Don't be a square...

A little preview me thinks......

Hexahedron...

Hexahedron

A game by Darren Matthews

Introduction

A spatial awareness, physics based problem solving game. Inspired by children’s ball bearing maze games and the Rubiks cube.

Description

Hexahedron is game based of a cube which is made up of many smaller cubes.  The idea of the game is to navigate a small metal ball around the cube through small channels on and through the cube surfaces.  These cubes have to be rotated and manoeuvred into position within the larger cube so a path can be made through the entire cube.  As the ball must adhere to the laws of gravity and physics, the large cube must be moved as to not allow the bar to fall off the cube.

The materials of the smaller cubes vary so as to affect the way the balls movement.  For example, a cube made of ice moves faster than a cube made of tar and a cube made of rubber makes the ball bounce and the a cube made of fur slows the ball down.

The player has to arrange the smaller cubes into position before decided to allow the ball into play.  They then use the accelerometer features of the mobile device to try and control the speed of the ball.

Key Features

·         Intriguing puzzle game using the basic laws of physics.

·         Use of different materials to affect how game reacts.

·         Objects introduced to hinder or help, such as magnets or oil slicks.

·         Increasing difficulty as game progresses.

Mechanics

·         Construct – Build main cube by selecting provided smaller cube elements.

·         Manoeuvre – Move the cube around using the on screen controls.

·         Control – Move the device around, using the accelerometer, to stop the ball falling of the cube.

Art

Target Audience

This is a game for mobile devices and smart phone and is aimed at the mobile casual gamer who enjoys spatial awareness puzzles.

Prologue...

Prologue

A game by Darren Matthews

Introduction

Time isn’t on your side.

Background

Date: 12 August 2035

Addison Edge is an engineering astronaut working on the ISS and is on an EVA doing routine maintenance on one of the solar panels of the space station.  There are regular communications through the suit to the other engineers inside the station with the usual reassuring buzzes and clicks. Unbeknownst to him, a rogue asteroid is heading to earth that’s going to fly straight past his position.  His radio starts to break up and he try’s to get confirmation messages from inside as to this communication problem.  He glances in the mirrored surface of the solar panel to see the asteroid behind him.  He turns around just in time to see the asteroid explode close to him, with a blinding light searing his eyes and scattering shards of material in every direction.  He try’s to cover his eyes to protect himself but several of the shard rip through his suit and visor.

Everything fades to white and Addison finds himself flashing through recent memories of him being on the space station, being on earth, being at home with wife and kids.  The flashing stops and he finds himself on a deserted street next to a newspaper stand.  After getting his bearings he glances to see that the date of the paper is 20 July 2034, almost a year back in time. He suddenly gets a searing headache and brings his hand to his head, crying out in pain.  Everything goes white and he then finds himself in a nearly deserted automobile scrap yard, with only a barking dog snarling in his direction.  He backs off to the safety of the owners shed, hoping to find someone.  There is no-one there but a TV is on in the corner, showing the news of the 2012 Olympic games happening.  He backs off a starts running through the yard.  As he runs he starts to get another headache but as he does he sees a small glowing shard of some kind to the right of him which is strangely hypnotic. As he gets closer to it, the headache lessens so he keeps running to it.  As he gets close the shard gets brighter and brighter until he reaches it and goes to pick it up.  As he does, a strange vapour seems to appear from the scars where the shard from the explosion hit him and this vapour disappears into the shard in his hand and the shard stops glowing.  Addison then suddenly is transported forward in time back to the street he was on before.   He realises he must find more of these shards to draw out the shards inside him which seem to be causing the headaches and time shifts.  Just when he realises this, another headache and fade to white………

 

Description

This is a 3^rd person action adventure game with a time travel science fiction theme.

Key Features

·         Time travel through different time periods.  From future, through 00’s, 90’s, 80’s, 70’s, 60’s, 50’s, 40’s right back to the dark ages.

·         Use different tools from the different ages to help find the shards.

·         Sense of urgency as when time runs out, he gets transported further back in time.

·         Has to explore and find objects to use and combine to assist with the collection of the shards.

Mechanics

·         Time meter – counts down time before being flung back into different time period.

·         Engineer – can engineer and combine objects together to become more useful objects.

·         Trigger shard – shard does not activate until picked up by Addison.  He can collect multiple shards before activating to trigger a bigger jump through time.  He must however use an object, such as cloth, to pick up shard so as not to activate it.

Target Audience

·         Experienced PC and console game players age 13-40 who enjoy puzzle solving action adventure games with detailed character animation models and cinematic segments.

Design Assignment 1

For assignment 1 in our design track, we have to come up 3 concept documents for 2 new games.  One of these we are going to continue further with.

I have decided to try and do 2 completely different types of games.  One is a more traditional action adventure called Prologue and the second is a casual mobile game called Hexahedron.

The inspiration for Prologue has mainly come from a love of science fiction and I have just watched Prometheus again and the image that stuck was the image of a space helmet.  This has been doubly compounded having just seen crazy man Felix just from space.... Also wearing space helmet.

I also wanted to couple this with the head spinning time travel paradox, that's always good for a laugh but tried to think of how I could incorporate this in a new way.  The idea of the player keep moving through time came to mind, taking inspiration from 'The Butterfly Effect' and 'Memento'.  I then had to try and come up with how would the player try to control this.  The idea of of have to find some kind of object came to mind, and eventually having an exploding, time altering, asteroid of which a tiny shard of it gets implanted in the players brain causing him to jump through time.  The player now has a reason to find the rest of the asteroid to stop this happening to him.

The second game is a lot simpler, I was inspired by 2 things.  First, the ball bearing maze games that you tend to find now in Christmas crackers and secondly the humble Rubiks Cube.  The plan was quite simply build a cube with these maze type structure on the surface and through them and then play the thing, using the accelerometer features of mobile technologies.  I then thought to add different type of materials to make these cubes out of that would affect how the ball would react on the maze.

I post the finished designs up when I've finished them ;o)

Higs Throws 'Em.....

So just handed in and presented one of our first group tasks for the year.  The assignment was to come up with a game design in groups and produce a game concept document, but the main task was to use the Agile SCRUM methodology to produce it.

This involved first defining all the high level tasks at the beginning which is referred to as the Product Backlog.  These items are then broke down into task and assigned to Sprints in which a collection of tasks are decided upon to be worked in a set amount of time.

There are then series of short meetings (scrum and scrum of scrums) where the tasks are allocated and the then reviewed in the second meeting to make sure that everything is going according to schedule.

There was 3 of us in our group and we had 2 weeks to produce the document.  We had a successful first meeting where we identified the product backlog and then sorted out the sprint.  As one of the team members were on vacation the second week, we thought it was important to make sure suitable tasks were assigned that were achievable in the time they were here and also got tasks that could be done whilst on holiday.

I have used the SCRUM methodology before in my day job, on much bigger projects, but we could still apply the same principles although I found at first we had merged the 2 types of meetings together (assignment and review) but I spotted that early on and was able to adjust the documentation.  This may have been my fault as I have not used the 2 meeting approach before and have usually just had the one daily meeting instead.  Neither approach is wrong as the whole methodology can be adjusted to suit the project.  I also thought the minutes produced might have been a bit too short but as there really wasn't a lot of material to be done and only 2 of us there wasn't a lot to put down.  It will be interesting to see what feedback we get in that respect.

The document we finally produced was a for a game called Higs Throws 'Em - a realistic / cartoon 3D strategy / action fusion game where the premise was about genetically modified creatures protecting a fort from genetically produced sea monsters on the planet Geoff where the main protagonist is a Horse / Pig creation, made by the Geoffians to protect them against the sea monsters.  The ammunition used are all forms of genetically modified rabbits, in some form or another.

Max has written a 'substantial' overview and back story, which may have been a tad on the long side but no worries.  Simon had been tasked with the game environments which was going to be a fort we was visiting on his vacation and my main task was to refine and draw the cartoon characters needed based on the initial concepts we had all come up with.

Overall I feel the assignment went well.  We all worked well together and the SCRUM methodology helped, however only when we were presenting the design the to class did I realise we had missed some items out of the document such as release platform and target audience.  But only minor points, I feel, and also they weren't in the assignment requirements when I checked back. 

Lets wait to see the feedback ;o)

 

 

Paranomia

Our first game art assignment this is to create and develop a cartoon character for a game.

The idea I've chosen is Paranoid Guy.  He's scared of everything, even his shoes.

So far we have sketched ideas and last week were shown about cartoon colouring techniques which we now have to apply to our characters.

It still needs work but here is how he's coming along.

Tiempo para el diseño

So it's time to begin the second year design section of the course.

Having already read, from cover to cover, the small pamphlet rather large volume called Rules of Play.  Which is the de facto essential read,  I feel I have gained a great introduction into the game design world.  It only took me a god damn year... I hope I get through the rest of the books is a shorter time frame or I'll be here forever....

Anyway, we have been given our first assignment which is to come up with 2 or 3 game concept documents so I need to get my crazy ideas out.

I've already got an idea for one simple puzzle, maze, cube, ball thingy game, that you can play in the queue at Starbucks (other coffee establishments are available but frankly are all inferior in my opinion....) and plus the fact once it's released, it's going to be MY GAME on the coffee waiting station that you all to see and pick up while you wait for your mochafrappucino.... 

I think I need to come up with a more meaty game for the others but so far just tumble weed in the ideas department.  Maybe a coffee would help....