Theseus and the minotaur in 2D (The Maze Of Crete)

Theseus and the minotaur in 2D (The Maze Of Crete)

This blog will document the creation process of my 2D side scrolling game 'The Maze Of Crete'. Firstly I have started by creating mood boards for the game in order to determine the theme of the game with research done on the Greek myth 'Theseus and the minotaur'. This research allows me to understand the story in which I hope to adapt into a 2D side scrolling game.

As well as setting the theme for the game, the moodboard also shows the art style for the game.

Upon my hard drive failing, i had to re-do all of my work. With the moodboard being saved i decided to continue creating my minotaur game with the player being theseus. I am happy with the result of my game in the time i have created it, however would like to work on adding animations to the enemy, and put more detail into the environment of the game to make it more immersive for the player.

Fairy Tale 2D Platformer - Jack The Giant Slayer

Fairy Tale 2D Platformer - Gîgant wrôhtbora

For this assignment I decided to create a 2D platformer game based on the fairy tale Jack the giant slayer. Jack the giant slayer was a young adult who lived in Cornwall in England and fought giants. Upon climbing the beanstalk to the giant realm he received gifts of an invisible cloak, running shoes and a special sword in order to fight the giants. 

Here is a mood board that I have created for the game adaption of the Fairy tale, from the mood board you can see that I am attempting to create a darker undertone to the soft hearted story.




(21/02/2018) This week I worked on the parrallax scrolling. Using the basic templates given I was able to layout my level with a working script that would allow for the background and foreground to move with the player as he ran. Along with this I worked on making the health bar work, which at first due to old scripts would not work. It would not allow the player to take damage and therefore was not doing what it was meant to do. By reimporting all the scripts and deleting the old ones that were causing issues the health bar eventually worked. Now I need to create an image to use for the health bar that suits the theme and style of my game.








This week I have worked on bones and rigging in preparation for my character. This was new for me on unity and on a 2D project, as before I would just use a sprite sheet. The bones at first were easy to add to the sprite, and it was easy rigging. However at first the IK bone function would not recognise the sprite in which I was trying to add it to, and this meant that the bones wouldnt work. After trial and error I eventually did the same thing as the previous week and reimported the scripts and checked for old or scripts that I wasnt using and checked to see if these were stopping it working. After doing this the bones worked and it allowed me to focus on making my character for the game and rig them up.


(07/03/2018) This week I want to finish my menu entirely, making sure that not only the code works in taking the player to where he clicks, but also finishing the artwork for it so that it suits the fairy tale theme of my game. For this I have created various concepts of the buttons and the background, and now have narrowed down a possible option for my game menu. I will integrate this into my game and see how it works as a trial, and if it is liked by people who test it i will continue using it, or failing that improve it and change the design.

Final week - After many complications with unity versions corrupting files, and having to reimport my work i have tried to salvage what i could. My player was fully rigged with bones, however wasnt animated and therefore would not move in my scene. This meant that my parallax scrolling wouldnt work either. In all I should of spent more time at the end to make sure building the game would not corrupt or mess up files, because of this my game severely lacks the elements asked for and functions i wished to put in the game.

one sheet

Game Name: Viking : Raid

Age Rating: 15 - Why - Some blood, and violent scenes.

Games its like: Terraria, Minecraft PE, Prison Architect

Theme: Vikings - time period - 800AD - Lindisfarne

Story: Igor the chosen and his warband have come to plunder and loot the shores of England, targeting monastery's and churches. Using brute force and clever thinking nothing will stop him from getting what is his by right of raiding.

Players piece: 2D sprite will be used, The feared viking captain Igor the chosen, feared by his people when he killed his first man at the age of 12. Since then he rose to fame as an ambitious man, later sailing to far away lands to bring back plentiful loot for his fellow vikings.

Gameplay: The game will focus on the main character Igor which the player will control in order to locate loot and plunder that the monks have hidden somewhere in or around the building. The game will be top down, using 2D sprites, utilising the movement system from minecraft pocket edition and a click to interact function. In some cases the player will have to navigate through hostile areas where guards may be (later levels) or kill some monks for the bonus points (a choice). When looking for loot a timer will start for finding clues, and then another timer for finding the actual loot itself.

What makes it unique: The combination of choice events, such as killing or sparing the monks, and puzzles in order to locate the loot and then getting to it. Situations also change in the game depending on how they are approached, if your warband is known for killing all innocents then later levels may see an increase in guards to protect the churches, or you can spare the monks at the cost of your reputation to the warband.

Lose state: Losing will be either being killed by a guard, not locating enough loot in an area before leaving or running out of time to find the loot. Each mission will have a required amount of loot to be found.

Win state: finding all the loot in an area, or defeating all of the enemies on certain missions where monks hide/characters are needed to be found.

The game will look cel shaded with a pixel art style, using objects such as viking longboats, swords axes and other tools from this time period.

Evaluation of game creation process

Evaluation - Supermarket Slaughter

Review by a friend:

I recently got the chance to play a game my friend Charlie has been making for college, at first I was expecting something more basic but it is vastly the opposite, the following sections state why.


Graphics:
To my surprise quite fantastic, although I'm aware everyone on the course uses the same software this game executes it with tremendous effect. From the mist at the very opening to the sheer darkness of the mall regardless of your flashlight, the tone is set from the very beginning and scares are rife throughout. I was terrified and I play horror games regularly. The only slight niggle as far as the graphics and software are concerned is I once managed to get stuck between some scenery and a clown which would not let me out which was somewhat frustrating.


Sound: Creepy laughter, footsteps in the dark and loud, brutal clown attacks are to name but a few unnerving items in the sounds list, I would hate to play this with headphones. The first time I played a clown hit me from behind and made me scream like a girl. Sound by far is the biggest influence to the atmosphere here, the right amount of creepy sounds comes together with the visuals to deliver a genuinely freaky experience.


Gameplay: Overall I'd rate the gameplay as 8/10 because this is a very polished experience, although it has some minor visual flaws I was really scared by this game. If I was to add anything I'd say a gun perhaps, just because a form of self defence would be helpful I feel. Highly recommend to any horror fans. A great game Charlie well done.

Changes made

Throughout the game creation process i made a lot of changes to the original ideas and plans for my game. One of the minor changes was the name of my game, which changed from 'A night of laughter' to 'Supermarket slaughter', this being a minor change to the game that was due to the relocation of the game with the new name better suiting it. Another change made during the initial design process was the map, as you can see from the images below my map changed from a large forest setting into a smaller, more concise supermarket layout. This was done as creating such a large open world would take much more time, and would be harder to create than the supermarket design. If i was to have more time, i would of continued with the forest idea as it was the original concept for the game, however i do not regret to choice to create a supermarket instead and i am very happy with the way it turned out.

Other changes to the game came from technical issues that i could not fix, such as the blueprints not working to allow for the projectile of the gun to kill the enemy. This became a big task for me, and since it wouldn't work it rendered one of the biggest elements of my proposed game, the killing of the AI to be useless. Without this i felt the current game i was creating could not be finished to an acceptable standard and therefor decided to create a stealth game, that relied on the player thinking outside of the box instead of charging in and killing the clowns. This helped add to the horror genre of the game, which made the player feel powerless to defend themselves, instead only being able to run from the clown.

From feedback i have had from my game however people like the stealth aspect, and enjoy the horror that the game provides. Alongside this a death counter was created from the people who tested my game, and from that i learnt that most people struggled to complete the game in one turn, which is something i was happy about as it meant the game wasnt too easy, and wasnt too boring that players didnt want to keep trying. This was something i was happy about, however players found that the silence of the clowns made it hard to know where they were when attacking from behind, and found that they would die randomly at times from the clowns sneaking up with no indication of their presence. This alongside the few bugs in the game is something i will work on further so that the game becomes finished with minor/no errors.

In conclusion i am happy with how the game turned out, and i am glad that i have created something that is seen as a game also with my own assets being used. I have many things to still improve and work on, however the whole process has been very fun and i am excited to continue work to better the game.

OO design

Object-Orientated Design

Assignment 2

For my game I have used various assets created using Maya, these vary from the character to buildings and intractable's. Using these assets I created a realistic world environment for my game, in order to quicken up the process i reused some of the assets that i created in order to fill out the world more, and in some cases edited them in subtle ways such as size or colour. This can be seen here with my trees which range from various sizes much like the real world, and the difference in colour of the trucks in my game.

In my game there is enemy AI which have different functions. Some will patrol areas and make sure the player is not in them, others will pursue the player upon sight of them. This is done through blueprinting, which enables for the function to work.

The top segment of blueprints tells the AI to move to random locations within a certain radius, this makes the AI appear to be moving around randomly as if he was patrolling an area. In the blueprint is a delay function that means once he has stopped moving he waits for 2 seconds (delay) and then repeats this blueprint. As for the bottom segment that is the follow me blueprint which enables the AI to follow the player character upon sight, this can be seen by the 'self' green code that means the target for the AI to follow if within the radius of the AI's view is the player (self).

This is very different to another game engine such as game maker, which uses written code to give functionality to its objects.

Here you can see a piece of code that enables the enemy AI in my gamemaker game to follow the player. In some ways the code is familiar, both engines code/blueprint involve the target both being the player object/character, however gamemaker works out the position and uses that to target the player whereas unreal engine does it purely on sight.

Another piece of blueprinting in my game is within the player, which allows him to move when you have pressed the W,A,S,D keys. 

This again in some ways is similar to gamemaker which uses the target of the player in order to know what to move (first person camera), both also work on a physics axis. This blueprint however finds out the variables it needs in order to do this however, whereas gamemaker you have to manually code the variables for it to work as seen in this screenshot.

This screenshot shows not only the code that is needed to make the player move, but also the collidable objects that the player can interact with. This is not shown in the unreal blueprint, as collision is a different function altogether, however it can also be manually placed into a piece of blueprints for special cases such as spawnable bullets.

In conclusion i believe the process of physically typing in line after line of code to be tedious and sometimes hard when you aren't certain of what code to use, however it is easier when you don't understand the various options for blueprinting, and the various sub features that may be needed in order to make the blueprints work. for exambple i attempted to create a blueprint which allowed for the enemy AI to be killed/destroyed upon collision with the projectile object from the gun. This didnt work throughout various attempts for various reasons, some of which are still not known partially down to the vast features of my game and the lack of full understanding of blueprints. This wasnt a problem in gamemaker however, where i personally found it easier to write the code for this function. 

Unit 6 - Task 1 - James

Unit 6: P1P2 Understand how media producers define and create products

Task 1

Title	A Night Of Laughter	Slender – The Arrival	Skyrim – The Elder Scrolls
Genre	Survival, Horror, FPS	Survival, Horror, Strategy	FPS, Adventure, action role-play
Selection of content	Dark, cold, harsh landscaping, gritty sounds, dingy colours, decaying feel, exploration	Dimly lit, exploration, isolated feel, Jump Scares	Vast landscapes, picturesque views, large open world, exploration, hand to hand combat
Construction of content	An immersive story, Linear	Linear, Partial Narrative,	Narrative/character driven
Narrative Conventions	Searching for an escape, Survival	Survival, Page finding, looking for an escape	Story driven, bettering yourself, saving the realm
Codes and Conventions	Health, ammunition, sanity levels, free roam/free choice, variety of weapons	No weapon, event triggers (finding certain objects) escape slender man	Variety of weapons, Quests, Main Storyline, fighting enemies
Target Demographic	Teenager – adult (14-30)	18+ (young adults - adults)	16 – 50 (Rated Mild)

Task 2

Media Text: This can range from posters that advertise/promote something, to a TV show/movie. Media text has the purpose to either show or promote the text that it is showing. For a Night of laughter there will be posters along with an intro video to the game, possibly even a trailer so that it can hook players into the game before its release to create a need for the game. With little to no promotional media text for slender the arrival it made it hard for their to be such a buzz for the game, however through word of mouth and YouTube videos the game was publicised to be a great successor to the first slender man game which was vastly popular as a free download. The videos created by people led others to then try out the newer version, working as good advertisement, with some videos reaching millions of views. As for Skyrim there was an initial trailer that was released which caused a lot of people to get excited for the game, with it being another instalment of the already popular series of games (elder scrolls) it already had a vast amount of fans who followed the games and long awaited their return. Advertising wise Skyrim has a lot of media text that was used for advertising such as posters and trailers, alongside the videos that were also produced for skyrim from youtubers, who would speculate on the upcoming features further creating excitement for the game.

Genre: Genre refers to what content is to be expected from a game, a horror will normally have dark lit areas in order to scare the player, whereas an adventure game is built with adventuring in mind, or a first person shooter being a game where you shoot other people like call of duty. A night of laughter will primarily be a survival horror game, meaning that the player will have to survive enemies (clowns) and will also have moments where gore or jump scares may be used to engage the player, this is much like slender the arrival, which also uses jump scares and "scary" enemies to engage the player in the horror genre. This is unlike skyrim however which is an adventure action role play, which is done through the customisation of the player character at the start and throughout the game. Aswell as this the character engages in quests, which are objectives that can be optional, something players enjoy about the game.

Selection of content: selection of content normally refers to what is in the game, such as sound, imagery and colours. For a Night of laughter the game is cel shaded, and uses bright colours in a dimly lit world replicating night. This is much like slender the arrival, which is also dimly lit to add to the horror atmosphere, however instead uses photo realistic graphics, something which makes the game more immersive to some players. Skyrim also uses photo realistic graphics, but has a brighter look to the game, with it only being dark at night or in caves. The bright lighting of the game helps to emphasise the detail of each object, with fire lighting used at night perfectly to create an ambient atmosphere that the player can still navigate and see in. As for sounds skyrim utilises sounds of literally everything, from a river to a man speaking to a bird tweeting, this adds to immersion and makes the game almost feel real, this much like a night of laughter and slender which both also use atmospheric sounds to build an environment around the player.

Construction of content: Construction of content is how a game plays out, for example skyrim is a clear narrative based game where you follow a story given to you through cutscenes and character exposition to allow the player to navigate through the story, unlike a night of laughter which instead is more survival based, with little to no story, instead has the player attempting to just simply survive. There is middle ground however with slender, which utilises the survival option, and the narrative giving players an option as to how they wish to play the game.

Codes and conventions: every game has some conventional feature that all games either have or attempt to use, such as a HUD or health bar. This can be seen clearly in a night of laughter which has a health bar, sanity bar and an inventory system, something used in most survival horror games. This is nothe always obvious as a bar however, as slender does not have a noteable bar or icon for health, which is done to put the player in more fear without the understand of how much health is left. This is unlike skyrim however which is very conventional with a health bar, inventory and full HUD. This is done to allow the player to know every part of their character, whether they are tired or carrying too much weight, and to fully immerse the player.

Target demographic: every game has a target audience that it wishes to appeal to, this is done by adding certain elements in a game to stand out to certain demographics. For horror fans, and those who enjoy a thrill games such as a night of laughter and slender appeal, however those looking for a story heavy solo game would look to skyrim. Each demographic is considered carefully and it marketed towards the right audience through advertising. Skyrim appeals to teenagers and young adults as it gives them an escapism to a virtual world where they can create their own character, it is also aimed at both genders with the possibility to play as either gender. As for slender and a night of laughter, the audience is more niche, specialising in people who enjoy a thrill from being scared. This audience tends to also be teenagers, however varies in age as the content may sometimes be too scary for younger teens (as shown with slender).

   

Unit 6 - assignment 2 - task 2

P4 - Analysis of a Computer Game

Game: Total War Rome 2/Attila

Total War is a real time strategy game that focuses on human history for the setting/themes of their games. Using photo-realistic graphics the game capitalises on fast paced upfront action, accompanied by a board game style map setting which allows for ease of navigation around a top down map of the world. Utilising a strong campaign with various playable factions each total war has been vastly popular with the total war community (made up of its players and fans) and has been a benchmark in strategy games since its first release back in 2001 with "Total War: Shogun".

Each game released by creative assembly makes use of some historical event and uses it to create their games, however this format was changed for their most recent release 'total war: Warhammer' which used elements from another vastly popular franchise, something fans of total war have asked for.

Total war rome 2 and attila uses photo realistic graphics, this helps the player feel more immersed in the game, as if they are actually controlling real people's lives. After a popular mod by the name of "more gore" creative assembly added this as a permanent feature, making it an option whether you want more or less gore in the game. Along with its graphics the game also utilises environmental sounds, along with a soundtrack for each game that helps to further immerse the player into the world they are controlling. These sounds can include the sound of crashing waves by the oceans of the map, to birds tweeting before the battle begins. Aswell as the environmental and soundtrack sounds, there is a lot of dialogue, mainly found as a tutorial sort of dialogue that educates the player on how/what to do. Acting as an advisor to you, it helps to further place you in the position of power, and to lead your armies who also speak in the game.

There isn't much to a narrative structure in total war unless it is chosen, since the campaign can be either free play (make your own decisions) or follow the advised routes of commanders before you. An example of this is when playing as rome, you will be encouraged to subdue the gaelic tribes and the other Italian tribes that may pose a threat to you later on, however do not pose immediate danger. This is encouraged however as it was the action that in history, the Romans took. A more notable feature of the game that does have narratives, are the add ons/dlc packs that add new campaigns that actually follow history, such as caeser in gaul (following the events of Julios caeser) and hannibal at the gates (the carthaginian wars). These became very popular for history buffs, who were able to play out key battles in each campaign that actually happened in life. My highlight of these campaigns was being able to play as the Romans, and having to defend my legion deep in enemy territory against the suebi (germany). My army consisted of very strong units, however was only 500 strong with no cavalry or archers, as for the suebi they had almost triple my numbers fully equipped with archers and cavalry. This was a famous battle known throughout the roman empire, a story of betrayal, slaughter and death. The battle was not won by the Romans, however the creators added a possibility of the Romans winning through cunning maneuvers. I managed to win the scenario, after sustaining terrible losses however. This is one of the many appeals the game has, it relies on heavy strategic play and learning what troops you have, and also what troops you are going against.

I believe the narrative that the game encorporates is brilliant, it fully immerses the player into the role of a military and civilian leader. Using different notifications and pop ups through dialogue and events keeps the player on their toes, as with life nothing is made simple.

When you go to start a battle, you have time to set up your attack, which is key in determining the outcome of the battle. Other features in this time include choice of weather, and where you will place your units. This is key as you can and should use the environment to your advantage, archers in a high place, spears at the front, swords on the side and cavalry on the flanks. This requires the player to become a strategist, and when playing multilayer requires the players to out think one another.

With total war there are no main characters, instead the player is the main character, choosing either to rule the world or take over it and govern it properly. This sense of power to the player is what becomes addicting, having the choice to spare a civilisation and make it an ally or obliterating and raiding all their towns can be something players lose themselves over.

Being an intense strategic game, total war isn't normally aimed at children, yet the odd exception comes about. The main target demographic for total war is 16 and up, due to some of the language used. Targeting people who enjoy history, and also those who enjoy a game where strategy is needed it hits it's demographic perfectly. I believe the games created in this series use the right ratios of history with free choice. Some games can go wrong where they force a decision out of the player that they would not normally make, total war however suggests the course of action that another (normally a historical figure) would take, however let's you choose what you would do. This can normally lead to a lot of problems with what happens in the game, but allows for the player to experience the consequences of their own choices, and after time formulates a style of player different to each person. The demographic is also met well due to creative assembly actually listening to what people have to say about their games, for example total war fans requested a game after rome 2 that was more gore and had a more ruthless villain for the player to either play as or play against, thus attila was born. This game encorporated many ideas stemming from customer reviews, however to all its brilliance each total war has had its down sides and features that don't work. Empire total war was the worst in the franchise and did a good job of not only ruining historical events, but also the game itself with poor graphics, and out of sync sound issues. Later fixed by games to follow, however coming with another issue that some would say is worse, the over use of dlc's to fill a game, requiring people to continually purchase and spend money on the game. With the games already being a high price this was too much for some, and has caused total war to not have the high opinion that I regard it with. To me it's brilliance lies within the decision a player makes, a game that is more of a vessel that the player commands as opposed to a game that forces a player to make and do unrealistic things.

The genre of strategy games hasn't been most popular with the vast public, however has a nice community that comes with it. A community that enjoys to outwit one another, as opposed to winning by luck (call of duty). The genre has grown bigger however with games such as total war leading it, and I believe strategy is a genre that will always be apparent, much like the game of chess or hnetafl (viking chess) which has been around for centuries.