Fixing idea issues

Many issues have risen due to trying to find and fit a game mechanic to a really strong concept idea/art style. This is causing many points of frustration for the team which doesnt help anything. We asked the new lecturer for the corse, Adrian fr advice for various issues.

Issues

• Multiplayer only?
• Is there a reason why this sort of co op play hasnt been put out in a game?
• are we over thinking?

Critique from Adrian


From receiving crit, it is clearly obvious that the way we are going about designing the game is one of the hardest ways of achieving an innovative and well structure game idea.

• Build a concept to a mechanic, not the other way round.
• Its hard to make an truly original idea, as there are always subtle and sometimes obvious references to other same or other media.
• Don't be so quick to pin down a game genre, give time to enable the ideas to flow and this way the concepts will be more creative and imaginative.

Members of the Group: Name = Unknown

The Group has been solidified and consists of the existing members stated below:


Myself - Character concept/modeller
Jack Hamilton - Character concept/modeller
Hannah Andrews - Lead Concept
Ceri Rogers - Enviroment Artist
Lloyd Knott - Technical Artist

The reason for more character artists is because the game is going to be lead character heavy, so more modellers and concepts are needed to complete this task.

Notes from class: Pre-Production

(if a criteria is failed, then you will fail. Demonstrate all learning outcomes gets you 40)

Pre Production Criteria
See the Learning Outcomes here...
Knowledge and Understanding

• K1 - Plan the production process of a team or single individual.
• K2 - Risk assessment for anything that you dont know what to do. Identify the creative and indsutry factors.

Cognitive Skills

• C1 - Analyse the structures of different games genres. (Compare game genres and test them against our idea)

Practical and Professional Skills

• P1 - Develop drawing, modelling and animation skills applied to game art and game play. (improve skills and show you can apply it through my groups idea.)
• P2 - Showing awareness of limitations and creative processes of technology (show what consoles and computers can and cannot do, and test them to our idea and see if certain powers are needed)

Transferable and Key Skills

• T1 - Use information technology to locate and process material.
• T2 - Organise work and manage time effectivily to meet deadlines.
• T3 - get critique from lecturers and write it down. Show that the critique actually happened and how it applied to the idea.  

- Placeholder of final assessment asset (make a link that takes the tutor straight to the final product, and make sure it works.)
- Placeholder for key assets (Rough placeholders of characters [not necesarry textures, but tested with shaders if needed] so that animators, coders can see)
- Schedule with priorities with ABC - (list what needs to be done the most in highest priority)

• Priority A - A main character (not all characters are prioroty A as they most liekly demonstrate the same thing. - Needs an obvious placeholder!!!
• Priority B - Stuff that you would like to have in portfolio, not neccesarily a high priority in the FMP. (Needs a placeholder)
• Priority C - Stuff that you do that is "mess around work" (doesnt need a placeholder)

- Game level - Something that can be assessed by scale e.g. block outs.
- All concept Art
- Research platform and technology - (assume that the users have older graphics cards when looking to make for PC, research the market for the game and see which console it applies to the demographic of the idea)


- Research indstry standards.
- Description of games critical path - (mechanics that need to be applied and what assets that need to be in for the mechanics)


- Production plan and risk assessment - (when are you going to get these things done by? Time plan)

- Methodology for learning log - (make sure the blog is all relevant, not to do with what you did today, its not important!) 

instead of walls of text, use short paragraphs to the point and lots of images.

Visual Style - Characters

This game is going to be stylised, in terms of character anatomy and texture/shader styles.

Key Aesthetics that appeal to game idea

• Bold colours that push the stylised models.
• Flashes for attacks (no blood) to broaden the target market.
• Frinel around characters to emphasise the style.
• expressive and over the top actions/attacks.

Also check Jack's colour/style sheet for the game here.

Other Inspirations

Asura's Wrath (PlayStation 3, Xbox360)

Kingdom Under Fire II (PlayStation 3, Xbox360)

Both the games above are more for gameplay mechanics/styles, as they are both quite over the top and hectic with interesting and elaborate combat.

Back to Uni & first crit...

Back to uni and straight away, me and intended group of people from my class have been asking questions to our tutor about the FMP.

• The critique given about the idea from my tutor was more focused towards not having a set demographic for the game yet.

• The group size was the other problem as well as he felt that the group was unbalanced because there are 3 concept/character artists wiht one enviromental artist and 1 tech artist.

I understand now that the FMP doesnt need to be a working demo of a game, but more of a display of quality industry standard models and enviroments, rendered in real time so it is possible to do a solo project. Working in a group, you are expected to achieve more as there are more people, and thus if done correctly, result in a higher grade.

Starting Early...

Getting started before Uni begins is definitly a good idea so that i can get back into the swing of things, also so that i can keep my creative juices flowing.

One of the artists in the class pitched an idea for a hack and slash genre game, similar to games like:

Dynasty Warriors - Release date: March 7, 2008 (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)

[skip to 0:48 for combat]

Lord of the Rings video games (Gamecube, PlayStation 2, Xbox)

Sengoku Basara (Devil Kings) series (PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii)

Arena based combat, with enemies filling out the arenas. The player would have a 9 characters of choose to fight with, each with different fighting styles. The main catch of the gameplay mechanic is that RPG class elements will be implimented.  

Tank, Crowd Control, Close Quarter Combat (CQC?) and Ranged.

I actually like the idea and i would like to throw my ideas and concepts/models into it aswell, as hack and slash is one of my favourite genres in gaming. As long as i would be able to be a character concepter/modeller in the idea.