Homework 20

The main character is the one completing the goal, for all the sense that makes. He's trying to retrieve the bear that belongs to his sister.

The main character must go through several mansions in order to reach the final mansion, which contains Anna's bear. Inside each mansion are various tasks to complete, for example killing monsters, finding switches, mazes, and many more. After some sort of boss fight at the end of each mansion, the player is able to move on to the next mansion.

The obstacles do increase in difficulty. The number and strength of the enemies will increase as well as the challenges presented. For example, the player may have to navigate through a small maze in the second mansion, but by the tenth would have a very difficult maze mixed with other elements such as switches or enemy annihilation.

I feel that the main way our protagonist would transform would be to become closer to his sister Anna. He'll become stronger and better able to fend off the enemies and will walk away with knowledge of the teddy bear trafficking world, but other than that...

For one, the character doesn't really get tired. After a certain amount of time he won't run anymore, but that's the only thing. You also don't need to sleep. XD I don't think the gun recoils as much as a real gun would...can't remember at the moment. No food needs to be eaten.

I don't think our character ever gets that kind of power. I mean, the ultimate, last weapon unlocked would surely be powerful, but that would be available towards the end or at the end of the game where it wouldn't be quite as important except for against the final boss.

I guess the weirdest element is that the game is about Tantalizing Teddies, a teddy bear trafficking ring. And you fight teddy bears. And your main enemy is a teddy bear. >.>

I think our game would be confusing, weird, and just plain strange without a story. I mean, it would be shooting teddy bears in a haunted mansion without the story.

The game forces the player to go through the house pretty much completely. You can't do anything without completing certain things like getting through the mazes or finding switches.

Goals interface is pretty much what I stated above. You have to complete the mini-goals if you want to reach the ultimate goal. In a way, Anna is a controlling character. You're completing the task for her.

Other things we could do would include making the music change when enemies are close, or you're about to die. Also changing the music when the player gets close to an important goal would incite curiosity and make the player go towards the objective.

Homework 17

Elements of chance...I'm not 100% sure, but I feel like the enemies spawn in random places, not the same place each time. I could be wrong though.
Skills used in the game would be the ability to use the keyboard well, being able to aim at your target and shoot, solve puzzles and get through mazes...none of which seem to have any relationship to probability and/or chance.

Well, enemies spawning are out of the player's control. Those babies are gonna come after you whether you like it or not. Other things concerning enemies, such as how many spawn at a time, etc are also out of the player's control. Weapons received when accomplishing something awesome is also out of your control.

Mmm...not that I can tell. At the moment I can't even think of a way that could happen. XD

Let's see if I can word this correctly. He could, in a way. I mean, the computer's skill level is going to increase depending on where the player is in the game. Meaning, the farther along the player is, the more difficult the computer's level. So theoretically one could estimate the computer's skill based on that fact. Also, how menacing a boss looks tends to be a pretty good indication, along with long, melodramatic monologues.

With my horrible close-to-midnight math skills, I'll guess that there's about a 1.92% chance of drawing both a King of Diamonds and an Ace of Spades from two shuffled decks. Assuming the Jokers were taken out.

And for some reason this math problem is blowing my mind. o.o;

Homework 16

Guh. Rules. I really wanna just copy and paste from another homework. XD And it trips me up every time!! Let's see...you go through the mansion fulfilling certain goals in order to progress to the next mansion. This becomes a vicious cycle until we're merciful enough to let you get to the final house and save Anna's bear. You have to do this by completing goals...you can't fly and you can't cheat. >.> You can't challenge the zombie bears to a game of chess.

The ultimate goal is definitely saving Anna's bear. It is certainly achievable, it'll just take mad skills. Or something. But yeah, definitely attainable.

I'd like to think the goals are rewarding. Normally getting through a difficult boss is enough for me. Especially in Kingdom Hearts. If I'm having problems with a boss and I finally beat him, I'm pretty much jumping for joy! I mean, in addition there'd be some sort of reward, such as a power-up or new weapon.

Eight kinds of rules. Operational...we have those, lol. That's the whole you can't fly through this level and challenge the zombie bears to chess. Functional...I must say I'm a little confused on what these are. Maybe...something to do with the gun...I have no idea. As far as behavioral rules go, I'm sure there are a lot of them, but I'm guessing they'd be pretty outrageous. The first thing that comes to mind is that you can't teleport or walk through walls, but those could be functional as well. Let's see...how about after you lose a boss fight, you can't walk up and sucker punch them? Also, I feel like written rules are the same as the operational rules, just shoved into a book that hardly anyone reads. XD I doubt we'd have any laws, because I can't imagine this game being played super competitively. I guess we could have house rules though, if those are comparable to basically changing the controls.

If I understand the question correctly, then yes. Within each mansion, there are a certain set of goals that must be completed before progressing to the next mansion. Each of these mansions must be completed before reaching the ultimate goal. So yes, they are related to each other. I feel like they help the story progress in a reasonable manner. If you were just given one goal and the whole game was to complete that goal without having to do anything else...I feel like that would be awkward.

Mmm, I don't think our game is the type that you could control your own goals. In my head, I equate it to Mario, just with different characters. Technically, you could just go on a zombie bear killing spree, but you wouldn't get far in the game. So the goals are pretty much laid out for you.

Forms of balance our game includes. As you progress farther in the house, you run into more enemies, thus making the game harder. Eventually you are able to upgrade your gun, which would make the game a bit easier, but then you start running into more zombies and the game becomes harder again. And this makes the game balanced.

Operative actions: most basic would be moving forward, backward, left, and right. I think you can also strafe left and right, and you can definitely jump. There is also shoot. Less basic would be picking up objects, such as health and guns. Also interacting with objects such as the flicking of a light switch and the opening of a door. 


Resultant actions: still thinking throwing stuff would be cool. XD Maybe make a gun that does that? 


Real skills developed: finger dexterity, because that's essential in any game in my opinion. Also problem-solving and memorization...and getting a feel for what it would take to survive around zombie bears? It's good practice for the apocalypse...Virtual skills would be things such as...being able to shoot the zombie bears, learning how to move in the game (because for me the keyboard is a bit difficult to use), umm...drawing a blank.


And I feel like I just talked about balance four or five questions ago. XD

Homework 15~ Mostly

Okay. Right now this isn't going to be illustrated. XD

My role in this game is doing artwork/concept art. It's a little difficult because I'm actually a horrible artist, as in I can't draw with my hands. Well, everyone can, but I just suck. Horribly. So most of my concept art is deemed either useless, not detailed enough...or just horrible. Mostly by me.

I've done the concepts for Anna, which I deemed important because she isn't appearing in the part of the game we're creating but is an essential character. Therefore we have a concept I drew of her and also one that my far more talented bestie drew up for me. Unfortunately, my printer isn't working so I can't print it out to color it, and I keep forgetting to send it to Brandon dang it all. D:< I did a concept for the main enemy, but we ended up finding a far more terrifying texture and using that for the enemies. I also have not been able to color that concept. I hate coloring originals. Let's see...I've done a few lamp designs, only one of which I think is actually kind of cool. I also came up with the concept for the outside of the mansion, which is the first thing I drew up. I have a colored version that hasn't been scanned in because my printer/scanner hates everything. >.< Pretty sure I have other concepts that I just can't think of right now.

I am also the primary person in charge of the poster. I've come up with a draft and hope to get started once I receive measurements for the poster. Brandon is in charge of coming up with the words for the poster, but otherwise it's all me. I'm pretty darn excited about the poster. Like I said, it's almost completely planned out, just about down to the types of images that are going to be used and page layout. All I need are measurements, the actual images, and text.

Blender contribution...well, I will admit that mine is little to none. Closer to none. I have almost no patience, and this program certainly requires time and patience. I don't want to say that I'm under the learning curve, but I will admit that I don't learn well from tutorials and by experimenting. I would just need more time to learn the program than most people, I suppose. It's not really akin to Photoshop or Illustrator, which I'm used to working in.

By the way, if you guys enjoy being around Asians/maids/butlers/random girls in lolita, join AASU for the Halloween Social this Friday at 8:00pm in the Globe. It's on Facebook. Just saying.

Homework 14~

All right. Homework time. 


Let's see...I'd say the human characters model the real world pretty well. I mean, the game starts at a garage sale, a common event in reality. You are traveling through a house which is pretty true to a real house as far as proportions go. It's a bit small right now though lol. The guns are...kinda real. The one we have now looks pretty realistic, at least. 


So, my thoughts on the challenge versus skill graph. The player starts off facing simple enemies that are relatively easy to kill as a sort of training round. You've got a simple gun that isn't super powered, but you can take the enemies out easily. As you progress farther into the mansion, there are more enemies, making them harder to kill. At different points throughout the house or at the end of the house, you receive a new, more powerful gun. The process then continues at the next mansion, but the times between getting new weapons sometimes increases or decreases. 


Our game probably lies in the level with almost primal instincts. Survival. You aren't searching for food or anything, lol. You're also not trying to perfect your painting skills. You're trying to stay alive. I guess in a way it fits in with acceptance because you're pretty much doing this for your sister, but oh well. 


As far as objects go, right now we have guns and enemies. I've drawn up some different lamps, as lighting is probably going to be essential in the bottom floor of the first mansion. We're going to have stationary furniture in the mansion as well to make it look more like a mansion. Some way of restoring health and bullets should also be implemented.

The space in our game is continuous, I think. 3D. You can walk just about anywhere (you can't walk through walls, floors, or ceilings). 


Players are going to see at least most of the data. For example, the player will be able to see their health status, remaining bullets, inventory, etc. I think an interesting thing to do would be to have the number of enemies killed and other random statistics listed in another menu, so it would be visible for those curious but not shown on the HUD. 


Operational actions. If I remember correctly, these are the basic actions in the game? Most basic would be moving forward, backward, left, and right. I think you can also strafe left and right, and you can definitely jump. There is also shoot. Less basic would be picking up objects, such as health and guns. Also interacting with objects such as the flicking of a light switch and the opening of a door. 


Resultant actions are fun. I'm thinking it would be cool to be able to shoot down a door, which, if implemented, could be a resultant action if nothing explicitly says 'shoot this door down.' Having more interactive objects would lead to more resultant actions, such as being able to throw the furniture in the room. For example, if you could throw the lamp, you could kill enemies by it.


I think I just listed verbs. XD Let's see, walking, running, shooting, strafing, picking up, maybe throwing, interacting, flicking, opening...er...dying...killing...emerging from your battles victorious...saving...winning...and I'm running out of ideas. ^^;


The all-important RULES! I'm horrible at describing any sort of rules. So you're in the mansions. You can't walk through walls. Your goal is to get to the top, preferably without dying. You have to kill the enemies and fulfill a task in order to progress to the next floor of the mansion. You will have chances to resupply your gun and health. Once you reach the top...I propose we have a boss battle or something and then move on to the next mansion, which will be harder than the one you just left. I feel like this isn't enough elaboration on the rules. XD

Homework 13

Well, the game is pretty much being developed as we go along. The most we're really prototyping is attempting to come up with decent concept art. 

I suppose a lot of things could go wrong. XD There could be some programming errors, as in we can't figure out how to make the character pick something up, or some similar malfunction. We could attempt to model something and it just ends up looking like crap!

I'm pretty sure men and women will not like our game equally. Most women do not like shooting teddy bears. The most feminine aspect of our game at the moment is the concept of Anna. She's friggin' adorable. Making the game more appealing to women would be a terrible ordeal, unless they are women of a different caliber, in which case adding a "dress-up the teddy bear" minigame may work. ^^;

Shooting things is definitely appealing to 15-18 year olds trying to get their hormonal rages in check. XD To make it more appealing to them...add skimpy outfits and boobs. And explosions. Blood and gore. Ages 40-50...skimpy outfits and boobs? Maybe some Pong?

Pleasures...I'd assume it would be pleasurable to destroy/annihilate your enemies. I mean, killing vicious looking bears that consume souls is pretty pleasurable to me. Discovering new weapons, maybe even toss a grenade or two in the mix.

I feel that iteration is probably a problem for us. XD There's a level of awkwardness our group experiences when conversing simply because of the huge gap in Blender skill. My primary focus is art (even though I suck at drawing) and as of now I'm concentrating on the poster. I have some ideas that I've been sketching out and I'm pretty excited about making it. I LOVE MAKING POSTERS. I'm not sure how my ideas are going to come together yet, but I can tell you I'm excited. :Db I try not to take on Blender things for the game just because I know I won't be able to deliver.

Changes to the game...Right now we have no way of figuring out how much health you have, or recovering your bullets. So that definitely needs to change. Progression through the house may change as well.

Currently the game plan is to work out some of the mechanics of the game, like, as previously stated, recovering health and bullets, tracking health, tracking objectives...right now those things aren't really working, partially because they aren't there. The player doesn't have a set goal at the moment, and that certainly isn't working.

I think the player will enjoy shooting unconventional enemies. I mean, these are vicious teddy bears, not humans or evil birds or something. The combination of shooting things and solving puzzles seems to be pretty popular, as shown by games such as Dead Space, etc. They may not like our initial thoughts on handling health; we were considering making the screen steadily turn red as you begin to die. While it's not something done often, it can also make it hard to see your enemies and thus you'll die and then ::ragequit::. I obviously expect players to keep playing, but hopefully will do so repeatedly, as in find the game worth going back and replaying multiple times.

Er...

I decided that I'd share the fact that I spent the weekend in New York City. My friend and I went to see VAMPS and X JAPAN in concert. This is why I've been kinda...slacking...and being made of fail. 

In order to make it up to everyone, I'll post this video I took of X JAPAN singing 'Kurenai.' <3 

I apologize for the horrible quality; I was standing right underneath an air conditioner that was going full blast. ;-;

I also have no idea how Google Docs works. XD