Long time no see indeed...

Currently not really working specifically on any games so obviously this blog will probably be at a bit of a standstill. But am still dipping toes in some projects though such as attempting to mount an interactive portfolio/website thingie in flash.

So here's me. Walking. Forever!

At least until I hopefully finish the website or else I really will be walking forever.

Long time no see

As I've been busy with my thesis and my teammate has also been busy with his, Blooning Away hasn't really had an update for a while, although I did update/streamline the look of the objects in the game when I felt like working, but not on the thesis. Here are some before and after animations and why it changed.

BEFORE

Drawn in illustrator using a brush to give it a handdrawn look, which I thought would contrast nicely with the very clean background but also be a quicker artstyle, making production faster.

AFTER

Seeing the handdrawn objects in the build and animated did not satisfy me. The clash between the squeaky clean background lines and the messy handdrawn felt too big and therefore I opted for a cleaner line (it's not pixelated as the gif might suggest) using the pen tool instead. Surprisingly it does not take that much longer to draw and animate with this style.

Procrastinating

I should have been working 

on either my thesis or Blooning Away

instead I spent time 

pimping my resume

Would student working on laptop 

be a good game?

Probably not 

and unlikely lead to fame

Sleeping, eating, waiting, procrastinating,

enough of that, 

let's open a can of Whoop-ass

Ydrasil

Last weekend I took part in the nordic game jam. 48 hours, 7 people and a spelling error in the game title (the tree of life in norse mythology is called Yggdrasil) later we made Ydrasil. A tree simulator where you grow and trim a tree using the powers of cut and thunder. The tree would grow by itself in a very limited manner, by cutting a branch two new one would sprout from the place where you cut the branch. Using thunder instead and the branch would stop growing.

We developed it as a toy first and foremost and had some difficulty tranforming it into a game, this was also because some of us, myself included was a bit reluctant to force gamey conventions on something that lives on being freeform and a creative tool. We did end up putting some weird game goals in there with runes falling down from the sky and the player having to balance it out between the tree and the snake on the ground. It was weird.

In any case we'll continue to develop on it and this time we'll have a bit more time to look into how to make it a game in a way where we can still keep the creational part of the game as the main focus.

Play Ydrasil.

B'looning Away, background art

Despite taking a break from it for several months now, I'm slowly returning to it. Background art is completely finished but right now I need/want to start some prototyping before moving on to more art.

In the meantime, some cuts of the background art.

 

 

 

Swag!

Swag! was the result of a two-day UNITY crash course game jam. The game builds a bit on an idea I played with last semester for my Experimental Interaction game, but then I ended up making a headbanging game for that. However this small idea proved perfect for a small game jam session.

The goal of the game is to make the player feel AWESOME about him/herself. The best way to go about that is simply to walk and add cool disco music. So if you feel bad about yourself, go play Swag!

Reflections on: Smash-o-Saurus

A "reflections on" post without an "in development" post indicates a short period of production. Which is very true for this first DADIU-production in this semester.
The premise is basically that we had one week (16-person team) to develop a game with a set of conditions handed to us, where the most limiting one was that the target audience had to be tweens.
The game we ended up developing was a monster smashing game for boys in that age group. You play as a boy in a monster suit smashing stuff, the more stuff you smashed the bigger you grew and at the end you would be an actual HUGE monster going around smashing whole cities.
The challenge was to keep smashing stuff as your chaosmeter would go down unless you caused chaos. So the game was meant as katamari, except smashing stuff rather than collecting stuff.

Postitives: 

• Limits reached. This game was MASSIVE! I think that during this one week the team showed how effective we could work. Considering that we are 16 people working together for the first time, the fact that we attempted to do something of this scale and to a certain extent actually managed something of this size (even though cut down in size, it's still a big game). The game is of course deeply flawed, but the process showed us what the art team is capable of (being only 4 vs. 8 programmers). It also showed us what the programmers can do within UNITY. We were pushing UNITY quite a lot with the massive amounts of destructable buildings in the game.
• Target audience, check! During production we managed to test the game on our target audience (midway through production). The test, although small and containing a very crude version of the game showed us that we were on the right direction. The boys that tested the game were all fairly excited about the premise of being a monster smashing stuff and growing into an even cooler monster. Of course a lot of times kids just get excited about new stuff, however considering the crude nature of our build, it was positive that they still enjoyed running around smashing random stuff.
• My designerly ways. I'm glad I managed not to lose myself as a designer during this production. This is by far the biggest team, I've ever worked in and I'm happy that I managed to design the way that I prefer to design even within a bigger team. Basically I like to design the play before the game and I feel like this game showcases that. It is of course deeply flawed, but I hope the team kind of understands how I work and design now.

Negatives:

• Scope is key! Again it seems like I'm involved in a project going way out of scope. Thinking back on the conceptualisation is a big question mark. How could we ever think that this game would be feasible within the one-week time limit? The ridiculuos amount of props that the art team had to do, the three different character models, each with their sets of animations, massive destructable buildings (that Unity can't quite handle), levels built within each other? What were we thinking? Completely out of scope. So although the whole team was onboard with the concept and excited about it, it could not make up for the fact that this project was just out of scope.
• Design for the format. The game had a condition that said that is had to run in a browser with the keyboard and mouse controls. Even though I knew about this way before conceptualisation I still ended up designing a control scheme (and game) that would have been better suited for a console. One of the main mechanics of swiping in different directions (in order to smash) would have been much better suited to a double analog stick control scheme. This was meant as a PC browser but was designed as a console executable. This is completely on my shoulders as a designer and for next time I will definately keep in mind to design for the format and use the affordances and constraints that come along with it.
• Where is plan B? This again links very closely to the out-of-scope problem. First of all, we should have seen that it was out of scope sooner than we did. Second of all we should have had a plan b (or a cut-down plan) so that we could scale the game down if needed. Instead we saw the problem and kept on going. This is a team reflection however personally I know that I have problems killing my darlings, which I should probably try to deal with, e.g. the console controls of this game was something I should have dealt with instead of just leaving it there, because I thought "this would be good on a console". Well we weren't designing a console game, so I should have dealt with it.

All in all, this game was more of a learning experience than a make a great game experience. However it was a HUGE learning experience and although the game that came out at the other end wasn't good, I think it had/have potential to be really good. I think we managed to do a lot during a one week production and can only imagine that whatever we make for the big production later in the semester will be awe-inspiring. In the meantime you can go play Smash-o-Saurus.

B'looning Away, back to work

One month of vacation over and it's back to work. Here's what I slowly managed to finish within the last week (working a bit slowly at the moment, adjusting to not being on holiday anymore). However despite working a bit slowly at the moment, I can see this project finishing for january.

We're moving into space with a space hotel. (Very Jetsons inspired)

In development: B'looning Away (mini-update)

My development frenzy for B'looning Away has kind of died down now after the initial 2-3 weeks of total excitement and now it's down to work. Although in that time I did manage to squeeze out backgrounds for 3 out of 5 levels, so it's been a very productive frenzy.

Here is a shoehouse for the game.

Reflections on: Octave

After a good months time and an exam out of the way, I believe it is time to take a critical look at Octave.

Octave started production in late february with a six person team (team Composerology!) and ended when we handed in the game late May. As already covered before I had the double role of lead designer (ensuring cohesion in the game) as well as 2D artist which are two roles I'm fairly happy with and feel like I have been succesful in fulfilling both roles.

When we started working on Octave we set out to build a unique universe with a creational musical tool to battle enemies and influence the environment. Furthermore narrative was quite important (however not really been implemented properly) so I will give a recap of it:
Octave Hertz Hobbman is a composer who, at the beginnning of the game, receives a letter from his estranged and dying father begging forgiveness for some unknown "sin" that he has committed. This "sin" should become clear throughout the game. (But unfortunately it doesn't really)

Positives:

• Hardworking team! I was extreemely lucky to be slotted in a very hardworking and ambitious team which really boosts your morale. Furthermore our PM (who chose the team) had chosen a very balanced team with people to fill every role needed very competently. Not much else to say on this topic, but it is worth mentioning.
• Dense universe. I had really worked overtime, especially in the beginning of the process to create a dense fictional universe for the game, which worked out as I believe it was key in creating cohesion in the game. There was a lot of fiction created for the game, which didn't make it in but that doesn't really matter because it was important that the team knows there is more behind and knows why characters are motivated by certain things. In that way, by creating this dense universe everyone else on the team would basically make decisions that would naturally slot seamlessly into the universe. (Which was almost 100% succesful)
• Communication. This production was different from last semester's production because it was both developed in a slightly larger team but more importantly that we were slotted into very defined roles. This has really prepped me towards how it is going to be when I am at one point "released into the wild" and also for DADIU next semester. Communication is key when everyone has their different areas to attend to and I really need to compliment our PM for his stand-up meetings everytime we got together. These little status checks gave us a good idea of what everyone had been doing and was going to do and in that way, we always knew where we had eachother and if anyone was starting to move slightly off course they could quickly be reeled back in. Furthermore I think I communicated the core ideas and universe of the game to the team fairly well through a very detailed and structured design wiki.

Negatives:

• Too much, too little space. The main reason why this game falls a bit short is due to the team collective high ambitions. The fact that we wanted to make a narrative driven game (with platforming/action mechanics) is in hindsight a mistake. Narrative takes subtlety and polish, something we didn't have time for (nor skills) and furthermore narrative, in cases where the actual game itself has action elements and fairly heavy mechanically, is pushed aside and left for the end. Completely understandable as gameplay HAS to work but it also means that we have a game that wanted to immerse and tell players a story, but ended up not even half-assed, but tenth of an ass in that regard.
• Live and let live. This is more of a personal reflection. As I was appointed lead designer/2D artist I should probably not have wandered into mechanics as much as I did. At the beginning of the process I was quite pushy in regards to what kind of a game I wanted to make and how I wanted the mechanics to be simple and intuitive. This point of view massively clashed with the level/gameplay designer's view and we had quite a lot of discussions on this and also started out with a very compromised main mechanic that was faulty. After we found out that our mechanic wasn't very good I finally was able to let go and give him his control and responsibility, and he got the solution that he wanted from the beginning. I am first and foremost a designer and therefore it's very natural for me to want control over a large part of the mechanics as it is so important for player experience. At the same time I am quite adventurous because these are student productions and therfore I'd like to push the envelope a bit. However I realise that sometimes I need to let go of control and trust the people around me.
• Difficulty level +10. This game is difficult and we completely missed the target audience that we had set up for ourselves. The target audience were gamers who were familiar with the WASD control scheme but weren't the kind who played religiously every day (basically me or someone with a little less experience than me). However we ended up with a game that only really hardcore gamers would be able to play, in fact the two least hardcore members of the team, our composer and myself even had some difficulty with the game. This is not necessarily a bad thing because our game just targets a very hardcore audience. But since we had set up a target audience I still find it a bit troublesome that we didn't hit it and I'm not sure if I should have done more to focus on the target, but it just happened to be natural progressing in our development.

I could probably go on writing pages on the reflection of Octave (which indeed I did, but that was more course related), however I will stop here. In general the production of Octave has been a very positive experience, I'm not elated with the end product but rather satisfied. I'll really miss the team and our awesome cake days especially also because I'm attending DADIU next semester, so won't really be seeing them in classes either. It's been a great team, great production period and a mixed end result, but never mind that.

John the Happy Man

The final chapter of John's story and pursuit of Dottie. Only a few more steps and they'll live happily ever after.

Use 1-8 to play simple musical harmonies to bring them closer to eachother. This sketch used a tone instrument with a oscillator sound which I actually thinks works pretty well, it has a innocent and slightly nostalgic sound to it. Works better than the sound of a "real" instrument for this sketch.

Go make John a happy man.

Sketches: John the Dancer

What's this? Could it be John, happy and in love?

Finally Dottie, the love of John's life, has seemed to respond positively to some of his advances. Completely drunk with love he starts a dancing frenzy!

Oh, did I mention, this sketch is in 3D! So go check out John the Dancer. (Might take a long time to load)

In development: B'looning Away

No rest for the wicked, I've started working on a game again almost right after finishing up all the mandatory semester projects.

The basic concept is the same as Neno from my first semester, however it will be completely redone and all the extra narrative and gameplay stuff that was piled onto the Neno will be stripped off, so it will end up being the concept initially pitched. The reason why it's important for me to remake and work with this concept again is that I feel it has potential to be an interesting experience (although not necessarily a game). There's something very innocent and nostalgic about blowing around a balloon.

The game will now be about a boy who has lost his balloon (so there is no longer a boy from space). The player will then be left to explore the universe and fly higher up or collect things to fly down and reunite the balloon with the boy. The balloon will always be moving upwards in a certain speed unless the player collect things which will weigh it down for a while, and then it starts moving up again. A very simple premise for what is a very simple game.

Although I initially thought I was going to reuse the art assets from Neno, I ended up redoing everything again and it looks much nicer now when there's no time constraint and absolute creative freedom. In fact I am enjoying creating assets for this game so much, that I ended up having made the background for the first level within one week, but there's still a long way to go.

Sketches: John the Stalker

Here's another of my processing sketches from this semester. In this one John assumes the role of a love struck man (aka stalker).

John has met the girl of his dreams, unfortunately he's not the guy of her dreams. Use the arrows keys to get close to her and fill you love meter, but not too close or else she'll just think you're a creepy stalker.

So go and ogle the girl (aka the dot) in John the Stalker.

Reflections: The Date

The Date is the other game I've been working on this semester and that have for good reasons taken a back seat compared to the massive Octave project.

However I'm actually quite proud of it and did not feel like working on this game was annoying or a burden. I might even say this game is a more "complete" package than Octave is.

The vision was to create a game where we wanted to link the player's compulsive actions to an OCD patients compulsive actions and thereby create awareness around OCD and how there is a fine line between just being cautious and actually being OCD. Also we wanted to question players' natural score hoarding and how irrational it actually is and hold it up against an OCD patient's actions.

Positives:

• Consistent artstyle. I seem to say this about every game I make, but it is very important to maintain looks, whether you like it or not, graphics are a HUGE part of games. The art duties were not dependent on me solely (for the first time) but was shared with another artist. I was responsible for characters, the interface and the end/start screens whereas he had the game objects and their animation. Sharing duties was a very interesting experience and furthermore to keep it consistent as if one person had made everything also shows the flexibility that both of us had. Another thing I'm proud of with the artstyle is that it is interesting despite being so simplistic.
• Fun factor. One of the things we were worried about while making this game was that it would not be any fun because of the simple interaction scheme (Spacebar + arrows) and the fact that the game has absolutely NO challenges whatsoever. In order to counter that issue, we wrote a lot of dialogue (monologue) for the character which has received a lot of positive feedback and created a lot a fun. The speech bubbles also acted as a heavy motivator for interacting with the game objects.
• Theory proven true. This game was built on a theory we had in the group, that gamers  for whatever ever reasons would often be so compelled to gain high scores, regardless of whether the game was challenging/fun. This proved to be a good enough reason to actually build the game on as they did indeed behave in the way that we had anticipated. Scores are very strong incentives to make players do things.

Negatives:

• OCD communication. As this game was actually about OCD, we might have fallen a little short on communicating the message to the player. Originally the plan had been to actually integrate OCD information into the actual game and let realisation hit the player, that he was the one contributing to the character's disorder. However we ended up cutting most OCD related topics in the game and putting it in the end. This is a bit of a "screw-you" design as you pull the rug from under the player's feet and revealing what the game is really about. It runs the risk of being skipped and players feeling tricked.

I am quite happy with this game as I feel it provides a good play experience. Whether it is a good awareness game about OCD is very questionable, however even if it isn't a good awareness game, I feel players will still be able to take something away from it.

The Date is playable from here.

Octave

It's finally here! The massive project for the game development course this semester was finally turned in two days ago and the result is pretty good.
Octave is a third person action/adventure where you play a maddened composer travelling into his own mind and using music to destroy his inner demons.
I am going to do a reflections post later, when there's a bit more time and also in order to get a bit of distance to the project. Until then here's a trailer (that I edited in Window Movie Maker).

Neno, a bit animation

Aww... Though Neno is long gone I still can't let the little guy walk away completely. Here's an animation I did for him but didn't make it into our build. Obviously he's not supposed to constantly swing like this but just when the player blows wind on his balloon.

Sketches: John the Beatnik Poet

So here's another interactive sketch from the interesting life of a little grey and very rectangle man. This one utilized picking up strings from a website. I had chosen "Leaves of Grass" by Walt Whitman from gutenberg.org because the example (which this program evolved from) from Schiffman's "Learning Processing" used this site and also the code on the site is very easy to read and work with.

John has in his quest for love become a beatnik poet. Why? Because chicks dig it, man!
So go and help John make poems here.

In development: The date

This is second game that I'm working on this semester next to the Octave project. This game is part of a course called Persuasive and Serious Games and therefore must contain some sort of purpose outside the game itself.

The game is called The Date and is about creating awareness around OCD. As it is a disorder that manifests itself in actions, it lends itself well to videogames, as games are mostly about actions.
The premise is: You play as Mark, a little guy just going about his daily business, but as the game progresses you start to do more and more compulsive behavior and in the end the OCD takes over your life.
The most important point to make here is that the player is not told that his character has OCD, but instead it is something the player gradually "gives" his character.

During a game (any game not just this one), so many compulsive actions are being made, and why? Because often we are rewarded with scores which just makes us feel good. They might not contribute to anything but yet we always have an urge to max out the score. This notion is what we build this game on as the player will automatically have an urge to seek out high scores and through that will contribute to his character's OCD. That way we are trying to create a bridge between the character's OCD and the player's compulsive in-game behaviour in an attempt to make an effective game about OCD.

In this project I'm working with three other people and I play the role of designer/writer and artist. This is actually the first game where I am not 100% in charge of art but rather just dealing with the character(s) and GUI, which is really nice. Also it's a new experience trying to blend two artists' styles together, but I think we have managed quite well.

Here's the token one graphic per blogpost, an animated GIF of the walking cycle I did for the main character.

Sketches: John the Speeddater

Holy moly, I can program! That's right, I took a programming course in Processing this semester and as a result have created a number of small interactive sketches, some might call them games, others might just call them waste of time.
Regardless, I feel pretty proud of them despite the fact that some of them are pretty buggy, like the one I present to you below.

Without any ado, here is the very first substantial sketch I made, called John the Speeddater.