Onwards and upwards

I have left it far too long to update my blog, with so much going on and so much to do it's difficult to remember to do it.

Well, now that I'm done with excuses, lets do this!!

A lot has changed in the last 2 - 3 weeks (I forget exactly how long it's been... :-0).

First of all we settled our four dimension ideas and the mechanics that we are going to use within them.

There's the Void (as unchanged from last time) wherein the player can teleport along a horizontal axis, and through certain walls.

We also have the Robot dimension (again, unchanged from last time) where the player will be able to extend their robotic arms to grab and latch onto surfaces.

There is the Biscuit dimension (which had been dropped - but has been resurrected!) where you can crumble down into crumb form to filter through small gaps.

And finally have the Paper dimension (again, was disbanded but now has been brought back) where you can float harmlessly down otherwise fatal drops.

We have agreed on a level design for our prototype level, which utilizes all of our mechanics and seem to be firmly set on a unified path - it's very exciting and I've much left to do, so with that in mind, 'till next time!!

Rant

Just had a bit of a rant on the PC Gamer website, thought I may as well post it here - just feeling like that right now.

Link to the article I commented on: http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/02/03/new-splinter-cell-blacklist-video-features-ziplines-human-shields-a-crossbow/?mtc=comment-363901#comment-363901


What I said:

"I've played every SC game to-date and have enjoyed all of them in one way or another, the latest two (DA and Conviction) we're different from the Original 3 but there's always been some cool ideas rolling round in there.

Admittedly though it seems like what we know and love about the franchise is being casually ignored and I'm worried about where it's going, I mean - I think the game looks good, the trailers look cool, but I don't know if I can get it, as I feel quietly and subtly betrayed by it.

SC has always been ‘cinematic’ to a degree, even the first game was one hell of a looker when it came out 10 years ago - but in those 10 years Sam has been battered and tested both physically emotionally, his daughter killed, killed his own boss ect ect, but his character has always grown, each new game felt like it was Sam following his course, even to the last one (Conv) but now I can't even feel like Sam is Sam any more, Michael Ironside has been voicing that character for 10 years through a ton of games and now just like 'that', he's not the voice anymore and for what?  Having the voice being worn out from physically acting Sam rather than just acting worn out for the voice over? I mean for God’s sake there's a reason it's called 'voice acting' and he'd done a perfectly fine job up until now.

Hell, make your new cinematic gaming experience with all your action set pieces and your 'all-in-one' actors, but stop labelling them with the titles of well known and loved franchise for the sake of selling off a boat load of copies just of the back of its name.

I guess it's done us gamers good in a way though, this kind of one directional thinking (crossbows, ‘cinematic  action’ yadda yadda) has paved the way for the coming of Indie developers by allowing them a following of people who want to make and play games because it’s a boat load of fun and not for the sake of making a bunch of people rich.

Like I said before, this isn't a hate post against large developers, I love big games and I dig cinematics and the such and like I said even this game looks good but please, if you want a franchise to be dead, do it by making something new and leaving it to rest in peace, don't kill it.

Either make a new Splinter Cell Game or make up a new franchise, don't try and bring the two together.

Sorry...... rant over."

The Ride Goes On

I'm a little late with the blogging this time round, a lot has happened in what, 2 weeks? I can't recall how long its been to be honest, but it's not relevant.  Happy Stress, sound almost contradictory? I know right, I tell you it's strange, all I have been since, whenever my last post was, is stressed - and it's been great!

Geko plotline? Shot, scrapped, murdered etc etc you get the picture.  Not imaginative enough we were told, so I guess the only correct response to an eye opener like that is:  well... challenge accepted!

Lots of discussions have happened as our initial concept was shattered trying to come up with something wacky,  original, and fun - This is our world, it and every dimensional variant of it, are our oyster.

So, the first things we decided was that our character was going to begin with only one dimension open to him - a means to introduce all movement mechanics and get the player used to the style of play.  The idea was that the player would be dragged into 'the Void' by the games 'prime evil' if you will, he would defeat this 'boss', but before the player manages to destroy him it would flee, leaving behind an artefact which would allow our protagonist to switch between dimensions.

The artefact, it was agreed, will be a kind of chest piece with four straps to hold it on to the player (each strap signifying a different dimension, as there are 4 in this game) with a crystal in the centre.

Simon then came up with the idea that the Void would be a place where all lost things go, and so would be populated with things such as odd socks and such.  

We then decided that you would play the game as a lost stuffed Rabbit (child's toy stuffed, not dead animal stuffed.. glad we cleared that up) and he is trapped in the void because his owner lost him.  The rest follows as described above, fights boss, gets artefact, can swap dimensions.  Our protagonists obvious goal is to get back to his owner while stopping the 'prime evil' of the void getting to his home dimension.

We have our four dimensions decided upon after our last session, we have 'The Void', a Robot Dimension, a Biscuit Dimension and an 'Office' Dimension.

In each of these dimensions the player and their surroundings will change to suit the dimension that they are inhabiting - for example:

Void - Player is an old tattered toy stuffed rabbit with sown on patches a missing ear and some stuffing emerging from broken seems.

Robot - Player is a robotic rabbit.

Biscuit - Player is a gingerbread rabbit.

Office - Player is an office employee with a shirt, tie and a suitcase.

not actual game footage....

I think we are all happy with the direction we are going in now, it feels a lot more like a shared vision now than it has in the past I'm looking forward to seeing some character sketches and the new Concept Doc on Monday and cracking on with some hard work to make this what we all believe it can be.

First steps...

Well, now - hello again!  I'm back for another 8 year rant on how things are going!

Wednesdays lesson proved most productive, it saw Lab Rat Games settling on an idea for its first ever production an as of yet untitled fast paced 2D platformer, with an inter dimensional twist!

Marty the Gecko is fed up of Jungle living, an in a bid to find pastures a new he sets off on his own little adventure. Plot. Sorted.

The idea is that you can toggle between four different dimensions (using shoulder buttons, as we will be programming the controls to utilize a 360 pad), you can use these dimensional shifts to overcome a host of different obstacles, which will be unique to each dimension.

In today's session we will hopefully have time to discuss our dimension ideas and pick a solid four.  Once we have that settled I'm sure we will be in a good position to start on our 5 or 6 documents/prototypes that require completion by the  25th of Feb.

I made a generic flat stationary backdrop that could possibly be used for the basis of a level background, no platforms or obstacles in it, just the background - be prepared to learn how terrible I am at art :-(

The beginning

Well, we were set up into our groups on Wednesday - I say groups, we're now a Development Team, which sounds pretty damn awesome, haven't really gotten used to that yet. In the words of the guy from Bad Boys who isn't Will Smith, "Shit just Got Real".

So down and dirty then, our Development Team has been given the task of designing and developing a game, to a BETA standard between now and the end of this semester - no small task I might add - we have, however been given a helping hand in the light of the fact that we were provided with a 'theme' shall we say to base our game ideas on, a kind of, underlying concept to derive ideas from, for us that concept is 'Multiple Realities'.

I'm pretty damn happy about this to be honest because this is a concept that interests me in general but also, due to that fact that our final product must be derived from not necessarily a direct resemblance of this concept, there is a lot of scope an opportunity to make something very innovative and original from here, exciting times lie ahead and quite honestly I can't stop thinking about it.

Before I get into all that though it's probably worth mentioning that we hit a rather large barrier when it came to our first challenge, which was, coming up with a name for our studio.  Here are some of the ideas that were bandied around during Wednesdays lesson, it's probably worth noting that we wanted to use either the word 'games' or 'studio' after the words listed below:

eclipse
perpetua
lblue whale
m-theory
underdog
fallback
black hole
parallel
zebra
flux
lumen
obtuse turtle
note: direct copy from the list as was re-posted on our facebook group

After we failed to agree on any of the above selections we proceeded to keep pushing out ideas on our face book group, some ideas listed below:

NinjaSoft Games,
Spotlight Studios,
Groundhog Games &
Lab Rat Games.

Now I suggested we tried to come up with logos for any of the above to see if a visual representation would prompt us to pick a favourite, I focused on Lab Rat Games, which was Simon Gilbert's suggestion as I really liked it, and it was the first one that filled my head with images of what a logo might look like so I ran with it and came up with this first iteration:

After uploading this to our groups Facebook and receiving feedback on it, I have (about 20 mins ago) simplified the logo, and it now looks like this:

I am actually quite happy with this design and even if we don't end up settling on it I'm very glad I had a go at it, and am still favouring the title of Lab Rat Studios.


On the point of our task to create a game with a concept derived from the theme of Multiple Realities I did a little brainstorm of things that popped in my head, listed below:

Time Travel,
Multi-verse,
Portals,
Split Personalities,
Dream World,
Changed Events/Alternate History
Mixed/Recurring Events
Colliding/Merging Dimensions
Time/Dimensional Rift,
Tear in Reality,
Meet Yourself.

Then I had a couple of ideas about possible mechanics such as a weaponised reality bridge.

Well anyway, that's where things are for the moment, more next week!

Toodles!

Final Page

The Second Section of my USPs, this is the final part of my document.  All I can do now is pray it's enough.
Here goes:

Core Mechanics & USPs Pt 1

Page 6, this is my core mechanics and Part 1 of my USPs: