The last little (big) bit

Aquila

From what I remember of this group, their prototype was succesful because it was digital. Their users were confused over the units functionality, but have implemented a feedback system to allow for adjustments. Their testing allowed them to identify a few various gameplay bugs like unit stacking, and demonstrated the need for a better AI. I feel they did a good job.

Lengend of Chopstick Chung

Much like wario ware in style, this team also had a digital prototype. The games seemed fun and the users got into them, but unpolished graphics and displaced hitboxes detracted a bit of excitement. Still, this game seemed to test well. The users responded posatively, and the team got some good suggestions, like a 2d fighter boss level :D

Deep Field

I remember almost nothing about this game, other than it was in Torque 3d and they pushed a ball around. They had next-to-no AI, so the users were acting out their own stories. This boils down to testing to see that oyu don't fall through the world. I don't feel their prototype tested any gameplay elements other than getting torque 3d to not crash.

Dynasty

I remember this teams feedback sounding like "DND with a neopet look" which I found funny. That is actually some good feedback, in my mind. Their users obviously enjoyed playing their game, and their idea went over well. The users they tested worked through several maps to solve various puzzles, and it seemed like the team learned one thing: We're on the right track.

Late game posts

Silly me, I forgot to post these earlier. Yay late stuff!


Food Fight:

From what I remember, this team prototyped very similar to Battle Ships, but with cards added, which I found odd because they wanted to make a worms-like game but tested an entirely different system of combat. They ran in to many problems ranging from player confusion to imbalanced attacks. I found myself questioning their methodology, when their mechanics that they tested were not paralleled well by their desired real gameplay. Their saving grace was the range of skills in players, so they knew exactly what aspects of their game were confusing, which is always helpful when making a new game.


Drive Thru Tycoon:

This team had a digital prototype, and tested for their games mechanics very accurately. By their user feedback, I believe they did a very good job using a prototype to cut down on development time, and narrow down their mechanic. Through this user study process, they found things like their instructions being too unclear, and that it wasn't intuitive for the users to have to remember the orders. By testing a demo of the actual game, they have managed to pinpoint specific issues and cut down on time spent fixing potential problems.

Circular Strife

I believe, by far, this team did one of the best jobs in prototyping their game, and above all, extracted valuable information about their game. For starters, their creative way of using remote-control cars was brilliant. Their users provided helpful feedback, such as how fun it is to try and develope technique in swinging the bombs around their targets.
Their portrayal of time as demerits lent a world of credability to their prototype. Using the paradigm of demerits, their testers really had an emulated gaming experience. Top work!

The blog post to end all blog posts

Ok, here it is. The post that chronicles everything I've done in the last month.

First off, we had meetings upon meetings and discussed the game into the ground. What I mean is, we brainstormed all aspects of the multi-linear story, and came up with a gameplan for the event scripting. Henry was given the task of re-writing the combat system, and Marie and Kyle were working on sprites and tilesets. This was going on from march 1'st - oct 15'th. We'd have weekly meetings on Tuesdays, and discuss our progress. I was busy learning how to use RPG maker and finding tilesets. Marie was designing sprites, and Kyle was learning how art worked in RPG maker.


I began work on the game design and event scripting itself around Oct. 15'th.
By November 1'st I had finalized a working copy of the first area of our game, and we tested it for the following features:

Script, fun factor, creativeness, originality, and believablility.

The game scored low on almost everything. It was obvious that something was missing.

Nov 2nd:
I began re-vamping the entire game infrastructure, from the way I depicted elevation to the way NPC's talked and interacted with the player. All areas got a major overhaul. Scripting became a major issue. Me and Steven had multiple meetings to discuss the way the NPC's interacted with the player. Together, we made the game more believable, and the story more interesting.

Nov 7'th:

I added about 5 new maps and about 15 minutes of real gameplay to the game. Henry had developed a working beta version of the new ATB combat system, and we tested it. It was a little buggy, but it worked.
The version of RPG Maker I was using was not compatible with this version of the combat system, so we continued working on it and I continued developing the game on my version.

Nov 14'th.
By this time, the game up until the "shaman" (about 1/3 the way through) was complete, although buggy. Areas of the map were giving me wierd collision issues. Henry had completed the Combat system, but I had not used it yet.

I ran into major roadblocks here. The areas I wanted to develop were becoming stagnant, and unoriginal. Everything looks and feels exactly like the first area of the game. To change this, me and Kyle worked on new tilesets. I also found new and creative ways to use events to depict the narrative. Using our new tilesets, and my newfound knowledge of complex event scripting, I began working on the first major multi-linear aspect of our game.

Nov 21'st:

This is a little closer to a working, real game. During this week, I spent about 30 hours reworking EVERYTHING I had ever done. Even the script changed again. The way I handled enemies changed, and I started utilizing common events to script battle events. This allowed me to create the attack "mug".
I also redesigned almost all the areas of the game. Everything from the players starting house to the first dungeon got improved. The game became much more polished, and feels much more like a real RPG.

Nov 28 - current
My Laptop charged died, and I had to backup everything to my comp.
The game now has many new maps, about 7, added. It is now fully multi-linear, although incomplete and buggy. we hope that by Tuesday, it will be complete. Henry is working on polishing the combat system, and incorporating other interesting features VIA ruby. Marie is re-designing sprites for this new combat system, as is Kyle. Steven and I are continuously revamping the games story for optimal player enjoyment.

That's all for now!

The last few

Stick Ninja:

This group managed to semi-accuratley apply their mechanics to their prototype, and in doing so, seemed to generate some helpful information about their game. They may not have answered many questions about their game, but they were given the tools to now ask the right questions. I feel their prototype had significant value to their progress in this project, as they were able to test their main mechanic and generate user feedback about their game.



Zodiac War:

This team set out to prototype a 2d Fighting game. Right from the get-go, this is challenging. I feel they did a decent job working their mechanic into a paper prototype. Because the members were facilitating the AI, the game obviously is not as fast as the digital copy will be. Judging by the results, it seems as though their prototype was a success. It showed them the need for more attack variation and clearer controls. Above all, programming the AI will be difficult. We'll have to wait and see.


Crack Quest:

Finally a game that really catches the feel of where our campus is located. Since this was a digital prototype, it did a wonderful job of testing the mechanics they will be using in the end. Based on the results, i'd say their prototype was a complete success. Some good feedback such as more weapons and cut scenes needed is great to have. And being able to test things like bullet collision benefits them in the short term, since this won't be something they will deal with last minute. Great job!

First set of presentations

AntLion

- Real time strategy game with ants

Now making a strategy

- You are an ant trapped in a pit with an antlion

-Game too random, disturbed game play

Instructions were misleading

Player wants to play the ant because it is more challenging

Use an ant eater instead of an antlion

Possibly make it an educational game about ants and ant lions

Feedback: Interesting idea, the mechanics seem a bit shaky for this late in development. Switching from RTS to Strategy gives a new spin on this concept. I would like to see a demo before I made involved commentary, but it seems as though this game is going to sink or swim based on its choice of mechanics.

Fins of Fury

-People want weapons

-Paper prototype was very close to game

-You fight enemies when next to them

-You evolve with your fish

-Going to do Torque 3D (tried Halflife Engine, didn’t work)

Feedback: I am picturing frogger with a bazooka when I saw the models. Cool idea, the aesthetics will really define the "fun" of this game. The modelers have their work cut out for them, I would like to remind them that its the attention to detail when in a 3d environment that gives people the feeling of a complete, immersing game. Switching from halflife to torque so late in the process cuts the development time down drastically. Good luck!

Mizu

Side scrolling action game

Fantasy Adventure with puzzles

You are someone defending your town?

Rather kiddy for art style

Used dice to determine severity of damage

Different type of splashes for feedback

Good artwork

Use game components to aid the player

Feedback: The lack of ability to test mechanics on the paper prototype to me suggests, to me, that this team would have been better off with a digital prototype. The artwork seemed fitting and the game premise is solid. I'm excited to see what they are going to do with this. Good job on the prototyping otherwise! The mechanics weren't discussed in great detail so I can't really critique the game idea itself, I'm going to go on what I saw with the prototyping and say this game should do well if they follow their current path and don't fail at implementing appropriate mechanics for their game.

Testing 1…2…3…

Originally a school yard beat’em up

Now a medieval setting

Narrowed scope

focusing on rooms

Paper prototype (could not test platforming)

Want real time (tested to best of ability)

Looked for balance between characters

Different types of characters

Different types of attacks (not just the same old swinging of the sword)

Tested combat effectiveness

Using puzzles

DnD Map/Grid

Used dice to simulate combat results

Had Characters with character sheets

Need more difficult enemies

Unbalanced skills

Too many puzzles

Turn based unfortunately sucks

Need pick ups/upgrades

More Action Oriented

Feedback: I don't remember a whole lot about their game besides it being an action/puzzle. The lack of a name doesn't afford me much reference either. I would have to say from what I remember and the notes that I have, that they started with a generic layout and did a great job of narrowing down their scope. From the looks of it, I'd say they tested most of their mechanics and found their issues quite early. Now we can only hope they fix the balancing issues that are inherent in almost all action games, and get a polished product out by the end of the semester.


More to come!

Game Under Way!

So the last few weeks has begun the process of game development for 3'rd Cloud. I'll briefly write and surmise what we've accomplished over the last few weeks, and particularly, what I've done to contribute.


First of all, our story is still under development. That is to say, me and Steven have yet to hammer out the fine specifics of the plot. Writing a multi-linear story where your actions have consequences is not easy. I had steven produce a primitive decision matrix, but we will be improving on that over the next few weeks.


I've spent the majority of my development time learning the functionality of scripting and how I can use RPG makers primitive elements to produce a skeleton for my game, which I can then plug in the new artwork and story tweaks as needed when the time comes. So far, it's been rather productive.

Marie has provided me with quite a few well-done models for our opening game, and I hope to "borrow" a few (with sources credited) from a few sites later on, once I get into enemy and NPC development in the weeks to come. Using this, we were able to create the first few moments of gameplay. We even had a battle with a snake!

The feedback we recieved from our user testing allowed us to make some alterations to our preconceptions about how our game is to be played. Specifically, we learned that players like it when everything gives them feedback. So every barrel will now say "It's a barrel.." when you click "x" at it. Cool, eh?

Anyway, moving on: Kyle didn't follow through on his promised artwork like I asked, and when he finally did, it was low-grade and the angles were mostly wrong. The textures were nothing like I requested them to be either. I dbout he even looked at chrono trigger, or earthbound. I'm not going to yell at him, it's his perogative to do his part. But if he doesn't, then it's his head that will roll. I'll make sure of it.


I had steve work on UI this week, so hopefully he'll produce something we can implement as a placeholder in the near future. Marie is working on some choice sprites, and Henry is working on sound still, with the added job of looking into how to rewrite the combat system to suite our chrono-trigger knockoff.

More to come!

Inspiration!

As taken from Kaze no Stigma, their idea of "pandemonium", a group of magicians that take random people and grant them special powers.

I would propose a game similar in principle, where the main character gains a power (maybe one that is chosen through gameplay?) and has to defeat similar opponents. This would progress in a tournament system, each battle tougher than the last.

I'm not proposing a street-fighter style game, but rather one set in a modern of future city, where our protagonist finds himself recruited to in to this tournament. Perhaps the tournament is some way of settling a dispute between two factions in an organization. Either way, a reward of great power is promised to the winner, and obviously evil people are recruited as well as good.

Sounds like I stole this straight from Shaman King, eh? They're similar, that's for sure.

The gameplay /story is FPS. Skills and abilities based on whatever the player chooses. Perhaps base classes like Nature, Space, Earth, Fire, Wind, Water, and perhaps Mind would suffice. Each "level up" gives you the power to specialize further or broaden your skills. This would require MUCH balancing, so everyone doesn't pick the same skillset.

Battles are in real time, where the NPCs either outnumber or are of a higher grade than the protagonist. AI will be tricky.

Perhaps a pokemon-style battle system would go good here. Rather than the user shooting FPS style, they select an attack and have to preform a certain action or sequence to determine the potency of your spell / ability / action. For example, a water-based attack might be a large whirlpool surrounding the enemy. Potency of attack is based off the speed of which the player can rotate the joystick.

This could happen real-time, so the enemy can break out of the spell if his attack or defensive abilitiy has greater power. It comes down to a quick-thinking action rather than button mashing.

More to come!

Advanced Game Design Cont.

I've decided that if anything, the Dark Messiah version hold more ground than any other game idea I have.

Just brainstorming some ideas for gameplay:

Gameplay is realtime, fights are either turn based or real time.

The player can select to go into turn based at any point in the game, by hitting a certain button. This is similar to the "FEAR" style, but first seen in the Might and Magic series (NOT heroes of might and magic). It allows the player to actively swap between RT and TB play.

A good user will use this to his / her advantage when exploring, for example, catacombs or close-knit areas, where surprises can lurk behind corners. I would probably have the users pre-define a set of skills and /or spells on a hotbar, and have them default bound to 1-10, with the option of rebinding quickbar slots to any other unused key (Dark Ages of Camelot). IE binding "u" to quickbar 2, position 1. So that the user may use that ability on quickbar2 instead of having to swap quickbars, then pressing 1, simply by hitting "u".
These sort of features are important for making gameplay enjoyable and seamless. When a user is annoyed by using their abilities, there's not enough consideration into the design of the interface.

This is ubiquitous for all game designs, in my opinion.

-- Drew

Halflife 2

Since we have access to the halflife 2 engine, I've been boxing the idea of a Starship Troopers spinoff (the book, not crappy movie). Perhaps a story mode set after the training camp, right before the player makes his first drop. I'm wondering how easy it would be to make. The bugs, i imagine, would be hard to code. The skinnys would be like semi-neutral NPC's, since the alliance in SST was trying to persuade the skinnies to join their side right as Jhonny hits the MI, full fledged. Either way, it's promising. I think i'll ponder over it, and work out a detailed description tomorrow, and ask for feedback from the instructor on monday, the day before class. Hopefully she can give it.

I like this idea, the more i think about it. I'd have to limit ranking advancement to Section Assistant Leader, so your boy doesn't have control of more than himself. I think that may be a bit too hard to program. We'll see though. General functions like "form around me", "close the flank" and "pull out" shouldn't be hard to program.

Since the MI are all ALWAYS armed to the teeth, i think "leveling up" should constitute advancing in standing with the army, which will give you better MI suites. Longer jump time, more carrying power, com equipment, radar and team tracking. That kinda jazz. should be good!

Awards can be given out for recovering team mates, making pickup on time, mass destruction, target completion, etc.

When I say team mate recovery, I mean corpse retrieval. Since 99% of the time, when someone needs recovering, they've already bought the farm.

-- Drew

Advanced Game Design

Graha, first posts are always awesome!

I'm toying with a few general game design ideas, but without first hand knowledge of how powerful the materials we will be working with this semester, I suppose I'll just have to go with the stars and dream.

My first idea stems from Earthbound gameplay and Diablo 2's style of asthetics (2d overlay with top-down scroller)

These concepts work well together because Earthbound was similar to diablo 2 in its camera views. What I want to take from eathbound are the fundamental characteristics that describe a "feel-good game". Cartoonish characters swing wacky yet slightly plausible weapons around beating snakes, mushrooms, and corrupt police officers to gain EXP and powerful special attacks.

What I take from D2 will be a skill system that allows for more in-depth character development, and "acts" that the player unlocks, each one more difficult than the last. For a 4 month project I would only attempt at developing 1 or 2 acts. Anything else is shooting for the stars.

The storyline is something I'd consider to be the most important part of a game of this type and so I'm not going to bother trying to write it all in this post. I have to select which idea I want before I go ahead and develop it further.

Another option is the ubiquitous 3d world PSO style of game. Again, this is fringing on developmental restrictions when I say this, but negating ability to program, I would have this game function similarly to Might and Magic; Dark Messiah. The main character is given few starting options for skills, but the main choosable classes will be DND primitives, ranging from Rogue, Wizzard, Sorcerer, Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin, and Cleric. The user will acquire a party of NPC's throughout the game who fill 3 "party spots". These members will be controllable in a similar fasion to the Might and Magic series, where the entire party is represented by pictures, and each players action is controlled time based (each character attacks based on the cooldown of his/her previous action, first attack in combat is determined by the "dexterity" stat, AKA initiative). Combat is thus real-time, and the parties movement is synchronous, FPS style. Ideally, this would be written in the HL2 engine. Of all my ideas, this one is the most developed as far as gameplay and features go.

The storyline of this game would take some working on as well. I would probably chose a more open approach, as taken by Baulders Gate, by Bioware. Once the main character leaves the initial area (most commonly referred to as the noob level), they will be able to navigate in a few different directions, leading to spearate areas of, say, a city.
Getting out of the city requires completion of a few major storyline tasks, such as, say, quelling a rebellion started by the Guild of Shadows.. or something like that. The possibilities here are endless. I just hope Bioware won't sue. Think the first city of Final Fantasy 7. Until you got out, that city was your whole game.

By going this route, I'm able to create a scalable game, which I can take with me and continually develop outside of this class. I'm heavily leaning towards this game concept.

That's all for now. More to come!