Furutes

I feel like this project is going to be the end of me. I was freaking out the other day about how I didn't want to fail the course, which I don't, but I think I'm getting better about this. I sent a draft of the essay to my tutor just now, but hadn't done anything for the IP Justification. I don't have an IP yet, but that's something I'm going to spend time working on now.

It's the same kind of problem I've always had, I freak out about deadlines then waste time doing pointless rubbish. Like with this, I knew I had to get the Horizon Scanning done a few days ago, but instead I just wasted a few hours playing Super Meat Boy. Should be alright with this, I've kinda got an idea for the IP. Because my Futures project is talking about character customisation and mascots a lot, I might do something similar to Maplestory, an accessible platformer game with character customisation and premium items.

Anyway none of this matters. The band I was a part of last year that I thought everybody has forgotten about is apparently semi-famous. We put a few of our songs online, and somebody in Germany used "Av Minne" as a backing track for a video of theirs. I think this is actually seven shades of awesome, video's below.

OUTTAKES: BERLIN from À NOS AMOURS on Vimeo.

You won't let those robots eat me

D:

Ok so. I'm actually really happy with how the Proposal project is going. I think that my pitch pages have come out really well and I feel like there's going to be a lot to talk about. There is one problem though. On the cover sheet for my pitch, I've used the Roman symbol for Pluto - God of the afterlife. I've used Greek terminology a lot, even in the title, so using Roman isn't too much of a stretch, right? Anyway, cover sheet down there.



Now that's fine. I'm happy with that. Then, one of the people in the class looks at it and mentions that it has more than a passing resemblance to one of the Eldar's signs from Warhammer 40,000. I google it, and sure enough, he's right.



First reaction - Aaaaaaaa. Can I even use my original idea? It's so similar to another symbol that's used popularly in a similar setting. It should be fine, right? It's a different style, and they're both based on an ancient symbol. It's not plagiarism, we're both using something from 2000 years ago that is probably in the public domain by now.

tl;dr: I'm annoyed that it looks like I'm ripping off the Eldar. They're objectively the worst race in 40k as well, which is just rubbing it in.

I foamed at the mouth while the lights winked at me

Fun Animation

Did some more work on those guns I put up the other day. Modelled them in Maya, then animated them expanding and collapsing. Sort of like Mass Effect or Vanquish, I like to think I've achieved it quite well! Have some gifs. Obviously the guns aren't textured yet, I'll do that eventually. This was fun though! I haven't properly modelled something in Maya for a while, and there were a few mistakes made here. Still, pretty enjoyable, I really liked animating them too!

Tier 1 weapon


Tier 2 weapon


Tier 3 weapon


Need to get to work on this Pitch Doc. A whole week to do two or three pages? Ooh I dunno, sounds like a tall order.

Nobody's right if everybody's wrong

Gun nut

I tried designing some weapons for the characters in the board game to use. I know I should've been working on Futures or Honours, but I really wanted to try out my new tablet. I used the technique that guy oh God I should be able to remember his name. Uhh. Him. I used his technique to make the guns, just drawing shapes and seeing what worked. I'm pretty happy with them, the idea is that the guns on the left are the compact forms, and they expand into the larger forms on the right. I reckon I could animate these myself, wouldn't be too hard, right? I like animation, it's easy enough once you get your head around it.



I might have overdone it on the white bits on the expanded forms, but they're really just there to break up the black space. They'll probably be replaced with smaller more subtle details on the final thing, it's just a sketch for now.

Got no time to take a picture

Let's talk about storytelling pt. 2

I talked about bad storytelling, now let's talk about good storytelling



Left 4 Dead is one of my favourite examples of storytelling in recent years. There is one cutscene at the start of the game when you first turn it on to get you established in the game universe, but everything else is in-engine. Despite the game never taking you out of the action to force you to listen to the characters banter, they are still characterised excellently. From the way they shout when they see monsters attacking, to even the way they dress and their idle stance. Just from the characters interactions, we can paint a picture of their background.

Another commendable part of the characters in L4D is that they are all on equal playing fields, and nobody mentions race or gender. Louis' character is that he is the super-boring IT technician, not the black character. Zoey is a horror movie geek teenager who was more prepared for the apocalypse than her friends, not the woman.

The ball was royally dropped with The Sacrifice DLC and Left 4 Dead 2 but I'm not going to talk about that now. I'll just say that the although the new campaigns leading into each other works much better than 4 unrelated campaigns, the new survivors aren't as well realised as the original survivors.



Despite it going completely loopy towards the end, I thought that Condemned 2 was admirable for the way it tried to tell it's story. The cut-scenes between levels are mercifully short and exist mainly to provide context to the different locations the players find themselves in. The main part that I feel deserves praise is the investigation mechanic. The player puts themselves in the main characters shoes and is expected to figure out the sort of puzzles that are generally reserved for the boffins at HQ.

The plot develops with the character, the investigation gameplay ties directly into the main overarcing storyline so the player never feels too disconnected from the actions of the story. You begin to feel a connection with the characters, Le Rue saving your life a few times, and Rosa providing helpful information regarding the mission.

Although I mention Condemned 2 being a good example of storytelling, it is a very bad example of narrative in games. A lot of the levels (Doll factory, Carnival) seem barely connected to the main game, and also don't make any fucking sense. Not only that, but the story goes off the rails at the end with talks of an ancient cult connected to the Mayor, Police Force and the Presidency.



Finally, I would like to talk about X-Com: Ufo Defence. The entire game has three cut-scenes. An opening cut-scene which is mostly irrelevant to the actual game, a "bad ending" in case of a failure state, and a "good ending" for when the player succeeds. However, the game creates a massive sense of attachment to the marines, despite them being essentially faceless and completely devoid of dialogue or personality whatsoever.

The sense of paranoia and the feeling of being watched is present throughout the entire game. The fog of war hangs tightly over the battleground, but the player knows that behind any corner could be an army of aliens fully able to destroy the character in a few turns. The sense of fragility next to the paranoia works excellently in making the player feel very defensive of his marines. When a mission starts going wrong you worry about your characters, especially the high-ranking marines with high skills. They may be the most skilled, but when they die, they're dead.

There are other games I could talk about here, but these are the ones I wanted to talk about. I chose not to talk about games that are generally too plot-centric, as they have their own thing that they do in their own way. I might do a part 3 where I summarise. I might also talk to Rhoda about putting something like this on WebCT. Maybe???

It looked as if I picked your name out of a hat

Let's talk about storytelling pt. 1

It's something I always pay attention to, but so many people seem to get it wrong, Which is a shame. When done right, storytelling in games can be an incredibly effective tool to draw the players in and enhance the overall experience.

I'll start by listing some games where the storytelling doesn't work. Probably spoilers. I'd like to preface this by saying that I thoroughly enjoy all of these games, but want to address these issues.



Mirror's Edge is probably the prime example. We enter the game with hints of a grand conspiracy theory, but ultimately we find it hard to care about everything in the game. All the exposition is force-fed to us in lengthy cutscenes by characters that we have no interest in. We're expected to put our life on the line to save the main character's sister at one point, put the player's motivations don't back up that of the character. Faith's sister is not our sister, and we barely know anything about her anyway. Go on, I bet you don't even remember her name.

The only likable character in the game is your ally over your earpiece, Merc. He is never anything but helpful, interjects friendly lines about how well you are doing in the game and gives you helpful tips about where to go or what is currently happening in the story.



GTA IV is another game where the character's motivations and player's motivations do not match up. This is symptomatic of the entire GTA series, but GTA IV is the most flagrant. The main character of GTA IV, Niko Bellic, consistently mentions to his friends the dreadful things he had to do during the war and how glad he is to leave it all behind. Shortly after this exchange, Niko can steal a car from an old woman and shoot her in the face, murder a prostitute and then kill himself.

Although Niko can be a sympathetic character during the missions and cutscenes, the complete player freedom allows Niko to be a completely different character to that which is presented to us, showing no compassion or empathy for human life.

Not only that, but the game suffers from a similar problem to Mirror's Edge. Despite the cutscenes and character interactions being much better in GTA IV, the game asks us to care about our cousin Roman, risking our lives and going up against innumerable odds to save him. The player's response to Roman has been almost universally negative however, as he consistently nags the player to go to strip clubs, drinking or bowling with him, despite the player possibly having better things to do with their time.



The final title I would like to mention is Devil May Cry 4. Although a very sound game with some very interesting mechanics, one of the main faults of the game is the large amount of cutscenes. It takes 3 and half minutes from selecting "New Game" at the main menu to actually reach gameplay, which is then broken up by another five minutes of cutscene. All this serves to do is show us how much fun the characters are having with this wonderful game, whilst we watch and are supposed to be entertained, despite the fact that we've bought a game and not a CG movie.

Part 2 coming up soon, I need to do some more coursework and get ready for work tonight.

For the riddles I've been fed, another lie moves over

Proposal and Miscellany

So I think the Game Proposal project is coming along nicely. I've got my idea of what I want to work on, I'm doing the Cthulhu horror title, which is going to be a lot of fun. I've had a lot of experience DMing the Cthulhu role playing game, so I just need to come up with an original story. I'm really excited to start on it though!! I think I'm going to be focusing on the writing side rather than the drawing side. At least, I like to think I'll be able to write an interesting character, I hope I don't fall into any traps I've seen previous characters fall into. I don't want "Is Black" or "Is a Woman" to be a defining feature, because that's just ridiculous.

I also played through the Mass Effect 2 Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC yesterday. Really impressive, there was a lot there about great storytelling in games. One thing that really stood out to me was when you can read through your crewmate's mail and extranet searches. Most of the time, it's quite tongue-in-cheek, there's a mention of one of the characters looking up Dinosaurs and Sharks on future-google, there's somebody else's workout routine. Almost of nowhere, you find an email from a doctor to one of the female members of your crew, informing her that she's unable to bear children. It was really effective, but made sense in terms of that character and didn't seem like a cheap shot.

In other news, I've got a job! It's only 10 hours a week, but it's going to be enough. This has genuinely put me in a really good mood that will probably be hard to break (this is not a challenge)

This is how the wars get started.

Oh, well. At least you're trying.

pfffssshhhtttt. I tried drawing up some more character designs for the Honours project. I guess the drawing Gods weren't with me today or something but I could not draw for shit. It was proper embarassing, and didn't even look good. I'm trying to come up with unique designs for the Medical staff, but what can I really do? Guys wearing scrubs but in the future? Oh boy bring on that one-two sucker punch of self-doubt. I know I'll be able to come up with some more ideas for it. I just can't come up with any now.

Got a free book in the Student Union today. "Wild Animus". It's written by an entrepeneur from America called Rich Shapero, and it came in a fancy box with three CDs. Haven't had a chance to listen to or read them yet, but it should be pretty good night reading. Got me thinking about mixed media, like the L4D comics coming up to the big DLC release. It's a clever idea, works well in engaging your audience and gives another angle for you to work with. Coheed and Cambria did it, releasing a bunch of comic books along with their album.

Bsffsdtadst I'm too depressed to do any more work. Here's some awesome fanart somebody else did.

It's not too late, you wanted it good.

This isn't working, Game Ideas

This was supposed to be a serious professional blog, but I'm not smart enough to do that and it's also boring. I'm going to be more informal, but also update more. Yeah. Deal with it.

So we needed to have three ideas for the Proposal. I thought we'd just come in with one and develop that, but I suppose this is better. I've put forwards my On the Road idea, as well as something based on Lovecraftian Horror. Essentially, you play as an ensemble of characters each with different skills based on abilities in the role playing game, and there's a whole bunch of cultists and eldritch horrors you have to defeat. Depending on how competent you are, all of the playable characters can and might die, adding consequence to your actions in the story. If they all die, then that'll be game over. If some of the characters survive, or if they all do, then you'll get different endings. Essentially, I just want to make a Cthulhu horror game that isn't Dark Corners of the Earth.

The other idea was playing in post-apocalyptic America where you're a mailman. The only way for the different cities to communicate with each other is by getting your player character and friends to deliver messages. One day, you're ambushed by rebels trying to stop the mail, and you can either work with or against them. The rebels are trying to take down the bourgeoisie upper classes. The main focus of the game would be moral choice and consequence, with things the player has chosen to do at the start of the game affecting actions towards the middle and end. I'd like to try a Karma system with it too, where good things happen to good characters, and bad characters receive their comeuppance later on in the game.

Here's a stupid video

It's a mechanical bull at number one, you'll take a ride from anyone.

Character Class ideas

In my board game, Research Outpost Hades, there will be four major character classes the players can choose from, each with their own unique skills and abilities. The four different jobs the characters can choose are Security, Engineering, Research and Development and Medical. While obviously, some classes will be better at some tasks than others, all of the classes will be able to attempt all of the challenges they may need to face over the course of the game.

The Security detail are the designated fighters of the game. They begin with a tier 1 weapon , have the highest health out of all the characters and are best trained to engage the monsters in combat if needed. They also can easily access the Armoury to recover more powerful tier 2 weapons, and can perform basic first aid if needed.

The Engineer characters are tasked with ensuring the facility is running well, as well as denying the monsters access to areas. The Engineers themselves are tougher than Medical and R&D, but not as strong as Security. Although they don't start with weapons, they can use their cunning to lock down large parts of the ship, trapping monsters in rooms that will not need to be used. The Engineers come armed with a welding tool to lock doors, as well as fixing hull breaches before they get out of hand. The final skill unique to Engineers is the ability to navigate the ship via the ventilation system, letting them travel from one side of the board to the other much more efficiently and safely than walking through the corridors.

Research and Development can be the most important characters in the game. They know how the entirety of the base works, and have clearance to activate a large number of functions such as the AI Core or the nuclear failsafe. Additionally, they can use advanced technology such as tier 3 weapons or other experimental weapons. The R&D class, although the most fragile, can be the most valuable characters when it comes to winning the game.

The final class, Medical, are at their most useful when it comes to keeping the characters alive. They can operate the Medical Wing of the research facility to fully heal themselves or another character. Not only that, but they have the greatest movement speed out of any character to enable them to get around the facility quicker. They can provide first aid to any injured characters, and can revive any characters with 1 point of health if they have been incapacitated.

Hopefully these four character classes will each provide a unique play style, and each be satisfying to play as. My aim with the unique classes is to let everybody be able to complete the game by themselves if needed, but they can work together to better achieve their goals. The game should never be impossible to beat if the Engineering and R&D staff are incapacitated.

When I came down, the dawn poured into me.

Outline for 3rd Year Projects

For my Game Proposal, I'm going to attempt to create a game based on the 1958 landmark title "On The Road" by Jack Kerouac. The game follows the nameless main character travelling from New York City to Los Angeles by hitchhiking, jumping on trains and stowing away on large vehicles.
The game itself would not have any failure states. If the characters lose all of their cash on hand, then they need to find a part time job at a carnival or restaurant and work to get more money. The game itself would not stick strictly to the plot of the book, allowing the players the opportunity to visit different cities along the route, meet and befriend new characters, or even end the story halfway through if they wish.

My Honours Project is going to be creating a full working prototype for a board game. Taking inspiration from productions such as Doom (video game), The Thing (movie) and Zombies! (board game) it features a group of researchers trapped in a remote research facility whilst trying to defeat, evade or simply survive a rampaging horde of monstrosities. The research facility itself has to be randomly generated by the players each time at the start of the game, and is randomly chosen to be in a different location each time the game is played (for example, in the desert, underwater or even in space!).
The players themselves will have randomly given objectives to carry out, many of which will work counter-productive to each other. For example, one player might need to ensure the research facility and all of their work survives, whereas another may need to sabotage the base and destroy any evidence of their work. Another mechanic that will be important in the game is the character's mental stability. If they see any shocking sites, such as monsters or dismembered corpses, then there is a chance their mind will begin to deteriorate, causing them to hallucinate or act irrationally.

As far as my Futures project goes, I haven't actually finalized what I want to work on. Possible opportunities are motion control, morale choice or digital distribution. I hope to spend the next few weeks deciding just what exactly I want my year's worth of work to be about.

I bet you're so surprised to see me

Introductory post

Hello internet, my name is Thomas Rosell and this is a written documentation of my third year of University. Over the course of the year, I will need to complete three major projects, the Game Proposal, Honours and Futures.

The Game Proposal is a large undertaking where we need to write an entire Design Document (approximately 100 pages) about a new, unique game title of our own devise. We will need to talk about literally everything in the game, from the characters and music, to the camera and front-end menus.

The Honours project allows us to be more creative. At the start of the year we will tell the tutors exactly what we aim to produce at the end of the year. What we can choose is entirely up to us, letting us choose to design characters, create levels, or even work on new ideas in Game Design.

The final project, Futures, requires us to look at the current trends in Games Hardware and Software, and predict what will be an important and popular trend in five year's time.

I will update this blog as I progress on the course, in order to provide a document of my entire work this year, and also so it may serve as a basis for a portfolio.

Remember how it was with you, remember how you pulled me through.