6 posts tagged “team project”

We had an incredibly productive day today on our team project. By this point, Brandon has become the de facto programming lead, as he has been the only one doing any real coding. Emily and I know enough Flash to make suggestions and provide a reasonably good sounding board for code problems, but Brandon is the guy that ends up writing it. Emily and I will end up doing a lot of level design, playtesting, and art production. The game is really starting to take shape - Brandon spent the day writing code that will allow our hero Lance to move from one room to another. Meanwhile, Emily and I got out the old graph paper and started plotting rooms for the game; by some strange twist of fate, we have exactly 69 rooms to make for the game. Sexy times.

I can try and explain a bit more of the game, which is excellently titled Epic Game of Awesome, at this point: we're creating a side-scrolling game with a level not unlike a typical Mega Man or Castlevania game. Lance is exploring an underground base filled with robot guards, trying to locate a final boss which happens to be based on two of our teachers. (Chris Mogensen and Andrew Mooney, for those keeping score.) The underground base is a series of rooms that Lance must traverse in a roughly linear fashion to reach the bosses' lair. We've designed the level so that Lance must find various power-ups to reach the boss - first, Lance will find a power-up for his hammer (yeah, he carries a hammer as a weapon - he also wears a kilt) that will allow him to destroy robots more effectively as well as break certain kinds of walls. This will allow Lance to reach the second portion of the base, where he'll have to then locate a power-up for his jumping ability, which will in turn allow him into the final portion of the base.

We had a fairly elaborate plotline developing at one point, but a lot of fat was cut off the project. We don't have time, unfortunately, to fart around with things like cutscenes and narrative justifications for player actions. It's basically gonna be Lance wearing a kilt and wielding a large hammer, descending into an underground base to bring swift melee justice to untold legions of robots. Our primary concern is to make the game fun - and I actually kinda think the game has a shot at being fun. The controls feel pretty good at this point, and I think we'll be OK if we have enough time to playtest the game and tweak the rooms to make them challenging but entertaining.

We still have a number of things to develop for the game at this point. This is a rough sketch of our to-do list:

1. Lance's attack. This still doesn't hurt anything, which makes it kind of a pointless attack, doesn't it? We need to get the HitTest code up and running for this.

2. Lance's health bar. Right now, Lance can take exactly one hit before he dies. We're going to implement a health bar for him so he can soak up a few attacks before dying. (Not that dying will be that consequential: Lance is going to end up respawning in the room where he dies anyway.

3. A few more enemy robots. We have several more enemy robots to put in the game. This will probably be the last serious piece of coding, aside from the boss fight. Which brings us to...

4. Boss fight. This warrants its own bullet point, as the final boss will require a set of graphics and code separate from the rest of the game. We've talked about cutting this part if time gets to be too short. I don't want to cut this, but it'll depend on how the rest of the project goes.

5. Art asset development. Next week begins the art asset creation. In order of importance, they are:
          - Lance: running, standing, jumping, climbing, attacking, maybe wall jumping, maybe ducking.
          - Enemy robots: each robot won't get many animation frames, so this won't be as intensive.
          - Tiles: we're building each level as a 25x15 set of blocks, so we'll need some tiles to draw walls, floors, moving
            platforms, power-ups, etc.
          - Final boss: If we have enough time, we'll need to draw a set of walking, attacking, and injured animations. He'll             need a health bar as well, but that shouldn't be a problem.

Anything that we can't get done ourselves will be represented with free graphics from the Internet. I'm really hoping we can get them all done, however.

6. Sound effects. For background music, we've chosen several songs from Newgrounds that should get us all the way through the game. We still need sounds effects, however, to round the experience out. We've already researched some places to find some free assets, but we still need to decide on which ones we'll use.

7. Title Screen, Game Over Screen, Ending Screen. We need to create the bookends to the game. It's not entirely necessary to have these elements, but I think it would add a certain level of polish, even to something that is essentially a game demo.

If we can all of these things done and end up with a relatively bug-free game, I'll be happy. We estimate that our 5 weeks of work will produce 15-20 minutes of gameplay. That is a sobering thought, indeed. It really makes you appreciate the good games, the ones that entertain you for hours and hours. I've always had great respect for game developers, but trying to make one really sharpens your appreciation for their work.

I Actually Did Play Some Video Games Last Night, Too!

I didn't bother hooking up my PS2 last night; I decided to see if our DVD player was hooked up properly, so I put on The Incredibles special features DVD - I've never watched it before, and my blog post about Wall-E has made me think more of Pixar, the one company I would want to work for if I wasn't going to make video games. The special features were really outstanding. The DVD showed animated storyboards for deleted scenes; it included a few animated shorts made especially for the DVD release; it had a number of interviews with Brad Bird, the director (who didn't look anything like I'd imagined); it even had the short animated feature that preceded The Incredibles during its theatrical release. Sweeeeeeeet. I especially enjoyed watching the part about the deleted scenes, and the reasons they cut scenes that they really liked. Brad confided that he had to cut his favorite shot in the entire film to get the running length down. It made me think of all the cuts we've already had to make to out game project - I guess it's just an unavoidable part of the creative process.

I ended up playing some New Super Mario Brothers on my trusty DS. I'm almost finished playing through it - I finished off World 7, and now I just need to plow through World 8 to beat it. Once I'm done, I'm going to go back and collect all of the coins. Why? Because I'm a 100% completionist retard when it comes to Mario games.

Today at school, I discovered what will definitely be the next game I purchase for the DS - The World Ends With You, by Square Enix.

The World Ends With You

I'll be honest - my taste for Square games has soured over time, but this game looks pretty fricking incredible. This game is a DS exclusive developed by the team that made Kingdom Hearts, a game that looks totally wrong on paper but plays so damn right, and I have to say that The World Ends With You is just as visually appealing as the Kingdom Hearts games. The aesthetic style of this game focuses on real-world Japan: specifically, the Shibuya shopping district, where I used to DJ on the weekends when I lived in Japan. The characters'  designs are based on street fashions prevalent in the Shibuya district, and the music will be heavily influenced by J-pop and electronica. Japan nostalgia for the win.

Shibuya

But the number one reason why I'm buying this game is: the combat takes place on both DS screens simultaneously, and you use the stylus and D-pad to control two characters at once. THAT IS AWESOME. I want to buy games that take unique advantage of the DS, and this is by far the coolest thing I've seen so far. That alone would make me buy this game.

Gameplay takes place in both screens simultaneously - YES!!

The game has also been met with a favorable critical reception; check the Wikipedia entry if you're intrigued to learn more. 

Man, it feels good to be writing about games again. I'll be sure, however, to post some photos of the new place soon.

I've been picking away at Flash over the last few days, experimenting with how to best produce the main character's animations for our team project. I decided to draw a little dude in kung-fu pajamas, since kung-fu pajamas are super easy to draw. I drew his head, torso, and limbs as separate objects:

Animation Test - Putting the pieces together

After that, I put them together to get a sense of how tall he would be and how the pieces would overlap. One of Flash's cool tricks is that you can arrange these pieces in front of or behind each other, and make it look as if you've spent all this time and effort creating these complex animations when, really, you're just moving arm positions most of the time.

Animation Test - Need to make him run, now

Anyway, I got him running about 30 minutes ago, so now I'm gonna take a break from Flash and so something far more entertaining.....write the next installment of the Fallout Journals.


Fallout Journals: Now Where Were We?

When we last left the post-nuclear world of Fallout, I had just purchased an AWESOME leather jacket. Let's do a quick recap to see how I got such a sweet jacket.

So I was exploring the Old Town in the Hub, the eastern section of the trading city where all the lowlifes go to get whatever it is that needs a-gettin'. I passed by two lovely Skags on my way to the downtown core.

Welcome to Old Town

I met up with this crazy guy, wandering around, and muttering to himself. I kinda did my best to avoid contact as I pushed past him and continued my exploration of town.

The crazy guy outside Old Mutant Harold's place

Crazy guy was standing just out side of a beat-down house; I checked inside to see if anyone might know anything about water chips. I discovered an old mutant named Harold; he came from the very first Vault that opened after the War. He looks like crap, to be honest with you.

Meeting up with Harold

SO I give Harold 5 bottle caps and talk to him for a while. Turns out he has some information that might be a clue to what's happening with the caravans......(dramatic chord).......

Harold's Clue

Hmmm....mutants attacking caravans, huh? Sounds pretty bad. Harold tells me that all the mutants seem to be coming from an abandoned military base - a while back, he and some others tried to enter the base and kill the mutants / wipe out the source of mutation. But they didn't do so well. Apparently, there's a ton of military-grade robot security drones to get past before you face the mutants. Right, okay then. Harold told me where the base was, but I stopped listening after "robot security drones." My blue jumpsuit with lucky number 13 emblazoned on the back - in yellow, no less - needs to be upgraded, STAT.

So I leave Harold, say goodbye to Crazy Guy, and continue exploring Old Town.

That's cool, Crazy Guy - I'm kinda busy right now.

A little while later, I run into Jacob, an arms dealer that operates out of Old Town. This guy is pretty nice for an arms dealer - I take a shining to him right away and hit him up for information. He tells me about a lot of stuff, but MOST IMPORTANTLY he tells me that I need to get a geiger counter and start checking myself for rads - units of radiation in the body. Too many rads, Jacob tells me, and you die. You need to keep taking a product called Rad-Away to stay alive in the wastelands. Jacob tells me about a dealer across the road from him, says to say that Jacob sent me, and sends me on my way.

Jacob the Friendly Arms Dealer

Now, because the dealer across the street also sells...well, other stuff, I couldn't get a screenshot of the premises. But anyway, I talked to him about Rad-Away, bought some scorpion poison antidote.....and just as I was finishing up, I noticed he was selling a LEATHER JACKET for like 500 caps. So I drop the money immediately and suit up in my new gear. I already feel more badass.

Crimson Caravan Blues

January 3rd finally rolls around. I've done 2 runs for the Far Go Traders already, and I'm starting to feel like a seasoned veteran of the wastelands. I stride over to the Crimson Caravan at the crack of dawn, ready to start making some serious caps.

Can't wait to start work!

So I roll out with the caravan. On our first trek to Junktown, we got ambushed!!! By.....8 insects. Hmmm...they kinda look like praying mantises. I kinda laugh and think to myself, "Well, this should be about as hard as killing rats."

These guys don't look so tough....

It look exactly 1 complete combat turn to get to this screen.

Awesome

Wow. I guess I underestimated the powerful side-effects of exposure to nuclear radiation. No problem, I'll just reload my save game and try again. And this time, our caravan runs into 3 Raiders...."Only 3?" I think. "This is gonna be easy! There's four of us!!" I load my gun and prepare to fight; the Raider farthest away from me points his rifle and fires, and I take a critical hit in the leg for 12 HP of damage.

Only 3 guys...this won't be that tough....

Ouch....that's like a third of my HP gone in 1 attack. Thank God there's 4 of us....oh, but WAIT, the Crimson Caravaneers couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with a rocket launcher. **facepalm** I watch each of my 'allies' aim and miss entirely as the Raiders move in for the kill, cruelly taunting us with each step.

Wow, these Crimson Caravan guys are crap shots....

I manage to get in one last shot before they're on top of us. BANG! I line up a perfect headshot....and do 7 HP of damage. SEVEN. I got hit the leg and took 12 HP damage!!! WTF?!?!?!?!? I don't see any helmets on these raiders's heads.....what, do they have ADAMANTIUM SKULLS? (k, I'm a little bitter)

BOOM! Headshot....you lose 7 whole HP

This battle lasts 3 full combat rounds.

Huhn.......

I'm beginning to think these guys call themselves the Crimson Caravan because their caravans are stained with the blood of the n00bs that can't even hit Raiders standing in front of them. ARGH.

After about a half-dozen hopeless attempts (one trip brought us into the path of 7 Raiders, and my HP was at -5 before it was our turn to fight), I gave up. Time for a new tack.


Plan B: Hire Help, Kill Scorpions

Somewhere between beatings on the Crimson Caravan tour, I remembered that pesky Radscorpion problem back in Shady Sands. I also remembered a fella named Ian who offered to help me out for like 100 bottle caps, and I definitely began to think I could use some help.

I leave the Hub and return to the much more peaceful Shady Sands. I immediately head over to Ian's place and offer him 100 caps to join the gang. He accepts - and I get 100 XP! Tidy. Things are looking up already.

Ian agrees to join your party! The dog, sadly, does not.

Now, if I've learned one thing from my brief dalliances with the Raiders, it's that good help is hard to find. I ask Ian what qualifies him to take on this position.

Ian's resume is impressive

Excellent: it sounds like he can aim a gun. Alright, then, enough chit-chat! Let's kill some giant scorpions!!!

Let's kill some giant scorpions!

I'm a little nervous as Ian and I reach the Radscorpions' cave; I really need to kill something and make some money. (Oh yeah, I need to find a "rope" somewhere too, so I can explore old Vault 15! Gotta remember that...)

We head into the cave and it isn't long before we meet our first Radscorpion. I manage to fire off a shot and hit the scorpion in the brain, causing critical damage. Ian takes 2 shots with his submachine gun, and - BAM - we got ourselves a dead Radscorpion. I didn't take a single HP of damage. Well, that went well. It's hard not to admire Ian's prowess with a gun after having suffered the buffoonery of the Crimson Caravan.

That's right, WITHOUT A SCRATCH

Ian is certainly no stranger to action - he even seems to enjoy inflicting pain on these creatures. Once, while we were killing this particularly gruesome Radscorpion, Ian just walked up to it, put his gun to the beast's head, and muttered, "Let's see if you enjoy this."

Ian....you're so....confident....

BANG. The creature slumped noiselessly to the ground. I just stood there, in awe of what had happened. I felt so....safe....with Ian. Like everything was going to be OK. For the first time in my life, I felt like I was going to make it through the wastelands just fine, and maybe even find a water chip for my friends back in Vault 13.

We worked in silence, side-by-side, swiftly killing these wretched Radscorpions. It wasn't long before we were done. I took a few scorpion tails to bring back to Shady Sands as proof of our victory. We headed back to town, neither of us speaking, but both of us (was he though? I don't know) feeling that a strange bond had formed between us.

Talking wth Aradesh - XP get!

Back in Shady Sands, I speak with Aradesh, who thanks me for ridding the town of its scorpion problem. He also advises me to being the scorpion tails over to Razlo, a scientist trying to develop an antidote to the scorpion's sting. I wonder why it's needed now that Ian and I have killed them all, but hey, whatever - I head over to Razlo's place, give him the tails, and collect even more XP!

So now I'm at Level 3, I've got some money, a sweet leather jacket.....and Ian. It's getting late. Ian and I decide to take our night's rest in Shady Sands. I find a quiet room with a warm, comfortable bed. A very nice looking bed.

Time for bed, Ian.

Ian and I exchange awkward glances. Ian mumbles a question under his harsh, whiskey-soaked breath:

Why can't I just QUIT YOU

Never mind, Ian. Never mind.

It's DONE.

Our project presentation went very well, and now we're officially done our Project Management course. It feels AMAZING to be done school-school. All that lies ahead is the team project: making the game. Yeah, it's still school, but it feels so good. It feels THIS GOOD:

Mangione

Our team mentor, Andrew, had some suggestions for us. Brandon: I know you wanted me to send them to you over e-mail, but I'm lazy, so I'm gonna post it here. This is the stuff he wanted us to check out:

Kidz Online - This is a website where we might be able to get some Flash tutorials.

Swish - A product that creates Flash files, but is even easier to use. Sounds like it might be useful.

YuuGuu -  A new application that allows web sharing and conferencing. Might be useful when we're working at home.

XNA - Well, we were thinking about this, but this could be a fun summer project (God, I'm already planning to do homework this summer. Ugh).

There you go, Brandon - and everything's nice and linked up, so it's easier to research.  ^_^

I'm going to chill tonight and not do anything PC-related. Christine and I both have tomorrow off, so we're gonna enjoy our night off together. I don't even think I'll miss the old PC tonight. Frankly, it's great to have some time away from it once in a while. Nothing like school to make you start hating your passions!

I do have a new toy, however, that was keeping me busy this afternoon: a Wacom tablet!!!! Andrew remembered to bring his tablet in, so I got to bring it home today and try it out. I spent a few hours sketching and doodling, trying to get a feel for how best to work with it. Now that the project is finally here, I feel all of this nervous energy building up. I can't wait to start building the game, and yet I feel a bit jittery at the same time. Will we finish it? Is it gonna be fun? It's hard to keep these kinds of thoughts at bay. I've got faith in us - we're all pretty bright and creative, and definitely passionate about games. It's gonna be exciting.

I really need to get a job though. I applied for a position as a Beta Tester for HB Studios this summer. It would only be part-time / low-wage work, but it gets my foot in the door, and gives me time to work somewhere else. I seriously considered signing up for the Reserves today - I sat through an hour-long presentation and thought, "You know, I could use some wilderness survival training. The zombies are gonna rise again someday, after all....." Christine thinks I'd hate it within minutes. She might be right. Basic Training is a lot easier to think about than do, I imagine.

Well, I think I'm gonna play some Fallout and wait for Christine to get home. Time to enjoy some downtime.

This morning's topic was the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). We had to divide our project into phases, which then subdivide into tasks, which are themselves subdivided (subsubdivided?) into subtasks. God, I feel like I'm in the Navy all of the sudden with all of these subs. Anyway, here's a WBS diagram that shows sort of shows what happens; this uses a bike as an example.

A WBS for building a bicycle (from Wikipedia)

We got started on the worksheet, but it wasn't too long before we were all given another handout. This handout had a whole different problem on it, and it was structured as a logic puzzle / math puzzle. (Quite frankly, it reminded me of Professor Layton and the Curious Village, which I must start playing again as soon as I finish New Super Mario Bros....)

We spent a good deal of time working on this....only to find that it didn't count towards anything. And we didn't even finish it! We were supposed to see which team produced the best schedule (i.e., on time, with the lowest cost), but we never did. The instructors had to end the exercise early to allow for a presentation. The presentation was given by Rick Claus, an IT Pro Advisor from Microsoft who presents to IT groups on various topics - our presentation focused on what it takes to have a successful IT career. Rick seems like a pretty cool guy - his first degree was in Theatre, and he has a passion for directing. He certainly knows his way in front of a crowd. The presentation was actually quite good - it inspired a few of us to get out thee and start networking. Rick oversees a blog for Canadian IT professionals if you're interested in taking a look.

Incidentally, our team came up with a $9100, 9-week project schedule, and after class I asked Brian Shewan (our database instructor this year) what the best solution was. He said that the best this year was $9100  (I guess a bunch of teams got this as an answer) but that last year someone got $8900. It was an interesting challenge, but it unfortunately cut into our WBS time, so we were late getting out of school today.
 
I think I'm gonna play with Flash tonight. I'd like to finish a few tutorials.

Today was the beginning of our project management week. It's a week-long class, from 8:30am to 3:30pm every day, divided into two halves. The morning is a period marked off for lectures and practical instruction; the afternoon is given to the teams to work on  one of the major deliverables for the projects - outlines, schedules, and that sort of thing.

Today, all of the first-years were gathered together into C-316, on the third floor of our school, way in the back of C Wing. We had to make our first formal proposal to our team mentor; our mentor is the legend himself, Andrew Mooney, also our first-term programming instructor. Our team - Emily, Ella, Brandon, and me - are planning on building a game in Flash. We want to build a side-scroller; we feel that we could build one level and a "boss fight" in 5 weeks, and to a sufficient degree of polish that we'd want to have it in our portfolios.

It hard to put into words our game will be like, first because it's not all completely fleshed out yet, and, secondly, the

Google "French Whale" and you get this

I hope it goes well. I'm excited about this. Brandon and Ella are going to begin work on level design and enemy AI programming. Emily and I will tackle the main character - getting him walking around and doing stuff. They're doing the bad guy, we're doing the good guy. (As Brandon observed today, "The level is a bad guy.") Andrew is loaning us his Wacom tablet so we can draw our own graphics in Flash. Now this is something I'm really excited about - we don't have to draw with a mouse! Andrew, I will treat it as if it were my own. We've got a lot of random stuff to knit together - when I think of this game, I immediately think of Earthworm Jim as a way to hint at it. Of course, if this turns out even half as good as Earthwork Jim I'll be pleased.

Classic.

YTMND of the Week

This is a legendary YTMND, my friends. One that may be destined for the Hall of Fame:

An Ewok Odyssey

An Ewok Odyssey

Fans of 90's alternative music will appreciate this. :)


OK, that's all I got. The Fallout Journals will have to wait, because I didn't have time to play that game today :(

YTMNDs of the Week

Now that my Internet Love is very much alive and kicking, the flood of YTMNDead sites has ceased and people have begun to just start making stupid sites again. My buddy Aaron has sent me a couple of awesome sites over the last few days: Gumpin, ...but your kids are gonna love it, and ytmndwd: 100% Expert mode.

BRB getting Christine

Me and my pretty lady

OK back to YTMND.

Me, I gotta give my YTMND of the week award to one that was just posted today - not only does it have Will Smith in it, which makes it an instant 5 in my books, but it's mashed up with something that is cosmically appropriate for this blog. Indeed, this YTMND was made for this blog. And so, I present to you, our YTMND of the Week:

The Fresh Prince of Mushroom Kingdom

This is a great mash-up, in my estimation. The eerie timeliness of its content makes it an all-the-more appropriate choice - the graphics are from Mario World, and the music is from Mario 3. There are actually quite a few fantastic Will Smith YTMNDs if you poke around.

The Fresh Prince of Mushroom Kingdom

Final Year Project: Making a Video Game!

This post, unfortunately, will not be long enough to address all of the outrageous allegations raised by the nefarious Torbox. I have a Hardware exam tomorrow, and I really must start studying for it soon. Alas, that requires my blog tonight to be shorter than I would like.

I would like to say, though, that I'll be starting up a team project in about 2 weeks - a five-week project where Brandon Tattrie, Emily VanZeumeren, Ella Silver, and yours truly are making a game! I'll be making a lot of blog posts on the development process during that time. Hopefully, we'll even have a game for y'all to try!

We're going to do a platformer, and I can tell you that it's gonna be a weird one. It'll be in Flash, so I'm hoping to have something that I can post here when the project is over. Maybe we can get it on Kongregate!

Kongregate - second best website ever

I don't have one favorite song to rule them all. I would say that my favorite artist of all time is Bob Dylan, and of all of his songs, Visions of Johanna, She's Your Lover Now, and Drifter's Escape are probably the three that come the quickest to mind as my favorites.

Live 1966

But I've been actually listening to a ton of Beatles lately, and I think I'd rather talk about my favorite Beatles song. The Beatles are my favorite band overall, and Tomorrow Never Knows is definitely my favorite Beatles song. Light years ahead of anything ever made before it, this song has been a massive influence on electronic artists and rock artists alike. It occupies a space in music all its own - hypnotic, transcendent, driving, John sing-chants his vocal a relentlessly groovy bassline, blending their Indian musical influences with some serious studio wizardry. When John sings, "It is shining, It is shining", listen for the incredible synthesizer swells and squiggles in the background. The pulsating backbeat and orchestral, trancey wall of sound can be heard in later genres as diverse as hip-hop, breakbeat, techno, and psychedelic rock. The Chemical Brothers owe their entire careers to this song.

Here it is. Lyrics are provided below.

The Beatles - Tomorrow Never Knows