Week 11 – Ubisoft Game Lab Competition, resource management in games, and more Bloody Mary (our GDW game) progress!

One of the starting zones

                For this week, we were told about the Ubisoft Game Lab Competition 2013, which looks very exciting. It also looks very hard to get qualified for, as only one team per university can participate. During the lectures for this week, we had also learned about resource management, where we were told to include things like resource costs in our GDW games, such as implementing a health system. For our case, the player has a limited amount of health, and can only replenish it by picking up health power ups that are scattered across the level.

Some decorative text found in some of the rooms, left behind by the victims

Another room, showing one of the oil bottle power ups

One of the rooms with a health power up

                This week, our GDW game, Bloody Mary, has had some good progress. We are having much success with collision, where the player can now push around objects in the game, and collide with the walls and other objects (no more running through walls and objects like before). We also had some progress on importing a ghost model with a skeleton and skeletal animation. With some help from our Game Engines professor, we were able to put one of our ghosts into the game. When the game is complete, we should be able to have fully functional ghosts that wander around the level, and will chase the player if he/she gets too close to one of them. The ghosts are able to move through walls and objects, providing a challenge to the player. We are also planning to implement multiple difficulties for the game, ranging from easy, medium, and hard. If the player picks easy, there will be health power ups in every other room, and the other half of the rooms will have oil power ups. Medium difficulty will have half of the amount of health and oil power ups, and hard difficulty will have much few power ups, which makes the game very difficult as the player can only find limited quantities of health and oil power ups.

One of the ghosts for our game

                That’s all for this week, stay tuned for more updates next week!

Week 10 – MIGS, working on our GDW game, and working on Homework 3 – Blind Fighter

One of the 2 starting locations

Oil power up

Blue key to unlock the blue wing

                For the past week, my group and I have been working on homework 3, which was to design and create a sound-based game for blind people. Classes were cancelled for the most part of this week, and in my case, all of my classes except an elective, due to all the professors and the majority of the students being at MIGS. My GDW group and I did not go, so we spent the majority of the week working hard on our GDW game, which has had some good progress so far. Our game is called Bloody Mary, and it is based off of the Bloody Mary curse, where the player travels to Bloody Mary’s world. The player must escape from this world, which is based on the 1800s. The player is limited to using only a lantern, and cannot fight any of the enemies (ghosts for now, may add zombies later). The player wanders around the level, which consists of 3 wings and a couple large neutral rooms, as well as a final room with the exit. The player can collect health and oil power ups, which will restore either health or light to your lantern, which are represented by a health bar at the top left and a lantern at the bottom right corner of the screen. The player also has to pick up keys that will unlock each of the wings, and also a sword and hammer, which will be used to unlock the final door to the exit. We plan to add statues of a knight, and the player must match the corresponding weapon with each statue (such as a sword, hammer, crossbow, and shield), in order to unlock the final door to the exit.

One of the ghosts in the game

Red wing, the last wing in the game

Blue wing, the second wing

For homework 3, we have chosen to make “Blind Fighter”, which is a fighting game that involves the use of sound only, and the player must fight a computer-controlled enemy. Using the right control key starts the tutorial, and the enter key is used to start the game, or progress through the tutorial. The player uses the left shift key to jab, the left control key to punch, and the space bar to block. The player gets to fight 4 different enemies, ranging from fairly easy to very hard. The first enemy doesn’t really move around you, but as you progress, the enemy will actually sidestep and move around you, so you must use the left and right arrow keys to turn around and hit the enemy. The key to winning fights is to combine all your moves, to block the opponent and hit them when their guard is down. The enemy will make different noises depending on their current action as well as their location. The player must listen carefully to these sound cues in order to win the game.

That’s all for this week, stay tuned for more next week!

Week 9 – Learning about puzzles vs. riddles, and remaking Carcassonne in Unity (With a twist!)

                For this week, we had learned about puzzles and the difference between puzzles and riddles. Professor Nacke also brought up solving a Rubik’s cube, which I loved to solve back in high school (usually solving it in less than 20-30 seconds). We also learned about the difficulty increase in puzzles, where puzzles should slowly but surely increase in difficulty.

Score screen when you finish the game

Top-down view of the game (default and only playable view)

                For the past week, my group and I had been busy working on models to be used for our homework 2 assignment, which was to remake a German-style board game as a casual game in Unity. We chose to do the board game Carcassonne, and added a twist to it. It is similar to the original board game, where you start the game off with 2 tiles, and you get to place the next tile, which is randomly generated from a list of possible tiles, wherever you want. There are 4 different color types of tiles, including green (0 points), bronze (1-4 points), silver (5-7 points), and gold (8-14 points) tiles. The goal is to create a path using the road pieces for the ball to travel on. The player will have a certain amount of time to place all the tiles, one by one, and then the gate will open and release the ball. Should the ball roll off the edge, you lose the game and get 0 points. Should the ball end up at the end point’s hole, you will get all the points that were accumulated when the ball rolled over each tile, as is also affected by cities and monasteries, which will give bonuses. After the game ends, it will assign a rank to each player depending on their score, and a score of 0 will result in a rank of peasant. There are other ranks implemented, such as knight, noble, king emperor, and godlike if the player can get enough points.

Close up view of the level (start and end points present, cannot play while in this view)

I had personally created the monastery (basic + upgraded versions) and the huge city (basic + upgraded versions), and also helped with the quarter city and the half city (with their basic and upgraded versions).

                That’s all for this week, stay tuned for more next time!

Week 8 – Wedding proposal video turned into a Unity game – Team RoGUE’s The Proposal

Sample of one of the spectators

               For the majority of the past week, my group and I were busy working on our prototype 2 assignment, which was to take the video of Isaac’s proposal and turn it into a game that was supposed to capture the feeling of the surprise wedding proposal video. After thinking about it for a while, my group and I came up with the idea to use the game DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) as a foundation for our game. It would help to convey the mood, happiness, and upbeat of the video to the player, allowing the player to feel the rhythm and beat of the song. Our level was to be created using Unity, and at first we thought it would be challenging to use Unity, but once our programmers got the hang of it the game turned out really nice. In the end our game involves the camera moving along a set rail system, with spectators rooting for you (to get married), and while the player is playing the DDR aspect of the game. 

DDR aspect of our game

Lose screen

                Everyone in the group worked on at least one model to be used in the game, and each one had to have a specific animation before being put into the game in Unity. We then put the camera on a rail system so that the camera will follow a specific route to get from start to finish, so that the player does not need to concentrate on moving. Arrows are constantly being created near the top of the screen and will fall down at a constant rate, until either the player hits the corresponding key or it hits the floor. If an arrow hits the floor, the player automatically loses 10 points, and should they press the wrong key, they will also lose 2 points. The player only starts out with 100 points, so the point of the game is to destroy as many arrows as possible by hitting the correct key, while keeping their points above 0. Should the player reach a negative score, they will lose the game and be directed to the lose screen with the option of restarting the game. 

Exceeding the 200 point threshold - hard difficulty activated

                Another feature we had implemented in our game was a point threshold, where if the player exceeds 150 points or 200 points, the difficulty of the game would increase, and the chance of getting double arrows drastically increases. This is to ensure that good player would get a challenge while beginners would be able to play at an easier level. Once the song ends, the player is then victorious and will see the win screen saying that the bride has accepted their proposal. 

Win screen

                That’s all for this week’s blog, stay tuned for more next time!