitch if you world swap too quickly next to a Notion, the text stays
-there should be a harp and light sound effect
-the Notions were seen as suicidal thoughts and it sets the games tone as mental illness, they're seen as outside forces telling you what to do, good and bad influences. They were relatable messages.
-when reached Death, he seemed to be a good choice due to Notions, Positive mode is designed to have you fall and not be able to ascend without the other mode. They were seen the other way around, as there is a joy to flying, which is something I hadn't forseen.
-music worked very well, sound effects got attention
-harp and end gate not found, perhaps have arrows,
-Engaging, wanted to find Notions
-Main character has been seen as different genders by different people, something to be projected on, which was the intention.
A moment I enjoyed whilst playing is discovering a room in flying mood filled with huge Ennui, it was my playtester's first run in with them. A few niggles, but this insight is invaluable.
Game Research
I was told to look into the works of Daniel Benmergui, a games designer who instills emotion and meaning into his games, upon closer inspection of his game "Today I Die" I realised...
...I'd actually played this before. At the Digital Revolution in London in 2014, I sat and played his game, and really connected with it. Its like interactive poetry, shifting words to change the scene to get the girl to safety. Simple mechanics, big impact. Much can be said for his other game "I wish I were the Moon".
I hadn't played this one, but I has multiple endings, based on what you shift where and when. Remove the man from his moon and hes miserable. Put both of you on it, you drown. My favourite way of ending the game is putting yourself in his place, becoming his "moon". These games hold a lot of meaning, and I really admire the emotion and story put into them
Research Lecture
Linking back to my essay, which is about how forms of entertainment of the past influence today's video games, its easy to see that play and games are an integral part of humanity. This lecture used mazes as an example, a real life space to navigate away from the real world. Something we all do today but don't require an architectural building to do; we can escape and explore through games.
There are unicursal mazes with one path, and multicursal mazes with multiple, these have dead ends and can lead you astray. The myth of the Minotaur heavily features one, and mazes have been a part of culture since the age of the Greeks in one form or another. Within a multicursal maze you meander, exploring different routes, which can be said for games with different endings like Silent Hill, which is both virtually a physical maze and a psychological one. A personal favorite game is Virtues Last Reward, which has a plethora of endings which in itself is a mechanic, its a large "maze" that must be explored completely to discover the true ending. Pacman serves as a maze, a space to outrun and outwit ghosts through different levels, many games can be linked.
My game is a maze, an interactive one where intimate thoughts are encountered, its a space to be explored and surmounted. One can choose to explore and discover things, or choose the easy way out of the maze. A metaphor reflecting the living of a life.
Tale of Tales have a game called The Path, which takes direct inspiration from Little Red Riding Hood. If you do as you're told an always have been through the story and every other source, you follow the path and nothing really happens, but stray or meander, and the game really starts.
The game I critique will have to be unpicked in such a way as to find these links, I'll start looking into games ASAP.
At the beginning of the week a primary focus was modelling a harp in Maya, as I'm wanting key items to either be a single colour in a black and white world, or 3D to really stand out and feel like they don't quite belong in the game world. I began blocking out a harp...
...to soon learn that there's a far more economical way of approaching that which would only appear from one angle, I was telling myself that unwrapping would be a simple case of using a single planar, but I don't even need to do that. I learned that if I used a single poly plane and projected a diffuse, an alpha, specular and normal map onto it, no modeling was required! Adding a convex curve pushed it out a little bit more, adding a little more dimension.
And with a little specular...
Its a minor but useful change. Very time efficient and I'll be working on putting this in the game with perhaps a few tweaks!
World Swapping and Movement Modes
As so far I only had one world which you could run about in, and needed a second identical world, I copied and dragged out a new one, switching up the colours for now. I'd also fleshed out and finished the geography for my map.
The prospect of creating the float mode perplexed me, I thought I'd need loads of different nodes and inputs, when all I needed was an ascending Z axis input and setting my character to "flying", a mode already in UE4.
Battling with nodes and much rewiring of connections allowed the teleport to happen and floating to only occur in the other world, having to use some basic maths to work out the exact unit the character needed to move.
An error that was occurring consistently, was that being hit by an enemy in the purple world would teleport you back to the original one, meaning that when you try to swap, you're in black space due to the co-ordinates that had been programmed. So I decided to copy the enemy blueprint and have a separate set of enemies in the second world, that will launch you to the beginning there, using adjusted co-ordinates.
Collectibles and Other Mechanics
At this point I was also trying to implement collectibles and the ways of "winning" my game. Collecting orbs, small suns, from key locations within the map is how you can reach the end gate at the top and have it let you leave. There'll be seven orbs in the game, but only 3 are needed to escape, so you don't have to explore every nook and cranny to get them all, this will also lead to variation in people's playthroughs, people will be able to use different routes to each other and have slightly altered experiences and encounters. The harp, currently a blue, stretched, platform sprite can be collected via hitbox by walking into it.
The harp itself is proving difficult to set up. Once collected, pressing R should propel enemies that would otherwise reset your position away from you, essential for getting past certain rooms. Many methods have been tried, even changing the enemies from actor to pawn blueprints, yet I can't seem to get it all working quite yet.
The enemies need to be pushed in a radial fashion; i'm hoping to achieve this very soon.
Another current struggle is setting up the interactions for Death, I'm aware I need to use text arrays and a widget blueprint to set up UI for option selections, but the tutorial im following is providing fruitless results. The text and options are far less complicated than what I'm following, I'm really rather stuck with this currently.
The gist of the "conversation" will be either leaving him, but not before collecting an orb, or doing as he says and giving up.
The other way of winning and collecting orbs to escape has also proven difficult to achieve, I've set up the variables and nodes and have a boolean in place that checks to see if you've got the right amount to end the game, but I'm unsure as to why its not working.
Another kink to iron out, but I'm confident in fixing theses issues promptly and I feel like I'm finally learning the logic and language of nodes.
I'm slowly setting up differences in item, npc and enemy locations n the separate worlds, visual polish will cement this.
After battling with Spriter and being robbed of my walk cycle, I simply set it up again, to create a flipbook in UE4 to have my own character walking and flying around the map.
In summery, I tackled most of my mechanics this week and whilst I have a few glaring issues to fix ASAP, I should have my core game finished very soon, aesthetics need to be tackled hard next week.
Some stray doodles about the first room, enemies, death and general ideas:
I'll end this post with coming clean about what my game is really about as well, as its such a personal issue I've been wanting to avoid it. This game is very much about manic depression, namely my own, and im trying to express my own reality here. The enemies are bad notions that land you at square one, there is a literal "rock bottom" where you can talk with death and most of the text spouted by npcs have deep personal links. Masks are a big motif, comedy and tragedy, and they're more personified than the people wearing them- representative of the persona we project to others. This project is rather self indulgent and is a projection of self, the game is intended to be more metaphorical and artistic than pure fun. I've long regarded games as art, but its only through making one have I seen the breadth of creative possibilities in design.
Finally, this is also a dedication to my grandfather, a fellow thespian, artist and sufferer. I'm hoping to put some of his paintings in the game, to have a little virtual room in dedication to him. He had a penchant for the comedy and tragedy masks, I see it only fitting to use them in my game, as they summarise binary moods so well,
At the start of this week, I blocked out the majority of my map to use as a basis for the game, building from the tutorial I'd followed on creating a 2D platformer from scratch.
I was introduced to the use of a construction script alongside the typical event script, both were used
in creation of the lift.
I'm unsure as to the use of the lifts in my actual game, but for now they're staying to playtest my level as I work on implementing the core mechanics. I now had the working bare bones of my prototype.
Lecture: Lean, MVP, and Playtesting
We had a lecture that covered a brief history of development models, ways of working to generate content, a game, in the most efficient way possible. There's the linear waterfall model...
The agile/scrum model...
The Lean method, brilliant for startup and smaller indie endeavors...the 5 whys are a way of tackling a problem, to keep drilling down by asking why, what is the root of everything?
And a break down graph that shows what this all really means
From a simple look, you can see the Lean method goes through the same process very quickly again and again, it fails faster to work out problems at much quicker pace, eliminating waste. The lean philosophy dictates that anything not adding value to the customer is waste, waste can include unnecessary code and functionality, delay in software development process, unclear requirements, insufficient testing, bureaucracy and slow internal communication.
Amplify learning by testing the second something is done to change and alter and get feedback as soon as possible, this will get your product to where you want it to be much faster. Deciding as late as possible is another good factor of Lean, software development comes with a lot of uncertainty and making important decisions is best left until later, where you can make decisions based on fact rather than presumption.
An MVP, as Eric Ries Author of "The Lean Startup" describes, is a "version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort". So for my prototype, I need to create the core "game loop" which makes my game enjoyable and invokes flow, test it to see how it works and adjust accordingly. An Indie company would have very few developers, a few months to create their game and have a few mechanics to fine tune. To test the market with their MVP also.
Playtesting is imperative, but feedback must be valid, be it personal or from forms to gather metric data. Personal data can be good from a small pool of people, as it can illuminate issues that metric data might not be able to show you.
NPC BLUEPRINTS
I soon tackled blueprinting NPCs into my game, who I want to flavor my game world , I followed a tutorial to find a base but had to fashion my own set of nodes.
The basic components were a mesh or sprite, a text renderer, a box collision and a scene root. I wanted text to appear when you approach an NPC and leave when you left, and I could program text appearing when near, but couldn't make it leave, or more obtusely, text would already be present but coming close to the sprite would make it disappear.
However, I deferred from the tutorial and added variables, one to appear when close and another of blank text to appear when leaving, this got me exactly what I wanted.
I also wanted my character to feel uncomfortably quick, so experimented with the general character settings and ramped up max acceleration and max speed, however I may have to learn to remove the speed up and have my character sprinting straight away. Some brief feedback I received was that the fast movement felt like a joy, it was liberating to move so quickly. The NPCs were used as landmarks around the map and the boost offered by a fast moving lift, if a jump was timed correctly, would catapult you high, an anomaly as a mechanic! Enemies were also blueprinted, with collisions, that teleport the player back to the start if they reach you.
RESEARCH LECTURE
Within our first Research lecture, we were introduced to the topic of Creating Coherent Worlds, how fictional worlds are built and how we as people at a very young age imagine worlds to enter and interact in, from cardboard boxes to table tops with Lego sets. Whilst we're making games on a rather small scale, how can we think about our fabricated game worlds on a larger scale? Whats influenced us? And what are the origins of the game worlds many of us escape to today?
The game Circus Charlie, a rather old game now, took direct inspiration from the Circus and used its aesthetic and music to translate into a game; people like going to the circus for entertainment, surely a game based around it would be appealing?
The game Kingdom hearts, a collaboration between Disney and Square Enix, has Final Fantasy characters intermingling with Disney characters, it works surprisingly well with a Pop aesthetic twist to the conventional Square Enix tropes. The character Pinocchio comes from Carlo Collodi 's story, written in 1881, which was translated into a Disney film which has then been blended into Kingdom Hearts, a whole world called Prankster's Paradise is present in the game and must be explored. The film AI takes a sci-fi approach to the tale, the wooden puppet becomes a robot child and the Blue Fairy is a strange projection from extraterrestrial beings.
Bioshock Infinite's world however has roots in the "ideal America" and theme parks like Coney Island. One can see how all breathing, alive worlds designed and made to exist in games have strong links to other real life entertainments and how these have contributed to entertainment today, in the form of games. For my 3000 word research task, I'm to unpick game worlds and analyse what has fed into their creation.
Playboard and Sketches
Sketching out mechanics such as character interaction, use of the harp item and two movement modes, I realised I didn't know exactly what I wanted my character to look like.
So I sketched out some silhouettes and began iterating.
I soon decided on an idea, and explored through sketches what I wanted from my simplistic design. The sun and moon no longer being your guides or helpers, I like this idea of an inanimate mask that when put on speaks through your mute character, and can give you hints and tips as to what to do next. Advice and her personality would change depending on what mode you would speak to her in.
I then sketched a side on view, painted in photoshop and began using the animation software Spriter to cut up my sprite to be animated for my game.
I've been learning to place down bones to rig my character, to animate a walk cycle. I hope to have a few animations in my prototype, if I can add them in the end!
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