In lesson we learnt how to use the animation timeline to create a frame by frame animation and then export it into a gif. Below is my first attempt at doing so:
- 04:36
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At the beginning of this process my team and I had many grand ideas for this game: jumping through wormholes to unveil another time-dimension, included an animated narrative at the beginning of the game, allowing the player a choice in what ship they wanted to choose and much, MUCH more!
But unfortunately we only had 8 weeks to complete this game and to reach this deadline we had to make plenty of compromises!
One of these compromises was a health code that my team mat Sam Loader and I were trying to implement within the last couple of weeks. We attempted many different ways, looking at YouTube for tutorials and Unity forums for help.
However we just didn't have enough time to debug why it was throwing errors and ultimately had to get scrapped. We had already set up a GUI element for the Health status as we wanted it to go down in percentages on the bottom left hand side of the screen but had to later delete this and the code entirely to have a clean build.
We also realised that, with this unit as well as our other two units, Visual Design and 3D modelling, we didn't have as much time as we had originally anticipated to create all of the assets that would have been needed for the alternate time-dimension, as we would have had to make a duplicate of every one asset. So instead we scrapped that idea entirely and left the game as a simple space shooter.
Overall, the game wasn't what we had originally anticipated at all but it's better to have a simple and completed game than an overly complex one full of bugs and lag. That is not a very good experience for the user at all!
- 20:27
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As our game was a 2.5D one we had to have 3D modelled assets. For those who were modelling these assets they needed our original space ship concepts turned into model reference sheets for them to work from so they could create something that we all are agreed upon. Model reference sheets are basically just the ship from 3 main angles: top, side and front.
Here is my model sheet for the alien enemy ship:
I also included the colour scheme that I was using in reference to when I created this to give the modeller something to work with. This was not, however, the final texture that we decided upon. From this model sheet though the 3D modeller was then able to create a brilliant model (Sam Loader):
Here is my model sheet for the alien enemy ship:
As well as this I also helped out with the concept art, drawing some asteroids as well as creating the space sky background for the game:
- 20:13
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I started off the coding side of the game in C# by developing it based off a Unity tutorial called: Space Shooter Tutorial (https://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/projects/space-shooter-tutorial). It seemed relatively similar to how we envisioned our game being once it was finished so I figured it would be a good basis to start from. To our luck our lectures had examples on how to create a simple space shooter game as well, slightly different from the tutorial that I had already been following so I attempted to merge them both together, introducing the lecturers versions of some of the gameplay into the unity tutorial one, depending on which way the team and I preferred the mechanics to work for our game. Below is one of the first videos I took after I started to merge this code together, as you can see it worked but it was very buggy! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyOdsQkI2Us&feature=youtu.be)
Debugging
My initial idea of merging two completely different game codes together seemed genius, but resulted in a lot of clashing code and meant that I had to spend a lot of my time debugging! This was done mainly by looking at the games console log and seeing what errors were occurring, such as if a variable was being assigned but not used, or if a script had a syntax error that stopped it running completely.
This game had an empty GameObject to hold the game controller script that handled the spawning of the enemies and meteors as well as listening for functions such as the score being updated which was handled in another script. Having a lot of cross referencing with scripts did mean that, if I had been working on my other projects and hadn't kept myself familiar with this one, that I would forget the structure of it all and how certain behaviours were coded, as well as what line of coded effected what in a completely different script. This could become very frustrating! By having many public variables I was able to easily drop and drag the right assets in, which also made life easier when it came to drop in the assets that the rest of the team were busy building.
As you can see, I also use commenting to help me debug. Any code that is not needed anymore or that I thought could have been throwing an error was simply commented out, meaning that it would not effect the gameplay anymore. I kept a lot in just in case I needed to uncomment it again. In the future I should tidy this up before final build.
It was very important while developing this game that I was tagging each asset correctly as this helped to reference the right object in the code. This was especially useful when coding the score system as it checked to see if the object that collided with it was a bullet and if it was then it ran the updatescore function.
- 19:57
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- 19:26
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- 19:23
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Game Inspirations
Before starting any work on our game we all had a think about what 2D games we personally enjoyed and why. This way we could find out how similar (or disimilar) our tastes were and try to create a game that suited everybody. It also helped us to come up with unique ideas based around or inspired by games that we already liked to play.
Game: Little Inferno
About Game: Congratulations on your new Little Inferno Entertainment Fireplace! Throw your toys into your fire, and play with them as they burn. Stay warm in there. It's getting cold outside!
Burn flaming logs, screaming robots, credit cards, batteries, exploding fish, unstable nuclear devices, and tiny galaxies. An adventure that takes place almost entirely in front of a fireplace - about looking up up up out of the chimney, and the cold world just on the other side of the wall.
Why I like it: Narrative based, simple mechanics (anyone one can play and enjoy it), dark and rough art style, unexpected plot twist
Game: Broken Age
About Game: A family friendly, hand-animated, puzzle-filled adventure game with an all-star cast, including Elijah Wood, Jack Black and Masasa Moyo. Funded by a record breaking crowdfunding campaign and designed by industry legend Tim Schafer, Broken Age is a timeless coming-of-age story.
Why I like it: Narrative based, can switch from 2 different characters at any time (could be good for us with so many people,having two different perceptions of the same space), the hand animations are awesome!
Game: Gone Home
About Game: June 7th, 1995. 1:15 AM You arrive home after a year abroad. You expect your family to greet you, but the house is empty. Something's not right. Where is everyone? And what's happened here? Unravel the mystery for yourself in Gone Home, a story exploration game from The Fullbright Company.Gone
Why I like it: Dark and eerie, simple, focuses on atmosphere, narrative driven, keeps audience guessing.
Game: Undertale
About Game: Welcome to UNDERTALE. In this RPG, you control a human who falls underground into the world of monsters. Now you must find your way out... or stay trapped forever. ((Healthy Dog's Warning: Game contains imagery that may be harmful to players with photosensitive epilepsy or similar condition.))
Why I like it: Lots of fourth wall breaking. Easy gameplay, with choices you get what you play for. Story isn't necessary to know but if you liked Earthbound (and the style of it), you'll probably love this. Also comes with an awesome chiptune-esque OST :) (I also apologise for going on about this one ALOT on Facebook lol)
Game: Limbo
About Game: Uncertain of his sister's fate, a boy enters LIMBO.
Why I like it: Darkly themed, with lovely background and silhouette characters. Lots of trial and errors, some gruesome deaths included. Interesting twist at the end too.
Game: Transistor
About Game: From the creators of Bastion, Transistor is a sci-fi themed action RPG that invites you to wield an extraordinary weapon of unknown origin as you fight through a stunning futuristic city. Transistor seamlessly integrates thoughtful strategic planning into a fast-paced action experience, melding responsive gameplay and rich atmospheric storytelling. During the course of the adventure, you will piece together the Transistor's mysteries as you pursue its former owners.
Why I like it: Gorgeous artwork, very smooth gameplay and easy to learn mechanics (kind of reminded me of Pool lol). Comes with a neat storyline, and beautiful soundtrack as well. Recommend you play Bastion if you liked this as well!
Game Genre and Narrative
After looking at games that we already enjoy playing we met up and brain stormed what our game could be about.
We eventually settled on the genre of space as we all quite enjoy the art style of the game and someone in our team is a strong 3D modellor so was partial to the idea of creating a 2.5D game, where the assets are still 3D models. This would allow us to create space ships that could tilt slightly in space, giving the illusion of a 3D game but within a 2D environment.
With the genre decided we moved onto narrative and found there was quite a divide in ideas, but after a lot of chatting we decided on the main narrative, here are our original notes:
Narrative
- Stick to an English theme - Gentlemen and Women
- Space - Spaceship
- Wormhole - Dark - Racy - Demons (like LOTR) - Don’t Starve - in wormhole - character the same
- Why is a gentleman in space? - World War 1 Veteran? Shell shock? ‘bombed into space’? (we’re blasting off again) - Clone of best flyer? - Galactic war? Defective clone on a spaceship with other clones sent to fight galactic war - earth’s last hope - score is a way to see if clone is ‘good enough’.
- How are the worm holes used? - Force the player to enter and exit Why? - Battling with what he did in the war - shell shock - narrative only, background turn into battle field, his plane is his war fighter jet, smoking like it’s been hit.
- Training room - vr
- Why is a gentleman in space? - wine and cheese - going to the moon to collect the best cheese in the galaxy - selfish - aliens keeping the cheese for themselves
- How are the worm holes used? - battling with his own selfishness
- Why is a gentleman in space?
- How are the worm holes used?
The overall narrative
Set in the future, a mothership is based in space where an intergalactic war is upon us. Humans of Earth have sent out clones to protect our planet and this is the protagonist that you play as, a clone sent out to fight aliens for the protection of the human race. However, these clones are based on iconic people from human's history and the protagonist you play as is a defective clone. You realise this as you play the game and find strange wormholes appear in space; when you fly into them you are flung into a World War 1 era, flying a spitfire airplane and no longer in space. These moments show the defect clone remembering the most traumatic moments from man who he is cloned from. This wormhole is dark and eerie, reflecting the clones emotions with dealing with what 'he had done' back in the war, which could also show a deeper meaning by showing the possible effects of shell shock.
Gameplay
- WASD - Movement
- Mouse - Rotation for Aim
- Left Click - Cannons
- Right Click - Missiles
Mind Map
Wants / Needs list
We were conscious of how little time we had to develop this game and didn't want to get ahead of ourselves so we decided to add a table of wants and needs for our game.
Wants
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Needs
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3d menu screen -XCom - extra menu items (art bible, Training room)
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2 different 3D models for each object (one hidden)
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Animation at beginning to tell narrative
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Assets - Asteroids, spaceships, aliens, backdrop, etc - Placeholder ones to begin with while sorting out gameplay
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Text over gameplay to tell narrative (Check with Ewan if it would affect grade)
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Gameplay Mechanic - maneuver ship, shoot aliens, gain points
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voiceovers
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Sound and particle effects
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smoking spaceship when dead (smoke on screen as transition back to menu screen?)
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Simple menu screen
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one sheet, art bible, design doc (put into google drive folder)
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maps, storyboard, scripts?
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Shellshock Mechanic
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Hand painted graphics - simplistic
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Mood Board
Concept Art
After this we went away and started concepting the ideas so we could easily show others how we envisioned the game looking as well as giving us a better idea of how it would look.
- 19:18
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