Week 5

This week has been about brainstorming new ideas for games because we dont want to stick to just one game idea so early in the game. The team was brain storming some more on the idea of the shapeshifting objects but nothing relevant has been decided.
Justin also had ideas to make a relaxation game we look at examples such as Flower a game where the player controls the petals of flowers as they fly through the wind and leads them from flower to flower.
Pretty sweet idea and very unique but alas we could not come out with a solid design or idea to go forth with such an idea.

So far this week i have been doing research for possible weapons for the MOBA game as well as the turn based strategy game which has come back into the picture as another possible game idea.

Back to the MOBA game in a moment of revelation while researching i came across the idea that the game should be set in space, that would take the weight of some animations such as walking; it would allow us to not spend a huge amount of time on the environment as well, we could have an asteroid field as the battle zone and ships as ammo and energy depots as well as some barrels and crates spread around to populate the map, this would also add another level of interactivity to the game as players could attack from above and below. I have not discussed this idea with the team yet but i am hoping them as well as the class will give me some useful pointers to nail this art style down.

Week 4

Another week goes by as we move along the semester. It is now week 4 and we have seen some radical changes to our game idea. The first of which and probably most important of all is Dragon Song. 

I spent a good chunk of time this week researching art styles that would be successful. In class we had discussed how it would be better if the game was 2D instead of 3D because it would be more in scope. So i started doing some research. I came up with a couple of ideas such as a 2D platformer in which the heroine needs to explore the environment by jumping around from spot to spot.

Another art style and probably my favorite was to set the heroine in a dark world Limbo style, color code pieces of the environment that could be used as interactive objects to make music and make the heroine white as she represents hope. Once she started unlocking different parts of the song, color would start coming back to her world  to represent happiness but the color would be washed out and kinda faded because her world would never be the same after dragons ravaged her village.

Sadly after talking it out and assessing the risks we decided that it not viable for the team to go on with this idea since the gameplay is so focused around sounds. Sound presents a problem because there are very few if any sound engineers at champlain and while members of our team are taking sound design classes they are not experienced enough to make the best out of their abilities to make a game in which we need not only music but good quality and engaging sounds. 

The verdict, Dragon Song has ben scrapped form our idea books and we have moved on to new ideas and improving old ones. 

There was talk about a shapeshifting game in which the player would have a certain shape and would use different shape shifts to put it through a hole. Personally i don't know how i feel about this game, i feel like i wouldn't be challenged as an artist as much as our other game ideas. which leads me to my next point.

This week i concentrated more on research than sketches. I really like shows such as Gundam Seed, 00, etc. My favorite childhood mech show has always been Neon Genesis Evangelion, but there are many more such as the red baron and more contemporary ones such as Gurren Lagann. The stories as well as the animations were a huge draw for me but more than anything i like the characters and the robot designs. 

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfxjdfGo4p5GmEmNLitXoWd8e9BMhk4hvtdmCm90PPHbKkkx3PnDfB4_AjdBmB50aw1iKAqSZG5i7-kNBwRPcVRrJzy5F0xvGThysVZvZk3MfN5OFKvMw3KW-JAay3kBUX_ce7Grml3c0d/s1600/gundam00+robots.jpg

http://wiki.evageeks.org/images/a/a4/Eva2-0_evas01-00-02-03.jpg

So for the MOBA Mech ( Wow we really need a name for this thing...) game i am drawing inspiration from these shows. This week i researched different locales in which the game could take place i looked at some of the most futuristic cities in the world right now such as Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Dubai. As well as some other cities that i believe could work for the setting such as Buenos Aires, Argentina; Bogota, Colombia; Medellin, Colombia; and Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. When i was thinking about cities i thought to myself who has ever used Bogota, Medellin, or Buenos Aires as game settings? these are all cities with amazing architectural designs, skyscrapers and a booming population what better location to have an all out robot war? 

That was it for my research this week more to come on the MOBA Mech (like a name hopefully) and other ideas next week. 

Week 3

This week we discussed some details about the MOBA mech game. We presented to the class a simple interface of how the mech could be customized and how each different part would affect the gameplay. This was well received but the question remained of how it was going to play? to this end Ryan made a paper prototype which involved rolling dice at the beginning of each turn to see who would go first.  This person would then move their "mech" which was customized in the areas of health, ballistic and energy resistance, mobility, and tonnage with the latter determining how many weapons each mech could equip (up to a total of 4) depending on the weight assigned to it. Each player would then get a turn and the objective was to get 5 kills. The game was very successful in my opinion although it does need some refining it was most definitely an enjoyable experience and i cant wait to go forth an make it into an actual virtual game.

We also discussed the issue of dragon song being a open world sandbox style game and it was decided that it would be a 2d game. Now how we are going to represent this 2d style remains to be seen we have some cool ideas but some research will be necessary. As for art this week i concentrated on some art for dragon song, i sketched some ideas for the main heroine as well as other iterations for the logo and some other concepts, in the end i presented a mood shot to the class:

I am starting to get more and more excited as to where this projects are heading as the ideas flow and we refine our concepts further.

Week 2 Work

Capstone- Week 2

This week i did a lot of research of mechs, vehicles and machinery to get some ideas as to what artistic direction i want to take the Mech MOBA idea in. I came up with some good designs and studies, which we presented in class on Wednesday.
The concept art work i presented was received well by my team and class members. I am now doing more research on machinery and mechanic things to get a better feel of what could be inside these giant mechs. I have also started research for our other game idea Dragon Song.

Week 1

This week marked the beginning of the end. I have now started my last year of college and the prospect of the real world is dawning on me. For our senior Capstone project a team of 4 including myself is tasked to create a game, we can take it in any direction we want and it can be about anything, anything at all.

My team consists of a couple of classmates that went to Montreal last semester, Jacob Mott, Justin Ryder and another class member whom i have worked with in class before, Ryan Hill.

Right now the group is discussing roles and ideas that we will flesh out in order to keep going through the stages presented in class.