Homework 5

What I've made for this simple physics game experiment is basically an attempt to clone Katamari Damacy - a game that was vey popular for its unique use of physics.  The idea came directly from that game when found out I could use Collision sensors to trigger actuators that will parent objects based on their material. I made a room filled with objects, some of which could be used in our game like the angel statue or the tree.  The temple enclosure could act as a secret area or challenge room, and the big ball used to roll up other objects could be used in a puzzle of sorts.  It's a simple but fun use of game physics with an element of challenge that comes from trying to handle a big, unwieldy object in the right direction.

Blend file download

Homework 3 REDUX

Here we have a slight improvement to Homework 3 based on the assignment guidelines.  There are two objects now -- One is a Greek-style temple, a possible location within the world of purgatory.  The second object is a potential model for our female player character.  I simply made it possible to move the character in four directions with the arrow keys, with the camera parented to her and viewing from directly behind her. There are no physics implemented yet, but they will be in the next homework assignment.  I tried to add invisible walls to keep the character confined within the temple, but didn't have the time to get the physics to work properly.

I recorded the video in a place that has too much background noise for me to have voice recording over the video.  My laptop mic is of poor quality so I may just record voiceover off my phone and add it to the video instead.

Blend file download

Homework 4

Chapter 2

1. Forgetting about the game, think about your player. What are the experience(s) you want your player to have. 
The essential experience of the game is simple -- the player is stuck in purgatory.  "Trapped in limbo" might be another commonly heard term associated with it.  The game should make the player feel they are in a dream-like, otherwordly state -- the player's character has died, and so those who have had near-death experiences have often described it as being like a dream before their "souls" reunited with their bodies (interesting & somewhat related fact: in Greek mythology, Hypnos, the god of dreams, and Thanatos, the god of death, are twins).  The experience should aim to be dreamlike, but also nightmarish -- the player is trapped in a place they are trying to escape, so that the soul of the player's character can find peace in heaven.

2. What are the essential element(s) of that experience. 
Lost in a dark, unfamiliar, labryinthine place, having to keep their cool and use their wits to make it out.  Divine beings invoking religious themes and Christian mythology, judgment and redemption, etc.  The rules of this realm may be different than expected, in keeping with the dreamlike state.  In this game world, anything goes, and often it will be reflective of the player's subconscious mind -- it should in addition to the religious/spiritual aspects have elements of common subconscious fears manifested.

3. Suggest a few ways your game might capture those experiences. 
Using effective sound design to make the player feel immersed in the world of the game, as well as to communicate to the player the effects of their chosen actions, signal certain situations and bring the theming of the game together.  Music that fits the dark, mysterious, and religious themes of the game and sound that creates an appropriate ambience will craft an experience that helps a player recognize what they are doing and engross them in the atmosphere of the game.

Chapter 3

1. Discuss a few ways in which you might include surprise in your game.
In addition to the "surprises" that are typical of a horror game, the game might also include a secret area or a mysterious, hard-to-find item with a purpose not immediately apparent to the player.  The area and the item might be linked somehow -- the item could be found in the area itself, or used to lead the player to the area where they might discover a hidden aspect of the game.  There's potential to add a cool easter egg or two amidst the darkness and horror.  The player may also have encounters with other beings populating purgatory that will impart information that could have subtle implications about the underlying story and world of the game and offer backstory on how the protagonist ended up there.

2. How will your game be fun? 
The game will create a sense of tension and fear in the player whilst also providing an element of exploration and problem-solving.  The player will amass a collection of items and meet entities who will impart cryptic messages on how to escape purgatory and on the uses of their items - it is up to the players to figure what to do with the knowledge they have of their items and if this information can always be trusted.  They also will be pursued by monsters who will try to catch them, sending the protagonist's soul to hell and ending the game.

3. Discuss the goals of your game (as it stands now).
Our goal is to learn as much as we can about the tools we have at our disposal to make a simple but effective 1st-person horror exploration game.  The game should at least have a world to explore and monsters to populate that world once we've learned enough, as well as items to collect, and ambient lighting and sound effects.

4. State your thoughts on how you will make the player attached to your game, or motivated to play the game. 
The main draws for the player should be immersive sound design, a clear and simple objective that creates tension, and a story that has potential to make for a interesting background to the game and is told in pieces that can be sought out by the player depending on how deep they are willing to explore the game.

5. What problems do you expect the players to solve in your game?
The problems the player should be motivated into solving are navigating a deep, dark enclosed labryinth (could be in a dungeon/temple/maze/haunted house setting), outsmarting or just outrunning pursuing enemy monsters, collecting items that will help them to progress, and gathering and assessing info from the game world's denizens on how to reach the end.

Homework 2

1) When and where did you meet?
The only times we met were immediately after class, in our same classroom.  Fridays gave us the most time to discuss due to not having other classes.

2) What did you discuss?
We discussed several pressing matters, chiefly how our team plans to divide up the work in making the game.  It was decided Alan would handle the story and art, Justin would handle 3D modelling and programming, and I would handle programming and sound design.  There would obviously be a lot of overlap between the tasks we'd handle and we'd exchange a lot of ideas on what to add to the game.

3) Did you take notes? Why? Why not?
I didn't take notes for myself, which I'm going to do starting now so I don't lose track of things.  Alan took the liberty of making some notes on our progress, and sent them out to us.  We also have some materials uploaded to the Google drive for us to refer to.

4) Did you transfer the contents of the discuss to the computer?
As mentioned before, we did manage to get some materials up on the Google drive, as well as had a few documents sent to us by e-mail.

5) Did you discuss the game document?
We started a notebook with a brief outline of the game concept, and the duties each of us were given.  The game document was discussed in our few previous meetings, but not much planning was made towards it -- that would be handled later once we get more conceptual workings done with.

6) Did you pick a team leader. Why? Who is it?
We didn't formally pick a team leader, but Alan took the liberty of putting together the elevator pitch for which we'll springboard off of when developing the game -- he has some clear prior experience in artistry that resulted in giving something we were open to expanding on.  I feel lucky to have Alan on the team, as we had a member who dropped out of the course after the teams were decided, but his initiative in getting ideas and materials together for our game has made up for this.

7) Please describe briefly some initial ideas regarding the game you plan on developing. 
Alan used a fangame based on the Slenderman mythos, "Slender's Shadow: Elementary" to illustrate the gameplay concept for our planned game, currently named "Purgatory."  It would use 1st person perspective during gameplay as well as possibly mixing in 3rd person cameras during certain gameplay moments or cutscenes.  The protagonist would be a female who has died and wound up in purgatory, and the game would have her explore an enclosed environment, like perhaps a temple.  The rest of the elevator pitch states: "In purgatory she must find and exit that leads to heaven or hell depending on the collected items along her journey.
Note: Angels & Demons would appear making the journey difficult as well as pointing in the right or wrong direction at given times."

8) State on your blog the contributions you, the individual, made towards the team game in the last week.

I have contributed only a few things over this week -- some blendswap models that were searched for per Alan's suggestion (a statue, which I managed to find of an angel, fitting nicely with the theme of our planned game, and a bridge leading to the temple the game takes place in).  I also found a plethora of links to unlicensed sound effects and music for aspiring game creators from a post I found on tumblr, which I copy-pasted into a Word document and added to the Google drive. My plan now is to start a notebook for me to jot down more ideas to add to the game.

Games I Like: Super Mario 64, Bayonetta, and Half-Life 2

Super Mario 64

It may not be much by today's standards, but when this game came out so long ago I was young and didn't comprehend just how much this game changed everything we knew about games.  Games on the previous generation of Nintendo hardware like The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Super Metroid were already starting the paradigm shift away from having the main game consist of clearing goalposts and getting the top score towards having a cohesive world for us to adventure through, but when this game dropped and literally added a new dimension to the mix, it blew our minds with just how deep games could take us into new worlds.  Mario was the perfect avatar for us to blaze that trail, with a set of acrobatic moves that were just right for traversing the vast (at the time) and intriguing playgrounds we were dropped into and given free reign to explore, and a plucky personality that won our hearts and kept us going through this brave new world.  Games have had plenty of time since then to do all of this and much more, expanding and twisting the formula in their own ways, and telling their own stories, but playing Super Mario 64 feels like going back home to the good times, when the world wasn't as big and scary.  Super Mario 64 was the spark that ignited my passion for games.

Bayonetta

To me, this game represents 3D action gaming perfected.  I could go on and on about how great I think this game is but I will try to keep things short.  Hideki Kamiya takes the formula he created with the Devil May Cry series and elevates it to whole new levels of brilliance and finesse.  Bayonetta's moves and arsenal are highly inventive, able to equip weapons on both her hands and feet in order to mix up the strategy involved in the game's two-button attack system in unique ways.  The combat itself is truely sublime, offering pixel-perfect precision of control and a massive yet easily accessible moveset, while at the same time offering tons of depth in how the player approaches battling enemies -- mastering the game's combo system is one of the most satisfying experiences I've had in a game.  Whereas screwing up and performing the wrong technique is a common pitfall of 3D hack-n'-slash and beat-'em-up games, in Bayonetta, when the player fails and gets taken down, it is almost always their own fault and not the game's.  Kamiya and his team of former Capcom employees are masters of their craft.
The "Automatic" mode included in the easier difficulties lets players not skilled in action games use repeated button presses to pull off complicated combo sequences, but you're really robbing yourself of the true satisfaction that comes with the challenge of clearing the game's normal mode.  On top of that it has tons of replay value, jam-packed with brutally hard secret missions and extra difficulty levels, along with a treasure trove of extra content -- and none of it is attempted to be sold as DLC!  

Half-Life 2

I couldn't decide whether I wanted to write about Super Mario 64 or this game -- Mario won out in the end but I felt like I had to give this game a mention anyways.  It's a memorable, landmark FPS game that in my opinion, still holds up a decade later.  The level design, art design, sound design, and the seamless transitions through the single-player campaign's engrossing story all come together wonderfully, and for one of the first games to use the Havok physics engine like it did, it's still one of the most fun.  Using your brains and and a gravity gun instead of tons of bullets to overcome enemies (the game intentionally doesn't give much ammo for this purpose) still makes me feel like both a genius and a badass of a mute physicist.

Image: Tekken and Pokémon comparisons

(Right-click and "Open Image in new tab" for full-size if you have trouble reading)

Description: This is an edit of an image that spread around sites like Twitter and Reddit recently.  The original image is by Twitter user Chase Toland, and the whole concept of the image exists due to a game that was recently announced as a collabration between Nintendo's Pokémon series and Namco-Bandai's Tekken series.  The name of the game is Pokkén Tournament, and from what we know so far the game will combine the titular monsters and settings of the Pokémon series with the 3D fighting gameplay of the Tekken series, but with many different mechanics so as to make it more congruent with what fans of Pokémon would expect.

The image of which I edited and expanded on is simply a crossover fantasy of what certain Pokemon might play like if the game mechanics were closer to Tekken.  The idea is that the many character archetypes and styles of martial arts represented in the Tekken series have a Pokemon that could be comparable in appearances and abilities.  As a fighting game fan I simply gave my own take on this idea and dug a little deeper based on my knowledge of the Tekken series, the hundreds of Pokémon that appear in the games, and the two characters we've seen in Pokkén Tournament.

Video: Project M tournament stream archive footage of me.

This video took a long time to process, which is why it's posted so late.  The majority of it is taken from twitch.tv stream archive footage, recorded from a local tournament at a game shop in Dothan, AL.  The game is Project M, a hacked version of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, which adjusts many aspects of the game to make it almost an entirely new game with mechanics and design taking inspiration from the previous game, Super Smash Bros. Melee.  I play two back-to-back tournament matches in this video, and my on-stream handle is Lows.