Beyond Machines: Meet the Team

Today, I would like to introduce people to the teammates who have helped make the game!

First, I would like to introduce the head programmer for our project, Kerry Michaels. After we sorted out the team roles, she was in charge of the bulk of the programming for the game, and was a huge help in making it come together. I've asked her to talk about her role.

“I was one of the programmers for the team.  I mainly did the UI design for the game.  I also got assets for the player’s shield and magnet pull attacks, which was probably the most difficult part. I made some basic scripts for other things, such as score, movement, iPhone touch, GUI.  The next difficult issue was getting the three buttons in game to function properly (ie getting the blue button to do the electromagnetic pull on the drones).

I also have some pics of scripts and stuff of what I did towards making the game.

When the making of the game first started

Level select menu. (No art yet here).

Electromagnetic pull asset.

Shield asset.

At the end, I have 52 scripts all up.  Here are some of the scripts that I worked on:

HealthScript

GUIScript

GameOverScript

LoadLevelScript

MenuScript

PauseGameScript

Secondly, we have Jessie Farag, our secondary programmer, but more importantly, our artist, which was a massive boon to our project when we had no dedicated artist:

-My role(s)

I am one of the team’s programmers and artist. As a programmer, I was tasked with gameplay mechanics and core gamelogic, working on things such as the game’s scrolling background, as well as enemy spawning and attacking.

As the artist, I built upon the enemy designs, modelled, textured, and animated all art in the game.

-Project history & dev stages

We planned to use Perforce at the beginning, however, after some constant difficulties due to my lack of experience with Perforce, we decided to share the project the old fashion way. Email and flash drive (this way definitely worked out for the better, at least for our small sized project).

As far as art went, it was a later process. I began working on a series of concepts given a collage of stills from existing games and art-styles. After each iteration, the characters’ design began to solidify. Next, I made rough models as placehold art for our early game before finally being remade with much greater detail.

-Issues, solutions

One major issue on the code side of the project was the decision to axe the shop interface to allow for power-ups. We always knew that this would be a later feature if all else went as planned and we had time to add a shop. However, as the deadline crept up, we decided to ditch the feature altogether.

As soon as bugs appeared in the code, they were squashed immediately, however this has taken away from the ‘neatness’ of the codebase, as a result, the code is not as modularised as I would have liked.

In terms of art, the only problems I faced was due to the time consumption in developing these assets, namely texturing, which took up most of the time. As a result, much of the art could not be developed without an artist.

In the end, I would like to thank both my team members for all their hard work. The game could not have been made without them~

Beyond Machines Enemies and Abilities

Hello everyone. In this blog post installment, i'll be going through the enemies you'll be fighting in the game, as well as the abilities you'll be using. Before we begin though, I would like to give kudos to Jessie Farag, our Artist, for making the following concept art.

Also, with every enemy and matching ability, I wanted to give a reason for why every attack will destroy it's intended enemy without fail, and why they won't do the same for the other enemies. This is for the purpose of not making failed attacks seem too arbitrary. 

1. Robotic Infantry

Robotic foot soldiers. They attack you in groups of five (Three if technical constraints should come up). Their main colour is Red. The method of spawning will be either rushing in from the side of the screen, or teleporting in.

Upon spawning, the enemies stop, ready their guns, and fire. To counter this, the player must use their red ability, Force Field. 

Force Field will have the protagonist create a forcefield in front of him. It absorbs the shots, suspending them in it, before shooting them right back at the attacker.

The idea behind these enemies was that the robot security would naturally send foot soldiers at the protagonist. I figured the idea of a team of soldiers all opening fire on a single figure and it reflecting their shots back to kill them made for cool imagery, and helped solidify the idea of the player being a one man army, since they can shred through squads of robotic soldiers with ease.

2. Tanks

Car sized security tanks. They fire larger shells at the Experiment that cannot be reflected back before they detonate. Their main colour is Yellow. They spawn by driving right into the screen, then hitting reverse.

Getting rid of these enemies will require the use of the yellow ability, The Electromagnetic Laser. Using his powers, the experiment fires an electromagnetic ray that pierces right through armor.

Tanks were an easy choice for an enemy, and the logical escalation from the Robotic Infantry. The destruction of a tank by somebody on foot is a very simple way to convey power.

3. Flying Drones

Sleek (Maya limitations may result in them being more angular), jet-like drones that fly in from above and launch a missile barrage at the experiment. They can't be repelled before they explode, and the spray of missiles will hit before the electromagnetic ray can launch. Their main colour is Blue.

To take down these enemies, you'll be using your blue ability, Magnetic Force. It involves using magnetic power to pull the drones down the ground.

The idea behind the inclusion of the drones was to show off the magnetic power you have. And what better way to do than then by overpowering a flying drone though magnetism alone?

Beyond Machines explanation

So, I think it's time to begin talking about my project, Beyond Machines. You'll remember this image from last time:

So what are we looking at? Well, it's like this...

Monetary Systems in Games Part 1: Metal Gear Solid V

Money has always been a big part of games in different ways, outside the games and inside, for better or for worse. It's an easy way to make the player get a sense of achievement, as they obtain currency and see it rise higher and higher as they do better. I'll be analysing a few games to explore how they use money, and how it works with their systems. Today's installment will be:

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

In alot of games, money is used mainly for upgrades and items to improve your character or give you better chances, ammunition, ect. The Phantom Pain however, takes it one step further. Money is not just used for upgrades, oh no. In this game, you need Money to do just about anything.

The way it works, is that Snake is in charge of a Mercenary Company called Diamond Dogs, and it needs funding to operate. This funding is GMP, or Gross Military Product. Not just hard cash, but resources, materials, and assets. That doesn't matter though, since it still just amounts to a name given to a numerical amount. GMP needs to be expended for the majority of actions, including:

* Buying upgrades.

* Using Fulton Balloons to extract soldiers.

* Calling in your helicopter.

* Calling in air strikes or supply drops.

* Using weapons and equipment, the amount varying per item.

* Deploying most of your partners.

* Keeping soldiers on your base (They'll start leaving if you go in the red)

Earning GMP is done through completing both main missions and side quests (Side Ops), as well as collecting certain items, extracting animals and selling off the processed resources and military ordinance you collect, which also factor into them being used by you or your online bases.

This system really makes you have to calculate your spending. Money is not just a tool to grind up, and then spend on every available upgrade you can find. You are motivated to spend limited amounts at a time, so you have the budget for everything else. It creates gameplay mentalities by encouraging you to try to cross the landscape on a single trip as much as possible to get every Side Op you can, and try to experiment more with your current loadout, or suffer a GMP loss through a supply drop.  It adds more weight to Sub Objectives when they'll get you more GMP by the mission's end. It keeps usage the game breaking abilities in check by having them be expensive to utilise.

Overall, it's a system that adds alot to the base management aspect of the game, and helps you get more involved in building everything up.

Undertale Game Analysis: How to tell a story through mechanics

This post I would like to talk about specials mechanics in games, and today, i'm going to be looking at a game mechanic that manages to add alot to it's game. The game in question is the recent Indie RPG Undertale.

Undertale is an RPG made in the same kind of mold as the Mother/Earthbound series. Being a somewhat minimalist game visually, but having a very unique kind of tone. In this case, being a quirky one, where inanimate objects have personalities, weird things have casual conversations with you, and there's a big focus on themes of bonds and family. Undertale is focused on the former, and it's all about making friends with people. However, that's not the focus for this discussion. This discussion will be about how enemies attack you.

When you are attacked in Undertale, you control your soul, represented by a heart icon that you move around in a space. Enemies will launch projectiles at your that do damage. It's supposed to invoke a Bullet Hell game, where you control a small object trying to dodge massive swarms of bullets,

Where this system becomes brilliant is how each enemy has a fairly different attack pattern to each other, and they reflect the enemy not just visually, but emotionally as well. You can change the moods of enemies using Act commands, and doing certain actions will change their attack patterns as well.

For battles created using static, black and white sprites, this is an amazing way to convey to the player what enemies are feeling while you're still in gameplay, and having a challenge. It gives every enemy character a personality while fighting them, and helps you get more involved, even motivating you to make friends with them and spare them. Which of course, is the whole theme of the game. They go one step further with this system, and make the U.I get involved as well.

The defining moment of this system I feel, is during a boss fight I will not spoil. Without going into context, the boss starts out doing complex patterns (Compared to everything you've seen up to that point)...

 ... But when you get damaged to a point where another hit will kill you, the boss only uses one pattern. A pattern where the shots actively avoid your heart.

Even without the context, it's a spectacular way to tell a story. The person your fighting can't bare to kill you. When you see this, there's a real tragedy to the experience, and one that really makes you want to find another way to end the fight.

This is all from the demo. The game itself takes the idea even further, expanding it in new directions that utilise player expectations and the fourth wall more and more. I'm hesitant to spoil it though. It's an experience that deserves to be played in it's own way.

That's all for now. I may come back to Undertale in the future for a more spoiler focused post, but not for today.

An introduction to Beyond Machines

I would like to introduce the new project I will be undertaking over the next month or two. A game tentatively titled Beyond Machines.

It's an endless runner... In a sense. I want to put more of a unique spin on it. The game is currently in pre-production. I want to let our viewers know that alot of what I will reveal over the next few days is still being fleshed out, and will definitely be subject to change.

I'll go more into how the game will work next time, but for now, here's the very first concept image i've photoshopped together, using pre-existing assets from other sources.

What the heck are you looking at? Find out next time!

Mummy's Tale Level Design Part 3: The Aqueducts (First Half)

Minecraft Layouts

Alot of you may have identified the image from the previous Level Design update as being from Minecraft. That is in fact my intention. I used Minecraft back in 2013 to design a layout for a level I was working on at TAFE. I find that it's useful as a very simple way to create a 3D layout to expand upon when moving over to Unreal or Unity.

This stage was a laboratory for a stealth game.

I'm doing the same for Mummy's Tale, constructing a layout for the first stage, using placeholder blocks to convey key features

It's not entirely finished yet. I'm hoping to add as much detail as possible in the time I have to best convey the stage.

Mummy's Tale Level Design Part 2: The Ground Ruins

Lighting, time of day and visuals are not truly indicative of the final product, and are intended as placeholders

Mummy's Tale Level Design Part 1: Opening Sequence

Introduction

I would like to welcome everyone to my blog, where i'll be sharing the development on my Level Design project, as well as various other posts on game design theory. And, to set myself a standard, I will be updating once per day. Should I miss a day for whatever reason, i'll compensate with additional updates the following days. Enjoy!