220 frames served!

So here's some sprite work from the characters in Falling. I just hit 220 total frames of animation for the main character today, and there's still alot of animation to do. Fortunately, all that's left is enabling death state for the player then all his gameplay aspects are complete. Then it's on to the girl's AI and building some new data structures (why ActionScript, don't you have a FIFO structure? really?). On another note, that's the final look for the girl character, she didn't look dressed up enough before, so I redid her. Expect more news (and screens!) very soon!

OPS: Mission Complete!

Well, what can I say? Two years went by a lot faster than I thought it would. Maybe it's the way Full Sail crams everything together, maybe it's because I enjoy doing what I came to school for. Either way, this Friday is my graduation ceremony, and our Final Project game is complete. All in all I think it turned out really awesome. Read for the game concept and my mini postmortem.

OPS is a first person game, focused on movement instead of combat. In fact, there are no weapons for the player to use at all in the game. You play as a secret agent in training, trying to complete a virtual reality course that is controlled by the Battle Aptitude Readiness and Recon Intelligence (BARRI for short).

The gameplay mechanics are all about tension, keeping momentum, and using things like vaults and slides to make your way past obstacles and to the end of the course in time, with a focus on learning the courses and turret placement for faster future runs.

What Went Right

Time Management

The entire time we were working towards final project, everyone kept telling us that we would have crunch for all of our milestones. However, my team ended up meeting 6-7 days a week for at least 8 hours. That seems like a lot, but it was in a laid back environment, and other opinions were right there. The thought process was, we're coming to school to do this for a job, so why not treat it like one.

WWise

Man, WWise made sound integration so much easier for us, and took a lot of sound related issues off of our shoulders, and put them in the capable hands of our sound team. We fought back and forth for a while whether we should use Fmod or WWise, but in the end the latter made for much faster integration when it came down to it.

Scope

The scope of our game for the time frame we had was almost perfect, the only thing we had over scoped was the levels (14 total were designed, only 4 were used), which we did on purpose, so we could trim later. All we had to do was hammer out the basic mechanics and test in each level to make sure the level worked with the game.

What Went Wrong

Work Distribution

Even though we as a team didn't have any real crunch periods, individuals did, just due to an unbalanced workload. For instance, I knew Maya the best, so I handled all the placeholder models, the models we got to put in the game, tweaking the layout of the levels, and item placement in the levels. This of course was on top of what my duties as a coder were. The final week before turn in, I was scrambling to get assets in, with the sound and art guys making them faster than I could implement. At the same time however, there were people who had literally nothing to do. If we could do it again, Scheduling would be a big thing to reevaluate.

Math Libraries

I don't have a real problem with the XNA math library, which is what we ended up using. The big problem we ran into was in the first month, we switched math libraries 3 times. Not only did this take a little getting used to, but some of the team had to redo code up to three times to make up for the changes. In the end we figured out the XNA math library and how to use it, it just could have been handled in a more timely manner.

As of right now I can't think of anything else to add to this, so with that, you can find the game Here. Give it a try and let me know what you think!

The Path

So I just finished playing though The Path, a "short horror game" by Tale of Tales. Before I start let me just say this probably isn't a game for everyone. That being said... I totally enjoyed it.

The Path puts you in the shoes of six sisters ranging from 6 to 19. The story of the game is simple, and a familiar one, take a basket to your grandmothers house in the forest, and stay on the path. Just like the story Little Red Ridinghood on which it's based, the game would be incredibly short and uneventful if you just went straight down the path to Grandmother's without venturing into the woods surrounding her home.

When you leave the path is when things get interesting. The gameplay consists of you wandering the woods collecting "memories" and flowers while you explore. as each Red sister, the goal is to find and confront the wolf. However wolf is just a metaphor for what, or whom you find in your journey. Each sister has a different wolf, as well as different memories that can be found throughout the woods. Insight into each of the sister's personalities is achieved through finding memories as well as their separate animations and clothing.

Each girl's personality can be seen through their actions and representation in the game. They range from Robin, the quintessential "Little Red Ridinghood", to the dark minded goth Ruby, to the eldest, order bent Scarlet. The woods themselves are represented as incredibly creepy and bleak for the most part, with key areas being in more vibrant colors, some of which are more creepy than the bleak woods themselves. Tons of post processing effects give the game a claustrophobic, gritty, old film feel, while strange drawings and pictograms help to push the atmospheric feel of the game. Over all, visually, the game is a treat, and combined with the excellent sound (consisting of a handful of melodies and a slew of atmospheric sounds) I couldn't help but feel uneasy the entire time I played the game. Anytime I started to feel comfortable, I'd approach a wolf, and a scene would be activated that twisted my stomach into knots and kept it there until I was back at the title screen. 

besides the art style, and atmopshere, design choices in this game that I particularly enjoyed were the girl in white, who always seemed to be around to point you towards lost memories or new areas, subtley guiding you from a distance. I also really enjoyed how I couldn't find the path after I left it. My first play though as Robin, I wandered off into the woods and found a lake. She commented how the fog was like "A cloud howling at the moon," As I read her dialog, I heard a chain rattle, and loosing my nerve, I started to run the way I came. However, I couldn't find the path anywhere. Also, running too much causes the screen to darken, a heartbeat to be heard, and other incredibly creepy sounds to be heard. I play with headphones in the dark, and I have yet to build up the courage to keep running and see if anything happens after that. It creeps me out THAT much.

As I said earlier, this game isn't for everyone. However, if you're open to interpret this game yourself, and you enjoy a slow paced, creepy, atmosphere driven, game, check this out. You won't be disappointed.

What Games Mean

I've known for a long time what games are to me personally, and my belief that games can be more than just a fun experience, but an emotional and thought provoking one as well, is what has driven me more than anything to pursue this career.

Today I witnessed something that reaffirmed my personal belief in the way games touch people. There's a game called Passage by Jason Rohrer if you haven't played it yet, I DEMAND that you play it before you finish this blog post. Seriously, it takes only 5 minutes to complete, and if you don't play it now, it will be ruined forever for you below.

Played it?

Good. Now I seriously enjoyed Passage finding it one of the definitive art/indie games out there, a shining example of how emotions can tie into gameplay directly instead of visuals or sound. Well today in lecture our instructor, Keyvan mentioned it, and a couple of my buds in class, Kip and Josh, hadn't played it. Well on break they both loaded it up, and I got to see both of their reactions to it. Their differences in opinion were astonishing. 

Kip played through it, taking it on an emotional level, but without realizing that you could move up or down. Upon realizing this, he felt cheated and tried to explore with what time was left, but unfortunately time ran out for his companion. As he sat yelling at the screen about how it wasn't fair, time ran out for his character too, and the title faded to screen.  It was obvious by the look on his face that this game had affected him on a deep level.

Josh on the other hand, I could hear from the rows in front of me saying how it was the worst game he had ever played, completely pointless, and how he would rather play Shadow the Hedgehog than this game.

Now, neither opinion is wrong, and what I know about both of them, their reactions were fitting. That being said, Kip's reaction was more in line with what the developer had expected, and similar to the reaction I had the first time I played it. That kind of reaction however, the one that I felt, and the one I saw Kip have, is what drives me to make games. It's proof that games can be more than just games, just fun. It's proof that games can mean more.

In contrast however, Josh's reaction is proof that no game can reach everyone. That being said, if I can make a game that gets one person to react like Kip did to Passage, then I'll have achieved my goal as a designer.

Did you play Passage? what did you think? What are games to you?