Last Sprint YYYEEEAAAAHHHHH!!!!

Well this week is the final push of the game. There is very little to do since we artist want to keep our hands off to avoid confusion in this last week. I have created and Help system in the main menu though that links to credits, a screen shot with indicators to describe what the player will see, and also a controls description. Kelly helped a bit with changing some texture but overall it looks really good. After this semester we want to get together and see if anyone is truly committed to taking this game further. Of course I still want to submit what we have to ninjabee or other local companies to see if they want to help us or pick it up - but we want to see if the team wants to implement other levels, powerups, and enemies. Without at least a small portion willing to do it - it might not be worth it for us to do anything more. I know that if Nick or Ron wanted to do it than I would be more that willing to handle any/all further art. I'm very proud of this game and I can't wait to share it with friends, family, and future employers.

A lot of polish

Ok I know I lagged on this post the last couple of weeks a little, but, it's only because I was doing a lot of work for this class. I think since my last post there has been a lot that I have done. I created background spinning objects off of kelly's design, changed textures in the menu system, coded a score system - but nick was at the same time and his was a bit better, animated all the characters which is still a work in progress. I also helped with cleaning up the movements and the speeds of the characters. Last I created the score counter for time played and enemies killed as well as the score board and a timer to reset the menu system. I think there may be more but that's all I can think of. This project has been a lot of work and I'm very proud of our product at this point. Earlier in the semester I was concerned because none of the other artists were producing but now coming to the end and after the play test - many of them seem to have a new fire and are pushing out good finished products.

I'm working like crazy

Ok so this last week I produced a lot of animations. I'm not typically an animator so my work is a little rough. This week I still am going to produce a lot, but, I have been putting way to much time into this class and not into my senior project. This sprint I will be work'n out the suggested kinks in my animations, and fixing the health bars to the new design. I'm still a bit worried at the rate of production from other artists but if it comes to it I know I can make the push for a great FINISHED product.

Plugg'n Away

Ok so this last week I produced the animation for the big knight as well as the animation for the little knight. I also finished repairing some of my own code and fbx links in the menu and added a better game over screen. ALSO I added a point counter system for the game. I'm coding alot more than doing art because I'm at the end of the production chain and the start of the chain is going very slow - it concerns me deeply.

What I'm working on this week is adding a high score system so there is a point to the game besides being fun. Also I'm promised some art to start working with for other characters. I also will be taking all the notes I was given today on my current animations and be reforming them for a better look. If the art doesn't come then I will work on making some of the GUI more appealing.

Just A Little Waiting

We decided that an assembly line style of art would help keep us consistent. That being said I'm in the Animation track of the assembly line so it is moving a little slow for me. I did create the menu, splash screen, and made a quick gameover screen with coding and a few artistic pieces to fill my time. I also added sound to the game to make it feel like I wasn't doing nothing for the project. All this said I really want to get some characters to start my process. I built the little enemy knight and produced a few short animations but our main character is going to be a lot of work to get it look'n really good so I'm a little anxious. No fear though I'm gonna keep working on the little details that make up a full game.

Workin Like A Dog

Ok so over the break I didn't really do much as far as a vacation. I mostly stayed home and worked on various game productions. For "Fat Knight" I finished coding the title, and menu screens as well as adding some art to them. I also created a png character of our small enemy and did a few animations to give the programmers something to work with. Tonight I will do some javascript work to add sound and hopefully a pause menu if I can get it to work.

It's Coming Along

Ok so this last week I got a lot done. I designed a menu that isn't just buttons - it has a moving menu button planks that involve physics interaction. It has sound and some design and is coded for links to the other levels. I also have done most of the outline work for the small enemy character sprites and this week once they are colored I will begin on animations. Also I have produced three different title splash screens which we will compare and decide on in class today. I will post the pictures of what I have done a little later this week when they are more refined.

Fatty

Hello,
  Another week past and another closer to an awesome game. This last week we caught up (I think) to the rest of the class. In the end we had a hard time deciding whether to do "Fat Knight" or "Rampart Rampage" but we decided to do "Fat Knight". I would have loved to do Rampart Rampage since it offers so many options for further development and really a large playground of art and programming for the group. Personally I LOVE going so far overboard in my projects - and getting them done - just ask Lien Shen, my animations were so far past the requirements but I really love making myself stand out. Although in deciding on the game for the group I could not expect the rest of them to be willing to push it so far and commit so much time. I am a family man myself and I sacrifice a lot of sleep to get more work done without interrupting time with my boys. Don't get me wrong I still love the "Fat Knight" it is going to be a lot of fun and will give us a great opportunity to create a really well put together piece to showcase to potential employers.

  On friday we tried to have an artist meeting but Spencer got called into work and Dan just didn't show up so me and Kelly took a few hours to come together on some concept art we really liked. We combined mostly my body with Spencer's concept head and Kelly's detailing. We also plotted out a menu screen and thoughts on how we would like many things to look. As a group we nominated Spencer for artistic director  so all these ideas that me an Kelly came up with will still be filtered further in the group. I sent out a lot of the art we came up with to the group and some of the ideas and received some really good fead back.  I think I said everything and so I'm going to bed.

OK LETS TRY AGAIN

Ok so this time around was a lot better. Everyone really tried hard to stay in communication and have a descent amount of input towards the game. This week is a pretty cool concept it is essentially Castle Transformers. As far as my side of the work. I was in charge of coming up with the concept art for the main bad guy and the village houses that you must destroy. There wasn't much for reference images so I just kinda pulled it out of thin air. The failure of the last pitch kinda put a fire back into the side of the team that was lacking. I was happy cause last week I was solely in charge of helping with the idea and taking care of the group blog but since none of the concept art was coming in I had to do the one pager and take care of the blog myself. I like working alone most of the time but that isn't what this class is about.

Rampart #3

Alrighty

   So this pitch was a little rough. First the team had a really hard time coming together on any idea. It really felt like no one was willing to take anything that was proposed or even try to explain why it wouldn't work it was just ignored completely. It just ended up feeling as though no one cared about the pitch. Also the the communication after class was non-existent - but that is the difficulty of working with a group and learning to come together as a team. As a result I have come up with the "cobbled" one pager and hopefully a really good piece to present.

Concept for the "Fat Knight"

 Ok, so we all got really excited about this game. We think that the funny concept and character's behavior will truly sell this game - which is our intention at the end of production. So we all came up with ideas for the pitch and these are the pieces that I came up with. As far as research i checked out a few sidescrollers "Army of Darkness" & "Splosion Man" (which I tried to look at their use of comedy and strategy). Both are great games.
For my analysis of them Army of Darkness had a lot of great features. I liked the look, and the flow of movement and the additional features of the game. What I didn't like is the lack of control that you had over the character - and also that your minions had the ability to be more powerful than you. "Splosion Man" had a great look to it. They used comedic running and gameplay to create perfect balance of comedy that wasn't over the top. I loved the simple controls. The only complaint I can come up with is that some of the features weren't made clear, and I would have liked some kind of power ups and advancing features to make the character change at least a little between levels.

Next Rampart Game

Ok so we came up with a great idea for another genre of Rampart. It's a side scroller that involves defending two towers. You are the sole defender and you are a obese screw up. I don't want to give away the game though before the pitch but there isn't many games that relate to this. What to research this weekend from what I found is an App called "Army of Darkness" based off the great film - also any zombie game that requires you to defend yourself from any position. For now here is my knight that I think would be great for the project and I can't wait to pitch this in class and hopefully produce it.

Rampart Ideas.

So I came up with a few ideas for the rampart game. Rampart was an Atari game where you could select a castle and build a number of cannons to defend your castle. After you build the cannon the attack begins. There is very little control with the assault - you are solely allowed to direct the general direction of fire. After all is said and done than the objective is to fix the castle with essentially Tetris pieces in a timed amount then start the assault again. SO my proposal would take a different approach. I want to make a 2.5D castle defense strategy game. Many games like Stronghold and Robin Hood the legend of sherwood take on 1. Build a castle 2. Earn Money 3. Defend from the enemy/ Attack the enemy. I can't deny I love these games and want to use all these features but I wan't to make the medieval times modern. I want the castle to be filled with steroid jacked knights but with m16 of miniguns. The Castle will be upgradable from classic catapults to EMP catapults. The wall cannons will go from old school to laser cannons, the moat would be filled with crossing lasers or lines of chainsaws. The whole premise is upgrading by generations not just better medieval weapons. Also the enemy would be a robot army that would start from wind-up swordsman or the energy bunny with a malice to wind up with cannons and tanks and more. Also to make the game different you view would be posted behind the castle walls and when a wave of enemies come you can take a position in the gun turret or as a knight and help shoot down the bad guys.

My other idea is a castle defense that has characters with abilities. Like people who can manipulate metal and can deflect or stop cannon fire, or healers, fire benders, spell casters - but all with a limited amount so you need to use them strategically to defend and attack the enemy. This premise could still be used with my futuristic knights. Also it might be fun to rip off angry birds and when an wave comes you can switch to 2d and catapult stupid things and the enemy like a cow, or Monty Python killer bunnies. Sounds fun right.

Think'n Bout Games

I started thinking about the potential games that we could create with the random titles on the class blog. I have only handled 3 of them but I think there descent ideas. For the balloon cargo I thought of a game that allows two types of battle. One part of the game allows you to build turrets and protective smaller craft around your hot air ballon battle ship as a strategy/survival. The second part lets you do a double control flying through a difficult canyon while shooting turrets and taking down assaulting craft. For the side view RTS I though of a side shooter with the maximum amount of fire power and gore mixed with classic mario. I think the picture shows enough. Then for bumper turtles we could just make a really funny looking pinball machine and instead of just gaining points - when the shell is shot into a tube or specific spot on the board you enter into a mini-game to gain more points. Last don't judge my drawings they were just quick doodles.

Here is our finalized trash can

Continuation

Ok - Today I approached the same neighbors, and sanitation worker(my friend) I discussed the problems they would like solved to. I showed them two drawing of trash cans. They like the idea of the trash can with the adjustable handle bar for closed spaces and to hold the lid closed outside, as well as the flip up scoop in the back to hold and additional bag on pick up. The sand base was ok to some but some of the women expressed that it might make it difficult to move and that placing the can on the side of the house would be an easy solution for windy days. Everyone liked the foot pedal to lift the lid and the larger wheel for cracked up driveways. My neighbors said they would pay 3 or 4 dollars extra a month on their utilities to handle any additional cost for the state. My other prototype was good but many concerns were expressed. One stated "the net is ok but it doesn't handle the sides when the lid is open", on the same feature the sanitation worker said "it's great to hold the trash in but it creates a time-consuming problem if the homeowner forgets to unhook it for pickup, and if they do the trash could still fall out into the street".  Finally I spoke with a family friend Brian Cook who used to be the Mayor of Kaysville - He stated "I think it's great because if the foot-pedal breaks or other things break 90% of the time it work be the liability of the homeowner so the state would only need to address the repair problems for most everything when the home changes ownership".

Making a new Garbage Can - BrainStorm and Research

Ok -
 For this assignment I went to many of my neighbors and used my own experience to attempt to reinvent the current garbage can for the user. For the pickup I called a friend who has worked in the industry. I first asked about the problems for the homeowner. The most common were space - if stored in a garage or other, falling trash(when overfilled), tipping trash can during heavy wind, sanitation, durability, and hillside rodent dumpster diving. For the pickup the only problem stated was trash bags on the side of the can and the difficult placements in tight communities. For my brainstorming I came up with a lot - bigger wheels for easy movement, a sand based false bottom to make the can heavy, a handle bar that can adjust to flip down for storage or on top of the lid to keep it closed from rodents and in case of a tip over, a foot pedal to open the lid for sanitation or two handed loads, and another flip out plastic scoop on the back of the can for a bag   to sit on the back that will not obstruct the pickup and will fall into the truck as well, or a bungie net that can flip over from the lid and hook to the brim to hold in garbage from an overfilled can. I think these ideas are practical and cheep. The only concern I would have is the foot opener for the lid. The lid is heavy and the mechanics might not last for years and years.