Mini Game III

Mini Game III

For this mini game we were to create a game that focuses on either cooperative or competitive game play. The catch for this game is that the all the artists and programmers were split up and put into groups. So what i mean is groups only consisted of only artists or only programmers, no mix up. 

I was placed in artist group seeing as that I am stronger in art than I am programming. My group consisted of two others:

- Josh Garcia

- James Pratt

Who are also good artists.

Process:

Our first meeting consisted of us meeting up right after we were assigned the mini game. We decided that we wanted to create a game the focused on cooperative game play. We fleshed out some ideas of what makes a good cooperative game and what kind of mechanics we could use to make a successful cooperative game. We first fleshed out a game that required 2 players that have to make to the end of a level. However, each player a has a certain ability to help them overcome certain obstacles in their path. In which case one player cannot finish the level without the other because one challenge cannot be complete with the ability type the player is using. 

So then we came up with having a rock and a wind sprite and we started to base challenge we could throw at each character making it so that both players have to work together to overcome. However, seeing as that we didn't have a strong coder in the group we wanted to keep the coding difficulty down so we didn't run into major problems and time crunches.

Our second meeting brought us in a new direction. The problem that we had with our previous idea was that it would involve to adept coding for us and we wouldn't have made a playable game in the time frame that we had. So then, James, came up with an idea of a party game where you have to do specific actions almost kind of like a Heads Up game. So we elaborated more and came with an idea that we would change to competitive game where the whole class would be put into our game and then the game would randomly pick two names and they would have to go head to head.  Then on the screen prompts would show up telling the students what to do. For example, rap for 30 secs. The way we would the winner would be determined is by mob rules. So whoever gets the loudest cheer afterwards wins and gets a point. The students would sit down and then the next names would be chosen and the next prompt would posted.

We really liked this idea and we ran with it because it seemed like a lot of fun and we thought it was quite novel. 

Our third meeting I was not apart of due to pulling an all nighter. So Josh and James went ahead with trying to program and get the art done for the game while recuperated and got ready for the next to help.

The next morning I was informed that they had changed the idea completely from the party game that we had. The reason why it was changed was due to the fact it was just too hard to program. 

So they ran by the idea they had came up with during our fourth meeting. They had an idea where you were magnets and you had to use your polarities to move about to the level to reach the end. I thought this was a great and novel idea. So we ran with this because we literally had one more day to finish the game. So James took the role of being our main programmer. Josh did the background art and some minor programming. And my role was to create a level and do some minor programming as well (which was not implemented due bugs). 

So we finally made ends meet and had a playable prototype which we thought was good enough to play and get across our cooperative game play using polarity.  

                            

Postmortem:

Our game was not perfect by any sort of means due to lack of the programming knowledge and time that we had to create this game. Some things that we need to fix for this game are :

- player movement and physics

- polarity toggle

- platform distancing 

- catching and throwing mechanics 

- interaction with the environment

- 3D?

These are the key things that I think need to be fixed on this game. I believe us as a team could program this no problem given a little bit more time to create a fun, polished game. If we focus on these things and get them firing on all cylinders i think we could have a really great game.

Although there is a lot to be fixed and modified in this game. I like this game better then all the other game I have created in this class so far. The reason being is for these things:

- Game mechanic (polarity)

- Theme

- Level Design

I believe we had one of the more novel mechanics in our game than the other games that were presented. I thought that the polarity idea was very creative and could be taken to a whole new level. however we were not able to showcase the mechanic fully and to the caliber that I wanted. I also thought the theme of two magnets was a very novel idea as well. I have seen elements and and stuff interact with each other a bunch of times. But I cannot recall a game that uses two magnets while using the the physics of toggling polarity to reach the end of a level. And if we could make it 3D and be able to use polarity to manipulate objects and move around the map i think it would be such a fun a game. I feel like even though we didn't make an amazing prototype I think that this mechanic and idea could be brought so much further and feel like we could do do that as group. But we did our best and that is all I could hope for in a group. And a HUGE shout out to James Pratt for grabbing the bull by the horns and taking on the role of being the main programmer. He did a great job. I would love to work with this group again.

Mini Game II

For this mini game we were tasked with creating a game that followed the rules of emergent game play. To create this emergence we had to figure out in abstract way to use shape  and colour to emerge our players.

We were assigned groups. I was partnered up with:

- Nicolas Phan 

- Oliver Tretrop

- Connor Gilhuly

My role on the group was team management, art assets, and some coding so that it was not left on just one person.

Process:

Our group started off by setting up meetings for when we were going to work on our game. Our first meeting was the Friday that we got the assignment. We met up and fleshed out some ideas of what we wanted to do. Nic, came up with an idea of being able to bend the elements. This included Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water. We all liked this idea and started mind mapping and problem solving to figure out we were going to make that a game. We then decided to use the the ring out mechanic that Super Smash Bros. uses. So then that sparked the idea to create a 2 player fighting game where the players would be able to manipulate the elements to try and knock the opposing player out of the ring. As a group we knew that time was a factor due the excessive amount of assignments that we had to do the following week so we decided that we only use two elements rather than all four. We chose to use Earth and Fire seeing as that we came up with more abilities for those elements than the others. 

Our second meeting consisted of us actually making the game and designing the level. We also had to figure out how we were going to program the abilities. Nic, was our main programmer so we ran all the ideas by him to make sure that the coding was due-able in the time frame that we had. 

Through more discussing we decided that we would have the player toggle between earth and fire. earth would be the more defensive side of things and fire would be the more offensive. 

For the abilities we wanted the earth toggle to have earth walls that spawned from the ground to protect the player. We figure out that we could raycast to spawn the wall in front of the player. And for the fire toggle we wanted to have projectiles to fire at the opponent.

From there we discussed that rather than dealing damage to the player that the projectile would just push the enemy player back using the weight of the projectile. This then sparked the idea of trying to make the wall more "offensive" rather than just having a wall spawn. So we decided that we were going to make the walls and the projectiles interact-able. So we came up with the idea that the projectile could push the wall around the map to act ass a large moving barrier that could possibly knock the player off the map and kill them.

We then discussed on what the map was going to look like. As a group we decided that we wanted to keep the map simple due to the fact that we were creating a prototype. So we had one main platform and then two smaller platforms floating above it to give the map more depth and to give the players areas to move around to dodge enemy attacks.

The programming started and Nic led this section of creating the game due to him being skilled at programming. And also due to the fact that having two programmers was a bit over kill he said. However we did write up bits of code for him to implement. I did some art for the game including sprites for the character and a background to make it look nice to make more emergent.

While  I did the art (that was never implemented) Nic added a few abilities including flamethrower and fire bomb. He then changed the projectile to be a rock toggle so that it could interact with the walls that the players would spawn.

With the flamethrower implemented into the game we thought it would be as cool to make it like a jet so that players would be able to move and "fly" in sense around the map to give our game some more depth and novelty. We wanted the abilities to have cool effects such as particle effects. So for the fire bomb we wanted it to explode. So Nic found a cool way to make the bomb explode into many squares. He also made a stream of squares to emphasise the flamethrower. We thought this made our game much more immersive than before and noting having any sort of effects on the abilities.  

By this time we were just about finished our prototype but the only thing that was missing was sound effects. So we went on free sound effects and found some cool effects that we put on the abilities to give it a bit more juice and add more emergence to our game.

Postmortem:  

It think with some more work this game could be very fun and playable as party type of game like Smash Bros. I think the things that went well were:

- player abilities
- theme of the game
- mechanics

I thought the player abilities were a lot of fun and novel. The flamethrower brought a new element to the game, which was flying. I also think that having the ability effects made the game more immersive and really grabbed the player who played our game.

Some things that  think we could have done better are:

- boundaries
- abilities
- flying

I think that we need to add boundaries to the game so that the players are not flying around aimlessly because i think it breaks the immersion of the game. The players that played our game lost the concept of our game quickly because once you fell off the map started to fly with no boundaries it became somewhat of new game. Which is interesting but not what I wanted. One way we could go with it is making a flying game where players use jets and abilities to destroy the enemy rather than having it in a Smash Bros. style.

I think the rock abilities should be polished a lot more. I found and saw that  the players enjoyed the fire abilities and used them a lot more than the rock ones. I think if we were to add some effects and made them more useful that each toggle would be more evenly used and would immerse the player more.

The flying should also be polished as well. I think the flamethrower should have a cooldown. Reason being is that if there is no limit to the flamethrower its going to be over used and no other abilities will be utilised. Adding a cooldown timer to the flamethrower, I think, would immerse player more. Due the fact that players would have to strategically use it and other abilities to knock off the players rather than just spamming one ability.

I really enjoyed my group. They were always on time for meetings and were always willing to work and put forth effort all the time. A big shout out to Nicolas Phan for being our main programmer. He did some crazy stuff andmade our game very immersive and fun with all the cool techniques he used.