A2: Final Project

Wednesday 28th February 2024

To explicitly state this, I will be working in a duo for this project thus significantly eliminating the possibility of any miscommunications that may come across from making it within a larger group as it was a problem within the last one. The game going down the 3D pathway as I am more used to creating 3D games rather than 2D. Applying to the brief, I am going to pitch myself as a Programmer. Due to the fact of would like to develop my coding skills more and step away from my usual Artist approach to the previous projects. With said pathway, I would like to do two power ups.

Example 1. - Hades.

Looking towards a great example of both an isometric game and the style of SuperGiant, Hades will be a point of research and inspiration. Since it already applies to a large amount of the brief, that is why it will be a research and inspiration point. Hades is a 2D isometric rogue-lite dungeon crawler game covered with reds, greys and green. On which is quite fitting due to where the game takes is the Underworld. The game itself has a combination of the fast-action combat within Bastion and the depth, the atmosphere of Transistor and the storytelling of Pyre all being old SuperGiant games. Due to the game being a rogue-lite, no two runs will be the same. The progression line itself is the protagonist attempting to climb his way out of the Underworld and having to kill enemies along the way. 

Zagreus, the son of Hades is the player protagonist of the game. Feeling like he doesn't belong within the house of Hades is his reason behind wanting to escape the Underworld. Eventually having to fight his own father for his freedom. He is a beautiful example of the more warm colour pallet of the game. Yet his key colour being red also symbolizes how he is a danger to others given the fact that he is immortal while his enemies are not. The flame-like halo is an amazing design choice due to the way it fits into his character and the Underworld is stereotypically associated with fire. 



Moving on to look into the power-ups within the game, Boons. They are gifts from the Gods to help out Zagreus in his escape for freedom. However they only last for the current run. They are given by the 10 gods that you will commonly see. Each God and boon specialize in several different upgrades for your weaponry and abilities. Some Gods can combine and give you something called a duo boon. I find this to be an interesting mechanic because it feels fluid with how you move and interact with the world. 

Example 2. - Wasteland 3.

An isometric RPG where you're trying to survive in the brutal plains of the aftermath of Colorado within this wasteland. You are forced into certain moral dilemmas that will permanently change the game's outcome. I do enjoy the fact of having the player choose in the case of morality especially if it is seen as a 'hard choice' against one another.

Monday 4th March 2024

I had created a Trello board to provide some better communication towards our goals. The board will use the Kanban method and I started to add to it.

Wednesday 13h March 2024

Starting on one of the requirements for the brief, Controller compatibility. To help with the coding of controller movement, I used help with a YouTube tutorial as I do not have a lot of expectance with coding. Both of the coding screenshots bellow collect the player's inputs on the controller.

Wednesday 20th March 2024

Wednesday 12th June 2024

Going into farther detail of what the code does, the default I has set the movement speed is 5 on which can be seen as the code "private float _speed = 5;" states. As the character will eventually move when the player moves the joystick, to store that code the ''private Vector3 _Input;" will be used. The "private void update" will update everything every frame as the code will gather the player's input  and will rotate the player if they want to do so. The "void GatherInput" will take and store any vertical and horizontal axes that the player makes. "Void look" is the actual code that is suppose to handle directional movement. Using both "_speed" along with "Time.deltaTime" allows for progressive smooth movement over a period of time. 

Onto the model of one of the power ups.
I created the concept art for the first power up within the game. It was inspired by Chaos's boon within Hades, image one, I did a test of concept art then a more fleshed out idea of it. I wanted to have it to grab attention so I used the big, medium and small method. The crystal itself is the biggest part while the surrounding objects are medium and the hole in the crystal is small along with some floating aspects of the power up.
  

I started out modelling it with the box method, getting the relative shape of the crystal and working on it from there. Editing edges and vertices with the symmetry, manipulate, move and extend tools with the help of some edge loops to create more detail. To also start out with I used the smooth preview tool however I disliked the look of the crystal with it so I disabled it to have a better look. Doing it once more with the surrounding objects of the crystal.

Thursday 13th June 2024

Game Design Document (GDD)

Game name: The Abandoned Guardian.

Genre:
RPG,

Game Elements:
Attacking enemies.


Players: One.

Technical specs

Technical Form:
3D format.

View:
Isrometric.

Platform:
PC, Xbox.

Language:
C#

Device:
PC, Xbox.

Game Play:
Within a black and white cityscape, a singular retired Pirate is left to wonder on about the reasoning behind the sudden increase of recent missing cases through the city. Uncover the mysteries of this place as the story unravels itself while you progress.

Inside of an abandoned building, is this supposed to do that? You feel like you're being watched every move you make. All you know is one thing, get out as fast as possible.


Game Play Outline:
> Melee Attack.

 > Ability to heal lost Health.

> Ability to use powerups that they have collected.

 > Upon the player’s Health losing zero, you have the option to retry and attempt again.

> After the story is over, completion will eventually show you the significance of the building.

> Due to the suspense and both the storytelling and the combat sections, people can find fun within.


Key features:
> Healing,
> Different enemies,
> Abelites by powerups.

Design Document.

Design Guidelines.
> Within the style of an Isometric game.
> Apply to the PEGI 12 rating.

Game Design Definition:
A player wins by defeating enemies and getting out of the house.
A person would lose by their health reaching zero.
The main focus of the gameplay is to get out of the house.

Player Definition:
Maximum Health: 100.
Weapons: House hold objects.
Action: Healing, Abilities, Attacking.

Player Rewards:
Upgrades to weaponry,
Upgrades to abilities.

User Interface:
W –Forward.
A -Left.
S -Backwards.
D -Right.
Right click -Attack.
E -Ability.
Tab -Heal.

Joysticks -Movement
Right Trigger -Attack.
Right Bumper -Ability
B -Heal

After finishing the model itself, I had to start UV unwrapping it so I could export it as a OBJ to put it within Substance Painter. After using the automatic setting on the UV tab I had started cutting and sewing the edges of the UV's. Sometimes stumbling into some overlapping one another which was easy to fix by undoing it and then evaluating where it would go instead.