Thursday 27 October 2011

enviro updates

developing a couple of level designs - new concept to section the level with zone boundries, seperating easy, med, hard & boss sections with 'force feild' - moving to next zone when current is clear...


Tuesday 25 October 2011

Project Drawing List_wip

Not in any specific order:
  • Title screen - Logo(s) Cover Art
  • Main Menu - interactive button design & animations...
  • Game overview instructional illustrations? all aspects of ineraction (ref cut the rope)
  • GamePlay interface
  • Control menu (d pad & tilt options)
  • Difficulty menu 
  • Level intro - master plan of main game, indicating levels (ref ghost'n' goblins) animate pan through level, by level zooming out from end level back to 1st/current...
  • approx 3 level mock ups (gameplay area/background etc)
  • Bubbles - variations/popping animations
  • Power ups - effects of power ups...
  • interactive elements & obstacles
  • ...

Mathmatical shapes_ref sheet

For the game environments I am looking into mathmatical shape formations for the fixed game play area, these will form a boundry between the Game play area and the background art - thumb sketches to follow...

Monday 24 October 2011

Mood Board 1

Heres a collection of images including references from pang variations, bubble references & some energy effects to represent the look I am going for...

Cut Scene sk story board & enviro sk notes


Game character concept sheet



Apple IOS game concept

I have been thinking of a game idea (remake) for the last few months and think this project is a good opportunity to develop it!

The project is based on the Arcade classic 'Pang' a personal favourite of my youth, very playable, addictive and simple fun...

My original twist is to create a 3D version with my own original characters, environments and back story. I have been working on a series of 'Bot' characters with the main one a typical box shape as per 'wall-e', 'Jonny 5' etc.  Some of the reference styles and inspirations are:

 - angry birds - cut the rope - sprinkle - frogger - pang - tetris - bionic comando - arkanoid - jet pac - battleships - tower defense - space invaders - Contre Jour - spy mouse - star wars arcade - rogue sky - ghosts'n'goblins - Dust: An Elysian Tail


The back story (wip) would be that the 'bubbles' are actually a power source which have escaped from a reactor and need to be broken down and collected/harvested, with the largest size broken down several times before forming a collectible substance, all against the clock before the power bubbles become unstable and explode, as per the original the bubble movement will speed up as the sizes reduce.  Taking the element from the original game of some bubbles containing power ups such as: time freeze, laser, invincibility, double weapon etc.


Re: the I-phone/pad aspect  I personally do not get on well with games using the tilt control system such as 'mokey ball' and 'wolfensten'  but I can imagine that some people would like the novelty factor, this in mind I would create a control menu where people can choose the control method.  I would however utilise the touch screen aspect and include some tapping & dragging aspects.

Project 1_board game

Nuca Year 1_Board game project
Project 1_Board Game (reverse order development)
Wk 3:

time -



Character update:



Board nearly finished_ last few content icons to go on when ready...



board revision & logo development




Wk 2:



Heres some development on the character concepts:



Monday 10/10/11

After a morning workshop we have discussed putting together our work for a 'pitch' session tomorrow...

I have developed the board based on Jake's grid template:



Character update:





Friday 7th Oct 11_rough notes for content drawing list & Line work tighten up:


Content (1st draft BMJ_7 10 11)_not in any specific order:
  • Board: 1- BG artwork 2 - Map (Luke is already nailing the grid, we can use the file to overlay on the BG artwork)
  • Cards (6+ vatiations): 1- Species x 4 ( pick just 1 each as there are more than 4 of us!) 2- Ships ( 1 set per species - 1No Mother Ship - 3 No Freighters - 5No Fighters (@ this stage?)) 3- Planets if every one can do a planet or 2 each? 4- space stations X? 5- Power Ups (re-using other content artwork) 6- Hazards??
  • Tokens: ?Player avatars - Just printed/mounted artwork on card NB: assembling design to be agreed...
  • Box & Logo: Main Logo (name?) Graphic layout (symbols etc) / style To match card back and instruction manual.
Anything else anyone? Great week though everyone is getting involved and your sketchs have all looked solid - Peace





(soundtrack http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3CVL9nH3FA&feature=autoplay&list=FLPwlEXlaBkV7bulGTkLlJfg&lf=plpp&playnext=1 )

2 updates of Character development & Sk Sheet import from Sketch Book:




1st Character development_reptile/humanoid species wip 1...




After an update we reviewed the game direction which was dissected in the workshop on Tuesday - amazingly one of our team had costructed a solution overnite which we (8 out of 9 of the group!) developed over the day.

Rules were pencilled out which will be on another blog... here is some early play testing:








Initial board mock up




Rule note: every player has to navigate the 1st ring fully once before progressing?

Day 2

Several key aspects of the game were discussed such as using a spinner for the movement, having 8 possible outcomes (4 moving forward, 2 moving back & 2 for each of the card types) it was also discussed that we would have 2 card types (locations and events) to be used either when landing on the spinner or the collaborating board positions...

We agreed that the board would be A2 for a 'big' play area, divided into quarters to create the tart and end points for each player. Many variations of game play details were discussed and it was agreed that we would develop these during our play testing session on Wednesday before assigning roles for the group.

Here are some sketch notes from the day, will prepare an option for the board for tomorrows play test:



Day 1

Mood boards 1&2 for referencing the space scene, detailing planets, space stations, stars & space clouds...

There was talk of a retro feel so I also referenced Dan Dare and the movie 'Black hole'





Team C! After meeting our new team we discussed our board/bored game experiences, we each talked about aspects of board games we liked & disliked and attempted to generate a direction.

We pitched a few loose concepts between the group including a 4 player tower defense concept, a Bored game pitch where the challenge was to avoid boring life experiences and reach 'excitement? and 'Black Hole' which would be a 4 player sci-fi elaboration of snakes and ladders where the players have to avoid being drawn into the black hole & escape to their destination avoiding worm holes and gaining power ups etc...



Initial reference sheet for general/popular board games: