Tuesdays lecture provided some insight into the term 'gameplay'. It delved into types of challenges people encounter during games in a good bit of detail. This is something I discussed with the group when the style of game came up as a topic for our own project.
Puzzles are the main theme for challenges we will include alongside some combat and problem solving challenges.
On the back of this, we assigned roles to each member to work on for our game design document.
Tom will do the overview, world layout and character rendering, will take on the feature set and has already started work on the levelling system and combat systems. As he is doing the combat system he is also taking care of detailing the weapons. I am taking on the details of the single player game, user interface (with Bryan), and the game world with the assistance of Bryan also. We will all work on other aspects which will culminate in our finished product.
Stay tuned for more specifics...
Tuesday, 25 October 2011
Tuesday, 18 October 2011
Week 4 - Man down!
We were a team member missing this week which left Tom and I holding the fort so to speak. We decided to take a risk and create a bit more of a backstory to the intro of our game to answer a few unanswered questions that I felt were existing. After hashing out ideas and scenarios to explain why our main character was looking to escape from reality, we put down a final scenario that we thought was rather good.
However things are never that easy and after sending our proposed back story to our absent member, he felt that it was unnecessary for the type of game genre we were pursuing.
After much debate we agreed to sideline the idea and pursue a more open sandbox approach. A 'choose your own adventure' so to speak. We are however developing back stories for characters inside somnium - the dream pod machine that will make up our 4 players who are 4 individuals experiencing somnium at the same time.
Watch this space...
However things are never that easy and after sending our proposed back story to our absent member, he felt that it was unnecessary for the type of game genre we were pursuing.
After much debate we agreed to sideline the idea and pursue a more open sandbox approach. A 'choose your own adventure' so to speak. We are however developing back stories for characters inside somnium - the dream pod machine that will make up our 4 players who are 4 individuals experiencing somnium at the same time.
Watch this space...
Tuesday, 11 October 2011
Week 3 - Character archetypes and backstory
Today our lecture was on character archetypes and the back story for the character backgrounds and level design. Much thought had already went into the types of character we were going to have in our game and a general idea of their background had started to formulate in our heads.
With our game concept, we have a relatively unique ability to have such diverse character backgrounds due to the nature of the game, meaning a fair bit of research is needed by us as a group to gather information on the timelines the key characters are set in.
When the game is played as single player, the character played will adopt the 'Hero' archetype - by that I mean that the story centralizes around that character, normally a resolver of conflict which the story is based on, and will often change and adapt to keep the players interest high.
We also discussed what goes into a game setting - what sets the scene when the player takes the helm of our character and starts to play, it could be the little things such as the small attention to details, buildings, scenery - music and sound can also play a part in this as well - a up beat song in a particular area may for instance, give off the impression that the area is a thriving town where there are lots of people interacting with one another, laughing, joking, etc, where a tune with more dramatic sounding tones may give the impression that there is impending doom around the corner for the player exploring a certain area and players may feel slightly on edge - as though something is about to jump out at them at any given moment.
With this lecture in mind, we set about delving deeper into our four main characters back story to give a bit of substance to the players, something that would make the player think 'this is why I picked this character' or 'this is why this particular event has happened in the story'.
Once we discussed this we assigned a couple of tasks to each other to work on for next week. I am expanding on the scientist characters background, and also the level design of his particular 'future world'. I have a few ideas banding about but it's something I will work more on during the week and drill down to a solid back story that doesn't sound too far fetched - but interesting enough to make players want to choose him. I have a mental image of his version of the world too in my head so will try and draw up some rough concept art to accompany it. This will be a decent enough challenge for me and I should have this done for next week so that we can draw our information together and start to press on.
Tom is working on the witch and her back story and level design and Bryan has taken on the templar and mercenary characters to develop further. As we discuss the game further and further, the sheer scope of the challenge just seems to open up at an exponential rate and it's something myself and the group are starting to feel pretty excited about. The potential for more is so big. I'll add some concept art as soon as it's ready.
Stay tuned...
With our game concept, we have a relatively unique ability to have such diverse character backgrounds due to the nature of the game, meaning a fair bit of research is needed by us as a group to gather information on the timelines the key characters are set in.
When the game is played as single player, the character played will adopt the 'Hero' archetype - by that I mean that the story centralizes around that character, normally a resolver of conflict which the story is based on, and will often change and adapt to keep the players interest high.
We also discussed what goes into a game setting - what sets the scene when the player takes the helm of our character and starts to play, it could be the little things such as the small attention to details, buildings, scenery - music and sound can also play a part in this as well - a up beat song in a particular area may for instance, give off the impression that the area is a thriving town where there are lots of people interacting with one another, laughing, joking, etc, where a tune with more dramatic sounding tones may give the impression that there is impending doom around the corner for the player exploring a certain area and players may feel slightly on edge - as though something is about to jump out at them at any given moment.
With this lecture in mind, we set about delving deeper into our four main characters back story to give a bit of substance to the players, something that would make the player think 'this is why I picked this character' or 'this is why this particular event has happened in the story'.
Once we discussed this we assigned a couple of tasks to each other to work on for next week. I am expanding on the scientist characters background, and also the level design of his particular 'future world'. I have a few ideas banding about but it's something I will work more on during the week and drill down to a solid back story that doesn't sound too far fetched - but interesting enough to make players want to choose him. I have a mental image of his version of the world too in my head so will try and draw up some rough concept art to accompany it. This will be a decent enough challenge for me and I should have this done for next week so that we can draw our information together and start to press on.
Tom is working on the witch and her back story and level design and Bryan has taken on the templar and mercenary characters to develop further. As we discuss the game further and further, the sheer scope of the challenge just seems to open up at an exponential rate and it's something myself and the group are starting to feel pretty excited about. The potential for more is so big. I'll add some concept art as soon as it's ready.
Stay tuned...
Tuesday, 4 October 2011
Week 2
So today we worked out our core concept for our game after initial thoughts about it last week. Not wanting to give too much away at present, I can describe the overall idea. The player will engage within 4 different worlds and over a series of 4 characters. Although the 4 worlds will be set along different time lines based on factual time lines the only reference to these will be the style of attire the npcs and playable avatar will wear as well as the architecture of the buildings.
The avatar will change depending on the timeline visited, however the game will have a persistent environment, meaning that upon creation of a new game, the clock is ticking - players will feel a sense of urgency to play the game as npcs, quests etc can change locations depending on amount of time passed since the game was created. Tom Bryan and myself brainstormed for a few hours today to get a solid basis ironed out using the notes we took last week.
So far the game seems to be taking shape in terms of back story and Bryan is working on expanding it while liaising with Tom and I for further ideas and input. We aren't prepared to reveal our unique selling point quite yet but once we have the story tight we can reveal a bit more. I will be working on Storyboards and flowcharts to aid our perception in pitching the game to potential financial backers so will upload some in the coming weeks. I will be able to help the others with any tasks they need done once my own are out the way as well.
Stay tuned for further progress reports.
The avatar will change depending on the timeline visited, however the game will have a persistent environment, meaning that upon creation of a new game, the clock is ticking - players will feel a sense of urgency to play the game as npcs, quests etc can change locations depending on amount of time passed since the game was created. Tom Bryan and myself brainstormed for a few hours today to get a solid basis ironed out using the notes we took last week.
So far the game seems to be taking shape in terms of back story and Bryan is working on expanding it while liaising with Tom and I for further ideas and input. We aren't prepared to reveal our unique selling point quite yet but once we have the story tight we can reveal a bit more. I will be working on Storyboards and flowcharts to aid our perception in pitching the game to potential financial backers so will upload some in the coming weeks. I will be able to help the others with any tasks they need done once my own are out the way as well.
Stay tuned for further progress reports.
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