Play Testing

This week I have been assigned the task of play testing the basic level build of the game for Project Blend.

There's simple objects and basic movement in the level to get as many various assets in to be play tested as possible.

So during my play testing I found that 90% of the problems stem from the jumping of the player throughout the level. As there are side of surfaces that if the player jumps into bounces off of and the ability to jump up walls and out of the level.

Below is a short concise list of what I had found and the possible solutions to each of those problems.

Bug Report

1.     Jumping against the blocks – causes bounce back, stops player reaching max jump height. 

(Solution – If jump height is increased to a height that the player can successfully get to the box 99% of the time. However the player can now jump across objects to reach another level of height over a gap in the level. Not intended to happen.)

2.     Jumping against the games side-wall – If the player jumps on the side wall he can jump up to the top of the level.

(Solution – Restrict jumping to once per press until the player is re grounded with the floor the play cant jump any more. However this will be problematic once play is up on asset and tries to jump multiple times as each climbable asset will need to be added to the script as a floor object.)

3.     Sliding – Slowing down sliding to very little not every surface will be covered in ice and the raspberry will not slide down everything. As this will only serve to confuse the player.

(Solution – Restrict fast sliding to Ice objects)

In addition to play testing the level I have been tasked with obtaining a deeper understanding of how the code works so that I can be a part of the coding team. This is so that I can help the coding team to complete tasks and help with giving them feedback on how to change the code to remove bugs and improve certain aspects of the games design; also to help with the general coding and talking about how to go about coding things such as the play movement through the level and interaction.

I have been going through text books tutorials on Unity I did a few chapters last week when I was assigned the task and I'm going through more and more each week until the end of the semester as any last minute key information will come in handy.

Interface - Cursors

All Cursors will be the same size, they have just been drawn differently, the only thing that will change is the design not the height or width. 

Figure 1 - Various Concepts for Cursors. 

A few of the concepts are the same just with a different style of art or a slight adjustment. There's not much in what you can do with regard to the look of just a basic cursor; but no.3 through to no. 6 are based on the shape of a raspberry which has been abstracted to fit into more of a cursor shape.

Project Blend – Level Encounters

The smiley Ice cube face represents blocks of Ice inside the freezer. 

The Snowflakes represent Ice on the Freezers floor.

Level Four - Part Four

As logan enters the Freezer there are more dangers than in the kitchen. There are Ice Blocks that get in the way of Logans progress and Ice on the floor that prevents Logan from treading.
He must navigate around and over these obstacles to get to try and find the Raspberries.

Figure 1.1 - Part 1 of 4 

Logan is presented with Ice Blocks first, he must use his wits to find a way around them without making contact, as contact means he will get stuck and be unable to safe the Raspberries.

Figure 1.2 - Part 2 of 4 

As Logan traverses deeper into the freezer to free his Raspberry friends, he encounters Ice on the floor. He must carefully jump over this otherwise as with the Ice Blocks he will get stuck to it.

Level Four - Part Five

Note:

Boss Elite Fennel: Due to image being flipped his bad eye appears on the wrong side.

R = Ramp. 

Logan is at the top of an ice ramp; the player must go down the ramp to find the Boss of level 4 Captain Fennel.

Figure 1.3 - Part 3 of 4 

Boss Fight (Concept):

When Captain Fennel engages Logan in a fight, he has three phases; only the first two are in the first encounter.   

Phase one, Fennel moves around the level erratically, during this time any attack Logan makes is deflected and inflicts no damage.

Phase two, Fennel moves for Logan and goes for the attack but there is a slight delay to allow Logan to move to safety. After Fennel has made his attack, he is confused for two to three seconds.
This gives Logan time to attack Fennel’s (bad eye side), blind spot. Which side depends on the defection Fennel and Logan are facing.

Fennel takes two hits before the next phase can be initiated.

Level Four - Part Six

After all the other Blueberries come in to help Logan (fighting around and behind Logan and Fennel) the final phase of the fight commences.

Figure 1.4 - Part 4 of 4

  

Boss Battle Encounter 2 - Phase 3:

The fight is the same as before attack phases 1 and 2 are still present and active. But now when Fennel attacks and misses he is wise to Logan’s side attacks; so immediately afterwards he attacks to the side of his weak spot.

After attacking towards his weak spot phases 3 initiates, Fennel then jumps backwards two movement blocks.

The idea of this fight is to get Fennel stuck on the surrounding Ice; once stuck Fennel no longer poses a problem.

Interface Health-Bar Concepts

This week I have been tasked with gathering information on interfaces and drawing some concepts for  Project Blend.

So first I started with the research, I looked at loads of different health bars using different styles. Below are the ones I thought stood out the most for Project Blend.

1.1 - Battle Fantasia 

1.2 - Multiple iterations of Interface Designs for Bayonetta 

1.3 - Dragon Ball Z

1.4 - Eternal Sonata 

1.5 - Kingdom of Hearts

1.6 - Max Payne 

1.7 - Prototype

1.8 - Street Fighter IV

1.9 - The Legend of Zelda Wind Waker

From this research I started making concepts, I’ve not done many concepts in the terms that I have been vague but hopefully I’ve covered the breadth of the design ideas I wished to get across. All these ideas are hopefully useful and will aid in the quest for a good well implemented interface; through a big team discusion. Hopefully the team will either chose a design or bits from multiple designs and I will redraw it as a new concept will different colours and styles in time for our next meeting. 

2.1 - The first four Interface concepts 

2.2 Interface concepts 5 to 10 

Art Style – Level Concepts

This week I have been assigned to do a concept for a level at the end of the last lecture I was asked to make it for the good kitchen and two other artists also did a level each. Upon leaving the class the next day I went on the forum to have a conversation about the level like we talked about but all that got done was a list of things for the level was generated. This didn’t help me at all.  I think I just needed a proper to do list because I didn’t grasp what to do from a quick chat and a list. We have talked in previous meetings about the three main games that we are using for our inspiration towards the design and colour of the actual look of the game. So i'll be using these as my main inspiration. 

Sly Cooper
The legend of Zelda the Wind Waker

And Super Mario Bros

So since the others were doing concepts for the level I would focus of the type of style and design of the level and the perspective. For the perspective I chose to go with Little Big Planet like we said we was going to do because it’s a nice angle and it suits for gameplay well for our game. This keeps it vague enough for me to work and useful enough to not be a waste of time for the other team members as I don’t want to create something that will not be of use.

So after trying the forums I edited the set-up of the level so that there are less sub-layers, make the code so the NPC’s use the sub layers around the main layers the player is on as opposed to having two sub-layers per main layer.
Blue representing the main layer and Green representing the sublayers. 

Using this I then made a quick sketch of the potential final look of the camera design with the little big planet setup to make sure it all fit and looked good.

The green lines representing the perspective slowly increasing in angle as the camera moves further away. Three Logans were added,  just to make sure that there would be enough room for him three times plus room for NPC’s to gather around him. As the image below shows there is plenty of room.

Next I made a sketch of how I though the (very) basic outline of the good kitchen level would look.

The poster won’t actually be in the game but it’s a placeholder to get an idea for stuff to put into the background.

Then I though add a little flavour to the level the kind that the team hopefully wants.

Thankfully I feel this gives everything a nice edgy look.  So funny with this theme I intend to draw a toaster a single asset a few times for you guys to try and get an idea of how it looks and what kind of level of abstraction the team wants. 

Then add a little flavour.

  

Next I tried adding a (Poorly drawn) sink to get a feel of how we would present it.

Then add some flavour.

Hopefully you team have thought about which ones they like, upon looking at the other concepts as well. From the feedback I will make a bigger design for the level next week that utilizes the chosen look.

Paper Prototype for grouping enemies

I decided to base my paper prototype work on remis’s work from previous weeks. This work has captured the teams imagination and they seem to be running with the idea so I’ve made my own one altered slightly the original.

Mine is lanes as opposed to lines they work exactly the same way it’s just easier to visualize things in their own sections instead of on lines.

In this paper prototype I have been charged with seeing how groups of enemies can be implemented into the game without causing to much trouble, testing out the various ways a horde can gather in a level without creating a que of enemies waiting for a fight. 

So first I started by making my new outline to start testing with. Then I started thinking about the characters and their amount of health as with a horde of enemies, especially if they are in a que it is important that they don’t take to many hits, but enough so that the player doesn’t feel to superior to the enemies. i.e. groups of enemies dying after one hit.  In my experience it can leave the player feeling cheated and make the game a button basher.

So thinking this through in my head especially when the player is surrounded by the maximum amount of enemies, 8, the player can take up to 8 damage per-second, so the player will need recharging health and at least double that amount in maximum health to be able to stay alive and have enough time for the player to fight their way out of the situation.

I tried a quick play through in my head with movement with the player (Logan) the same as the NPC’s (Fodder). But if the player was in danger they had no way of escaping if they could not out run the NPC’s so I changed the movement ratio to 2:1. This made escape much easier while not giving the player to much speed so that they can run rings around the NPC’s.

So using this ratio I tested the game again and in most situations it was possible for the player to fight their way out of the group in time to not get beaten to a pulp. Assuming that there are fifteen to 20 enemies.  We’ll have to focus test upon making the groups and implementing the script just to make sure to make the amount of enemies interesting, challenging and fun not overwhelming and hard. Unless that’s what we decided we are going for.

With regards to queing, I’ve decided that after the player has been surrounded by enemies as new ones continue to come they should get behind enemies in turn. 

When the player is surrounded it will look like this.
X = PC
O = NPC

OOO

OXO

OOO

Once the player has been completely surrounded they I propose they start adding to the pack as follows.

   OOO

   OXO

OOOOO
Bottom left then right

  OOO

OOXOO

OOOOO

Middle left then right

OOOOO

OOXOO

OOOOO

Top left then right.

Watch the flash video I have made for you to get a better understanding of what I mean. (I’ve E-Mail the files to Daryl)

Character Art Design

This week I have been assigned the job of creating a look for the lead character and to find a way of incorporating either a face or some kind of emotion into it’s design. So, first I did some research and then draw a few pictures of various shapes and styles, the sizes and widths etc.. can be discussed in the meeting and on the fly I will edit together a version that the team likes and see if that’s the direction that they wish to take the character in.

Rayman
During the last meeting, the few attending members that came, all commented on how Rayman’s looks is simple and gets rid of the need for arms and legs. Ben brought in an example of an egg ninja animation, all those characters had no arms or legs either but the animation still remained exiting, fast paced and interesting.

Rayman

So I took a look at Rayman to see what about him I could use to incorporate into the main character in Project Blend.
Even without a full body his clothes and stance give him a cool appearance, the way his body flows when just standing there shows that he’s breathing just like a human being, just without arms, I feel that this subtle little thing like movement together gave the animation what it needed with the hands to not make it to unrealistic.

Flash Movie - Madness

Madness - Animation

This movie is fast paced and the animation is simple, the characters have basic outlines with little stubby legs and it all words well. So the character doesn’t have to be mega detailed for a mass platform spree of violence to take place.

http://www.atom.com/funny_videos/madness_avenger
- Flash Animation Madness Combat 3: Avenger

Dragon Ball Z
Even looking at Rayman and Madness I was still lacking ideas about how to install some emotion into this character without giving him a face as all the drawings I tried with eyes didn’t seem to work, so I started looking for another way to try and portray emotion within the character without having to pull facial expressions.

Dragon Ball Z - Two Characters 3 Designs

Like the illustration shows each character has three unique forms that they can take on, should they chose to. Each one is, clearly, the same albeit totally different. Even just a simple change like a hair style makes all the difference towards the characters outward appearance.

Willow Tree
As well as try and make a face work, their’s also the option to make it not work. So I started looking into things that could portray emotion without a face, for the person looking at the object to be able to always tell what the object is thinking/feeling.

Eventually I found the Willow Tree collection (AKA faceless Freaks) these are wonderful statues that still have a face but no facial features. Each one has a very powerful emotional theme running through it and maybe if the project was to chose no face there could be a way we could portray emotion.

Splinter Cell Double Agent
So running with the theme of no face I decided that swinging a sword with just hands is not going to be the best way to portray emotions in the game especially the character stance from Hack N’ Slash to stealth each mode and stance needs to be unique and stand out so that the player will know which stance their in and which attack set they can chose from.

So I looked at various games with a lot of character movement like Gears of War, Halo and Splinter Cell. In Splinter Cell, when he moves from walking to sneaking theirs a change only in his shoulders and knees but the change is so severe that it changes his outward appearance.
So I decided that adding knees would be silly so just run with shoulders as these could be used for the above mentioned appearance / stance change and to show breathing in the character.

Drawings
I made a few basic drawings, instead of drawing loads of different variations of the same character I drew a few basic outlines and in the presentation I will show the team and ask them to decide which ones they like the best and I will draw one on the fly and show them how it looks.