A long time coming

Hello,
Sorry this has taken so long to get here. Codey and I have been so busy making this game, that we neglected this blog :(

Anyway,
heres where we were and where we are now.
After the Pre production was handed in, we decided to take a break from the game slightly, and dedicate some time to our Dissertations. But before doing this, we created place holder animations and levels, to give to a few people to see if they could help us with an engine. While searching for and engine and some programming help, we sought help for the sounds and music for the game.

We were interested in keeping the game seamless, from the titlescreen and onwards, we didn't want there to be a break at anypoint. We also liked the idea of the creatures in the game having an almost cicle like existence. With the game having an almost mothering or family theme, we like the idea of it maybe having something to do with growning up. So we developed the idea of the maincharacter being on a journey to become an adult, its adult form being the little buggers. So it is on a quest to grow up and avoid being eaten by its cannibal elders. When the game is complete and the player has transformed into a bugger, then the cycle beggins again, the character now returns to the start to hunt for other newborn.
A little twisted perhaps, but left it as it was to dabble with later.

We dabbled with the idea of trying to develop the game in XNA as it would be perfect for distribution once our degree was finished. We did find someone from the Computer Games and A.I degree, who apparently could help us program the game. After a few weeks of dissertation writing and tests with the programmer, it became clear that it wasnt going to work, and the programmer already had a lot of his own work to crack on with. So it came back to Multimedia fusion, which we also had someone to provide some guidence for.

As for the music, Codey asked some friends from the Creative Sound and Music course, if they would be interested in a collaboration.
As it tunrs out, some of them were. So we gained the help of Andrew and Aiden. Andrew for music and additional sounds, and Aiden for Sound Effects.
We met up with them quite a few times before they began the work, discussing particular games which had a similar sound to one we would like to achieve, including We Love Katamari, and Earthworm Jim.

We wanted the music and sounds, to sound as though they were live instruments, as this would as the kind of quirkiness katamari uses. It would also work better with the curves or the almost 'organic' looking scenary.

Once our dissertations were handed in, and we had a few days break, we got straight back into work. Codey managed the sound guys and our Multimedia Fusion expert 'Joe'. He began working closely with joe to produce the engine that would need to get the right kind of movement we were after. This took a few seperate builds to get the ideal pacing, but it was worth it, to learn from the pros and cons of the builds before it.
While Codey began the Engine and animating the worm creatures, I made a start on the character animation. I looked over my place holder animations, to see if there was anything worth salvaging. Turns out, there wasn't, so I started completely afresh.
First of all I worked out how I was going to create the Glow that we had around the character in the pre production mockups. Which led to our disscovery and learning of After Effects.
The looped animations can be seen on my blog:
http://iaingillespie.tumblr.com

When it came to animating the little buggers, and tackling the task of getting them to individually travel along the curves of the landscape, we had a few problems.
The initial idea was to have them move as a troop, and they would travel over the curveture much like a snake or worm, though they would still be hopping and skipping. But this would mean lots of intricate and difficult coding, which we had no idea how to do, so we seperated the little buggers up and gave them their own behaviors.
The problem with this was that if the player was running swiftly away from them, they would often float through the landscape in order to catch up, which just wouldn't do.

The other problem with the individual buggers was creating the animation of them eating the main character. If one bugger who was ahead of the others, caught upto the character and triggered the animation, then the rest would disappear and snap to that point. Also, if the animation played out on a curved section of the landscape, it would wrong as the animation was set on a horrizontal surface. This was my fault, as I assumed that we could attain the same kind of coding to run the animation at the same angle that it was triggered on.
All of this led to us making quite a large change in the design, which was make the foreground layer (the little buggers layer) FLAT!. Which also meant the other layer would have to be flattened out slighty, in order to keep the buggers an integral part of the game. This wasn't so bad, because although we had quickly mocked up a level, it wasn't coloured, so we didn't have to change too much. It also made it easier to colour, as the foreground was now a tile base.

With this change in mind, we rebuilt a basic level, again with only block colour to identify the different layers. We tested and tested and tested and tested the level as much as we could stomach, and then did some more. once we had a level that worked, we began to colour. We also added the paralax scrolling, which made so much difference to the game, adding so much depth. It was a little purprising that we hadnt added it sooner.

This took quite a long time, in which we watch out of the corner of our eyes:
The Lord of The Rings Trilogy
Star Wars Eps 1,2,3
Army of darkness
and maybe something else.... hehe

While Colouring the level, we also found a few things that could be changed. This seemed inevitable by this point, as the more we looked at the thing, the more we wanted to change. But we stuck to the original concept as much as possible and work changes around it. The main problem was that with the flattening of the foreground layer, we had lost some of the excitment in the chase sequences.
We developed a section, in which the midground layer (the players layer) was extremely thin, and stood only slightly above the foreground. This meant that the player could still be killed by the chasing buggers on the layer below, and at the same time have to navigate through obsticals on their midground layer.

Due to the Multimedia Fusion engine, we also had difficulties getting the buggers to catch up with the player if they were going at speed through the section. Which caused the buggers to be inefficiant, which was dissapointing. We were unable to achieve the extravigant chase sequances that we had hoped for.
So to make up for this, we added more interesting sections of landscape, which didnt entirely exclude the buggers, but featured them in the backgrounds and foregrounds, running along and eating other versions of the player. The paralaxing also strangely dissapear have way through the level, which we also un able to fix but worked around, by placing extra sections of level and animations in the background.

























So after quite a while of not having that much sleep, we managed to get a game made. It perhaps isnt quite the game we were hoping for but Im sure that it's the same for a lot of games. Unfortunatly it came down to our overestimation of the Multimedia Fusion package, and its difficult sluggish methods.

Here is the Trailer for the game, which we name OBLRON.


OBLRON TRAILER from Iain Gillespie on Vimeo.

Pre Production = DONE (sort of)

Well...

It's been quite hectic over the last few weeks, what with Christmas and everything. Once we got back to Newport, we had to jump straight into work and solve the what seemed like endless problems of our game. We had 4 days till our hand in on the 7th of our pre production port folio. Tough, but we managed it and benifited from it immensely :)

Since the last lot of images we showed you, theres been alot of changes and I hope I can sum them up well for you.
We started on the title screen, as we thought it would give a good indication of what you might expect from this game. Fun (hopefully). So, I drew in the lines and Codey coloured the image. When I recieved the image back from Codey however, the colours had deviated from the ones we had planned. An honest mistake, but it looked as though these 'new' colours were better than our originals. So here is the finished title screen minus the title...which we stall havent thought of.



The features of the little buggers have been developed further also. We have decided that they are deffinitly out to get you.

Though they may appear cute, once they get near you, they will appear slightly more aggressive. And at points throught the level, They will merge together in a sort of russian doll like fashion, jumping in to eachothers mouths till they are left with one much larger little bugger.

In this new state, they will be able to run faster, jump higher and ultimatly be a bigger threat.
The stages in the game that this will occur will hopefully be reminicent of the moments in Abe's Oddysey in the Scrabanian and Paramonian temples. Where the player must run from their persuers as fast as they can while dodging obsticles and timing jumps. There is no time to think. Codey and I both find these moments extremely saticfying, as they really make you feel like you have achieved something once you have evaded the enemy. We hope we can recreate something along the lines of this example.

Obviously, we were still lacking a character. But finally we have one, and it has turned out to be great for tying up some of our loose ends adds motivation for the player.
After drawing the same quadraped figures over and over again, we werent getting anywhere and for a joke...as we were eating jelly beans at the time.
I drew this...



A very simple and silly, Jellybean, opperating Arcade machine/Walker style vehicle.
As i say, it was uspposed to be a joke...but something was nice and fresh about it. So we ran with it for one night...in which i made these images in flash..





The idea with this little character, was that instead of having a dual ability system with different jumps and speeds. This character has the ability to retract its mechanicle legs to then roll on its surrounding sphere. This would explain our tubing system also. So although the mechanics of this idea were better, the visual aspect was not. When put against out title screen, it looked small, instignificant and out of place..



So hereare a few ways i tried to correct the design.



Although I enjoyed drawing these, none of them really worked. They are all side facing, so in game, it doesnt fit in very well with the rest of the creatures and environment.
So after abit of a panic 24 hours before the deadline...i drew a few little pictures and came up with the idea of a white little bean like character, that is cute like the little buggers, but some kind of a higher being...and the little buggers want to eat it,,to obsorb its power or something along those lines.
The little white bean is suspended in a ball of energy that spouts for energy legs.
This led the idea of the player, not playing as the bean controling the ball...but playing as the energy ball, and you are carrying the bean to its destination.
So you are protecting the bean from its predators..
heres a few pics showing the development of this new character





and finally a developed image...though i think this may also change. We may stick to the dual ability design..but instead of the character fliping to choose which ability it uses, the colour of the sphere with change..say from blue to red. One being a high jumper but slow runner and the other being a not so high jumper but with a faster speed.




When the legs are animated I think they will appear more electrical. I'm going to try and animate them free hand in flash, instead of using the line tool. I think it might give it a less solid look which is what i had in mind when I drew it.

Here is the scale character sheet and a kind of ingame shot..just to show the Large little buggers in action..



Now to pick up where Codey left off...The sequence that he created while in an internet cafe...ha.
This is basically a pre scripted sequence in which the player will enter the character, and then have no further control of until the sequence is finished.
The idea is, that you have landed on the same level as the 'Little Bugger' as we now call them (probably a working title). So you have no choice but to run (to the right in this case) where you will come against a wall with a small tube/tunnel at its base. With the 'Little Buggers' hot on you heels you must retract you energy like legs and rol your sphere down the tube/tunnel. One the player has reached this point, the sequence will kick in, hopefully with no break in the motion.

So, this is where it all kicks in...
The character will fall down the tunnel, swing round and then shoot up into the first chamber. In here are quite a few little buggers. They watch in awe as you fly up and catch some air(haha), as you then fall back down into the next tunnel, they form their faster russian doll and chase after you. In the next chamber, once again you fly up and enjoy a nice dose of hang time. Only the big little bugger is heavier than you and doesnt get so much air, and falls infront of you. With a frustrated look on his silly little face.
Meanwhile, a little bugger who is on a platform above you and your hangtime, catches a little glimps of you and hurrys ahead to intercept you...only to be thwarted by the fact that his is too fat for the next tunnel..and becomes stuck.
Now you are racing behind the little bugger and are shot out of the tunnel, rolled across the ceiling and finally to the end of the seqeunce and back into the gameplay. The little bugger again, because it is heavier falls faster to the ground.
Then you will be chased once again :)

I think thats about it for now, I have a idea of an ending and a loop back to the beggining that I still need to talk to Codey about. Hopefully there will be an update again soon with information about that and other things :)
Until next time
Bye bye

Iain

What you, doing? Zoom Out

Well firstly Colour... after much deliberating we decided to keep a more simplistic style. I felt that the patterned images of the landscape would be to complicated.. when navigating the game space. So I reduced it to just three colours Ivory, Turquoise and Dark Grey I also cleaned up the quality of line. Conincedently i have been informed that the colours are fashionable at the moment.... so their you go.... The image bellow shows the colours.



Another issue we had was both the lack of depth and scale in the image. With only the main character to compare with the worm like characters the images had no real sense of scale and depth.. I originally drafted up a couple of quick sketches to give More of a depth to the image I thought by placing creatures/objects at the base of the worm creatures it would give a sense of scale.....



The implementation of smaller creatures that were still part of the landscape did'nt quite have the imapct I was looking for.

The image bellow was loosely base around the idea's of the nervous system and brain synapses.....



This quick sketch was born of a small doubt about the artistic style. I was slightly concerned about the flow of the land scape and objects within it. Things had become slightly less mechanical in there simitry..... thankfully we've decided not to revert back to our earlier art styles...



I futher experimented with the creatures within the fore ground but whilst still being within a landscape....





Another random thought and use of scale....




After much thought I decided that we need crreatures that were seperate for the landscape to give true sense of scale... I explained this iain ot iain and asked him to draw up some simple creatures.....I loved the creature design but something was still missing. I asked him to place to the creatures in the fore ground on a relativly flat level of there own..



I liked the the way the image worked I found the flatness of the fore ground more appealing than the back ground... I believe this is partly due to the curvy nature of our prevous screen mock ups.... We decided that alot more flat landscape would need to be drawn to contrast that of the curvy ones.

The image bellow is a simple mock up that iain and I created to be modeled and textured in maya.



The image bellow is a render from the mockup image in maya. The modeling and texturing in maya was a relatively simple process I used a combination of flash ,illustrator and photoshop to texture the landscape.



After numerous animation texts we've decided that using maya would only complicate the process of animating the landscape and the character. Maya would have only proved more uselfull if the camera angle etc.... were to change.

We then started to develope ideas for the level charcter motives and the opening sequence.

The image below is the opening title screen, we decided that we wanted it to seelessly integrated into the game. the split in the repressents the camera's flow to the next screen.




(appologies if this explaination is a little vague... it's kind of hard to articulate my point without actions and sound effects... maybe in the next post)
The seacumber like creature in the top left of the screen would be randomly shooting balls into the the chracters head bellow these balls would then flie out of the characters stomach and across the screen... mean while the little creatures on the right would be idely waiting for you.....

Upon pressing play your character would be shot out of the seacucumber and out of the character and across the screen.... the little creature would geat excited and chasing your character...... the next screen shows your character flying through the level and the worm creatures eating the balls but not your charcter.... and so the game begins...

We've developed the iadea's of the little creatures.... you are there food... and the balls are the worm like creatures food... the little creatures will almost constantly be folloing you on the level bellow or above but do not have the ability to jump up to you level. Every so often your levels will merge and so begins a frantic rantic chase sequence untill your safe again.....

The image bellow is an example of a chase seguence where by your on thier foreground layer....


The images bellow are random character developement based around the little creatures chasing you... we still have yet to decided about the implementation of their agression... i believe it depends of your first encounter with the little creatures.





Here are some more random images of the main charcter designs........




We still need to develope the main charcters design.... is anyone getting a sense of day jai vou?.. im generally really at where the game at this stage..... over and out...... ps just developed some new sequence idea's whilst wrtitng this but unforunatly i must get back to Christmas shopping.. now to leave the internet cafe.....

Over and out codey

Well its been a Mad week, ive been trying to add some more depth to the images that we've created drawing on the superflat art styles in contempary japanese culture!( A note to every game enthusiast out there read Power up, its very insightful on japanese design and culture)

Here is an early illustrator test



and heres some more tests with flash



















and some more inticate flash styles

Iain's images

Hi,
Now that we are back on the case with our blog, I can bung some of the images I've made or scanned on here.
I've mainly been drawing squigly lines, then putting faces on them. For the levels and the characters or level inhabitants.

This first two images are A3 sketches. I just sat down and put pencil to paper, without too much thought or deliberating. So I could keep it simple. Though in a couple of places, I have rubbed some lines out to get the best of it.

Also, one thing that has come up a fair bit in my drawing, is a kind of family, parenting theme. It is in these level images and later in the characters. It is perhaps the coloured balls that were in our earlier that gave me an idea of eggs. Or eggs in fallopian tubes? hehe. Im not sure why, but at the moment, I think Codey and I quite like it. It may take us somewhere nice, or we may just leave it as a backdrop for people to just notice if they want.

























Here are a couple of inhabitant designs. The cups are something I thought could just be floating down the screen. either in the back or foreground, on virticle areas of the level.




































This is just one section of the second level scan that I really liked. It has quite a nice flow to it, and is nice a minimal :)








Obviously none of these level ideas have been designed as playable. The are just to get the visual style right.
I think thats all from me for now. I do have some more images to upload, but im unable to do that for the time being. I think Codey is going to do another post soon if not today, there will be a fair bit for you to read :)

Thanks,
Iain

An extended rant!!!!

Well this blog update has been a long time in the making... where to begin? apologies first sorry for the long delay and second (upon a second reading) the amount for full stops I've used...

Our character and general aesthetic has changed dramatically as you can see from the images bellow the developments of the characters we in sale mate after doing 10's of pages of sketch's and reference work I had developed a character that seemed caught up in the 90's acid culture and with that it's art style. The art style, is long gone seen in only flyer culture and rarely else where. I blame my teenage obsession with everything Jet set radio. You've gotta hand to Sega.


After talks with our tutors and colleagues, Iain and I were going to look at a range of designers and artists, in the hope to develop and finalise our aesthetic. So began our further character development. I looked at numerous artists particularly Takashi Murakami, Fiona Rae, Geoges Vantongerloo, Umberto Boccioni, Ashely Wood and Kirsten Ulve.

I create numerous character template sheets drawing half my self, and asking friends to fill in the other blanks,I explained the general idea's and concepts of the game in as to mildly influence the designs... results were varied. As you can see from the images bellow there seems to be no real progression of character the template idea added fresh eye to the situation, but it also brought to light problems that maybe the shape needed changing so I started working on the shape in reference to it being a body.

(SORRY NEED TO SCAN IMAGE)

Our work effort strayed away form character design and now led us towards concept and level design, I will finish later come back to the character...


We decided we wanted it to be shapely but with possible the depth of image , like
that seen in Ashley woods work.... we further developed our aesthetic...

Both Fiona Ryes and Kirsten work fascinated me... Kirsten Ulves work had a shapely simplicity to it whilst still retaining a mild depth through the use of transparency.
Her work also seems to show a flow of movement, through her use of unconstrained blowing shapes and lines. It takes little thought to animate her imagery in your head.

Fiona Rye's work draws certain parrells to that of Kirsten's with its flowing shapes etc... although in a but in a much more traditional art sense.

Using all these influences I created a few concept art Images. Through the development of these concept images random ideas of narrative cropped up. One being the idea that your are an inanimate object and a good like creature has burnt a face into you, to give you life and prove your self as a potential species. The core mechanic was to stay the same we just wanted to add the depth that this god like create could move the world around the avatar. This is still a potential.......



Using photoshop and flash I created level mock up based around the ideas of flow, negative space and playing with peoples perception.



Both Iain and I liked the image and further discussed ideas of flow, negative space and depth perception. Ideas that the avatar could run off the side of the screen screen and reappear in what was originally negative space. To relate back to the image above, an example could be the character running off screen to appear on the planet in the back ground, only to run around it and reappear in a new section.

With these ideas in mind we created numerous level mock ups, here are a few







After further analysis of our work we decided that the illusion of depth and the characterised negative space brought left to the images and also a contrast to the the flat palette used in the landscape, the depth need to compliment the landscape The idea's need to be further progressed but I feel that were starting to finalised our design plans... it's crazy to think how far our ideas have developed... we've come along way and have twice as far to go, its all good!

Now to just nail the character design. During the level design process we have been briefly working on the avatar..... but to no real success, our ideas seem constrained by the original quadraped shape, I think its time we go back to the drawing boards.....

Over and out

Codey