Acclimatize Level Design (Paper to Screen)

As a part of the process of creating the Acclimatize level’s, I would draw out what I roughly wanted them to look like, allowing for alterations during the process of actually putting it together in Unity. I have included an example of the before and after of this process, my sketch of the level is very rough but it is for my eyes only so as long as it makes sense to me, being neat bares no relevance. I like doing this process as it allows me to get my ideas down on paper and to make sure that nothing is forgotten. In my opinion, it is better for changes to be made along the way rather than forgetting ideas I had previously which could have benefited the game.

I am very happy with how this level has turned out, I believe that for the current ‘Alpha’ level, which I have had my peers and lecturers testing, it is perfectly suitable as it shows off various different features which will be incorporated into the full finished game. A version of the Alpha game may be made possible for testing soon.

Before

After

Acclimatize Improvements

Once again today I have dedicated a lot of my time to working on Acclimatize. I am very happy with the progress I have made as I can now feel the game slowly coming together. The game still requires a lot of work, however, the game is technically fully functional and can easily be developed into a finished game. Today I have fixed the scripting for the character movement and jump animations, admit ably with a bit of help from my lecturers as it was reasonably difficult setting the animations for the commando character to work correctly. The movement animations may still not be completely perfect and still require a bit of tweaking but this will be done over time make the best possible game.

The main difficulty I had when setting up the movement animations was having the animations flow together correctly, while also looking correct. What I mean by this is that making the jump animation look natural (realistic) was difficult when trying to scripting it in with other animations.

As well as improving the scripting of the game I have also begun properly constructing the first level using the modular block system I have created; using grass blocks, dirt blocks and stone blocks. I plan on using this system with various other textures to construct levels in other biomes for the other demo levels.

Unfortunately, our original aims for the game demo may no longer be possible for the Christmas portfolio deadline. However, the official demo will most definitely contain everything we originally planned. Whereas, the Christmas portfolio demo game will likely only contain the Commando character (with the other characters “coming soon”) with three out of the 4 biomes having levels that are playable. This is simply because we are limited by time and restricted by the amount of us there is, resulting in work taking longer than the larger team can produce.

Despite this we are still aiming to make the best quality and most optimized game possible, avoiding cutting corners as much as possible so that is game truly represents the abilities that we currently have. We have already discussed our ambitions for the game and they may be large but not out of reach. We are planning on working on this game throughout our two years here at Sunderland College and possibly after. However, aims are to have a fully working and published game hopefully by next summer. It will take a lot of dedication but we want this to happen so we are going to push for it. Ultimately it will hopefully at least result in a good game to be featured in our portfolios.

Acclimatize Update – Coin Collect

As apart of my game (Acclimatize) I have added in a score system, in which the player collects coins to increase their score. I have set it up fairly basically; player runs over coin, coin is destroyed (“Collected”), score display in the UI increases. Currently this score system doesn’t really serve any purpose other than giving the player a secondary objective when playing the game. However, incrementing this feature allows for different possibilities in the future when the full game is made. For example; leader boards, in game store to buy items (character and boosts) and more.

Once again I am very happy with the progress I am making with this game, I really feel like it is coming together. however, there is still a lot of work to be done, but I feel like we are working through the tasks at hand very quickly. I am looking very forward to getting this game to a stage where people can trial it out and we can get feedback as I am really happy with how it is looking, and I’m confident that the demo will look even better.

Acclimatize Progress

Over the last week or so I have been collaboratively working on a game called Acclimatize with Josh and Liam. The video above shows the current state at which the game is at. I have put a lot of effort and work in this game so far and I am very happy with the way it is turning out. Apart from the characters featured in the video (which were created by Josh) I am responsible for the reset of the progress that the game has made. While I have processed a lot of my attention on creating what you can see above, Josh has been putting his focuses on creating game characters for us to put into the game, while Liam worked on concept art. However, the idea was created collaboratively as a team.

Overall, I am very happy with all of the progress the game demo has already shown. I am really looking forward to getting the demo fully working for people to try out so that we can get feedback and use that to improve the game and complete the fully working game for our portfolio.

Next steps are to setup the animations properly for all 3 characters in Unity as well as building all four levels for the demo and linking them to the main menu. As well as this I need to add a coin system which allows for the player to collect coins and for a score to be kept.

Acclimatize Game Map Design

Today I spent a fair bit of time creating a game map for my game, Acclimatize. This asset is going to play a very important role in the game as it is going to be the hub to access all the levels in the game. Along with the map, I have also modelled locked and unlocked icons to be placed on the map (in unity) to allow the player to see their progress and access the necessary levels.

I am happy with how the artwork has turned out as I feel it is more than suitable for its purpose and meets the games style very well. The cartoony/stylised look is what we our aiming to achieve as a team, so that the game is appealing to more people and therefore more accessible.

Next steps are going to be putting this map into unity and adding in the required icons and scripting them to link to the correct maps. This is going to be a fairly long process, however, as I am in charge of the menu system in our team, I am standing up to the occasion to get the required work done to make the best game we possibly can (as of current) for our portfolios.

Portfolio Game (Acclimatize) – Game Platform Block

As myself, Liam and Josh are working on a game together for our portfolios, Acclimatize, I have went ahead and created a game block which will work in a modular fashion to create platforms in our game. As we have gone for a stylised look, I have created my own pixel art to texture the block. I created a variety of top, side and bottom pieces allowing for the blogs to appear more unique and random when used in the game. This may not be the final artwork we go with but as far as I’m concerned it is more than suitable for the demo of the game.

I am overall very happy with how this game piece has turned out and I look forward to using it to begin building levels for our 2.5D game. Personally, I feel like my texturing skills are improving over time, as I learn new techniques for making visually appealing models. Hopes are that we can produce a basic working game by Christmas.

Portfolio Game Plan – Acclimatize

For our portfolio’s each person in the class has been tasked with making their own game from scratch. For this task we are allowed to work in small groups, so me, Josh and Liam decided to work together to make the best game we possibly could for our portfolios. Our ideas began very rough but I have organised all of our main ideas in a flow chart which is easy for us all to follow and create this game together.

We have decided to name the game “Acclimatize” after the word acclimatizing, mean the ability to adjust to different environments and climates. We called our game this because it entails working your way through various biomes, in order to get home, after your character has a horrific helicopter crash which leaves them confused and lost in a jungle. For the player to complete the game they have to work their way through; jungle, desert, mountains and snow to reach a small town were they will be safe. Along the way the player will have to battle enemies and collect power ups to reach the end of each level. Complete all the levels in each biome to progress to the next biome.

Below is our rough plan for our game. It is detailed enough to make sure we have everything our game needs to include, but simple enough that it allows for changes and adaptations to be made along the way. I am already happy with the progress we have made together in this short period of time. Personally, I feel like we are already showing great promise as our team working is proved very effective when making our plan.

 

Juicing my Pachinko Machine – Adding Sound Effects.

In order to improve my game I have practiced making my own sound effects using http://www.Bfxr.net and adding them into my game. I have create reasonably basic sound effects which play when; a peg or wall or goal is hit, player drops a ball, level is complete and when the level is failed. I feel like this sound effects add more depth and interest to the game, despite how basic they are.

I am happy with the new skills I have learned this lesson as I now know an easy way of making my own sound effects, as well as known how to add sound effects into other games to improve them. I look forward to experimenting with sound effects in my other games, especially my ball game and racing game to make them more interesting and fun to play.

Overall, I am happy with my sound effects, however I do want to improve them as they aren’t the best the could possibly be. I plan on working on creating improved sound effects which better suit my game, in my own time.

 

3D Pixel Art Character Creation – Magica Voxel

Today I spent some time learning how to use a free 3D modelling program called ‘Magica Voxel’. It is a fairly simple to use piece of software, and I feel like I picked it up quite quickly. It works on a block based 3D modelling basis, basically 3D pixel art. As I am a big fan of pixel art, which is obvious to tell from my blog, I have really enjoyed using this and experimenting with this software.

I am reasonably happy with how my models have turned out, but obviously I have only been using this program for just over an hour and my models aren’t anything special at all. I look forward to improving my skills with this software as I think that the style it allows you to achieve is very interesting and makes games look more fun and enjoyable to play.

These models are going to be used for creating a 2.5D platform game, a style of game I already planned on making, so to me this is great because I have a bunch of ideas already. Hopefully this will mean that my ‘Rabbit hop’ game will be able to make good progress to be put in my portfolio and to be played by other people. Next steps are to animate the rabbit and set up the basics for the game.

Working on the main menu for racing game

I have spent some time today working on a concept, for the start menu, for mine and Ethan’s racing game. It doesn’t look amazing but it will likely be the main menu we use for our demo when the game is produced for testing and feedback, as in my opinion it still does look fairly professional and visually appealing.

I am very happy with the quick progress we are making with our game so far. We have both spent a fair amount of time, so far, modelling assets, researching and attempting to make the scripts for the game. I look forward to seeing where we can take this game and how it turns out.