HW 8: Tetrad (Our game)

Greenhouse

Story: You wake up in a house and you quickly realize the town has been overrun by some sort of plant zombies. As you defeat the zombies you find some survivors who join you in your attempts to save the city. You are told the radio tower might have some information so you go to there and find it has been overrun with zombies and you find a few survivors tucked away safe from the zombies. They tell you that from what limited knowledge they have that they believe some type of spore is causing all of this and the spores appear to be coming from the mansion across the river. Upon getting to the mansion you must defeat the zombies and destroy the spore machine and the evil AI that is controlling it.
Mechanics: You begin the game with one character, the robot, and as you find more survivors you can rescue them and add them to your team. The game is mostly just an open city, however some areas are more difficult than others, but yield better rewards as well. Throughout the game you will set up bases where you can heal you and your team, as well as switch out members of your team (maximum of 3 at once).
Art: The location of this game is a city overrun by plants. The roads are mostly covered by grass at this point and many of the houses have begun to be overcome by the fast growing vegetation. We are hoping to create a darker aesthetic, but at the same time we are not trying to make a horror game.
Tech: We are using Unreal Engine and we are designing the game to be played on the PC.

Balance: We are trying to accomplish a balance by giving each of the team members different attacks and play styles, each one will be more helpful in certain parts of the game than others. For instance if you are fighting a lot of melee enemies you might want to use a ranged character and shoot them before they get too close, but if you are fighting weaker ranged enemies you might want to use heavier damage melee characters.

Emergent Properties: In addition to the choice of your team we are trying to give the player different options for most other things as well. A very skilled player may be able to end the game quickly by storming the mansion with just the robot you start with, or a player who isn't as good at combat could possibly stealth around the mansion at the end of the game, bypassing the hordes and cut all power to the mansion, disabling the AI.

Interest Curve: Throughout the game you will be able to find more characters and get to try out which ones you like best for which situations. The enemies also will vary, both in style and difficulty level, more and more as you progress, causing the need for some strategy in picking your team.

HW 7: Source Control

I am posting this late because I thought only of us needed to post a blog about source control.

The link for our github is https://github.com/blackkeys/fsugd

However, our group decided we would use Google Drive because that was easier for all of us as we already knew how to use it.

Homework #6

Game I liked: Kingdom Hearts

Tetrad

• Story - Kingdom Hearts is very story centered. It's story starts of simply, with childhood friends trying to leave their island home. Their lives are thrown into chaos when shadow creatures invade their home and thus the adventure begins. The game keeps the story in the forefront by keeping the player on a somewhat constrained track and having cutscenes between parts of each level. This encourages the player to continue the game to uncover more of the story.
• Mechanics - The game is third person and combat oriented. In addition to the main character you have two companions who you can control to a lesser extent by adjusting the basics of their AI, such as making them conserve their abilities for emergencies or just going all out from the beginning. The gameplay is very smooth and simple, with most of the fighting revolving around only one or two buttons, making it easy to learn initially and somewhat difficult to master.
• Tech - The game originally came out on the PlayStation 2 and utilized its technology with the group combat as well as the detailed graphics of the cutscenes.
• Art - The aesthetic of the game is based around the forces of light fighting the forces of evil. The protagonists are dressed in bright interesting colors while the enemies for the most part have dull, dark appearances.
• Critiques - One critique I have is that if you wanted you could go through most of the game button mashing. The game is mostly concerned with the story of the game but it would be nice if they made the combat more interesting and difficult, which they eventually did in the later games.

Balance

As you go through the game the enemies get steadily stronger and more varied. This is balanced by the player being able to level up and upgrade the characters and their equipment.

Interest Curve

I think the game has a good interest curve. It is made up of a series of peaks (cutscenes, boss fights) and lulls (fighting through lower level enemies/grinding).

Emergent Properties

The game's story line was based around going to different worlds to stop the darkness, and had completely different level and enemy designs for every world you visit. This is the first game I remember having that much variation throughout the game.

Game I didn't like: Clash  of Clans

Tetrad

• Story - Clash of Clans doesn't have much of a story, essentially the only goal of the game is to have a bigger and stronger clan than everybody else.
• Mechanics - The games mechanics are very simple. Most of the mechanics revolve around gathering resources from your various components of your town by clicking on them. Other than that, most of the time is spent waiting for these resources to become available. The "Clash" portion of the game is the most exciting part of the game, but still rather boring as you send in troops to fight other clans.
• Tech - The technology CoC is designed for is the mobile platform. It does do a good job of being a mobile game, meaning that it is pretty low intensity for the phones and does not use much battery.
• Art - The art the game is nice looking, but nothing to rave about
• Critiques - Adding more to the game besides waiting for resources and then using those resources slowly could boost the game's playability. Perhaps some types of minigames using skill to possibly increase the output of resources would be cool.

Balance

The game is moderately balanced, generally only matching you with players/clans of similar status as you, but at a certain point there is a massive dropoff from long standing powerful clans and the clans of more new or casual players.

Interest Curve

The interest curve reaches a peak very early, as the tutorial is fairly fast paced and interesting, but it quickly drops off as you level up and must begin waiting longer and longer for payouts, and has a tough time reaching another peak.

Emergent Properties

This game was one of the first games that I can remember that really encouraged playing with friends through the mobile platform, which many games now use.

Blueprint

This is my blueprint. It allows the player to switch between characters in the game. We are giving the player multiple characters to control in order to complete different levels so this blueprint will allow them to change characters without having to start the level over.

Group Video #1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=st1x6YLc2jM&feature=youtu.be

Kaitlyn and Kelly are in charge of most of the character design as well as general aesthetics in our game as they are the most artistic.
Abbie and I are in charge of the general level design and layout. We are also trying to put together a lot of the mechanics of the game.

Homework 3: The Tetrad

Story:
    The story begins with the main character, a robot, waking up in an abandoned warehouse, you hear sirens and shouting outside. When you open the door you see a man fighting two plant humanoid monsters. He kills one and then the other in turn kills him. The plant monster then turns its attention to the main character and the player must fight it off. From there you find out that a scientist has released some viral spores into the city and the majority of the population had turned into these plant monsters. You must go through the city recruiting what survivors you can find to storm the scientist's mansion in order to stop the impending apocalypse.

Technology:
    Unreal Engine
    Blender

Art:
    Haven't picked a central art theme, possibly cartoonish

Mechanics:
    The game is going to be Turn-Based Strategy. Each level will have its own goals delivered to you via HUD. Goals will be things like: rout the enemy, reach the destination with no casualties, reach the destination without being detected, etc.

These four must mesh cohesively to give the user our desired gameplay experience. The art must match the tone of the game, whether it be silly or serious, and the mechanics must keep the character interested in the game between the actual bits of story. The technology is what brings all of this together and allows us to create the game the way we see it in our heads.

A minimal prototype would most likely have a small map with two characters on the player's team and one on the enemy's team with the options for actions on a turn limited to move, attack or wait.

Homework #2

1) My group will be creating a turn-based RPG. It will rely on team strategy in order to complete each level and to progress through the game. Each character will be able to move a certain amount in each turn and have specific actions they can take after their movement (i.e. Attack, Help, etc.), and the goal will be to finish the game without losing any team members.

2) The main experience we want the player to have is fun. I want the levels to be challenging enough to engage the player, but not to the extent that it will be frustrating. We also want the player to feel somewhat heroic as they go through levels saving others and defeating the enemy.

3) The theme of our game is somewhat complex. I would best describe it as Man and Machine vs. Nature and Machine. This will be better explained by the initial plot we have put together.

4) The game begins with the main character (a robot) waking up in an old storage facility covered in vines and plants. He opens the door to the outside and sees strange beings, best described as plant-human hybrids attacking local townspeople. As soon as he opens the door a human defeats a plant-zombie but another PZ quickly kills that human and turns its attention to the main character. After a quick battle the remaining survivors come out to see this strange robot. The robot does not have very much knowledge, but after some discussion with the townspeople realizes that an evil scientist is creating these things by sending out spores containing a virus that is changing many people from his mansion on the other side of the city. You must lead your new found allies through the city in order to defeat the evil scientist and save the human race.