Contrainte 4 Update. Some images. etc.

Post meeting with Pierre and Dave, These are some ideas that are floating around in my head

• Manage your money and your conversation with nagging mom!(minigame)
• Have a wallet with Money in it (at the beginning of the game), and spend money on certain articles of clothing. Try to make the character the nicest possible while fitting in the budget!
• screenshots of characters and share them online/on FB/on Twitter!

I was able to turn these floating ideas into a concrete idea, and now i'm working on putting the following things into my game design document.

to address the dual guitar hero thing, i'm going to design a kind of split screen mini game, where one half of the screen will have tappable fields for each kind of Currency, as well as the total of the object underneath, and the amount of money remaining. (view photo below for more detail). On the other half will be the Telephone conversation, in which the player will be required to answer "yes", "no", or "lol" in order to multi-task the entire situation.

Here's an idea of what the minigame could look like:

Find the exact change in your wallet, and Answer your nagging mom, simultaneously, to get bonus money to shop some more!

Obviously, this is going to be the minigame which a user will be able to play at the end of every level, after having chosen an article of clothing out of three possible choices. Here is an example of what the End of level sequence could look like, with three examples of shirts.

Examples of three designer/Brand name shirts that players could buy. 

Profession Unknown! (UPDATED 11/30/2011)

In order to set somewhat of a mood in the game, and to show that it is at least a Shopping mall, I'll need to make some props, in addition to fixing up unreal scripts, and doing my Custom Kismet for the Level Design.

This means i'll be pushing myself to try and be an entire production team for this project!!

Here's the list of props i'll be making (so far) for the basic DA which i'll be making by the end of the week!

• Bench

• Garbage Can

• Railings

• Doors to enter the stores

• Storefront Signs (Floor poster panels)

• Store Signs
• Flower Pots
• Trees
• Sofas
• Info Booth
• Escalator
• Locker
• Little "Ride" games for kids
• Shoe Racks
• Clothing Racks
• Changing Rooms
• Cash Counter

I'll be updating this page with the photos of the props as i finish them, so Edits to come.

With Everything made so far, this is the beginning of my level dressing.

(This will also be updated as I make more props to fill in the levels)

The Nexus of the Map

My game will be set up as follows

• Player is in a Nexus (2nd floor of the mall), which contains the entrances to 8 different stores!
• Each Store is a Level containing a certain amount of waves of enemies which the player must destroy in order to get the shopping item and check it off their list.
• Once the Item is aqcuired, the player is sent back to the Nexus, and can continue getting the other items.
• The Nexus Map is as follows.

Very Simply said, The player starts at the "You Are Here" dot, and it required to enter any of the stores to get the first hot Black Friday Sale item.

From there, she is thrown into the actual level. (not shown here)

CONTRAINTE 4

Captain's Log: Stardate 65376.6

/****************
BRAINSTORMING
****************/
So after MUCH brainstorming, i decided i want to make my target market for my final project 13-18 yr old Adolescents and my original ideas were the following:

• Flowar (Go Flower Picking and shoot a flower gun to make dark things pretty again.)
• Zombies in Space (Zombies are on the moon, and are trying to eat the brains of the poor spaceman who landed to do research)
• Angry Girls (flinging pies and barbie dolls at boys forts/treehouses/etc etc) (not like angry birds, from a first person view, by swiping up in the direction of your choice.

My sister, being an 18 year old girl, fits in the target audience. I asked her what she thought of the ideas i presented to her, and in the same order as the listed above, i got:

• "Isn't that for like... little kids?"
• "Haha that would be fun to play"
• "That's just sort of copying Angry Birds..."

In hindsight, I think all of the ideas are good, but they may not all necessarily apply to the target audience. I developed a quick title page for the game, to give an idea of what i wanted to gear myself towards! 

Original Idea

Going with this idea, i presented it to Pierre. He opened the idea to me that this might be a bit boyish for a game idea which is supposed to interest 13-18 year old girls. He proposed i somehow connect this to a favorite passtime of all girls of any age. Shopping.

I therefore came up with the idea of "Fashionista Zombies at the Mall" and after i figured the name was getting long and was starting to resemble "Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars" (a game on the PSN) and therefore shortened it to the very simple:

ignore the moon in the background...

The general idea i want to run with for this project are the following.

• Zombies will be wearing or using current Popular women's Fashion, and will try and chase down the player and kill the character.
• Canada Goose Jackets
• Louis Vuitton anything
• Longchamps Bags
• and the list goes on.

Then i caught a stroke of genius! Why make the game's sole purpose to be a shooter!? Maybe I could make it into a "don't get killed" kind of thing, where the player has to avoid the monsters and find Variable XYZ in order to leave the mall and finish the game.

• Game Name: Black Friday
• Goal: Enter all of the stores in the shopping mall, and find the articles you need to go home
• Zombies are all over the shopping mall, eating all of the Black Friday Shoppers
• Player will use a purse as a weapon to fend off the enemies.
• Player could alternately use an ice cube launcher or a similar projectile shooter. (mall themed of course)
• Once the player has collected an object from each store, she would then be able to exit the shopping mall and finish the game.

Hopefully, there's something here that i'll be able to tap into and make something solid and playable out of!

Constrainte 3 post

So i'm going to start this blog update with a quick example of what the level has become in the most recent version of the game, through our DA.

Here are photos of the level split into three photos in order to better see everything in the level.

Here are representations of the critical paths/platforming/enemies on the very same screenshots.

In order to have a functioning game, we needed for there to be working rigs/skins and animations for the characters. Using preliminary versions of Clara and the Kamikaze chicken, I was able to get everything working properly in the game.

Here are the videos of the animations I became responsible for making. followed by a quick video of what they all look like in the game engine (in engine video coming soon)!

Here is the level design document I made explaining the level in more detail.

CLICK HERE FOR THE FILE

What I've Done for Contrainte 3

So our team for this Constraint project consisted of

1 Character Modeler

1 Level Artist

and

2 Game/Level Designers

Meaning we had no animator, and as usual, no programmers.

People's Main Reponsabilities:

Jeff - Design a Game Design Document.

Taciana - Make the props and modular pieces. Also to develop a AD with Dang

Dang - Make our hero (Clara), and our boss (King Cow). Also to develop a AD with Taciana.

Me - Make a level design (w/ document) and write the scripts to replicate JF's Game Design in the UDK Engine as well as possible.

A recap of that what I have worked on in the last week since our last meeting with Pierre and Dave.

• Redesigned the level layout to include enemies and pickups
• Getting a functioning weapon.
• Getting a functioning Character.
• Figuring out how to get the player to play an attacking animation.
• Setting up the lighting in the level for the AD
• Making the Kamikaze Chickens blow up when they hit the player
• Working on a Level Design Document, describing all the aspects of my level design.

I absolutely wanted for this project to be in the UDK Game Engine, and therefore needed a minimum of things to be completed in order for everything to be in perfect working order in the engine (or damn near 100% anyways!)

Therefore, in addition to my normal responsibilities, i also had to take care of the following aspects of the project:

• Rigging and Skinning of the main character/Kamikaze chicken.
• Animation of the same 2 characters.
• Programming, for the mechanics sake.

Visual updates will be coming along tomorrow, as well as a listing of the completed mechanics/jobs for this project!

update from last week

update of the layers of the level layout for the first part of the level.

everything together

Level Only with crit path

Enemies and patrols

scripted events. Edited

WIP of the level layout in UDK with Taciana's props

Level Design, Oh Where Art Thou Level Design

So post-meeting with Pierre yesterday, we made some changes in the level and and the Game Design, and we looked at interesting ways to get the level working with the new mechanics.

For my part i've integrated the New mechanics, being the following:

• Pulley System
• Breakable items

This is the result of an INITIAL layout, using the new mechanics.

Layout of the first part of the Level, including the Scripted Events.
Furthur Details and a second part will come up shortly!!

This is a version of the Map WITHOUT the Scripted events, to show how the level will actually look physically (again, for the most part).

Without the Scripted Events.

Update for Contraint 3 Project

It's about that time, where i write an update, explaining where i am so far with all of my work!

For this project, i decided to volunteer myself for a huge pile of work, consisting of the brunt of the game mechanics and such. SO, i'm responsible for the following things:

• Greyboxing of the main level
• Gameplay Scripting
• Make the game a sidescroller
• Make the character jump a reasonable/balanced height
• Make the character hold a custom weapon
• Make this Weapon a MELEE weapon
• Make the mesh easily replacable.
• Make a Throwables/collectables system with Kismet!
• Make the HUD/Visual Interface.

As for all of this, here's my Status Update, as it would be:

• Greyboxing 
• Due Date: 15/11/2011
• Progess: I haven't done very much yet, due to the fact that i'm polishing the mechanics currently to get everything working correctly. I'll be working on this friday mostly.

• GamePlay Scripting
• making the game a sidescroller DONE!
• Due Date: 11/11/2011
• Progress: This is finished. The game is now a working sidescroller, with a working camera, and locked movements (left and right exclusively, as a sidescroller should be)
• make the char. jump a balances height DONE!
• Due Date: 11/11/2011
• Progress: This is also complete for the moment, and i seem to have made a very nice, balanced jump height, but depending on how the greyboxing/Level Design will go, i may need to tweak it furthur, later on.
• make the char. hold a custom weapon
• Due Date: 11/11/2011
• Progress: This is currently the thing i'm having the most trouble with, because the scripts are being strange as far as socket management goes in UDK, and this is currently my #1 Priority as far as scripting goes. As far as things go now, once this is done, i'll be able to peacefully do my Level Designing and Greyboxing :)
• make a MELEE weapon DONE!
• Due Date: 11/11/2011
• Progress: As a side note... i'd really like to point out that i have to do a lot for 11/11/11. How symbolic lol... ANYWAYS... This is actually finished, so far, and to be honest it works very well! I had to program this one myself, and took little pieces of other scripts and integrated them together so that they work well. The result ACTUALLY worked. and i have made "Designer Variables" for the range of the swipe, the damage dealt, and the frequency at which the swipe can be used (more commonly referred to as "Rate Of Fire") Though you cannot physically see the weapon (which i mentioned i'm working on, above) or the swipe (that will come later, once JF does the animations) the damage is there, and the test AI that i've set up dies the moment they're within range and the weapon is "fired". Can't wait to get the anims working to get a NICE visual feedback, as opposed to a purely functional one.
• make the character's skeletal mesh replaceable. DONE!
• Due Date: 11/11/2011
• Progress: Thanks to my experience with Aliss and the How-To Tiago gave me last semester on the subject of making Custom Skeletal Meshes in UDK Scripts, this was actually the first thing i got done, and was, to be honest, quite a nice big piece of cake :D Thank the lord for that!

• Making a Throwables/Collectables system in Kismet
• Due Date: 21/11/2011
• Progress: I haven't started this yet, but I have a VERY good image in my head of what the Kismet will look like for it. I'll be using an Integer to calculate how many throwables i have in my "Inventory". Whenever i'll pick up a projectile in the level (just a mesh with a trigger on it) My system will add one to the integer's total, thus increasing the amount of objects in my inventory. Then, i'll be making an emitter, which will show a throwing animation of the object. Everytime the emitter is triggered, a projectile will be launched, and the integer will get a -1 showing.

• Making the HUD/Visual Interface
• Due Date: 22/11/2011
• Progress: Scaleform. Nuff' Said.

Ammendum to come with photos and visual representations of everything to be done for constraint 3 :D

Hope you didn't tl;dr at this epicly long post.