Project Blend - Coming to an End

So. This is it. Project Blend shall be in and over on Thursday. As such everyone is going into hyperdrive this week, so we can hand in something we are proud of.

As only level 5 is going to end up completed the rest the story is going told through a series of pictures and narration, informing the reader what happened from levels 1-5. There will also be a similar thing once the player has completed level 5, telling them the events of level 6 and the epilogue.

Two versions of this have been written by me, a short and a long version. The short version does not give much of the actual story, just the premise. K is drawing the pictures that I suggested to go along with the narration, and the narration shall be recorded tomorrow. Then Martin shall take these and create a scene which plays them together.

Additionally everyone has played through the build, and have been posting their impressions of it on  their blogs. My impression follows:

First a few bugs/ annoying things found that I shall report:

• Blueberry  health slightly to high.
• Hard to know what lane the fodder is in if there are only a few.
• The fodder runs away from you.

Now a few impressions... as I had thought may have been the case when it was first thought of, the aiming thing for the attack feels horrible. It feels really just added on and in the way. The game feels like I should simply be slashing whatever I am facing, as similar games do. But instead you end up clicking away frustrated, wondering why you are not hitting the enemy,  simply because the aim thing is somewhere else. I have talked to the others, and it seems it is unfortunately too late to change this. Although I still think it should be changed, as it makes the game feel clunky and broken, a state I am sad to see the game.

On a more positive note, the game looks amazing! I am very grateful to K, Alan and the others who put lots of work into the 3D and textures. Thankyou.

The sound, is also very very good, so thanks to the sound students, and the sound effects by me, Ben, Naomi and Sam.

Lastly everything else apart from what I talked about above, has been programmed very well. The enemy AI is occasionly a bit buggy, but other from that everything is superb.

Oh also I have been collating the Story and Characters part of the Operational Document.

Final sprint.... GOOOO!

Project Blend - It's been a while

Sorry for the very belated update. Dissertation has overtaken my life.
Anyways, here's what has been happening with Blend.

Before Easter the group decided that due to time constraints we shall only endeavour to get Level 5 to a fully finished, polished state. There is simply not enough time for anything else.

We then all had break over Easter, at Stacy's orders. We needed to stop focus everything on blend, and now get on with Dissertation and Marketing.

On that note during Easter I got my dissertation game finalised and started testing. I am very glad to have been collecting data.

We have all returned from Easter and work on Blend has been going slowly. I am to work with Daryl on an opening cinematic, contextualising the game. I shall also separately implement the Dialogue into the triggers.

Also here is my list of deadlines


9th of May - Marketing
10th of May - Preliminary Dissertation Presentation
12th of May - Dissertation
19th of May - Project Blend
20th of May - Final Dissertation Presentation

D:

... I can do this! xD

Project Blend - balancing and dialogue

So I've been working away on the level 2 dialogue now. I have done a first draft of this which is basically giving what needs to be said. I now need to do a redraft of that including the character voice concepts. Then I will get together with a small group to make it better, before finally doing a final redraft. I will then have to find some people and do some voice acting.

We were also all assigned to look at the latest build of the game, and look at errors. The main errors I found were the pears could walk through things, and sometimes the jump stops working when on ramps. Balancing wise the jump has been changed and now feels alot nicer. There are also a few problems with the gore, as it messes up when it hits corners, and the amount that spawns needs to be balanced.

I shall now go sort out the level 2 dialogue and test toonshading on the character

Project Blend - 3D!

Yup so now I shall be on the 3D team, helping K out. Unfortunately I have been a little lax and haven't done any 3D models as of yet. But today I shall start trying my best.
I shall have to refresh my 3D skills though.

I have also started a discussion on the forums so that we can decide what all the characters sound like. This should help me create specifications for our voice actors.

Project Blend - Level 5 Story Elements

So back to uni! We had a big meeting in which we were each given asset related tasks. Mine were to create an asset list of all the story assets in level 5.

What I came up with shall follow below:

• Level starts with the grapevine congratulating him and telling Logan he must hurry to save his brethren.
• They then goad him over the pile of plates to assassinate the Titan. This effectively traps Logan. He cannot turn back.
• The kitchen should now seem more eerie. The kitchen is darker, danker. The grapevine is around, intersecting with the wires and power sources around the kitchen. The grapes themselves however are not present. The wires and vines are wrapping around objects, sticking into batteries and plug sockets. These are all however leading forward, into the Blender’s Lair.
• Non-zomberry enemies can be overheard talking about ‘The Blender’s big plans’.

The next meeting is to decide things such as how we will split into teams and work, as well as naming conceptions etc.

Project Blend - Design Document

So as of Friday we have completed and handed in Coursework 1, the Design Document for Project Blend.
It was a really great feeling just having everyone working together to contribute to this massive document. It ended up being  23500 and a bit words!

Personally I'm not sure how much in words... but I contributed mostly to the Story and Narrative section of the document. Re-doing the narrative arc, having a more in depth story summary, talking about how the story had developed etc.
I also as everyone else did, design some of the encounters in the levels. More specifically mine being encounters 4 and 5 in Level 1. We also all did a ton of proof-reading at the end to make sure the document was up to a presentable standard.
Erm... I also collated with Adam in the making of the Research Summary section.
All in all, we've all worked really hard, and I'm really proud of us all.

Project Blend - Level Breakdown + Now with added sound!

Last weeks meeting contained a big discussion about sound. I worked with Allan and Chris to map out the music that is needed in relevance to the story. 

My task was to combine this with the story breakdown, so that it can be given to the school of rock.

I did this simply by adding a Music heading to each level. These contain a title for every song we need, along with a few key words/themes.

The team shall discuss example music on the forum and in person. This shall be added into this when we have reached a decision. 

Level  1

Setting

Good Kitchen

Plot Points

• Good Kitchen is attacked by fruit from the Bad Kitchen.
• They kidnap the Raspberries .
• Master Dragonfruit is Killed by Horned Melon.
• Horned Melon flees to Bad Kitchen.
• Logan follows for revenge/ to save the raspberries.

Music

• Good Kitchen Theme – Calm, Happy.
• Invasion – Dramatic, Strong. (Must lead in well from previous song.)
• Helon’s Theme – Boss Fight, Strong, Punk.
• Tragic Theme – Tragic Sad.

Level 2

Setting

Bad Kitchen – Kitchen Side

Plot Points

• Enters Bad Kitchen.
• Grapevine is introduced, they explain the situation the kitchen is in.
• Stealth’s way through kitchen.
• Blackberries are introduced.
• Caught and thrown in bin.

Music

• Bad Kitchen Theme – Dark, Seedy, Edgey.

Level 3

Setting

Bad Kitchen – Bin

Plot Points

• Rotting Fruit – Fight Zomberries.
• Meets traitor Blackberries.
• Finds out that Logan is a Loganberry.
• Meets Helon – she tells Logan that the Raspberries are in the Fridge.
• Fight way out of Bin.

Music

• Bin Theme – Dark, Eerie, Death.

Level 4

Setting

Bad Kitchen – Fridge

Plot Points

• Stealth way past prison guards.
• Fight Captain/Boss.
• Logan saves the fruit trapped in the Fridge. The Raspberries are not there.
• Open the Fridge door, see’s the Raspberries in the Blender.

Music

• Fridge Theme – Cold, Icy, Desolate.

Level 5

Setting

Bad Kitchen – Side

Plot Points

• Stealth/Fight way across kitchen to Blender.

Music

• Rising Tension – Tension, Fast, Stealthy.

Level 6

Setting

Bad Kitchen – Side

Plot Points

• Showdown with Blender.
• Blender is defeated.
• The Raspberries are blended.
• It is revealed that The Grapevine are the real bad guys.
• They possess the Blender, Final Boss Fight.
• Grapes are defeated.

Music

• Blender Boss Theme – Dark and stealthy.
• Grapvine Boss Theme – Epic battle music.

(Both tunes although very different should share a key melody.)

Epilogue

Setting

Good Kitchen

Plot Points

• Logan returns to the Good Kitchen.
• Harmony between Good and Bad Kitchens.

Music

• Good Kitchen Theme (Reprise) – A reprise/remix of the Good Kitchen theme, to show harmony.

Additional Music

• Menu Theme – Short, Repetitive, Memorable.
• Fight Theme – Fast Paced, Hyper, Deadly.
• Sub-Boss Theme – A more epic fight theme.
• Credits Theme – Perhaps another reprise of another song?

Project Blend - Sight and Shout Range Prototype

So I was assigned to prototype the sight and shout ranges of enemies in the game. I apologise for the drawing.

This is a top down layout of what the player would be seeing on the screen.

The Rules

• Logan is the blue circle.
• Turning Enemies are red circles.
• Patrolling enemies are red squares.
• Obstacles donated by grey boxes.
• Logan moves one space at a time.
• Patrolling enemies move one space at a time, and take the time of one space to turn.
• Turning enemies take the time of one space to turn, and they stare in a direction for the time of one space before turning again.
• Movement is donated by dotted line.
• Turning is denoted by the arrowed line.
• Enemies can see in straight line anything on the screen.
• If an enemy see’s Logan they shout, causing any enemy within three spaces to head to that position.
• If Logan moves onto a space occupied by an enemy and they can’t see him, that enemy is killed.
• If an enemy sees Logan and successfully shouts (the shout calls another enemy) then Logan is killed.
• If Logan is seen by an enemy and they shout unsuccessfully (the shout fails to call another enemy) then the enemy moves to Logan’s space and is killed by Logan.

One thing that shall have to be discussed is how far the enemies can see in this straight line. I would think this would be limited by the screen. i.e enemies can not see you from off screen.

Project Blend - Level Breakdown

Level  1

Setting:  Good Kitchen

• Good Kitchen is attacked by fruit from the Bad Kitchen.
• They kidnap the Raspberries .
• Master Dragonfruit is Killed by Horned Melon.
• Horned Melon flees to Bad Kitchen.
• Logan follows for revenge/ to save the raspberries.

Level 2

Setting: Bad Kitchen – Kitchen Side

• Enters Bad Kitchen.
• Grapevine is introduced, they explain the situation the kitchen is in.
• Stealth’s way through kitchen.
• Blackberries are introduced.
• Caught and thrown in bin.

Level 3

Setting: Bad Kitchen – Bin

• Rotting Fruit – Fight Zomberries.
• Meets traitor Blackberries.
• Finds out that Logan is a Loganberry.
• Meets Helon – she tells Logan that the Raspberries are in the Fridge.
• Fight way out of Bin.

Level 4

Setting: Bad Kitchen – Fridge

• Stealth way past prison guards. (Perhaps Blueberries?)
• Fight Captain/Boss. (Cold Veg, perhaps Radish/ Florence Fennel?)
• Logan saves the fruit trapped in the Fridge. The Raspberries are not there.
• Open the Fridge door, see’s the Raspberries in the Blender.

Level 5

Setting: Bad Kitchen – Side

• Stealth/Fight way across kitchen to Blender.

Level 6

Setting: Bad Kitchen – Side

• Showdown with Blender.
• Blender is defeated.
• The Raspberries are blended.
• It is revealed that The Grapevine are the real bad guys.
• They possess the Blender, Final Boss Fight.
• Grapes are defeated.

Epilogue

• Logan returns to the Good Kitchen.
• Harmony between Good and Bad Kitchens.

There could also be a level between levels 3 and 4 to show the transition between the Bin and the Fridge.

Project Blend - Narrative Arc

So here's my version of the Narrative Arc for the Story of our project. I actually did this a few days ago, just didn't post it. So now it looks like Daryl and K did this before me...


Also this layout is based on a narrative structure template by Hope Caton


Act 1

Start

Introduce the good kitchen, very white and clean. Introduce Logan and Master Dragonfruit. Combat Training. Introduce other Raspberries.

Inciting Incident

Fruit invade from the bad kitchen. Many of the good fruits are slaughtered. The Raspberries are kidnapped. Master Dragonfruit runs off to fight.

Second Half – Preparation

He follows Master Dragonfruit and fights through the bad fruit, to get to the entrance of the bad kitchen.

Hook

He kills a couple if blackberries that beg for his mercy, calling him brother.

Climax

Logan arrives just as Master Dragonfruit is killed by Master HornedMelon, the guardian to the bad kitchen. Logan goes crazy and fights the guardian, killing him.

Act 2

Start

Enters the bad kitchen, see’s the disorder and decay. Meets the grapevine, gossipy French grapes that are on vines around the kitchen.

They inform Logan that this is all the work of the blender. He sets out for revenge. Must stealth his way through kitchen.

Midpoint Reversal

After a few stealth encounters, Logan stealth’s through the Blender’s outer guard of fruit. He fights and kills Blackberries. It is then revealed to him that he is a Loganberry, i.e. half Blackberry.

Identity Crisis?

Second Half

Deals with crises and strengthens his vows to defeat the Blender. More stealth and fighting.

Climax

Fights a big boss fruit, wins, but is grievously injured. Questions whether or not to turn back.

Act 3

Start

Logan lies there, a blackberry heals him. Determination restored, he decides to keep fighting.

Climax

After bloody battle, gets to the Blender. Showdown.

Resurrection

The Blender blends all the raspberries inside him. Logan goes crazy and finishes him off.

Resolution

Back in the good kitchen, training by himself.

Also here are links to Daryl and K's versions.

Daryl

K

Toon Shading Sanity Test

We had a meeting on Monday in which we decided on art style. It's really nice, as I actually feel like we're getting somewhere now.

A small difference in opinion was whether we should use toon shading on the playable character, i.e Sly Cooper Style.

It was argued that we would encounter too many problems doing this, and that it would be too time consuming to implement. 

I believe that it should be repetitively easy to do in Unity, and that it would look good.

To see whether it was feasible myself and Martin where assigned to sanity check it.

I did this using the level and character from Unity's 2D Gameplay Tutorial. 

http://unity3d.com/support/resources/tutorials/2d-gameplay-tutorial

I tried out three different types of shader. Applying them to both the character and the ship.

Bumped Specular

This shader is the default shader which gives a more realistic lighting effect.

Toon - Basic Outline

This shader gives the object an outline, and acts as if no light is shone on it.

Toon - Lighted Outline

This applies an outline to the model, as in the other Toon shader, but this shader recognises light, and is shaded in a tooney fashion. 

As the screenshots with the toon shaders show, this works perfectly well on a playable character.

I can also confirm that it worked fine when the character was animated.

I was also assigned to plot out the narrative ark of the game. This shall be done soon.

Setting and Plot idea

This weeks meeting was interesting, we finally got the 'vision' of the game sorted. We then got split into groups to look at different things. Obviously being Story Co-ordinator I chose come up with ideas for setting and plot. Daryl and Chris will also be doing this, it'll be interesting to see how different our ideas all are.

Setting
My idea for the setting (well an idea I think someone else came up with, but I stole) is a very clean, simple kitchen. It would be spotless and look almost clinical. Here a few a pictures stolen from google that I like.

I see everything have a very straight, angled style. Sort of looking like Mirrors Edge.

I think having a style like this will make the fruit juices everywhere more satisfying.

Plot
Ok, now onto plot! My idea for the plot is that of gang wars. Each gang having the name, and containing the fruit and/or veg of a particular smoothie. The names being amusing or 'punny'. For example 'Banana Blitz' being a gang of hard-hitting Banana's,'Berry Blast' being a group a many different berries, or Strawberry Passion being full of seductive, sordid strawberries.
... I'm sure the group will come up with funnier names.

Anywho, the plot follows the main character... who as he doesn't have a name, shall be known henceforth as Logan. Logan the Raspberry.

Logan arrives with a batch of other raspberries in 'The Kitchen'. On his arrival they are attacked by the blackberries. He manages to get away, but the rest of his kin are slaughtered.
He ends up finding out that they where slaughtered as raspberry is the final ingredient needed by 'The Blender'. They wanted to stop that at any cost.

'The Blender' is master of the kitchen, who has many of the gangs of fruit under his control. He sends these gangs after Logan.

 'Blackberry Blasters', (name pending) are a resistance group who are fighting against 'The Blender'.

Logan spends the game fighting off the gangs sent after him by the blender, as well as chasing after 'Blackberry Blasters' to avenge his kin.

A plot twist at some point is that he is half Blackberry himself. He is a Loganberry.

Well those are my ideas, will be cool to what ideas the others have had, and how our ideas merge.

Research - Stealth Gameplay

So we had our big team meeting Thursday, were we chose the game idea and such, but we also brainstormed loads of idea and themes to do with the game. We were then assigned to take one of these things each to research. I shall be researching stealth in games.

First up we have Metal Gear Solid, this has to one of the most famous stealth games out there.



It has an array of interesting mechanics used to distract and sneak up on your opponents . You also have to hide the bodies of some people you kill/ knock out, which is quite cool/annoying.

Linking on to this lets look at another game made by Hideo Kojima, Boktai.



These 26 seconds of bad quality video basically show the main stealth mechanic in the games. Knock on a wall, get behind them, and KILL!

Anywho, now onto another very popular stealth franchise Splinter Cell.




This is from the newest Splinter Cell game, so may be slightly different from the others, but this is defiantly very different from the other stealth games above. It looks quite interesting... I may have to give it a play sometime.

Next another famous game, with almost a 'cult game' status. Thief. The following video is for number 2.



This is quite interesting as it is third person, something that isn't regularly seen in stealth games. Another interesting thing is that sounds are apparently used to great affect in this. This could be quite interesting to research more and implement into the project.

Now to one of the most modern and famous stealth games. Assassins Creed.



These games have very interesting ways of being stealthy. Involving luring guards away, hiding, blending into crowds, as well as stealth kills.

Finally a game that at least I envision to be the closest of what our project shall be like, perhaps as  a 2D platformer, rather than a 3D one though. Sly Cooper.



I especially like the cartoony style and setting, something that I wouldn't have thought possible in stealth game, but evidently can be done.

Anyways, thanks for reading, now to go try this minecraft game everyones talking about...

Big Games Project - Voting and such

So yesterday we all pitched our ideas.
Mine and K's ideas drew! But unfortunately after a re-vote K's idea got chosen. Congrats to him though.
Was a bit saddening at first, just because I had been so close, and I usually don't have good ideas... but guess I just shouldn't have got my hopes up.

On a brighter note, I did land the job of Story Co-ordinator. Which is what I wanted. Dunno what to do with this idea story wise at the moment though. I guess I'll have to brainstorm with the rest of the group, and see what we want to do with it.

From now on I shall be posting weekly about my involvement in this project, should be pretty interesting.

Anywho, I shall leave you with this.

Games Pitch!

Ok so the High Concept of my game pitch for big team project is this:

Take over the world as an Alien Hat, who can read minds, shape shift, and control people.

• It will be a single-player PC game, for the PC, created in Unity.
• The style of the game shall be simple, containing everyday objects and low poly humanoids.
•   The view shall be isometric, so that the player can see a large area of the game world. Similar to The Sims 3 ( Below. Fig 1.)

Fig 1. Sims 3

As stated in the High Concept above, the player is an Alien Hat that has come to take over the world. Obviously the Hat has certain abilities that will help it achieve this goal.

•  The main one being mind control. If anyone wears the hat, it can control their actions.
•    It can shape shift into different types of hat, to lure people to put it on.
•    It can read the minds of people around it.
•    It can hover/ teleport short distances, as long as it isn’t being looked at.

Each level will have a target; a head the hat must reach to complete the level. This will be done using the Hat’s abilities, and other people’s abilities to work up a chain and eventually reach the target. A few examples of this would be:

•   Taking over a shop clerk allow the player to more easily take over and person in that shop.
•      Taking over a clown/ entertainer would allow you to place the hat on a child’s head.
•      Taking over a Sports Instructor would allow you to give the hat to anyone participating in the Sport. 

A passive ability of every person in the level is the ability to more easily take over anyone they have a relationship with.

The story of the game shall be told through the thoughts of the people in each level, as well as the hat’s own thoughts. There will be plot, sub plots, and themes that carry throughout the game.

In this way the story shall be integrated into the game play, and won’t be a separate entity. 

Big Games Project!

Woop! So today we had our first meeting for the Big Games Project! Am quite psyched.
We shall be be proposing our ideas next week. I have an ok one about a parasitic hat. But I may think of something better... something involving a Wii-mote could be interesting.
So! From now on I shall be trying my best to post weekly on what I'm doing in this project. This shall hopefully be stuff to do with story, as I am hoping to get Story co-ordinator.

On another note, I am currently writing a review of Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep, for this blog. I loved the game, but I should hopefully be giving an interesting and mostly impartial review.

Anywho, I shall leave you with a link to the song 'Black Sheep' from the Scott Pilgrim movie. It's originally by Metric, but I much prefer this version.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jMruFHTwrY