Brief:

In terms of the compound itself, I am designing it to be completely modular, this means I could rearrange it and make a compound with a completely different layout with ease. I will be looking to create various outer wall pieces including guard towers, corners and straight pieces with various sizes etc. I will also be creating buildings for inside the compound which will be made up of modular wall, floor/ ceiling, door and window pieces. As for aesthetic, I am looking to cross militaristic/ modern with a more futuristic/ Sci-fi. So I will look to blend concrete outer walls with more sleek Sci-fi interior, this I feel will give the look that the compound has been raised form an older already existing structure.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I’ve starter to do a very basic block-out for the layout of the compound, which helps show the scale and where various details will go.

Entrance Gate

Top-View of Layout

Zoomed out view

Perspective view

Overall I’ve still got a lot of work to do but I’m looking forward to creating an environment I’ll be happy with.

Myself and Sam have decided upon a temporary name, “Frigidum” which translates to pointless in Latin. We have now entered the execution stage of our project and have now started Scripting and Modelling.

I have mainly been focusing upon completing the scripting aspect, creating a extremely basic block out within Unity to script within. I have script a camera to rotate around the central puzzle for the diorama and started to implement a camera switch mechanic which allows the transition from 1st person to the objective diorama camera. We also have the beginnings of an inventory system, which is being implemented to allow collection of various pieces for the puzzles.

Myself and Sam have decided to create a 1st person puzzle game, where the diorama puzzle is accessed by the player and which then enters the diorama mode for it to be solved.

The game consists of 6 rooms, of which 5 of them contain puzzles. The starting room where the player spawns has a simple colour association puzzle which once completed grants the player to the main room where the diorama puzzle is. Leading off of the main room are 3 other rooms each containing some form of puzzle. Upon completion of these puzzles the player is rewarded with a puzzle piece for the diorama in the main room. Once all pieces are collected the player can start trying to complete the diorama puzzle.

However, there is a discrete timer for the player to complete these puzzles. There is candles around the main room, which will go out one by one until the player is engulfed into darkness, ending the game. This adds tension to the game and puts pressure on the player to complete the puzzles.

Once the Diorama has been completed a gate opens leading the player to a room downstairs, this gives them access to 4 different choice endings. The choice is designed to make the player think. Each door will be decorated in different ways, e.g a door may have a cross above it and another a exit sign. While some players may perceive the cross as the safe option others may look as the exit sign as the safest. The choice is all about the players physiology  towards safety. However, each door is a 50/50 win or lose, you either escape or fail. Game is designed to show the emptiness of existence and pointlessness of trying, no matter how quickly or well you solve the puzzles, whether you win or lose in the end completely comes down to chance.

We have frozen our idea, listed what models we need, started to work out what we need from scripting, and completed multiple mood boards so to have a consistent feel throughout the game.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I have currently been playing For Honor. It is a Medieval fighting game which pits Vikings, Knights and Samurai against one another. It displays impressive animation to accompany its strong and gratifying fight mechanics.

   It is a game is a game that is easy to pick up but difficult to master. For Honor has a range of moves/ mechanics including light and heavy attacks, dodging, blocking, guard breaks (which expose an opponent), and more advanced mechanics such as parry, feints, deflects and guard break counters. This range of mechanics encourages the player to think about how to attack. The stamina bar also severely hinders players who may attempt to button spam. A depleted stamina bar leaves the player exhausted which slows their attacks and increases the damage they receive. The game encourages players to take a methodical approach to combat and to carefully manage their stamina.

 Players have 12 very different base characters (or Heroes) to choose from, offering different play styles. Such as the hard hitting Viking Raider or the agile and precise Samurai Orochi. There is also 11 new Heroes which are part of the “Free” DLC, the most recent addition being the Vortiger, a Knight who wields a Kite shield and Sword.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The progression system within the game is fun and rewarding to an extent. Players earn “Renown” (the in-game currency) which allow them to unlock various cosmetics, emotes and executions for their characters. The player will also unlock cosmetics as they continue to level up their character. This gives players something to work towards and a sense of individuality amongst a mass of other players.

For Honor has an array of different game modes which has been greatly expanded on since launch. There is the fun but chaotic Dominion mode were teams of 4 must compete for capture points, this mode makes use of feats which are special abilities that can be earned and used by players. There is also Brawl (2v2) and Duel (1v1) which are my preferred modes. I feel this is were For Honor’s combat really shines, as two players strategically encircle each other planning attacks , countering and punishing mistakes. Then there is the new Breach mode (4v4) which is a attack/ defend game mode. One team must defend a castle and try to stop a ram from getting to the gate. Attackers must capture points to improve the ram’s chance of getting to and destroying the gate. This for me was one of my favourite modes, it encourages team work and gives the team a combined objective that is more than just killing other players.

For Honor’s brutal combat system, fun progression and game modes make for a game that is fun and rewarding to play. The continued development brings in new players and keeps the veterans interested/ invested.

As of Currently I am still trying to get a set idea for this project. I have started some concept sketches and am looking for further inspiration for the game.

I am looking to make a post- apocalyptic environment, attempting to achieve a decayed overgrown aesthetic. So far the idea of the game is to have the player following animal tracks, this leads them through a tunnel which will have had previous inhabitants.

The narrative will be explored through various objects the player can inspect by looking at them, so far I was thinking items like newspapers, postcards, notes and more visual things like burnt out fires which will all add to the narrative. This allows the player to piece together their own idea of what happened to these people and what happened to make the world like this.

As a class we met with Mike at Kelvingrove Museum on Monday 19th and 26th to do sketching and look at how light/ shadow affects objects. Sketches done in black brush pen.

Penannular Brooch 8th, 9th Century

Viking Coffin

Dutch Painting (Uncompleted sketch)

Close Helmet 1540 Austria

Sallet 1480 German

Horseman’s Armour 1680 English

Ceratosaur Skull

Gun

Conceptual Painting

Quiver and Arrows 19th Century South Africa

Team- Myself, Sam and Hamed

This group project was certainly a challenge and a lot more stressful than I thought it was going to be. However, despite major group setbacks I still thoroughly enjoyed creating Apollonia.

Our group encountered major group communication and cooperation issues, which essentially led us to having to compile/ code the game within 3 days. All team members pulled their weight and we ensured everyone knew what they were doing so we would have a working game by the exhibition day. We set daily checklists, that would allow us to keep track of our progress and ensure we met the deadline. The checklists would have to be complete in that day, this resulted in a few late nights but ultimately a complete and reasonably polished game.

Hamed was our 2D artist creating all the 2D art for the game, this really made the game come to life, as it gave the game a more professional aesthetic. Sam compiled the 2D Fungus scenes, ensuring that the views were set up correctly, so that Fungus (a 2D Addon) would work in our 3D scenes. I focused on the scripting aspects and bug fixing, I made sure the game seamlessly switched scenes, 1st person controller worked and general bug fixing of the game.

I think the whole group really enjoyed creating the game despite the 3 day time constraint. Ultimately we created a functioning game with various conversation options for the player to explore. The game was to be built up around the characters so each character has a in depth background and profile, these conversations were to be used to convey characters motives and personality to the player.

As a group we are looking to further refine the story and make the game code more efficient with the use of better scripts and use of variables in Fungus. When we have spare time we will continue on with the project, and make these changes.

Group: Hamed, Sam and Shelby

Our groups concept for the group project was a Horror game that is based within a submarine. The submarine gets stuck somewhere near Antarctica and the story is about how the crew slowly begin to go insane.

There is to be 4 NPCs all in different rooms of the submarine and 1 other character which is the player.  The player must go from room to room and do basic tasks for the NPCs to try and survive. The NPCs grow continually suspicious of the player and other NPCs, things begin to break down as the narrative progresses.

The game is a mix of both 3D work and 2D. The player will walk room to room in 3D and upon entering a room it will change to a 2D perspective. Our plan is to use Fungus to create tension and a sense of paranoia through dialog. We have yet to decide if there will be branching dialog paths or if it will be linear.

Ihis weekend I was tasked to 3D model the submarine’s hallway, doors, air vents and wall pipes. The hardest model to create was the door, I wanted to create a design that made the door look sturdy and heavy, while keeping the more oval/circular shape of a water tight door. I encountered various issues with faces disappearing and turning black.

Shelby has began to write up the plot and script which we are going to discuss more in depth tomorrow and hopefully get a clear narrative which we can then freeze.

On Wednesday (24th October) I played both the D&D board game and the traditional version. This was my first ever experience of D&D, it was a very interesting experience but a enjoyable one.

In terms of storytelling I would say the traditional D&D did a far better job of engaging the player and it also offers the player a lot more freedom to shape the story in the way they want. Although the game master in our game had preplanned the story, the players were able to make decisions which ultimately affected who everything played out. For example, it was probably not expected that someone on my own party would continuously fail to try and kill my character.

The boardgame I thought had very little in the way of StoryTelling, it was more of a basic objective that we had to complete, it was a different type of experience than the traditional D&D so its difficult to compare them. However, the traditional game I would say definitely has the stronger narrative, with or without a competent game master.

To recreate one of the two variations of D&D as a digital experience would be quite the task either way. However it would be easier to recreate the board game version, this is because there is already very clear game mechanics implemented into the board game, which essentially could just be copy and pasted into the digital game.  Also the traditional version requires the imagination of the player to carve the story out. This kind of freedom would be extremely difficult to replicate within a game. The only real example to compare to that kind of player freedom would be Star Citizen which isn’t even out yet. Even then I would say Star Citizen does not reach the level of player freedom required to create a game like D&D were the player can do pretty much whatever they want, within reason obviously.

I really enjoyed my D&D experience, and it would be something I wouldn’t mind trying again. It was a little weird at the start talking through my character but when I got used to it, I felt more comfortable. I also really didn’t understand all the rules but the Game Master was there to keep all of us right as none of us had played before. Once we got into it, we started to cooperate more with each other and progress quicker through the story making decisions faster and better.