The Next Big Thing

Our new groups have been decided and we have been presented with what we need to do for our next Prototype. Essentially we are going to be making a game using a new type of controller that has Haptic feedback called "flesh stretching technology" or "tactors". There are little nubs on the joy sticks of the controller that move under the thumbs, giving the players a new output from games. We are to utilize this technology. One thing different in this prototype is that there will be a specific person in the group that will be the official game designer. The choice of designer was made by each person pitching a game that would use the "tactors". After each person in our group made a pitch it we decided to use my pitch.

The game we will be making is a puzzle game. A person is trying to breakout of a facility by bypassing several locked doors. The doors can only be opened when the player "inputs" the correct code using the thumbsticks of the controller. The code is found in consoles throughout the level and given to the player through the tactors. So if the player feels the "tactor" under their left thumb go right then up, the code for the door is right then up using the left thumbstick. As the player progresses through the game the codes become more complex and even broken up into different parts in separate consoles. The consoles are color coded and the door has a pattern of colors depicting the order in which the codes need to be displayed.

I'm really excited to work with this group of people. I've worked with our Artist Ashley previously on the Repelzul project and the other Engineer George on the Germinators project. The only person we haven't worked with before is Josh the Producer.

Prototype 3 Post-Mortem

Before I get into the actual Post-Mortem I'll describe a bit more about the work that was done on the project itself. We were scheduled to present the project to our "clients" on Tuesday at 1:00PM. This later changed to be Wednesday, Much to our relief. Before the presentation Felix was able to get music added and I mae a countdown for the game. I also added Sparkles to the main menu so that it wouldn't be so static and lifeless. When we finally presented the game the "client" seemed to be fairly pleased as they realized that we had a pretty difficult IP to work with and they were wondering how we would be able to turn it into a game.

Now for the Post-Mortem
When the group was first put together and we were told that we were going to be making an app on Unity I was very excited. This excitment was stunted a bit when we were given our IP. It was for an audience that we didn't really relate to in any way. The agony in turning the idea into a game was very long, and we went through days of not knowing where we were going. We knew that there were some thing that would be needed regardless of the game and worked on those in the meantime. Felix, and I worked on making the menus, configuring the objects for texture changing, and getting familiar with Unity. Michelle started to make art assets of for the character and the environment. Charlie shot us with his NERF gun. There came a point where we had to know what the game would be before we could go further. We got the "Simon Says " idea and went with it. After that had been decided the game came together pretty smoothly. I had to take the reigns and Lead the design in the end in order to get things really progressing.
If we were to do this over again, I would definitely take the reigns earlier. We were stumbling a bit there. I think that we did extremely well with the obstacles that we had and the game turned out good. I am actually proud of it and I think it's kinda fun.

The Working Model

We needed to have a working system to show to our EP's this week. This was a bit of a challenge because we had changed the game so many times. From the beginning Felix had been working on the side bar (where clothes are selected) of the game and I had been working on the actual visuals (menus, models and texture changing, randomization of the outfits, etc..).

In preparation both Felix and I got our specific parts of the engineering done, and then we worked a bit on combining them. We both had a working version of the game that we then integrated together. The outcome turned out pretty good. We just need to add music, and some things to make it "sparkle".

The Dynamic Game

So, this week after further discussion with our group and the Executive Producers it has been determined that we will have only one mini-game. At first we were trying to add a "I Spy" type game to the closet so that the player would need to find articles of clothing in order to have it available for the dress up portion of the game. That idea fell through. It is proving difficult to put the game in this toy.

We came up with the idea of having a roulette spin and show an outfit for a few seconds that the player would need to memorize and then match. The time would for matching and seeing the goal outfit would decrease after every level making it harder to complete the task. After talking with our EP's yet again we have changed this to be a "Simon Says" type dress up game.

It sounds good. We'll see how it goes.

Dress up Madness

So our new groups for our next prototype have been made, and our prototype has been selected. This time we are going to be developing a game for Siena Entertainment. They mostly specialize in ebooks (try them out, they're pretty entertaining) in the Apple app store and they want to branch out into gaming. WE are to use one their IP (Intellectual Properties) to develop a game. There are four groups working on this and they have four IP's. This where we hit our first glitch. There was one IP that was targeted for toddlers ( 1 - 5), one for preteen girls (8 - 10), and the other two were pretty open in there age demographic. We ended up being assigned the preteen girl game. Our other constraint is that we need to use Unity to develop the game.

So what we have decided is that we are going to be developing a dress up game using the IP we are working on. There are some other elements we are working into the game, but it is mainly dress up. We'll get more into the other parts later.

The main obstacles I see in this game are that the two programmers involved both have full-time jobs (this wasn't too bad for me before because I was very familiar with Power Game Factory and XNA, which brings us to the next part of that obstacle) and they neither of them have ever used Unity before. The other main obstacle I see being a problem is moral. Some people on the team aren't very excited about the project and it kind of affects the rest of the group. I think this will go away as we get more element worked into the project... minigames!

Yes we are trying to fit in some minigames. Charlie our producer and I sat with one of our Executive Producers and 'brainstormed' some ideas on what we can do to make this app less of a toy and more of a game. Hopefully this will excite the team a bit more.

As for the programmer obstacle, Felix and I are both looking at Unity and implementing things that we know we will be using in the project. That is menus, UI, and tap and move. I've also been making a list of what needs to be done by the Engineers (programmers) and how to divide that work up between us most efficiently. That will be fleshed out by our next meeting.

Our Artist (Michelle) in the meantime is starting to create assets for us.

Well keep your fingers crossed for us.

Post-Mortem

Well, the XNA prototype for Mechanical Engineering has finally been "completed" and presented. I am very pleased with the outcome of our game. I'm especially pleased that we were able to get all our main features in (minus the money collection). I think that the success of this build was rooted in our team work and willingness to work over Fall Break.

When we first got together we effectively planned what the roles of each team member would be along with what each member expected from the others in the group. I believe that this openness and frankness allowed the group to function as a cohesive unit, thus allowing us to get the project together. I feel that Troy did an excellent job on getting us to do this early on. I was very pleased that we were able to get art assets from Ashley early on in the production. This helped the engineer's immensely. From my past experience with XNA I can't help but cringe at the stress and and effort it took to get art assets from our team that we could use in game. Having it early on allowed us to work out those bugs early on and boosted the moral by making the game feel as if it was actually progressing. I mean no matter how much code we had, if we can't show it off with a graphic it just doesn't come across as being done. As far as Engineering the game, it was great that both Kameron and I were familiar with XNA. We were able to quickly hash out what we needed to program and divide the work so that we wouldn't need to depend on the other person's code early in the development. For example, Kameron worked on the level setup and game objects the first week, so I worked on mouse control and the menu, credit, and other screens because they didn't rely on each other. As we got further into the process where single files were in need of editing, we were able to sit together and team program our last minute essentials when

Cheers to our team Repel. I am pleased with the results and I can only hope that the rest the projects in this class go as well.