Game Project Part 2 - Research (24/1/2013)

During this session I found out more details about the project and learned that if we wanted to create a 3D demo then it could just be a visual experience e.g. no enemies attacking you or set objectives, just exploring the created environment. I also found out that it didn't have to be perfect and therefore we could include basic shapes to make up for the unavailable objects.

Therefore after asking my peers for advice and looking at the tools and mesh's available on UDK I decided to make a 3D demo for a game with a film noir style in which you play as a private detective investigating the Cthulhu mythos within a fictional American city with Gothic/Tim Burton like architecture at night time. The game will hopefully have a black and white filter in order to give it an 'Casablanca' type atmosphere and will have the player explore their private detective agency, the city streets, an exotic bar and perhaps, if I find the time the outskirts of a castle. 

The following day I made a start on the environment and decided to include a Gothic Cthulhu like church as not only are churches atmospheric and scary particularly at night, but its inclusion would also stand out in the otherwise dark city as it contains life in the form of a park, with lush green grass and looming trees accompanied by Gothic statues and a water feature. It's also more enclosed than other areas and therefore makes the player curious as to why that is so. Maybe its to keep in its dark secrets and evil? Who's to say.
I even included a back alley with a enclosed junction box and clothes lines to suggest the city is inhabited.
To make the bar look exotic I gave it an Arabian style that includes grand statues that might appear to be guarding the establishment as you would see guards do at a palace.
I have to admit the city hall took inspiration from the first Tim Burton Batman movie as I have always felt the design for the hall in that movie stood out because of its large size and scale.

You can see my progress on the environment below:

Game Project Part 1 (16/1/2013)

For this project we are to create either a board game or a demo using UDK based on a fictional game idea of our own. This sounds like a fun, but challenging task as it will require me to either create a fully functioning board game with my own assets, or a demo on UDK that would require programming and limits me to UDK's resources.

My first idea was a Steampunk board game that I had been working on during my train journeys for quite a while now. I started to create a map/board for it and worked on this for an hour before my lecturer (Graeme) then asked me if Steampunk had already been seen in the industry far too much? This threw me off as I didn’t have an answer for him as I had jumped straight into the development cycle. Since I was focusing on the game play rather than the story at the time I also felt embarrassed and ashamed of myself as I have always focused on the story and originality of my games first, as I would think of appropriate game play to fit the context of the story.

My lecturer however told me to not be discouraged and to look at this as the start of a bigger idea. Therefore I decided to make a list of the fors and againsts using UDK compared to a board game and will try and create a story that I feel is original and suits the gameplay for one of these play types.  

You can see the start of my thought process below:

Whilst on the train I also made a list of the things I would want to include in either of my game types. These include the following:

• Narrative driven game play.
• Originality.
• Multiple paths that the player can go down (either travel based or moral based).
• Visually pleasing.
• Fun game play that is neither too long or too short.

Two words game - ideas (9/1/2013)

This session was unexpected and fun. We were all given a few pieces of paper and asked to write down any word we liked on each one. We then had to give in these words which were shuffled by our lecturer. Once shuffled he then went about giving each one of us two words with which we had to create a game idea and tag-line out of. Our next task would be to sell the idea to the whole group including the lecturer as if we were in the 'Elevator Theory'. For example, you are in the elevator with your boss and you only have from the thirtieth floor to the first to sell the idea. Our lecturer advised that we ALWAYS tell a developer or boss the 'big bang' first as the one thing that makes a game stand out most is what they want to hear first.

We were given five minutes to come up with an idea for our first game. I decided to come up with a very silly idea. I purposely decided that I would approach the writing for it and the delivery in a deep voiced movie announcer, action movie way. Also making impressions for the appropriate voice actors when necessary.

My first two words were Elephant and Boulder. This is the result:

“This summer… you will know that an Elephant NEVER forgets… Revenge!”

When Billy the circus elephant was experimented on and abandoned by his circus troop he was left to die. With his only friend an experimental super weapon (which also happens to be a boulder by the way) saves his life the two vow revenge on the evil circus troop.

Billy the Elephant is voiced by Arnold Schwarzenegger. “GET TO THE CIRCUS! NOW!”

And Billy’s living and singing boulder side kick David Boulder is voiced by the one and only David Bowie. “I keep telling you… I’m NOT David Boulder!”

Billy and David will travel across the states in their search for the traitorous circus troop using a variety of super boulder powers at their disposal such as exploding boulders, bouncing boulders and very, VERY sticky boulders. 

SUPER ELEPAHNT BOULDER! ULTRA VIOLENT EDITION! Coming soon...

Peer Response:

The response from my peers and lecturer was great as not only did they laugh, but my lecturer ended up saying "Just take my money!" which was fantastic to hear. 

For the second idea we were giving two words again, however, this time we were given twenty minutes to come up with a Facebook game idea that could turn a profit as supposedly Facebook games make the most money in the whole industry!

This task was surprisingly harder as with the last one you only had five minutes and therefore came up with less serious and simpler games. But, with more time myself and others I heard from ended up trying to come up with an overly complicated game concept as we had more time to expand our ideas. I also wanted to come up with another fun and silly idea, but this time present it more seriously as I didn't just want to repeat what I did for the last pitch and felt it would be stale if I did.  

You can see the second game concept below from the two words Voodoo and Cheese:

“When there’s no more room in the Kitchen... The Cheese will walk the Earth!” (a pun on the 'Dawn of the Dead' movie tagline).

'Dawn of the Cheese!' is a game in which you play as a crazed scantiest armed with Voodoo knowledge and a love for cheese. It is up to you to take over the country of Jamaica using your EVIL army of living Cheeses!

This high in calcium Facebook game will include the following gameplay:

• Join your friends on Facebook or crush them under your designer boots as you attempt to build a base and an army of EVIL dairy products. 
• Design your own crazy scientist and hang out with your friends. 
• Earn and plunder milk that you use to either increase your armies size or build your base from a rundown cardboard box to a full on manor. 
• Send your cheesy troops all over Jamaica to attack your online friends and even kidnap well known Jamaican celebrities for ransom such as Bob Marley and others because... why not! You can even recover secret military plans that reveal new troops that you can create using your voodoo to mix and match your soldiers' abilities and stats (just like in Pokémon kids!). 
• Plan wisely however, as you will only have a limited amount of voodoo power to use at one time and milk to spend (just like in 'The Sims' and 'The Walking Dead' for Facebook).

The game will turn back a profit in the form of the in-game shopping system that allows players to spend their real money in order to purchase the game's in game currency… milk.  Players will also be able to enter an in  game lottery where, depending on the money they put in their chances at winning the jackpot increases.

Peer Response: 
I got a fun response from this one as well, but looking back at it I feel as if I could have done better. Although myself and my peers liked the idea of the cheese army and the social aspects of it, I feel as if it should have been set all around the world, or just somewhere else other than Jamaica as I hope nobody disapproved of that (though this could just be me over analyzing as I do sometimes). Its just that I associated the country with the given word 'voodoo' and thought it would fit. Granted the game wasn't meant to be taken seriously (I don't think any game made by the group was), nobody seemed at all offended and considering the words I was given I believe I did a good enough job. 

Overall as mentioned above I really enjoyed this task as not only was it silly, but it also got us thinking and  everyone produced surprising results. Fingers crossed we will get the opportunity to do this task again in the future.