Ethan, Mike, Nikki, Nick and me had a meting just a few days before Portfolio Night where we were polishing last details. Although most animations were right, there were others that weren't trigger at the right moment, could be a little late or too fast (like Flub taking damage), some other that simple wasn't there or weren't working as suppose it: like Flub slip trick, this attack was working fine in previous versions but simply got broken in the last merge and now the character keep flying as long you hold the bottom... I again register all these issues and put them on Kanban. We also discussing in real time how exactly solve most of them. Animation will need more development time for next protects for sure. I never wrote this...
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Today I worked almost the entire class closed to the artist. I gave some feedback to Nick background (which are completely awesome), discussed about it with Ethan because the transitions between screens were a little abrupt, so we exchange one background with another and asked Nick if he could draw a new one for the character selection scree. Also I was discussing with him (Nicholas) the final design for Queen Lilit, the result was pretty similar what I was thinking on while I designed her. But it is obvious Nick is specially good with environments. As I needed a rock to cover the only obstacle I inserted in one of my tiles, I asked Carly if she can design a rock that match with the background. She struggled a little but in the end she gave me a good looking purple outer space rock. Finally, I wanted so kind of weird intergalactic public sitting on background with hats and popcorn. Nuhi understood completely the idea and drew a few aliens with a insect shape which match smoothly with the style of the game, I can't wait to see them on the game! Alien enjoying the race. Nicholas Design.
Finally! The part I didn't know I was waiting for. Testing! At the beginning I just started testing our tiles: how the interact between each other and specially with the player. Are they actually fulfilling its role? Add some value to the game in general? Most of them answer positively to these question but there were also a few we had to get rid of them or make important changes. Here was when I discovered we will need to add lots more coins to ensure longevity of each match. I changed the coins sheet several times. On the top of all these, I obviously found a lot of bug or polishing which needed to be done. So Ethan gave me the task of recording every single one on Kanban, Which I did the best I could:
Scott and I were talking about the general game speed. Which is actually a pretty critic point of the game being (in a way) a runner. I started going a little research regarding other runners games to see how the approach screen/character/range of vision. The first obvious decision was make the characters always faster than the screen so they can reach the right side and eventually win. The speed of the screen is going to be controlled by the coins you will be collecting through the game. At the beginning we were thinking a number between 12 and 15 but after the a few play test it was pretty obvious we will need a lot more. I ended leaving 50 coins in total in order to win, the number seems high but it only take a minute gathering those 50. After reaching this conclusion I put all the date in the following doc so everybody can check it whenever they need it (Nate specially):
Using Marco's obstacles ideas Scott and I started discussing which one include or discard. Because our lack of experience and time, we decided go with easier and simple ones, the classics let's say. Those moving platforms would be awesome to give ways to the players do they can easily navigate between upper and lower levels. On the other hand, the spikes and pits are really easy to programming, they don't need further explanations and provide the tiles more dynamism. We are definitely using all of these (as long as we can of course).
Today Scott and I discussed a little about the relation coin-speed. We realized how hard is going to make that binomial actually works. I honestly don't have idea if we will be able to find a way but Ethan still believes in this as the core mechanic of the game. For now, we will be just trying harder, I wouldn't want to explain Ethan why this is not going to work but it could definitely happen. On the other hand, I gave Nick some feedback about his animations. Overall I think he is doing a good job, his style is easy to perceive and the animations are smooth. I just gave a couple of advice like "you could change this tiny part there looks weird" or "don't you think is gonna looks better if you add this?". I will be checking his work as long with Carly stuff more often.
I didn't know Nikki was taking care of sound "department". Actually, we (as industry) should start to pay more attention to sound design. I know there are a lot of titles, job and budget for this issue in AAA games for example. But I still feel video game compositor are no treated like formal designers, artist or programmers. Sound in video games is relegated to the background, the simple fact of letting music and sound effects to the end is proof of this. Anyways, today Nikki showed me the results of her research regarding this matter, I must say: really liked what I heard. She makes it look easy but is a real challenge to finding propers sounds (or worst: background music) to a game and on the top of that, it has to be free. She managed to found a bunch of sound effect for the character, so I gave her my opinions about every single one. Most of them were useful, we only have to edit (just cutting or adjusting the volume) a few.
As Mike is the leader of my new team. I was asking questions to him about my next assignments. He needs real programming numbers to each character feature in order to insert it in the game. Luckily, Nate was already working on the translation from my original design to C++. So the only thing I needed to do was just asking a few questions and finished the work he started. Besides this, I also have been working with Carly regarding Flub visual appearance. In general, I liked what she did, I told her to focus on 2 small details: those big and dark eyes seems a little weird to me and (as Ethan said) the overall character seems maybe too cute. Which actually I don't think is an important issue because the aesthetic of our game is funny and crazy.
Scott was concerned about how exactly the item rain is supposed to work. So we (along with Nate, Ethan, and Mike) spent most of the class discussing the details. My idea looks good at the beginning but then Mike brings up some interesting issues: The rain is going to affect leading characters as well? We ended trying to avoid that because it would be an important advantage to the character who are already winning. On the other hand, Scotts wants more details about how those procedural level are actually going to work. Regarding this matter, he had the idea of divide the screen in titles and adding each title a random odd to have an item, platform or coin. Which I believe it was an excellent idea but no sure if is actually going to work on a technical level. Mike said it should not be a real problem. So we going in this direction for now.
Scott also asked me if I can make something similar to the character sketch but for our 2 basic items: coins and the invincibility pick up. In order to follow my own plot, I started thinking about intergalactic thematic. For the coin, I just wanted a simple design which clearly reflects the twisted cartoon aesthetic of the game. So I found a black broken coin which it was perfect giving that impression. Scott thought it was too dark but that is not a problem, our artist can easily change the color. About the invincibility pick up I begun playing with some ideas concerning its effect. Taking concepts directly from Mario Kart star a rough out a traditional invincibility effect, invulnerability effect only and a more speed up focus effect. Scott liked a combination between the first and the last one. Regarding the appearance, after I searched different kinds of celestial bodies I ended with a small spinning galaxy. I also would love if the face of Queen Lilit could appear one in a while in the center. Nuhi told me that this animation is perfectly possible.
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AuthorI want to study Video Games in a theoretical way. Archivos
May 2018
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