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?