An overall work account

For Advanced Games Development my main focus was production and lead designer. Though this was somewhat of a new challenge from previous modules, I felt I adapted quickly to the module as a whole and below are additional accounts of the work created by myself as a producer and lead role for the project: Royal Rampage.

The initial outline of the project was created (see earlier blog posts) for Unreal Engine 4 and quickly changed to the Unity Engine at the behest of our only programmer to ease workflow on his part.

Continuing on from previous posts, many iterations of work were continuations from previous weeks. As such, weekly meetings were maintained every wednesday 11:00 - 12:00 to assess our weekly progress.

Each Wednesday we would review a new build of the game (Organized with our programmer - james-) we kept an archive of revisions/builds as a form of version control (See below)

During the meetings I would assembly the team together to discuss additional updates and a brief description of what will be needed for our next weekly progress meeting. As such, Level Designs, Art assets/textures and animations were all discussed and given a (loose) deadline to allow implementation for the next build update.

Additionally I would individually talk to each member of the team to see how their assigned task was progressing, I've previously mentioned the tracking of tasks via trello, but I  make sure that each team member has updated their progress on trello to and uploaded their work to the assigned folder on our server (google drive) 

Google Drive Source Folder

Trello For Team Members Assigned Tasks

With the simple assigned tasks and easily visible lists for team members via trello, and small project schedule was created via Microsoft Project To keep tabs on milestones and set deadlines. This was not maintained as actively due to the work load being relatively lax for each member and the weekly meetings being informative enough for the team to know their tasks for the next weekly progress review:

Microsoft Project Schedule

Creating the schedule was some what time consuming, mainly due to inputting every single task for each member, assigning time taken and factoring in other existing modules to combat deadlines and milestones. The image above is just a short snippet of the schedule, each task section on the left has multiple drop down menus detailing additional tasks that are likely to be completed by a set member of the team.

Level Design was a small area to be working on as my main role of lead, however, It was still a pivotal role and learning a new piece of software proved challenging during the stage of other modules and learning project management from scratch. 

The level was created from a simple whitebox as previously showcased, a few work in progress images will showcase how the level was built up: 

Initial Whitebox mockup and reference

Whitebox in Unity Engine with assets from team (Placeholder)

After creating the whitebox, the rest of the level was simple implementation of prefabs created by the art team. To achieve a small variety, many objects were rotated, duplicated and scattered throughout the level to create disparity and add a small level of narrative/immersion into the sections.

Scripted events were another key area of each level. Keeping constant communication with the programmer and the other designer meant work for the scripted events and enemies would need to be implemented at some point. I let the other designer have a free reign on his own level for easement purposes, as such, my scripted events were simple enough for a "tutorial" level - Keeping the standardized dungeon crawler theme in mind, chest opening and timer based enemy kills were a simple yet effective event to be implemented.

Additionally, to help the programmer with level flow and pacing, A simple mock up was created for enemy locations and events: 

Top Down View of the level in engine

Top Down View of the level in engine with legend

The UI element of the game was to be kept minimal for the most part, though this was created by Cory, I had the design input and created a mock up for him to add GUI visual elements. A simple mock up and in game screenshot were created in conjunction with our regular meetings:

initial GUI element mock up

From the initial setup, the GUI had changed drastically, designing a simple talent tree system, inventory, bag slot and ability systems was difficult to achieve with a small time from and this style of game. As such, the final design received many transformations from the mock up for the easement of the artists and the simplicity factor for players.

Final In Game Render

Though the work load may seem sparse from a leads perspective, a lot of management and organization went into the project. The weekly meetings were extremely helpful and most of the work/note were paper based and reminders of communication between different team members. Due to the teams extraordinary capabilities and understanding of their respective field, they were able to complete each task assigned to them in these meetings without much additional input from myself.

Due to the small team size and product style, the game was designed with that in mind, ease of use, and small scope - As many of our team members are well skilled, additional modules were a huge factor, as well as ExpoTees which nearly all of our team were admitted in to, others received jobs before the module ended which drastically changed the final outcome of the project. Whilst we were keeping the scope small in comparison to other teams, having only 1 programmer and 1 animator meant that the game would suffer from a design point of view regardless of how skilled our team was as a group and individually.

A large focus of the work load was simple documentation and tasks allocation, as well as bug reporting and small tweaks to the weekly builds. I created a bug template for use by the team when testing the game, though due to huge time constraints we did not have time to fully test the game and fix these issues:

Bug Testing Template

Completed Bug Template

Advanced Games Dev (AGD) Week #5

It's been a crazy couple of weeks with a mini crunch period from our AGD team. Firstly, the team have been on point in churning out assets, animations, programming and design elements. As such I'll update on what's been finished and what needs work from the last few weeks:

Controls

As the lead designer, I had originally decided to implement the combat system as our unique selling point, as such I designed a different method of combat from traditional dungeon crawler games. Whilst the game is simplistic in most forms, the combat can add a bit of variety in the combo system. This system works in alternating mouse clicks that will perform certain attacks, and clicking in a certain order will generate a combo dealing a unique move set:




As demonstrated with this simple image showcasing some of the combo styles that we want implemented for our demo test hand in (21st November). Initially I only created a few simple combos that will be used regularly, but as the game progresses and the player levels up, they will unlock new abilities and combos they can utilize. As such, I've only developed these select few due to animation and deadline constraints.


User Interface 

Another one of my tasks is to be the primary designer of the in game Heads Up Display (HUD) and User Interface (UI). I needed to produce a small mock up design for our programmer to map certain features, such as the inventory looting system, the kill streak system and so on. As such, the design is quite rudimentary and heavily subject to change, Though I wanted to keep it in line with traditional dungeon crawlers that most players are familiar with. Below is the image of my mock up user interface, it's main aim was to be minimalist during combat, with the option of showcasing additional information if/when needed:

Background image courtesy of TorchLight2™ 

Project Management

Completing this tasks has just been a small amount of what I've been working on. With the added work load of managing the team, I have to constantly delegate and sign off on work that is to be complete. Though the team as a whole work really, I don't need to be strict in setting deadlines or keeping to a stern project plan. We tend to meet weekly during our schedule lessons and talk about any pressing issues. After changing to the Unity engine, myself and Daz Farrell (Designer) have been limited into what we can implement into the game, so I've had to keep in close contact with the animator and programming during the crunch period.

Some issues that have occurred during these time are quite small, Mostly giving direct input on the way the animations are looking, the assets that need to be implemented and completed. Also outsourcing our sound from my Audio Engineer friend - Fraser Sutton - I have to create a list of sound effects and scripts that will be utilized for our game that need to be completed. A small screenshot of some of the sounds that have been created:

Level Design

For the design aspect we've reworked the levels, As such I've decided to create the first level that will serve as a small tutorial level implementing the combo system game play as well as showcasing enemies, a scripted event and a boss for the player to battle against.

Here is an extremely simple white-box showcasing the level flow, the top being the start of the level and leading in a linear path towards the end. I worked together with one of the lead artists (Cory Bamford) to create the initial layout of the level within unity. 

Here's a top down view of the assets created by Cory and implemented into unity, the level is not finalized as most white-boxed levels are, but as such I'm testing the pacing, flow and collision for the level so these are subject to change: 

A different view of the level that I implemented. The assets were extremely modular and snapped together easy, so big credits to the artist (Cory) for creating these and allowing me to create a quick and simple level. 

This level will also feature a scripted event in the way of a loot chest. The chest will house a collectible and loot for the player, but when opened will spawn enemies over a period of 30 seconds and the player must defeat them within 60 seconds, if enough enemies are defeated the player will recieve epic loot to increase their damage and such throughout the rest of the game. 

The boss that is featured in this level will be a rock Golem created by Chris Rumsey - 

The boss is simple in design as we didn't want to overburden our solo animator or programmer, but also wanted the encounter to be fun and fitting in with the motif of the level and genre.

The mechanics of the fight are simple enough, the boss will remain static in the middle of the platform that has 4 pillars located around it. A large boulder will be blocking the way so the player must engage in the encounter. The golem will utilize ranged attacks by throwing large boulders at the enemy, these can be dodged quite easily. The aim of the encounter is to get the boulders thrown by the boss to hit each of the 4 pillars, eventually collapsing the ceiling on the golem. The player will also have to avoid falling stalagmites from the ceiling that are constantly falling to stop the encounter being as simple.  A brief annotation showing the platform for the boss fight.

Whilst we're finalizing everything for our hand in this Friday (21st) we've been creating the Technical Specification. This was mainly down to myself, Cory Bamford and Chris Rumsey to create for the design and art side. We were tasked to create this giving an overview of the game, narrative, mechanics, level design, animation, asset list, assets created and so on. This was quite an extensive tasks to complete and is near 3000 words, but I feel it's allowed us to express what our game is about in a clear and concise manner.

For the remainder of the week we will be finalizing everyone's work, importing all the assets, animations, sounds and so on into the game as well as rendering out a video for our submission.

Advanced Games Dev (AGD) Week # 4

A lot of progress has been made in terms of production for our group for AGD within the last week. After the initial presentations for other AGD groups, we got a look at our progression compared to theirs.

To start the week of, as a producer I've been micro managing the team as a whole and providing any information needed of me, first off was a break down of what we will need for our presentation (December 2nd) and our first demo hand in (November 21st). Initially I began with the animation pipeline, this will be my main concern throughout the AGD module due to the amount of animations we require but only having one animator within our group. To help our animator I have created a breakdown of the animations we need for our first hand in, and what we should be able to achieve by our presentation:

I have put a small amount of animations on the list, due to the short time frame we have and the time it takes for the meshes to be rigged, skinned and hand animated, though I feel these are achievable for our gameplay demo.

Secondly, I have created a project plan to aid our group, although we are mainly using a website called Trello  to track tasks, progression and who is working on certain aspects, we also needed an overall project plan. Here's some samples of our Trello page for the AGD group:

Part of my responsibility as a producer/team lead are to maintain, update and add new tasks and such for our group. Trello allows us to set deadlines, members to work on, priority and checklists. Another example for one of the design cards I have been working on:

As for our project plan, I had to use Microsoft Project to create a more indepth overview of our 9 month project. As such, I won't post loads of images of each indiviual tab and what it contains, but it's extensive and allows the group to get a good idea of where we are in the dev cycle and what they should be working on. With the help of Chris and Cory (The two art leads for Interwire) they will be helping to assign deadlines and milestones for the art pipeline:

As a final note for our meeting this week, we have made the group decision to change engines. Due to some technical issues with programming within Unreal Engine 4, our programming has asked to change to the Unity engine. This was a difficult choice, mainly due to the teams lack of experience with the engine and myself and daz (designer) creating the level blockouts/whiteboxes within UE4 already. Though we aren't too far behind in our pipeline, we could have utilized the last month learning Unity in lieu of UE4. That being said, our programmer and several artists are very comfortable using Unity and this will increase our work capabilities exponentially over the course of the project.

Advanced Games Dev (AGD) week #3

I've started blocking out the initial whitebox for our AGD project within UE4. The main aim to this whitebox is to get a feel for scale, level flow and pacing, as well as creating a foundation to work on with the environment artists. Here's some mock up sketches for the original designs I wanted to implement for our cave/dungeon section for the demo and the first playable level of our project:

The sketches above are just rough variations for the designers (myself and daz) and some of the environment artits, This way we can get an asset list for props we would like through the level as well as getting a good setting for the theme and narrative we want to tell for this part of the level. My preferred level sketch is the second image, I feel the entry way adds some embedded narrative towards the level and offers large enough areas for the player to see the combat system in action; Though during level population I will have to showcase the art assets in a way to get them seen . Here's a quick progression shot for the level in UE4:

Though the level will be added to a lot, this is just a small version of the white box that I will edit heavily. Additionally, I have utilized the blueprint feature within UE4 to begin the basic player movements and camera controls. These were relatively simple to set up due to the project system allowing me to use a top down camera (however, I will be changing the settings at a later date to get a better angle and depth of field to better fit the game genre). Below is a simple screenshot showing the WASD movment controls I've set up using blueprint, these were influenced from looking at the third person shooter project that was available from UE4 and implementing them to the Top Down Project.

Advanced Games Dev (AGD) week #2

Additional information regarding AGD, as the weeks progress the development process is gaining more of a foothold, though we're trying to limit our time on AGD due to the credits being lower than FYP. More brainstorm sessions have occurred between myself and Daz for what we need in the game and where to start working.


I had tasked the artists to come up with more moodboards for environments and character concepts. As such the feedback on our project is great and the artists are eager to get to work. Myself, cory and Chris have set up trello and an asset list to begun production of the demo we are to showcase on December.



Trello is a really useful website for group projects, it allows us to create check lists in detail and designate jobs to team members whilst keeping track of what's complete, or how far into completion it is.

continuing from the last blog update we've begun full development of our idea, the programmer has finally gotten a hole of UE4 and has begun testing our mechanics. Also the core demo features for our presentation have started to take shop, i compiled a list of what we want in the demo and so on: We're aiming for a small teaser video, showcasing the cellar/dungeon and cave area below the castle and some of the King's core mechanics whilst fighting a skeleton enemy. A short teaser of our king:

Advanced Games Development (AGD) week #1

For our Advanced Games Development (AGD) I have created a small team to complete our project. The team consists of 2 designs, 1 animator, 1 programmer and 6 artists. First meeting notes:



The game genre I have started to develop is an isometric Dungeon Crawler. The game will focus on simple combat and have a fantasy theme timed into the art style and game play elements, additionally our aim is to have a comedy aspect to our game by portraying silly humor and breaking the 4th wall for the players.

Myself and Daz Farrell (Additional Designer) have been keeping notes using ever-note from our weekly meetings. Though each meeting is used to discuss additional ideas and the pipeline we will be implementing. For this project we settled on the Dungeon Crawler idea, as well as creating it within Unreal Engine 4. Our aim is to create 3 levels ( 5 - 10 minutes per level play through) that follow a simple narrative (which I'll mention later). For the initial meetings I set the artists to research an art style they would like to emulate for our game, as well as certain environments they would be interested in creating - I feel this achieves more of a personal touch to the development process as the artists are working on assets they find interesting and fun to create, so they will be completed quickly and to an excellent standard.

Myself and Daz started research similar games, to look at unique selling points (USP's) as well as core mechanics, features, narrative, game play and so on. Though we had already settled on a comedy eccentric game, we took inspiration from Wildstar™, Diablo 3™ and The Mighty Quest For Epic Loot™