Our Razor and cutting stuff from the game

Yesterday, we had our team meeting to talk about what we're going to be doing over the winter break. The meeting was mostly meant to schedule art and features over the break but it also turned into a frank conversation about the scope of the game.

In the first conversations of the game, I came in trying to limit the scope of the game. My team was much more ambitious and they were looking towards more content. As we've seen the pace of the art pipeline and the programming for the game, a lot of us we worried about how much we could realistically get done.

As Roger and Bob suggested, we looked to our Razor. "Brutal Legend, the brawler, meets Guitar Hero." We want a "metal" brawler game played with the guitar peripheral. The biggest problem we talked about in the meeting yesterday was about how much art could get done for the game. We realized that we weren't going to get 4 music worlds done but as our razor said, we really were only interested in the Metal genre ( I am particularly attached to dubstep but still, it wasn't part of our razor). Metal is the core of our game and it's what we've been focusing on so we've decided to cut the other music worlds from the game. Instead, we've decided to keep the whole game in the corporate city, just in different areas of the city. Rather than 4 worlds, we've chosen 4 locations that can re-use elements we've already created. This way, we can polish our art rather than just make a large quantity.

We also decided to cut a lot of the extra features of gameplay and special sequences. We are trying to make a brawler game - quick time events, shadow of the colossus battles, and other special segments just don't fit into the core of the game. From a programming standpoint, we couldn't commit the necessary team members to create a lot of the special sequences.

This was a really hard conversation but we also understood that we saved our game. We could have created 4 worlds but it just wouldn't have been quality content. We would have been scrambling to complete stages and a lot of the art wouldn't have been finished. Numerous gameplay elements that we first imagined just didn't fit into our core and we have taken 4 weeks to complete. This conversation helped us set up a realistic scope to our game. Next semester, we have a lot of work to do but we are a lot more focused now. We can now make a smaller but higher quality game.

I'm glad we had that conversation and I'm glad that it went over so well.

For the break:
Art:
Isaac 2 characters - Main Character and Sniper
Dan - Medium enemy
Dan and Colby Rigging
Place Holders for Heavy
Robert - Heavy model (When he returns from Japan)

Eng.
Combo editor and combo system
Stop trigger
Camera movement
blood effects
enemy spawning
practice loading screen
visuals for attacks; HP system; player feedback; points system
Christian - Attack system
Nick - AI
Horde mode

Design
Levels from AJ and Jake
10 levels for one metal world; locations rather than worlds
Level scripts and maya designs2 control schemes - think about movement
Levels:[3 street day
2 sewer + 1 street night
3 red light district
1 tower}

Overall Time line:
January 31st - Gameplay done, mechanics done
February - balancing and play testing
February 28th - All models and Animations done
March 31 - All levels built and textured
April - testing, polish, UI, bug fixing, marketing materials

Adding a reward system to the combos

I was thinking about the combo system and the reward system of guitar hero today. Our combos are really cool but they can be kind of difficult.

A lot of people will just mash buttons to play the game. To incentivize the combo system, we should employ the same "poor, good, great, perfect" system of guitar hero. If the player is just button mashing, they will still perform some moves but for less points and it will denote that they are playing incorrectly. If the player is doing the combos well, they get more points and they get a visual that makes them proud. I think that will help the fun and it will help players actually use combos.

We need to revamp the combo system.

Video Game Marketing Advice

I've been reading this article on video game marketing. Here are some passages that we should be thinking about later on:

Send out press releases
This is the most basic form of marketing. To get attention, you need press to write about your game. A press release is simply an email with some news about your game, usually including links to screenshots and maybe a trailer. If the news is interesting enough, press will write about it. You can send your press release to hundreds of gaming websites and magazines, and hopefully enough will pick up on it.

Find your own voice
If you have never written a press release before, you will probably look for some examples online, and are likely to see what kinds of texts most big companies send out. Don't copy their style: they suck. Big company press releases are often incredibly boring and contain a combination of marketing buzzwords and corporate language. There really is no need to do anything like that! When we saw an early press release about Super Meat Boy (might have been this one), we realised that you can do anything you want in a press release, and there is absolutely no requirement for boring stuff! Figure out what fits your studio and your game. And if you and your game are boring, then feel free to go for boring press releases after all... Find your own voice!

Create a press list
To send out press releases, you need to know who to send them to. So start collecting the email-addresses of as many websites and magazines that write about games as you can. Many websites show their email-address for news somewhere, or you might even be able to find the email-address of the journalist who writes about your type of game.

Find big foreign sites
Every game developer knows about big websites like IGN, Gamespot, Eurogamer, Kotaku, Joystiq and Destructoid. Finding such international websites is not very difficult, while it is easy to overlook local, non-English websites. Some of these are really big, though, and could get a lot of eyeballs on your game! One way to find such sites is to look which have a high Alexa rating. Alexa rates how many visitors a site gets, and although the precision of their estimates might be in dispute, Alexa is still a good way to get a quick overview of what gaming sites are big in, say, Italy.

Reveal - we should keep the dubstep level secret and release it to our fans!

A great example is the reveal of the Chinese faction in Swords & Soldiers. In our first trailers, screenshots and press releases, we always showed two factions, plus a big question mark in the spot of the third faction. By continuously telling people that we were not telling them what the third faction was, we spiked their curiosity, making it a serious press moment when we finally revealed the Chinese. Had we shown the Chinese in the first trailer, this would not have been news!

Press Release from Super Meat Boy

Are you a fan of small cubes of animated meat?

Do you enjoy the sound of buzz saws?

When you hear the term “wall jump” do you get excited?

Well, what if you woke up to find you were made of a lump of juicy raw meat, your girlfriend was made of band-aids and to top it all off she had been kidnapped by a fetus in a jar wearing a suit and monocle? Would that be totally awesome? or just kinda awesome?

Well I’m hoping you chose totally awesome, because that’s basically the premise of Super Meat Boy.

In Super Meat Boy you take the role of a small animated cube of meat on his quest to save his lady love Band-Aid girl from the clutches of the evil Dr. Fetus! Sliding his way through saw mills, salt factories and even hell itself, Meat boy jumps into action in this fast paced and extremely challenging platformer that will “melt your face off”.

Super Meat Boy is based off the popular flash game Meat Boy hosted by Newgrounds.com. http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/472826

Super Meat Boy will be completely remade from the ground up for its release on Wiiware™ and will feature over 100+ single player levels, insane boss fights, competitive vs modes, beefy co-op play and a slew of unlockables that are rumored to fill your life with great happiness!

SMB (best abbreviation ever) is being designed by Gish co-creator Edmund McMillen, Tommy Refenes and “Big” Jon McEntee.

We will be documenting Meat Boy’s rebirth for Wiiware on our development blog via Supermeatboy.com so feel free to pop in and tell us all your lame ideas we will never use!

Thanks for the support! and keep indie gaming alive!

-Team Meat

This is the type of press release I want to write for our game. I know that I'm known for my marketing language sometimes but I want our press release to reflect the character of our game.

After our hackathon today, I know that we have a serious chance of having a big game. I think we can get local media on our game and I'm hoping connections can secure us online journalists. If we get a little bit of coverage, we could have something big.

My dream: I really want a story about my game on Kotaku. That would be incredible for me.

Combo List

Combos/Controls:
Block: (2,3,4)
Upper Cut: (1, 3) x 2 - Knock shield off
Spin: (2,3) x 4 - multiple units
Chop: (1,3) +2 + (1,3) - Back of heavy
Lunge: (2,3) x 2 + (1,2)  - kill ranged enemy
Aerial Attack 1: 1 + ((2,3) x 2)

Game, Video Game, Alpha

When building the alpha for Heroes of Rock, I get a lot of people that say they want to see "my game."

I'm my way home from class on Tuesday I was thinking a lot about the terms video game and game. I was also thinking about a comment Roger made about how he didn't want to show our alpha games because he wanted to impressive people. Roger has a great point, if we show prospective students or the press a game that looks like a prototype, it could potentially hurt our reputation as a team or as a program.

I don't really want to show my game yet, though I'd be very proud to show off what we've done so far. I think we've made a lot of progress but at the same time it's difficult to only be at alpha.

Back to my first comment: Right now I wouldn't say that Heroes of Rock looks like a video game - at least not yet. Right now, it's basically a block that goes around fighting other blocks. That's not exactly the most glamorous place to be but it brings up a good point.

The Alpha of Heroes of Rock doesn't have to look like an xbox 360 video game, it needs to play like a GAME. Games involve a tasks with rewards and punishments. The player feels fun depending on the tasks and how those tasks are accomplished. For our alpha, we are demonstrating our GAME, not exactly our visual representation of our game yet.

At this point in our development, it is important to think about the GAME, not just the VIDEO game. I might not want to show off my blocks jumping around yet but I need to make sure it's fun before we proceed. If we have a fun game, we can turn it into an awesome VIDEO GAME.

Alpha isn't a place where I want to show all of my friends yet but it's important in our overall development.

First Song for HOR

Here is the first song produced for HOR:

http://soundcloud.com/leelandcampanaexperience/heroes-of-rock-first-theme

 

I think the song is great. It is incredibly metal. We'll be using the different sections of the song modularly so that we can use the pieces of this song as the world music for the entire first world of the game.

 

I'm pumped about the work that Lee is doing.

Sounds for for the Game and Alpha Goals

I've been talking to Jack Corrigan, my friend from Park City, and Leeland, a sound designer in the EAE program, about music for my game. I produced the music for our prototype but I think it'd be nice to have a pro make things. I will stake make a lot of sound effects and probably some of the songs but I would love the help.

I've exchanged a couple emails with Leeland about the music. We've talked about the best way to go about the music. The biggest thing I've been thinking about is how to make the music easy for the design team as well as the sound designer:

4 world themes (level select theme i.e. Super Meat Boy. This would be a very good game to model since each world in super meat boy had a world theme that looped continuously while in level select and in playing levels. It only changed during boss levels and warp zones, I could do something similar very easily, this is just a suggestion)

Using this model, we basically have to make 4 world themes with a couple special sections. It will be a lot easier than making 20 individual songs.

potentially 20 background tracks for each world's 3-5 levels (the basic format for videogame music I've noticed is each levels theme has three parts that loop like this, A B C A B C A B C, intro Verse, Chorus, Bridge, Verse, Chorus, Bridge)

The good thing about using the world music model will be the ease making background tracks for each level. From a designer standpoint, it would also be really cool to have a buildable sound track. As we play around with levels, we can just re-arrange the sound track for the appropriate boss battle or intense sections. We could make an infinite number of background tracks and we could easily match tracks with new level designs as they come out.

4 boss battle themes

These are the most significant sections of the world music outside of the main loops. Each world will have a special boss sequence for the final bad guy. I think this could be a fun time to play with the genres.

4 special move jingles for 4 different midi instruments lets say there are 3 special moves for each instrument then we would need 12 different little jingles/riffs probably about 5 to 8 seconds long is my guess.

Right now I have at least 5 special moves planned.


The final product will have this full suite of sounds and sound effects but for the alpha we don't need too much:

• Combo sound effects
• 1 background song - Main loop, 2 intense sequences, 1 boss sequence
• Small enemy attack sounds
• environment sounds

I'd like to have the sound work done by the 27th so that we can incorporate everything the days before we submit alpha.

Level 1

Here is my first level. I looked to Shank 2 for inspiration on the structure. I wanted to slowly introduce new problems and new solutions throughout the level. The pacing is an up and down structure with a quiz near the end so the player is prepared for the boss battle. Good basic structure for a level.

1. 1 weak unit
1. learn quick attack
2. 3 weak units
1. learn heavy attack
3. 1 weak unit
1. learn ranged attack
4. none
5. none
6. 3 waves of units - STOP ZONE
1. Learn Block
7. none
8. 3 waves of units 
1. introduce shield unit
2. learn uppercut
9. none
10. introduce ranged unit in tower - STOP ZONE
1. learn vertical shot
11. health zone
1. learn health event
12. 3 ranged enemies
1. Learn aerial attack
13. none
14. 2 waves of units
1. learn chop attack
15. introduce heavy unit - STOP ZONE
16. 3 weak units
17. health zone
18. QUIZ - 3 Waves; heavy, shielded and weaks units
1. Learn lunge move
19. health zone
20. 2 waves of 4 units
1. Spin move
21. BOSS BATTLE

Combos/Controls:

Block: (2,3,4)
Upper Cut: (1, 3) x 2 - Knock shield off
Spin: (2,3) x 4 - multiple units
Chop: (1,3) +2 + (1,3) - Back of heavy
Lunge: (2,3) x 2 + (1,2)  - kill ranged enemy
Aerial Attack 1: 1 + ((2,3) x 2)
Aerial Attack 2: 1 + ((2,4) x 2)

Loading Screen

Nick had a great idea about the loading screen.

Our team loves the combo system. I'm super excited about the possibility of making the guitar a cool addition to the action game genre. We wanted the controller to be an addition to the brawler mechanic rather than a hinderance. I think the combo system is a great way to achieve this.

The only problem with the combo system is that it could be hard to remember and the players might have a hard time getting used to the system.

Nick had the idea of the loading screen similar to FIFA where the player could practice the combo system.

It would be in a greyed out world with the player and one enemy. The combos that the player has unlocked are on the side panels of the screen. The player can then spend the loading times practicing combos. They press start when they are ready to proceed.

This way, we have a cool loading screen and we help the players get acquainted with our combat system.

I'm really excited about this idea and I think it will really help the players get into our game.

Equity Percentages

Next class period, we're going to be talking about the structure and name of our studio. The studio will be an LLC with all of the team members as partners.

As per Roger's suggestions, we will have the team leads be voting partners and the artists/programmers be equity partners. We want to go for this solution for legal ease. It will be a lot easier in the future if we only need four signatures rather than 10.

Robert and I got onto the topic of what would happen if a team member left the group or did not perform adequately. I think this is a good topic to bring up, especially in the incident that a team member wants to leave the team but is still getting paid. Team members won't want that to happen so we need a way to remove equity from team members.

I thought about this awhile ago. I think there should be a system in place so that if a team member doesn't work on the game, they can be removed but I also don't want to set an atmosphere of distrust in the team. I want there to be an incentive system but also a sense of trust so the team trusts the team leaders to make decisions.

I think that all team members should be evaluated by the team leads. In the situation of a unanimous team lead vote, a team member can be removed from the group. Their percentage of the game would then be distributed to the other team members, not the team leads. This gives incentive to the team members to work but also makes it so that team leads can't make decisions  that give them more money. The decision won't affect the shares of team leaders at all.

In a situation where a member choose to leave the company on their own, their share would be split equally among all team members.

I also propose that 5%-10% of our equity should go towards advertising, web fees, and administration fees. It might have to be more depending on how much money is made but I think it would be good to set aside.

Just my thoughts. I have to talk to my lawyer about it.

Midi music production and combos

A quick thought that I just had about combo attacks and the unlockable weapons.

When we were talking about content for the game, we talked about unlocking new weapons and being able to have different attacks for each weapon. We talked about having each combo represent a new attack and sound. We lightly discussed having each weapon have different sounds.

Each combo attack in the game is linked to notes and chords. So when the play does a combo, a riff or solo is played. When the player is using different weapons, a new instrument plays the combos. This makes the game sound different and play different as the players use different weapons. I think this will add replayability to the game.

To make things easy on ourselves, we were talking about using the same combo animations for each weapon but simply changing the colors to make them look different. If we produce the music in a midi production program such as a garage band and make our own midi files, we can simply change the instrument in the program and we have a new sounding combo. It will be the same notes, just with the bass or with the synthesizer.

This is an easy way to add variety and replayability to our game. I think it also adds a reward system by adding unlockable weapons and new abilities associated with those weapons. Players will want to see what it is like to play through with those other weapons.

Art References

To go along with the homework for the Art team, here are some art references:

Shank 2 Layers, Gore, Perspective, Design - This is a 2D side scrolling brawler game with personality and lots of gore. I love it. I love the layers in this game. Sky box, mountains, background buildings, level path, and foreground. It gives the game great depth and it makes the game look more full. I think this perspective and level design is a perfect inspiration for our game.

Rochard Modeling and Space- I wanted to show this game because it is a 3D side scrolling that maintains the 2D perspective. This game is also considered a quality looking game. I don't think it is overly complex in design. I like the scale of the environments and how the player navigates through them. I think it's a good size to look at for environments in the game. How wide the paths or doors are and other elements of the the 3D but 2D limitations.

 

 

Trine 2 Lighting - I chose to show Trine 2 for the lighting and effects. This game is truly beautiful. I think a lot of the effects are a bit out of the realm of our engine right now but the lighting effects give this game a sense of production value and polish that isn't matched. If we had our layered art style and then a lighting system like this, we would look like an expensive game. It would instantly give the game a visual value.

Alien Hominid Enemies - I chose this game because of the enemies. There is a generic group of "Suit" enemies. The good thing about "suits" is that they can appear in any setting and still fit in. If they represent some evil organization, they can just appear in any level as the base enemy type.

Brutal Legend Menu - Brutal Legend has been a huge inspiration for this game for me in a lot of ways. I LOVE the interface design for brutal legend. It really injects the game with flavor by beign so different and so special. If we can pull something like this off, it just adds another layer of production value to the game. It makes the game seem really special.

Brutal Legend Weapon Design - The guitars in our game are the ranged attack and the melee weapons. We need our guitars to look like they could be both. I want all of the weapons to look like they are enraged.

Guitar Hero 3 Interface - If we are trying to link the game play to a guitar peripheral, we should give the players score feed back that they associate with a guitar. I think that we should tie our combo system, our points system, and our power up system towards the UI of Guitar Hero. The nostalgic connection will help link the guitar peripheral more and it will help the player feel a similar reward system.

Slash Character - Slash is an icon of guitar playing. If we are pursuing a faceless hero, I think Slash's look good be great. He has the hair to cover his face and his has the all black look to associate with metal. His guitars are great inspiration for weapons and how our player will interact with them. Watching Slash jam on a double guitar is inspiring.

Combo System

Last Thursday we had a design meeting with the entire team to hammer out the basic mechanics of the game. We've had lots of conversations and ideas but we've needed to have a serious talk about how the game is going to be played how it is going to feel.

The biggest points that came out of the meeting were that we wanted to highlight the guitar in  the mechanic design and we wanted to have the game maintain the action game vibe. My first thoughts of this game were more along the lines of castle crashers - essentially a brawler game with a guitar. The game then shifted towards a musical platformer. Seeing the limitations of the controller and thinking about the big mechanics, we realized that platforming just won't be fun by itself and that basic action game mechanics will feel "forced" onto the guitar.

What we settled on was an action game with the basic action mechanics but with guitar cords as attacks. With a normal controller, you're usually limited to combos that happen in a specific order (ex.: x, x, a). With a guitar, it is easy for the player to press multiple buttons in the same way one would play a guitar. Given the lack of flexibility with the guitar and our commitment to the action game play, the game won't flow in the way traditional action games flow. Our limitations with movement will force breaks in action and movement in the game. The idea of a guitar combo system will help make these breaks in action fun.

Potential Combo Attacks:
Spin move: if player is being overwhelmed
Uppercut move: Knock off shield
Enemy Launch: Paralyze enemy by launching them in the air
Guitar smash: player jumps up and smashed guitar down to attack enemies with weak top
Dash: Player can shoot behind enemy

Main Character Mechanics

 Before we get into the placement of enemies and the layout of levels, we have to settle on the abilities of the main character.

I think we could map blocking to a series of buttons rather than one, that way we have more buttons for attack and movement. I think jump could also be played with considering you attack more than you jump but I still think jump is a primary movement. The basic attacks are action game basics but the combos will make our game special. Here is my attempt:

Starting at the controls of the guitar:
Strum - movement left/right; attack left or right
1st button - jump (high enough to get onto platforms and over gaps)
2nd button - quick melee attack 

3rd button - heavy melee attack
4th button - ranged attack (weaker damage, can be blocked by shields, slow rate of fire)

5th button - Use/activate

hold 2-4 down  - block

Raise guitar - aim up
Lower guitar - aim down

Whamy bar - Use the whammy bar like you do in guitar hero for lengthy attacks. For example: you ram your guitar into the heavy enemy, you then wag the whammy bar to increase damage. 

The way I imagine weapons is that the melee won't change much outside of color and the guitar in the players hands. The ranged attacks are different depending on the guitar. The player unlocks a new guitar per world that they beat. They can then replay the game with the new guitar for different gameplay.
Weapons:
Metal guitar - basic attack
Shotgun Banjo - shotgun blast
Funky Bass - heavy attack
Keytar/synthesizer - Laser rifle

Unit Tactics:
Weak Unit - Any weapon attack works. Bigger threats should be tackled earlier
Ranged Unit high up - Ranged Unit can stun player and then player can get overrun by weaker units. Player has to get under the sniper and kill him quickly
Equal Unit - Combo attacks from the front. If player attacks quickly enough, block can be broken down and they can kill this unit. Weaker units should be killed first so player can focus on Equal.
Shielded Unit - Shield unit can't be killed from the front unless the player uses a special ability and it's earlier on. Player
Heavy Unit - Player must wait until cool down from heavy units attack for critical damage. Or use special weapon or ability to weaken.
Bomb/Suicide Unit - Ranged attack to blow up bomb before unit gets to player
Special Unit/Boss unit- require special strategy to kill

Enemy design and mechanics

Designing the enemies for Heroes of Rock is a bit of a challenge.

When I was thinking about the prototype, I really only imagined 2 different types of enemies: a generic weak unit and a boss type unit.

I've been doing a lot of research on design recently and it's been a great way to get my mind going about game design.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/175950/the_fundamental_pillars_of_a_.php?page=2

From an art stand point and a design perspective, I need to start thinking about the type of enemies I need to have in my game.

Right now we have 4 worlds/4 art themes planned for the game:Heavy Metal, Country, Hip Hop, Dubstep, (Hell). It's possible that in the final level, the main character will die and go to hell. I love that idea so we'll see how that pans out.

The plan right now is that there are 3 to 4 basic units that we can impliment in all of the worlds. Different skins might be used per world but mostly, they are employees of the Music Labels and evil corperate characters. Then per world, there are special art themed units or special ability units such as bomber/suicide enemies. As the character progresses to the other worlds, the basic units can be upgraded to enhance difficulty and to force new mechanics out of the player. Some of the units could get cosmetic changes such as silver to gold or get better shields (etc) to increase in difficulty and to change a little asthetically.

• 4 base enemies + sub units
• weak - very low health, all attacks have effectiveness. Numbers are their strength
• ranged - ranged attack, sniper perch. Difficult to catch with melee attacks. low health. Could attack from below. Player should take this unit out first, getting shot by sniper could stun main character and make him open for attack.
• equal - Unit requires multiple hits or combos, block mechanic used by this enemy
• heavy - slow unit, can block most attacks from the front; weak from behind, below. Stunned when attacked with ranged attack multiple times from the front (blocking animation).  Or heavy/special attack is required. Block doesn't work against attacks
• 1 - 2 special enemy per art theme (special units to make world special)
• Demon blood vomiting units or teleporting
• Lumberjacks - heavy melee attack
• jet pack flying sniper units - must get under to shoot and their moving
• missile launching unit - must dodge missile
• hummer unit - heavy vehicle to dodge and shoot, carries units
• Bass unit that shoots player into air - must get above unit to kill
• Robots heavy unit - super heavy unit, use special attacks

1 boss battle - To finish worlds and to mix up game play, I'd like a set piece sequence or a boss battle to conclude worlds. I want to break up the usual game play and I want to make some memorable moments. 

 Enemy Progression through worlds:
It is important for the enemies to change over time in variety and difficulty throughout the game. We want to introduce mechanics and tactics to the player over time and then we want to evolve those mechanics to make the game more interesting in later chapters. We introduce different elements world by world or level by level.

World 1: (Basic Attacks, combination of attacks)
Weak unit, equal unit, equal unit with shield
demon teleporting unit (ranged attack to stun, cannot kill with only melee)

World 2: (verticality, cleverness with speed)
Weak unit, equal unit, equal unit with shield, suicide unit
Ranged Sniper unit (kill from below), Lumberjack heavy unit (high damage)

World 3: (verticality both directions, heavy ranged unit)
Weak unit, equal unit, equal unit with shield, heavy suit unit, suicide unit
Ranged Sniper unit, missile launching unit (high damage range), bass unit (kill from above)

World 4: (speed, accuracy, increased difficulty)
Weak unit, metal equal unit, equal unit with shield, faster heavy suit unit, suicide unit
flying Ranged Sniper unit, flying missile launching unit (high damage range), moving bass unit (kill from above)

Hell: (quicktimey- guitar hero-esque, epic demon battle)
Final Boss battle - potentially shadow of colossus style quick time battle. Guitar hero battle?

Interesting UI and Menu Screens

In advertising, a "touch point" is any point in which a consumer interacts with your brand. The concept is that regardless of the intential use of a product, people may have different feelings about it due to experiences.

I've been thinking about this a lot in terms of game menus and UIs. The menu of a game is the first interaction you have with the game. It can set the tone and quality of the game before the player hits start. In my personal experience, when I buy a bundle of games, a menu may help me determine if I want to seriously play the game or skip on to the next game.

A prime example of a stylish menu is the Brutal Legend menu. Brutal Legend is an incredible inspiration for me, not just because of the themes that are similar to our game, but because every detail of the game is geared towards the themes and content. The tutorial pages, the help screens, and the UI are all great and very "metal." The menu of the game is just spectacular.

The opening sequence of my game starts in the main character's bed room. I was thinking of using that bedroom as the menu for the game. Due to the fact that we're using a guitar to control the menu, I imagined the menu to be more horizontal than vertical. As the player strums or scrolls, the camera will change to different sections and objects in the room to display different menu content.

• For the controls, the camera flys to a guitar.
• For the credits, the camera flys to a signed Heros of Rock t shirt with our names
• For the level select, the camera looks at the wall with posters on the wall
• the different posters are respective to different game worlds
• different "tour locations" on the poster correlate to different levels
• A sound system represents continue game and start new game.

These are just some ideas I had about making a special menu screen. I know it's stretch and not something that I should focus on now but I'd like every interaction in the game to be interesting, down to the menu screen. Production quality can be seen and having something special would immediatly stand out in the indie space.

Heroes of Rock Prototype Video

I love the new title of the game. It evokes the images of guitar hero and it also brings in the story of the game.

I'm really excited for our presentations over the next week. I'm proud of what we've done and I hope we get chosen into the top 2.

Here's the video of the prototype that we are using in the presentation:

Quick Post About Guitar Hero

We think that we have settled on a new name for our game: Heros of Rock.

The point of this name is to invoke the image and ideas of rock band but it also ties into our story of two characters going to save the music industry. Especially in the indie space, the consumers need to have an idea of what their getting when they see the title. The word Hero with a musically inspired game certianly is associated with Guitar Hero. That's exactly what we're going for. First of all, we need people to think about the guitar hero controller and how that is different and special. Second - we need people to remember that rush of playing Guitar Hero.

That rush of playing guitar hero is our biggest selling point. Using guitars and drums to control characters will be a fun twist that's a bit of a gimmick but the real drive of this game is the music. People didn't like Guitar Hero because of the controller, they played it because of the reward system. There is something rewarding about creating music and Guitar Hero really nailed the points system. When you were playing those games, you got into the game because you were trying to get star power, you were trying to get more points, and you were constantly trying to create a song. It felt really good to put it all together. You felt really good when you got star power and when you nailed some awesome riff. I think that if we work hard, we can capture that feeling in our game. If we can nail that, we'll have a hit on our hands.

This is something we really need to remember during our pitch

Using Free stuff (MORE)

For our prototype, we have to fake a lot of the stuff that we're going to have in a our final game. We can't make everything we're going to do over the next year so we have to use other resources to produce our presentation. Here are some resources that I've found for this prototype stage. I'll leave them here so I can find them later.

Art http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=9381.0

Royalty Free Graphics http://www.pixelprospector.com/the-big-list-of-royalty-free-graphics/

Textures http://www.mayang.com/textures/

Sound Design http://www.pixelprospector.com/the-big-list-of-sound-and-music-creation-software/

Royalty Free Music list http://www.pixelprospector.com/the-big-list-of-royalty-free-music-and-sounds-free-edition/

COD

My roommates play a lot of Call of Duty so I've been getting back into the games a little bit.

We have been playing the most recent COD games, Black Ops and Modern Warfare 3. I enjoy first person shooters and I love online multiplayer but I honestly have never been that into COD. I've been more of a Halo fan over the years but I still enjoy the games because so many people play them and I usually play these games for the social experience.

My Favorite COD game so far was MW2. I loved that game. I really put some time into the game and I pursued a lot of the multiplayer content. I was quickly becoming a Call of Duty fanboy. When Black Ops came out, I traded in my copy of MW2 to play the newest game. I enjoyed the new content of Blacks Ops but for some reason I didn't enjoy it as much. I didn't want to play as badly and I definitely didn't strive to unlock everything like I did in MW2. There was just something missing. I thought that Call of Duty had just become stale to me so I just forgot about it mostly. I played the game every once in a while but not seriously.

A couple months later and I have just moved in with my new roommates. James has a copy of MW3 so I decided to give it a try and I was immediately reminded of why I loved the first game. There is one big thing missing in Black Ops that I think makes it a dramatically inferior game, a reward system. A really addictive/fun video game should be like gambling. You should get sucked in. You should feel good playing the game, you should be aching to play more, and you should get excited everytime you win or get something.

In MW2, every time you get a kill points come up. Every time you rank up, there is an epic guitar riff. Every time you do something cool, you are given a new item, emblem, or logo. The game is constantly giving you an endorphin rush by having you feel like you're "winning" constantly. As I said earlier, you get that gambling feeling and I wanted to get that feeling more. I also loved the mechanic of unlocking special logos and items for your character from special actions. It made you want to play the game just for the possibility of a cool thing happening. You wanted to constantly pull the slot machine to try and have that super rare event happen so you could have the super rare logo. I loved that. I really liked seeing similar mechanics come back in MW3. I think that MW3 might even continue that "win" feeling even better. The game feels a little stale for other reasons but that's another post.

When Treyarch was first showing off black ops, I remember them showing the callsign and emblem creater. In MW2 you had to earn a cool callsign but in this game you could create a cool one. Treyarch was under the impression that people wanted cool looking call signs. Well people do but they didn't want them because of asthetics, they wanted them because they were rare or difficult to get. A huge driving force to play MW2 was to get those cool callsigns and emblems. Black Ops completely removed those mechanics. When that mechanic was removed, it also made the challeges section of the game useless. People didn't really care about if they were completing challenges when there was no reward for doing so.

This little change in game mechanics really sucked the fun out of the game. I think that Black Ops has great weapons, fun kill streaks, cool game modes, and better maps that MW3 but the removal of that reward system made the game less addictive. Playing the game is fun but Black Ops made it so you didn't want to keep playing.

This is an incredibly important concept to remember when designing games. Why does the player feel good? Why does the player want to pick up the game and play? What makes the game fun? Why do people want to play over and over gain? All good questions and I think the difference between a game that is good and a game that you never eject from the console.

Game Research 2

While I was looking for inspiration for our game, I stumbled across some resources for our game. 2D animation - "I just try to make the most awesome and ridiculous thing I can think of," explains Robertson. "I always imagine other people's reaction when they look at something I've done, and if it seems underwhelming I'll push it further or add more to it till I think it's good enough. Actually this works for any art, not just pixels." http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/176663/5_tips_for_making_great_animations_for_2D_games.php/?buffer_share=d3238 Level Design and Level Creation http://www.aaai.org/Papers/AIIDE/2006/AIIDE06-022.pdf Telemetry Data, Heat Maps - Using heat maps to help design a game. You can track player movement to understand difficult areas of the game or the unintential paths. - You don't want difficulty to spike too soon in a level. http://lucasartsworkshop.wordpress.com/2009/10/09/telemetry-data-heat-maps-and-unlearning-what-you-have-learned/ Good thread on level design http://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/15892/what-are-some-techniques-for-designing-fun-challenging-mario-style-platformer-l List of game design articles http://www.pixelprospector.com/the-big-list-of-game-design/# Difficulty in Platformers http://www.supermeatboy.com/13/Why_am_I_so____hard_/#b

Game Research 1

I am incredibly excited that my game got chosen to advance to the second stage for pitches. I think my game has a lot of potential but I still need some inspiration to bring the whole idea together. There are a couple things that I want to think about: - The art style - Perspective - Music inspired gameplay - Co Op interactions - Interesting Platforming Elements - Platforming Level design - Combos - Special Ways to Use the Controller And of course how to make it all fun. Last night Scott sent me an email confirming that we can use guitar peripherals and drums with the game. That was the first technical hurdle to the game. Now Scott is going to have to think about how to implement the musical elements to the players. Leaping that first hurdle is incredibly exciting and it allows us to think beyond the basic mechanics of the game. Now that we know we can perform the basics, we have to think about the rest of the game. I played a couple games last night for inspiration: Sword and Soldiers - This game is described as an entertaining 2D strategy game. I wanted to play this game mostly for the 2D art style and the animations. I think the game does a great job with the 2D style. There are layers giving a good sense of depth and the weather effects make the world look more open than it is. The characters are very simple and the animations are barely anything more than a slash. I really like the bright, comic book-y look of the game. I think we could make some good looking characters that look similar to this. It will be a lot easier to animate and I think it will be more visually appealing. I really like the squat characters as well, I think proportional characters look funny in most platformers.

Castle Crashers - Castle crashers is a 2.5D hack and slash game. I wanted to take a look at that game for the fighting mechanics and the set piece sequences. One major limitation of our project is that given the control system, our game is limited to a strict 2D with no depth movement. Castle Crashers has this depth but I still think that it pretty similar. Although we've been talking about reducing the fighting in the game, Castle Crashers is a great basis to go off of. The game looks fun and hectic as players try to eliminate all of the enemies. Castle Crashers is known for it's hack and slash elements but I think that the biggest element to draw from are the set pieces. There are a couple "special" sequences in the game that are a break from the normal gameplay. Usually played out as boss battles, these sequences are intense and very different. I'd like to implement similar "special" events in our game. I can imagine boss battles, chase sequences, or power build up periods that could be made more interesting.

Super Meat Boy - Super Meat Boy is a very recent platformer. When we were thinking about the controls of the game, we realized how compelling the platforming elements could be. The game is a hardcore platformer but the game really nails the abilities of the character

The level pictured is one of the early levels of the game. Very early on, the player has to use the character's abilities to advance through the level. The player has to use the wall sticking mechanic to advance. You try over and over again to complete the level without using the unfamiliar mechanic but you finally realize you have to. The level design of SMB is great but I think we have to think about what our characters can do before we think about where they are. Trine 2 - The trine games are 2D action platformers. I was able to pick them up very cheaply with the steam summer sale so I gave them a try. Our game is basically an action platformer so I figured they would be a good place to look for inspiration. I am not really thinking about a completely 3D wold for my game but I think we can draw ideas from the game. Trine is 2D game that gives the appearence of 3D and it does a lot of this with it's production value. Trine 2 looks great and the little effects in the game really make it stand out. In one of the first moments of the game, the player walks in front of a fire and their shadown is projected onto the wall behind the character. For a 2D game, that effect was shocking. Trine 2 takes the 2D space to a different level. If we are talking about production values, this game is something we have to think about. Shadows, layered depth pieces, light effects and more - if we have the technical and artistic ability, I'd love to get some of this stuff into the game. Fret Nice - Roger mentioned this game after I gave my first pitch. I had never heard of the game but it employs the mechanic of controlling the game with a guitar. Fret Nice is a platformer controlled with a guitar, much like the game I pitched but I think this game gets it wrong. First of all, the controls are insane. I think that the people designing the game got too caught up on linking the gimmick to guitar hero and forgot about actually playing. Playing this game with a guitar, you feel like maybe the developers were using a controller the whole time, then threw the guitar on there. One of the most annoying parts of the game is that you have to raise the guitar to jump. There is nothing intuitive or practical about making jumping difficult in a platformer. The game also employs a mechanic where you play guitar notes to kill enemies. I think this mechanic is cool but when you do it over and over again, it gives annoying. I don't think game controls should be annoying, they should help you get into an experience or they shouldn't even be noticed. There were some interesting mechanics used in the game though. I think that Fret Nice played on the guitar mechanic too much but special jumping sequences or attacks with guitar riffs could be interesting in our game if they added to the game. I want the players to feel more power using the guitar or drums rather than less power.

EAE Description

I have always thought of myself as creative, critical and competitive. I like to take these attributes into my work and I think they translate well into video game development. I am particularly interested in the production of video games and the presentation. Level design, sound design, game mechanic design and production interest me for the capstone. I find gaming psychology as well as design very interesting, I'd love to play around with those. Particularly, I am strong in the marketing and business side of things. Although I am in the EAE major, I have recently found a passion for marketing and production. I am an experienced leader with experience in the honors college, RHA, ASUU, Greek Council, and other student clubs. In the film department, I have been the team leader in most of my project based classes. At the residence halls, I was recognized for my outstanding work in marketing and programming. Within my fraternity, I set chapter records as VP of Recruitment and I was featured by our national fraternity for my success. As president of my fraternity, I was recognized by the university as Greek Man of the Year for my contributions to the row. In the last year, I have acted as a facilitator at fraternity conferences. I think my leadership experience, my business mind, and my love of video games will translate well to game development. I can handle finances, I can handle advertising, I can hype the games, I can send press releases, I can handle legal work. I also have experience in art, animation, sound, design, testing, and some programming. I have developed these skills by working with my fraternity, by working with an iPhone design studio, by working with an advertising firm, by working as a media/marketing director for the University, by working at a public relations firm and by taking a myriad of production courses. I have the skills to help make a well thought out game with serious polish and I have the skills to produce that game. I want to make a great game and I want to get high sales numbers too. I’m not just a gamer, I love video games.