The Project Log Final

So it has been around  a month since I updated last.

Over the past month the deadline has been and gone and at the end of 

this week our end of year show starts to show off what we have done.

Take a look at 

http://www.newportgames.co.uk/

If you fancy having a look at what stuff me and the rest of my class have

been up to for this. Also details for the show are on there as well if anyone wants to come

and take a gander at the games themselfs.

So what has happened in the last month up to the deadline and after?

Well During the last few weeks I was spending most of my time finishing animations

that were missing and genrally making sure all the clarity needed was added to the game.

Also more bug testing as always to try getting the game as smooth as possible before hand in.

Over all I think we did well for the deadline, meeting all the basic requirments we set out

to complete at the start. Also even though the deadline has passed. me and the programmer are still working on things for the show trying to get the game more visually appealing and less buggy for

people to play.

So far visually the game looks better as we have added a frame to put it into context.

Along with continually debugging as best we can.

Also I have changed the background of the game so it is no longer boring old grey.

There is a short video on youtube that shows a genral look of the game just before deadline at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGcacNfahZs&feature=channel_video_title

We are continually working on what we can up till the show and possibly afterward to

though that has yet to be fully decided on if we do what we will be adding.

So for now I will leave you with a more recent screenshot and feel free to come take a look

at the show if you are around.

The Project Log 8

Just a quick update on things this time as the deadline is sloly drawing closer.

 

The past few days I have started on animation  and other sprite related things.

Things that will make gameplay more clear visually and hopefully more full filling.

So I decided to upload the first few to show, which are the idle animation for

a selected character. bear in mind these are GIF format so are running at a different

speed to in game as the enigine reads png strips for animation.

 

The Project Log 7

Project Date week 13 Digital Production

So it has been about another month since I updated last, about time I posted again with some progress.

So the question is what have I been doing this past month on all this.

Well apart from easter break with that whole royal wedding shinanigans and the Bin Larden stuff

all over the news, I had been  doing a bit of work.

The past few weeks have mainly consisted of messing around trying to do the portraits for

the differnt characters and more bug testing, correcting and organising and failing to come up with

a decent level/setting to play in.

So overall with the portraits I feel ok with how they are being pretty simple maybe a little

hint of some cubism in there. However im not 100% happy as each time I did one,

the style would change slightly wich lead to how they are now as this was the most uniform

style I could get them. Even though I am not 100% with the finals I believe they fullfill the role and

are acceptable for the current project.

Along with Portraits I have also created icons for visual representation of the buffs and

debuffs avalible to the player so it is much easier to see which character is under some sort

of positive or negative effect. These have come out well and you will be able to clearly tell each

buff/debuff apart although a revisit to the + attack buff icon may be needed.

As ever the programmer helping me has been a star and has managed to continual impress me

with his working speed as he added in the mechanic for the buffs and when testing showed the

trigger that would remove the buffs was not working correctly, he imediatly fixed it so that now

all works correctly.

Further testing also showed the turn mechanic was slightly bugged and would get confused once

so many characters had died. This was also fixed quickly once found and is now

working as should.

Before all the work on the buffs I also finished the HUD showing the differnt avalibleskills

the different character could use. This went through 3 stages where in the first I made a complete

noob mistake whereby I forgot the cancel button so people could get back from

the skill menu. Stage 2 where I resized and corrected the previous mistake, Then stage 3

where I corrected spelling mistakes and altered the colouring for more clarity for 

which skills were and were not avalible for use.

After all this had been done I came up with a very basic start screen which has been added

and my programmer added a ending criteria that would return to the menu after one team

had beaten another which we corrected to show the correct winning team after realising no matter who won the same message would be displayed.

The last thing I have done in this past month is while creating the start screen I came up with an

icon for the game which I can edit slightly to fit into differnt situations within the game while still 

remaing recogniseable as the icon. So it could be considered as the game basic logo to some extent.

So now we are at the stage where by we believe we are finishing up the game for the project with a to do list of just coming up with a setting which I still havent had any insperation from my ideas so far

as they all seem to grey. Animations to do for visuals and clarity of what the player chooses to do, also

more testing for bugs as per usual but I now believe we have gotten them all and the game is almost ready to go.

So lets leave you guys with a couple of pics.

The Project Log 6

This past month I have been mainly concentrating on my dissertation.

This is now complete and is waiting to be submitted on the due date.

This now means I can get back to concentrating on the imagery and get back into

the swing of things on this digital production. I am quite looking forward to this

as I have had enough of only writing and reading to last me a while.

During this past month we have not completely come to a full stand still on things.

After hearing from the programmer I have already gotten the basic ideas down to finish of the

HUD and am now over this week finishing of the individual assets to put into the game.

Now we have this basic HUD done the screen is much more clear and starting to look

much more like a game. Along with this the programmer has been working faster than I expected

already having the basics of the combat system in engine with only a few bugs.

Also during this time I been play testing when I can and finding out just how hard balancing a game

realy is. Recently it has come to light some major oversights which I now need to adjust values for

as it turns out that the ranger is invunrable when faced against a priest. People are enjoying the game

and finding it to be well thought out, giving valuble input for ajustments such as the one above along

with other things I could think about.

Over all things are going well but I do believe I need to step it up a gear for the last 6 weeks to come.

The Project Log 5

Project Date week 5 Digital Production

 

Week 5 and a bit of a slow down as the date for dissertation approaches this has become

the higher priority for now. Even so I have finally printed out a paper version of

the game as a prototype that others can play to help me fine tune numbers. For this testing

I am around campus on a wednesday and thursday between 12-4pm for

anyone intrested in having a game of the prototype.

 

So far we have completed 2 plays of the prototype that has already reavealed a few minor 

changes that need looking at, such as the buffs maybe a little to stong in some places.

Overall from the 2 tests the game appears to be relativly balanced and the players enjoyed

testing the game. From the results I am currently estimating that a game once fully digitalised

will last between 10-20 mins depending on the player. This time I beleive would be reasonable

as it does not seem to drag out to much and still holds the player for what i believe to be a fair time.

Currently we are trying to get the HUD sorted for the lower screen that will contain

all that needed detail of stats and the like so that when we continue the needed information is

nicely condensed so the screen is ledgible unlike how it is for now. I have spent a 

whole day doing 100 frames to represent a hp bar for the character  as working at 

smaller resolution is time consuming to create images to a required standard.

Unfortunatly since doing this i have not heard back from my programmer as 

I would usually have heard from him now and also I have tried to get some portraits 

of the characters done for display on the lower screen. This isnt going as planned  currently 

as I seem to have a little art block and what is in my head is not coming to paper 

as I would quite like so I will be rethinking how I am working on that.

The Project Log 4

Project Date week 4 Digital Production

We have progress. After speaking to  my programmer  yesterday we now

have the core of the move system working. After testing we currently cant find any 

bugs and our characters are rather smart boasting a little ai with their dynamic

move system. This has left us with a small issue but it is mearly visual and we plan on 

coming back to it at a latter date as we want all the core mechanics working rather than

being stuck on one thing and running out of time. Just being able to move about a screen

is not really a game on its own.

So to date we have a working turn system and a working move system.

Also we have a working camera that keeps the view centred on the 

current point of control. (example when switching turns the camera will

centre to the next character)

Wehave Also figured out how to make the view seem like you would

be using to screens as game maker cant use 2 windows open at the same time.

So all is currently well with the programing and I myself have started on how the

HUD will look which I will make a fuller post on once completed.

End Log

The Project Log 3

Project Date week 3.5 Digital Production

Over the past few days I have been catching up with some written details

for the game such as character stats and the paper based version for testing

these out to get an idea on how the game plays and find any things  may have

missed that makes the game unbalanced.

I have finished writng up the rules and how to play.

Also I have finished creating tokens to keep track of status affects

and the character cards so the player knows the details for each

of the characters in thier command.

Each of these cards feature version 2 of the characters stats that are set

to make the combat calculations work with simple arithmetic.

There is one other thing I have left to do and that is to create a way to keep 

track of everything over the turns of the game in some sort of table.

Next to do after this will be to create the HUD imagery for engine, however

we have found out that Game Maker is unable to use 2 windows at once

which I was hoping so that each could represent the 2 DS screens.

To compensate for this we are thinking about spliting the one window with

the top half representing the standard screen and the bottom half representing

the DS touchscreen. This will need a little more looking into with my coder

as it will affect the HUD greatly, but so far he believes what we wish is

achievable so I shall start on this line but keep a backup plan just incase we

have missed anything.

End Log

The Project Log 2

Project Date week 3 Digital Production

This week i have bee a little distraced by the last beta for rift which is looking good

However I have finished the still sprites for in game now in both colours and written up some

stats and skills for the differnt character types. 

I have also managed to get the majority of the paper based version of the game put together. 

So hopefully later this week I will be able to start play testing to see how things play out 

and make adjustments as needed.

I also thought I would update on a general how I created the sprites. 

Using the Tank as the example as it has had the most work done to it.

So this is all 10 sprites that will be used

A few minor alterations made to some but all created the same way.

They all started off as this basic grey scale sprite I put together a pixel at a time using

a reference image. Originally got the idea from looking at the starcraft2 zelot model.

Then just switching colours to work on a neutral background instead of white as some

of the sprite was white itself.

From this basic sprite i then started adjusting the image a bit at a time looking at individual 

limbs, head and torso as seperate parts that create the sprite. Keeping the basic compositon

similar to the original to keep the differnt models unified. But making the sprite an individual.

This leads to the basic template for the tank, which I then added some detail to.

The style of shading was the tricky part as this adds depth to the sprite, but to much

would cause the sprite to be to cluttered. So I looked at multiple ways of shading

and got some opinions before  made the final decision.

After shading the sprite I could spot some details that I did not feel right about or were

simply wrong with the differnt sprites. (example: left/right legs being differnt sizes)

So from this I would then make adjustments untill I felt the sprite looked right and fitted

in with each other while remaining individual. This would then lead to the final outcome.

As you can see below the tank has changed a lot where now its shield looks more in front

of it and the proportions have been altered along with some positioning.

thats all for now. End Log

The Project Log 1

Project Date week 2 Digital Production

Lets start with a bit of catch up on whats happened for my uni work so far.

Just over 2 weeks ago we had the first hand in of the year which was all the paper production. So all that jazz is done and dusted except my document was more mechanical based so it was lacking imagery.

During january I finally managed to find a coder who was willing to suffer working with me

for the digital production of the game. >:3

He is very good and prooven he is more than capable, with him already having done the turn system required

and has knocked out most the movement system already to. Along with this we are managing to keep in touch well enough to keep it all ploding along at a nice pace unlike what i remember from previous expierences.

 

Thanks to him I am able to stress less about the production as im no longer flying solo and I can

concerntrate more on the imagery and getting the numbers right for him to implement everything.

So over these past 2 weeks and a bit I have mainly been working on the character sprites for the

game. So far i have gone through 2 stages the first looking a style to how the sprites will look.

Secondly getteing the design down for the differnt classes. which I continually am making minor ajustments to

as I work and notice things I can improve or missed. Just for you I will upload larger copys so you can see a bit more clearly.

These Guys are only 32/32 pixels except for the ranger whos gun makes him a bit taller. 

Overall making these tiny guys is a bit tricky compared to what i though it would be but is prooving to be a nice challenge and change of pace to what im used to.

Hopefully by the end of this week I'm hoping to have some basic numbers written down and a paper version of this game sorted out to begin testing how it may feel and make everything work together.

So anyone reading this you are warned in advanced I may be dragging you into a room to test this.

End Log.

Now That is bad

Very Very bad that i only made 3 posts before i forgot to do updates.
Well its been a few months and now its 2011 so maybe i could try setting myself
a late new years resolution. At least i could try to update once a month maybe.

So whats happened in the last 3 months?
Work along with many many distractions.

Last post i made was just before Game City in nottingham which i felt was not quite
as good as the previous year but still good none the less. It seemed to focus more on sound
and music in games, where i was more intreasted in the stuff that was still in production like
Spy Party and Confetti Carnival also the xbox Kinect was looking good even though the guy
was totally just advertising.

After this work on paper production and disertation started to kick in which now the paper
production is  finished and awaiting feedback from that and the draft of the dissertation.
The disertation being one of the distractions from the paper production.

So thats a genreal summary of stuff thats happened.
Next up will be an attempt at staying up to date and hopefully updates to the digital production
that is kicking in now leading to the end of my last uni year.