Homework 8

The Tetrad

The story of our game is about a man from a tribe that is cast to an island to survive. We are currently deciding between two details of the story where there is either an angry god that has banished him to this island to survive and then concur him, or the man was ship wrecked while escaping another tribe. The main idea is that you are surviving for some sort of purpose. The technology used for the game is most Unreal with some blender aspects to it. We have done all of the work in Unreal using blueprint and landscaping to make up the level and the assets. We have used blender to make the animation of the character. The art of the game is Mesoamerican, which means that there is hints of Aztec art added. The art of the level is a volcano island that has three separate forms of art from beach to forest to volcanic.

Balance

The balance of this game solely rests on the survival factor. When you are playing you realize that the most important aspects are eating and drinking to be able to stay alive, but you have to fight to stay alive as well. With there being an endless amount of assets that can be added to the game you can keep the balance up by adding in different option and movements. A survival game makes you able to be creative and addition of this creativity help balance.

Emergent Properties

The emergent properties of the game hinges mostly on the survival part of the game. With the need of conserving many different things throughout the game it makes you constantly on your toes. The need for food and energy helps you to think about what you next move is keeping you indulged in the game. The story of the game is another factor that has not yet been added by will help with the emergent properties.

Interest Curves

Because you never know what is going to be around the corner you are always going to be interested in finding out what it is and if it can help. With there being many options to use there are many things to keep you interested. Another thing is the idea of the finish being so mysterious, but portrayed throughout the game you seem to want to find out what is there at the end.

Likes and Dislikes

I would say my favorite thing about the game is the many options you have to add onto the game. With the main game being so easily achievable there are so many more option that we can add on. At the moment the game is barely finished, but I still think it would be somewhat enjoyable we a little organization. And that makes a game special because when all you need is a new asset you can have a new experience. A game like Minecraft is very similar because it started with almost no actions or assets and has since blow up.

My contributions was the game cover and the foliage on the level. I will hopefully be working on some of the AI and then some other graphics to go with the game to make it look nice and pretty. 

Homework 7

https://github.com/heller166/TrialThirdPerson2

I will be working on the assets of the map to make the ascetics look more pleasing.

Homework 6

The two games I will be analyzing are Unreal Tournament 3 and Modern Warfare 3. I liked Unreal Tournament 3 and did not like Modern Warfare 3.

The Tetrad
Unreal Tournament 3:

The story is that in the future there are a race attacking a small planet. Then a group of people come to help save them and help take down the people invading. This game is full of all sorts of technology. There are so many forms of interesting guns and vehicles that you get to use throughout the game. There is even a vehicle that is a ball and then you can have little spider legs on it and toggle between. The art of this game is similar to Gears of War in that it is very detailed, meaning it is very rough. With the hundreds of vehicles and guns there are so many different mechanics like rolling, flying, jumping, etc.
Modern Warfare 3:

The story of MW3 is like any other Call of Duty game. You are in the military and you kill some bad people and that is pretty much it. This game has way to much technology like all of these addition to your character to make him more powerful than others. It has that idea that the richer get richer or in this situation the more powerful get even more powerful. The art is mostly war scenes and run down cities in various countries so it varies a lot. The mechanics of the game are some what basic is that you run, walk, jump, etc. like other FPS.

Balance

Unreal Tournament 3:

The balance in UT3 is very interesting because of its complexity. With there being so many different assets in the game it seems like it would be hard to handle, but they figured it out. Since you are fully consumed in these assets it is more enjoyable when you get to use them and learn about them.

Modern Warfare 3:

The balance in this game is totally wrong. There are to many assets that are pretty much the same, but maybe more powerful. With there being so many prizes when you are doing well and they all basically just shoot you down from the sky. Or the fact that there are over-powered guns that take away from any skill factor.

Emergent Properties

Unreal Tournament 3:

The emergent properties of UT3 are to an extreme. With all of the assets it defiantly makes the game complex. There are so many different options you can pick, but they only make it available at certain times so it restrains this and helps to conserve the complexity. If the game were to throw everything in at once then you would be overwhelmed with things.

Modern Warfare 3:

This games emergent properties are pretty much the same as all of the other Call of Duties. This is due to the fact that you are pretty much in the same situation with very similar assets all of the time on repeat. With the simple choice of what to use this takes away in complexity.

Interest Curves

Unreal Tournament 3:

The interest curve of this is the same idea as the emergent properties. Because you are learning new assets throughout the game. With new vehicles and enemies it keeps intriguing you throughout the whole game.  This game has enough assets to keep you going from point A to point Z with learning new things each time.

Modern Warfare 3:

With the same basic idea as all of the preceding Call of Duties it is no surprise that is does not interest much. If you have already played a campaign on any other then there is no reason to even bother because of the simplicity of it. The multi player keeps people interested for some reason, but that puzzles me.


The reasons that I like UT3 is because of how unique it is. Someone must have thought to themselves why don't I make an over the top game with so many assets and see how it goes. Somehow they incorporated it well. Now MW3 on the other hand had started from a basic game (the original Call of Duty) and then just kept adding more and more assets. But that is like when you see a hot pink Impala with ginormous wheels and every other outrageous thing on it. Someone is going to take the over the top Lamborghini over that Impala everyday.


In my team game I am going to be working on my main project and that is the map. I am putting a lot of detail into making the map look perfect and all of the standing assets look perfect. I am currently working on making the textures look good. I am also working on stuff like the lava flow and trees. If I am able to make this stuff happen I hope to start designing some of the AI meshes so they can be incorporated into the map. The rest of my team is doing such an excellent job it is making my work much easier.

Team Video 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b2oQTRM0uM

Click the link above.

Alpha Level for the Team Game

 The "forest."

 Climbing the "mountain."

 The "beach" and the ocean.

 View of the entire level.

 View of the "forest" and "mountain."

Class Game Story II

On a sub-tropical island full of many chameleons there is a sudden invasion from a serious predator. Snakes are flooding in the island threatening to extinguish the chameleons. Unlike most of the chameleons you are prepared for this situation and are ready to take the snakes out. You are going to have to maneuver through the unforgiving jungle with many obstacles especially the snakes. The goal is to take the snakes out by flooding them off the island, but without hurting any of your own. Your whole entire species is counting on you to help them because there is nothing else coming to help.


I was thinking of something like Donkey Kong or Banjo-Kazooie.

Class Game Story I

The world is at peace on a little island where you exist, but that is all going to change when complete darkness has taken over. There is an evil villain controlling the light distributed around the island. With no light there is fear of famine, loss of power, and worst of all thieves and pillaging. Everyone has been overcome with fear of death which has turned a peaceful island into an all-for-one war zone. You are the only person strong enough and sensible enough to find a way to fix this problem. In order to do so you must trudge through the disembodied society without causing any notice to yourself to take down this terrible villain.


I was going for a game similar to Legend of Zelda, but darker and scarier.

Game Design Intro Video

https://youtu.be/ZXpAk1i-CKM

The link shared above is my video that I made with a voice over. This video is of me rock climbing at Lake Juliette near Macon Georgia on 28 August 2015. I wanted to get a little bit of outdoors time and I figured that this video was a great way to accomplish two things at one time.

 The picture to the left is of my girlfriend and I at the Doctor Who convention in Tampa Florida in 2013. In class you brought up Doctor Who multiple times which I thought was funny because it is one of my favorite shows. I wasn't to sure what you meant by images created. I have never done actual graphic art, but I have used photoshop for more basic photo editing because I am an aspiring photographer. I have used Autocad and SolidWorks for many drafting projects throughout the years, but most of it was very geometric.

The second picture is one that I took 20 May 2014 when I climbed Mt. Hood in Oregon. This is one of my favorite pictures because of how everything lines up. If you look to the left you see the clouds running perpendicular to the ground whereas the the mountain is running down towards the ground in a pretty gradual slope.

My two favorite games

One of my favorite games of all time is Castle Crashers (http://www.castlecrashers.com/). It is a fun side-scroll game where you have "knights" and are going to save a princess. It really brings back those early memories of Mario, but with a more modern appeal. A good reason that I like the game is the fact that there are appealing graphics. It is not like most games because of it's un-serious manner throughout the game. You never feel that sense of urgency because the friendly and funny way the game is, but when there is that sense of danger it could never be more fun. With simple controls and a large amount selection of weapons and accessors it really makes you strive to achieve more.

Another game I enjoy playing is Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_of_Duty_4:_Modern_Warfare). The fact that they don't even have a website for this game anymore shows how dated it really is. It is by far the best game I have ever played. I think millions of people would agree that the Call of Duty franchise is one of the best and most successful ever, but in my opinion they are wrong in some aspects. In class we talked about the uncanny valley where the characters begin to look real where they are then not as aesthetically pleasing. In this instance of Call of Duty when they hit Call of Duty 4 they had hit the maximum peak, but once they went over that they started to become to complicated and unrealistic. They had a perfect mixture of graphics and simplicity in play that could not be topped. Once the games started having to many different items and the graphics were so intense the game lost all sense of the word game. That is why one of the best games in history now has all of its ancestors sitting the uncanny valley.

As you can tell by my choices of which games I enjoy the most you could probably assume I do not play video games anymore, which is true. It is not that I do not like video games, I have just grown out of them. I am still probably one of your most interested students because I am more interested in all aspects of game design. It is like the metaphor that a dealer should never use their own stuff.