Up and Coming - Personal Game Mechanic!

What with the FPS map finished, I've entered the threshold of the next project - creating a mechanic and building a game around it. First thing' first, however - coming up with some ideas. Here's my top ten ideas to date of where my mind may be going with this future game's mechanic:

-Gravity Change

      -Player is able to manipulate gravity to walk on walls or ceiling, or even manipulate objects, giving them more weight/less weight

-Electric Charge (- +)

      -Player has the power to change their charge, allowing maneuvering the environment by increasing magnetism on specific surfaces, repelling and attracting

-Wall Jumping

      -Player is capable of scaling walls by jumping off of them and sliding down them through friction, and is capable of latching onto edges

-Respawning

      -Player instantly respawns, and the world doesn't despawn (kill) the body of the previous life, allowing the player to use this ragdoll as a platform/bait/etc. to their needs

-Time manipulation

      -Player is given the ability to speed or slow the world around them down, allowing them to overcome obstacles, or solve puzzles

-Spatial Swapping

      -Player has the ability to swap places with a specific object/life form, allowing puzzle solving elements and platforming to be considered

-Casting Shadows

      -Player interacts his its shadow, where some obstacles are invisible/bigger/smaller than they seem, due to the factor that the shadow in the background is the real object to overcome

-Rocket Jumping

      -Player can maneuver through explosive procedures at the cost of health to overcome obstacles, making the player consider the costs and means necessary to overcome certain jumps and puzzles

-Scale resizing

      -Player is capable of changing the size of themselves and can fit into smaller locations, or smash objects too large for them initially

-Item Generating

      -Player can manipulate the ability to create say a cube or shape they can throw around or use as a spring/platform/bridge/etc. to overcome obstacles

--------------------

After considering my options, I decided to combine a few to think of a unique approach to my game mechanic. The mechanic is built where the world around the player is powered by sound, and the player can adjust the music/sounds to manipulate the world around them, such as playing classical music to slow the world down, or techno to increase their speed and jump height. The world's color is associated towards a certain type of genre, and will change to further convey the purpose of how the world is defined by the sound. I feel this idea was built off the concept of the electrical charge concept of being able to change forms to accommodate the obstacle, as well as elements from the time manipulation idea, where a slower beat will slow down the world and vice versa.

I dug up some reference from games to build this idea on, explaining why it's relevant to the idea:

Viewtiful Joe

The gameplay for Viewtiful Joe is built around the concept that the player is controlling a movie playing as Joe, making the camera zoom in for harder hits and observing details, slow-motion for dodging bullets and problem solving, as well as adding speed lines to make Joe move faster and attack faster. I like this capability to manipulate the world around the player, while giving the player a bunch of fun new abilities for puzzles and platforming alike.

Chroma

Chroma is a game in alpha state of this post, and it's a FPS built around music. It's being made by the people behind DJ Hero and Guitar Hero, and the concept behind it is you're able to move and shoot based on the music that's playing. Shooting on beat/moving on beat will make explosions happen on  downbeats, or allow the player to dash faster as the music climaxes. There's a ton of great potential in this game's mechanics alone, and I'd like to look deeper into it. Also, notice how each distinctive sound-operated action has a distinct color associated to it.

FPS Level: Orbital Elevator - Finished!

After quite some time of work and texture jobs (most importantly - PARTICLE EFFECTS!), I was able to put together a really simplistic design of what I wanted to achieve using mostly BSP and a few meshes for specific reasoning in environment and spring pad use. Lot of panners and sparks to convey movement in a non-mobile asset space! Here's some screen caps!

FPS Map Building

Time to whip out the isometric paper, because we're making a layout! Nothing here is set in stone, but the idea's main concept should be prevalent.

I had the concept of building a level around an orbital elevator, sometimes depicted in games as a giant high-powered, high-speed mechanized cargo elevator above the world heading to a space station of base. With this in mind, symmetry is a large participant here, but I'm not the biggest fan of just flat maps, so I want to plan at multiple times through the combat, the elevator's central circle will break off it's bindings and fall behind the outer ring (which has the wheels rolling up the tracks on the back), and thus become lowered, changing the play field. I'd also like to have a theatrical intro to the level having the players ride smaller glass cylinder elevators up to the main one and boarding it before the match starts.

Players have to adapt and prepare for the change, either being stranded on the central platform, or on the outer circle. If you're daring enough, you can jump from the outer ring to the inner circle, but be wary, as you'll take damage from such a drop and be stranded on the central platform until the elevator repairs itself!

Here's the quick drawing I developed, and the photoshopped version. Reference for the story or theme will be displayed afterwards:

Reference:

Accomplishing the simple aesthetics won't be hard - fast panners on textures and swift matinees allows me to just make minimal work of the models, maybe even just make alpha cards, and as long as players notice motion, they will know not to jump off the guard-rail edges... Hopefully.

Next Game Design Project: FPS Multiplayer Map!

So since I've passed the 2D platformer tutorial level, it's time to move on to the next challenge project for this college year: an FPS Multiplayer map. First thing's first, however: reference! How am I to understand how to build one if I don't analyze one already done first?

To solve that question, I played and recorded a session of Team Fortress 2 on a King of the Hill game mode arena-style map, Viaduct. To get a good sense of mobility and to show off the stage (and die less for that matter), I played as the Scout class (the only drawbacks were the poor framerate that FRAPs has the ability of inducing, so some quality aiming is lacking, try to refrain from punching your screen as you observe). Essentially, here's the video!

(As a disclaimer, TF2 offers "dingalings," or hit sounds upon dealing damage to an enemy player. I'm not the biggest fan of the default dingaling, so I modded the file to play the Wilhelm Scream depending on how much damage I do. Less damage is a higher pitch, more is lower. That'll explain the odd noises you may hear when I land hits.)

 

I felt the video wasn't enough as gameplay can be exciting, and seeing players in action responding to each other on a map is great feedback of the design, however I also was tasked with more than just grabbing gameplay: I had to further analyze the map by drawing one out personally, understanding and pointing out ammo locations as well as health packs, not to mention both teams' spawn points and essentially the Hill (that of which one team must be King of to win for 3 mins total). Here's the map layout:

Looking at the map design, it's the same on both sides for the teams. This map is used for both arena and king of the hill gameplay modes in TF2, and it provides a lot of odds and turns early on near the spawn. Essentially, it helps slow down what could be a straight run to the middle, where the control point is, and the only item locations on this map are essentially towards the middle, where the action is on the extreme sides. There's a building in the middle of both sides in which you can go upstairs and even exit on a cliffside, overlooking much of the central map. The only drawback is there's no cover whatsoever, however for certain players it could be an advantage as towards not having to worry about accidentally shooting walls they walk behind when avoiding enemy fire. The open area that is the central part of the map puts the player at risk of being obliterated, but in exchange they accomplish the game mode's objective: to capture the control point and defend it for three minutes.

2D Platformer - An Update

Whelp, it's been roughly two weeks, and the platformer has been finished. Originally, we were intended to use assets given to us to use (simple grey blocks), as well as a photoshopped character and enemy character to develop our intro tutorial level, however we were given some liberties in changing our environment (sadly not the music preloaded in) if we had extra time on our hands. I couldn't pass up this chance, and went for a very 8 to 16-bit look while retaining 3D models. Nothing too crazy, but a nice stylistic approach. We finished our first few passes and I had to make some adjustments on the level's design as it felt too drawn out and lack of action. Changes will be made soon in UE4. Pics soon!

Process of A 3D Biome

While I've been tasked with finishing some changes on my platformer in my game design class, I was also challenged with developing a weather-mirroring biome in my 3D class. Essentially, I've been able to write down and display my process through the last two weeks as I worked, and this essentially is my process book on the subject:

My Biome of choice this project is a winter-themed forest with a clearing in the distance in mind. It's to provoke feelings of being lost, bewilderment, and wonder. I've gathered much reference for this project, and with it I intend to develop a complex small scene with my abilities and tools. Here's a basic run down of what I got in mind:

Here's some digital paint art that of which I am drawing reference to as well by Aaron Limonick:

The color palette will follow heavy shades of light blue, followed by dominant features in black, white, and brown. I'd like to push the contrast by adding in orange or yellow sunlight to add to the scene's look. Here's a quick digital painting of what all I want to direct my location as:

Working from this, I made a basic grey block-out. From this, I'll work on some custom mesh models and textures to work towards the "blueprints" I have above in terms of composition. A screenshot from the block out as follows:

I've managed to make some minor changes to the meshes, and develop a small winter-y particle for weathering effect. I chose to adjust composition locations to keep off-center, add fog, paint the landscape floor and move the camera appropriately. Here's the changed variant:

Adjustments have been made. Simple meshes have filled in open spaces where block-in cylinders took place. The composition didn't feel strong enough, so I adjusted and tweaked some locations of the meshes and added/removed others. Developed a stronger vertex paint for the landscape, and modeled out two more types of trees, as well as added cards of branches to the older ones. I took the liberty of developing some small tufts of dead grass to populate the ground, as well as roots. Within my time, I was able to play with a post processing world node, capable of generating the depth of fog to a certain distance, elevating light passively. Current set up:

After gaining some feedback on what to improve on (floor too flat, vertex wasn't too naturally blended, shadows broken up incorrectly, etc.) I pushed to make the environment to a lot more complex by adjusting the floor, it's vertex paint, adding some treeline cards in the back to provide depth, and developed a new tree to replace the thin, leafless ones to add more thickness to the outside forest. Here's the current view:

I felt the environment wasn't going where I intended it to go. I powered up the snow VFX, and developed a complex vertex paint that also generates tessellation values on the rocks to show snow buildup. I toyed around with adding a lot of new foliage such as dead brushes, and changed the grass to be less tuft-y and more-so patches. Snow buildup was a huge thing for the bottoms of trees and logs, and I decided to add more rocks for extra silhouettes, and moved around some of the logs till I felt satisfied. Lastly, I built up areas that were negative space to get a better focal point, and I felt the light was too bright to be caught in a blizzard with, so I toned down the brightness (but retained the color for the sake of contrast) and added a strengthened height fog value. Adjusted changes are now as follows:

Now that the final adjustments were made, it was time to create a Matinee of the subject matter to generate the environment in a real-time view (helps point out the changes in the VFX). Here's the video (Be sure to hit 1080p!): Biome - Blizzard Forest

The final critique was quite helpful in changing some minor issues. We discussed that perhaps less camera movement is better, and that perhaps using foliage instead of snow buildup around the tree trunks was best, along with other ideas. Changes will be made soon, and updated as soon as possible.

I've considered tweaking the weather particle and perhaps including it on a future VFX reel. It's a strong snowy blizzard, but it could use some more work. Speaking of which - expect a VFX portfolio reel soon!