Okay first thing, AssBlitz? So we have come up with an architecture for character behaviors that focuses on giving a character an assignment. Each gameplay character has an assignment stack. One of my sprint assignments was to implement an enemy character that is fast and charges the player. So for this behavior I had to implement a new assignment. What better name than AssBlitz, then? This was fairly simple. When an instance of the enemy is created, it assigns the AssStalk behavior (implemented by Kyle Ray) then when the player is within a certain distance it pushes AssBlitz onto it's assignment stack. The blitz assignment is timed, so it will charge the player and reset to the stalk assignment, until it is again ready to blitz.
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We decided on the sidescroll view with an underwater, Gaelic, Celtic, pseudomythological theme. Over the break, Michael added a sweet player mechanic that allows the player to control the swarm by drawing them around the map in a line. This inspired a few more mechanics that will likely push more innovation in the game. In the coming weeks we need to implement more enemies, level boundaries, more player mechanics, debugging features, and more. We will soon need to start thinking about UI which will be my role. I added the parallax and background tiling effects to the sidescroll view mostly reusing code from my implementation in Timey. The effects of the parallax in the swarm game a little more sensitive and more difficult to perfect I believe due to the change in scale. This can be fine tuned in future iterations. I also played NBA 2K15 on Xbox 360. I really should've read some reviews for the game on 360 (instead of on the current-gen Xbox One and PS4) because the only changes for this years NBA 2K series are the team lineups and the featured hip-hop music that I usually opt out of listening to. If there were more changes, I didn't notice them. All the new features were saved for the current-gen console versions. The 2K series is fun, but only receiving a line-up change isn't enough to keep me interested. Needless to say, I'm now shopping for an Xbox One in hopes that I'll be playing my own—and my classmates'—games on it in the near future. As a team, we've met now 3 times for 2-4 hours each time and we still haven't nailed down our theme, main character, gameplay, etc. over the break the programmers are going to create a side scroller and a top-view to demonstrate gameplay and aesthetics in each perspective. I will be on the team working on side view because of my previous experience with implementing the parallax effect in Timey. This will enable the designers to make a better decision on which perspective we should run with. This is what will be done over Fall Break. Timey is no more. The industry and the professors reduced the team count from 11 to 5. The surviving games were: The Tree Game: You play as a tree in a park that survives on the souls of the innocent. Seeing is Believing: The 3d puzzle platformer that has the player switching color filters to alter the world around him. Music Melancholy: The fast-paced music platformer that has the player running and hitting objects to match the tune of the song. Melter Man: The side scroller, puzzle platformer that allows the player to alter their environment using a weapon that can melt walls and objects and rebuild things based on the materials they are melting. Will of the Wisp: The swarm game where the player controls a character that is the master of a swarm that he can push, pull, whirl, etc. to his will. I have been assigned to Will of the Wisp which is now just a "working title" game. These 5 games all have a lot of potential. Today we pitched our games to the industry panel. There were like 25 people representing about 6 companies including SmartBomb Interactive, EA Games, Disney Avalanche, Eat Sleep Play, and I want to say there were some there from Chair Entertainment, but don't quote me on that. I'm not the best at presentations and Brandon has a good personality for it so he did all the talking. I put the slideshow and the gameplay video together and drove that while Brandon presented. Reception was okay, but we had the unfortunate presenting positioning right behind a game with very similar mechanics and ideas. But based on the feedback from the panel, we executed a lot better than our time-changing counterpart. I will attach the gameplay here eventually. I was able to add pickup items to the gameplay. Timey can walk up to an object with the tag 'pickup' and when the player presses the 'F' key, Timey will pick up the object. For now, to drop it he has to press 'R', which isn't a very friendly control design. I also added animations to the player character which is just a little blob fellow. When still, he looks still-ish. When moving he squishes down a little and the little bob on his head sways back behind him. When jumping, he looks free and happy to be alive with his mouth open as he looks to the sky. Falling, his bob goes upward and he looks down. Landing gives a little squish. This was all done using 5 sprites and Unity's animator.
I got the time switching mechanic working. The overarching idea is to create a tag called 'present' and a tag called 'past'. Anything that is 'present' is seen and interactive in the world when Timey is in 'present' time. When you press 'E' on the keyboard, it switches time frames. I also got basic movement for the player and the camera in using some open source unity code. The camera motion is nice because it is fluid and has a little give and easing in each direction.
The class-wide pitches were made this week and we have been pigeon-holed in to about ten teams of six for the time being. These smaller teams will come up with the best demos we can in the coming weeks. The top six-ish demos' teams will then devour the not-so-good demos' teams turning us into about six teams of ten.
The demo I will be working on in the coming weeks is currently titled Timey. Time to learn some Unity. This week we're pitching our game ideas. We had to purge out 15 ideas in a mega-nerd roulette fashion and determine which of our pitches were the best. From the feedback we got in the roulette, we determined which pitch to elaborate on and re-pitch in a more formal fashion today. Ultimately, I went with what felt like got the best feedback–though, not by much. In today's re-pitches, I failed to enthuse my peers and was left regretting my choice of game pitch...shucks, now I can go and make some sweet games on my own time.
Next we'll see class-wide pitches and choose our favorite to form some small teams. More to come on that. |
AuthorAlex Stout is a game developer studying at the University of Utah. Archives
July 2015
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