'Ellooo All

Merry Christmas to all! Santa hats all round.

First and foremost, many apologies for my lack of attendance to the group meeting and my low web presence on the blog. I hope that this isn’t mistaken for a lack of commitment to the group and the amazing work which we will be doing in the coming year. I had work and couldn’t get around it but if we are able to have regular group meetings at consistent times during uni then there won’t be any problems and all will be swell :D

Okays! A big hello to John, and welcome to the group! I hope we don’t end up rockin’ up in the same outfit too many times :P (please be the right John i’m thinking *fingers crossed* had the same shoes). Anyway! ...where’re my notes?

Ah, here we are. Secondly, I’d like to say that I like the sound of Rainbow Projectiles and think that it’s a wicked name :P It sounds like the happy [sic] funtimes (Jacob, 2010), at the same time as promising in your face non-stop projectilorified action! *cue explosion*

Okies. While I was reading the post titled ‘The Story So Far’. Written by the witty, yet hilaritarianistic, approachable, not-to-mention pleasing to the eyes Jacob Paris. Where was I? Ah, yes. While I was reading Jacob’s gripping piece, I was thinking ‘what’s the point?’ In my mind I feel we should pick some themes we’re going to use for our story, be they moral themes like in children’s fairytales or world themes like famine, global warming and environmentalism.

So while I reading I tried to pull out some themes I pulled out Logic/Reality vs. Resourcefulness/Imagination. I then read to the point about puzzles being solved in dreams, “the creature’s weakness being imagination” and that “completing the puzzles actually harms the creature, sending it back to its reality and keeping the girl safe.” At this point I was hooked on this notion yet wanted to know more about this creature and what the hell it wanted with this girl.

I came up with this dialogue spoken by the unknown entity trying to take over the girl.

But before the dialogue, I’ll try and give you a rundown of what I’m thinking...

There are 2 different species, each as old as the other: Humans and for simplicities sake, let’s call them The Species.

Thousands of years ago, when man was just beginning to evolve, The Species was also about to evolve, but where man evolved materialistically (weapons, body, advances in technology), The Species went the other way: The Species abandoned their bodies and took with them just their minds to evolve, concentrating on knowledge.

The Species are interested in the facts and the Humans, materialistic advances ie. Designing ie. Imaginative thinking. (Enter the theme for the story: Realistic vs. Imaginative.)

Keep in mind that both The Species and The Humans have been evolving to what they believe the greater good of their race.

And another note on the theme Realistic vs. Imaginative: A balance is needed. The basis of being realistic must be there (Well no, I can’t just turn my rocket feet on and blast off into the sunset) but also a certain amount of lateral thinking must be applied to life in order to overcome certain tasks.

And so where our story kicks off is at the brink of The Species trying to take over the minds of humans, creating what they believe will be a super race (perfect body with a perfect mind). The way that the humans will resist being overcome by The Species is with creative thinking in the battle that will wage inside their head. Amongst resisting, the player must find out how to defeat The Species (a feat unknown even to myself).

And so with no further ado (I think that’s all the main info floating about in my head), The Species’ monologue:

“Evolution: An ever changing ecosystem of creatures fighting for survival. Each species opting for the lead spot on the food chain.

Evolution: A beneficial change in a species to further them on their way to their goal.

Millennia ago, my species let evolution change us to how we felt would best benefit our kind. And while you humans evolved into material beings, manufacturing, harvesting, procreating. While you set evolution to take you to new heights with developing tools and developing your bodies, we abandoned our bodies and took with us our minds.

We invested our energies into more intellectual things, such as philosophy and thinking. You see, we are worlds ahead of you in so many ways. While you were just figuring out how to stay on top of it all in your little world, we had already conquered that task, and leading onto more. You are driving your world to a point of instability. Poor choices, poor planning and poor execution have been damaging to your economies, environment and general wellbeing. With our wealth of knowledge, we can right your wrongs, bring your planet back from the brink and settle it into a Utopian estate.

You may ask, why we are such great thinkers and have so much knowledge. The answer is because of the difference between us. While you humans were so intent on retaining separate entities, focusing on sole careers, we became one. We became whole. What was known by one was known by many and thus our knowledge base was able to grow substantially larger until we now know all the facts. We even know now how to possess your tiny minds.

You, who have developed your bodies so fully. Yet your minds so little. Choosing to dwell on the impossible and the imaginative. There is no time for what cannot be achieved. Precious time cannot be wasted on these things. Reality. Facts. The Possible. These are what must be considered, for there is no use for the other.

And with your bodies as the vessel and our perfect minds the drivers, we shall reclaim our place at the top of the food chain as the perfect species.”

I hope all this made sense!

Thank you for reading, I look forward to everybody’s input/ maybe collab into Jacob’s story.

Regards,

Dylan

Website Hosting

I am working on getting some web hosting together, so we have access to wiki, subversion, etc. I've chosen the web hoster, but I still need to decide on the domain name(s) we use. We are probably going to go with rainbowninjas

I can register RAINBOWNINJAS with any of the following extensions. The prices are per year:

.com	.net	.info	.org	.me	.tel	.tv	.im	.us	.co	.in
$9.99	$9.99	$2.99	$7.49	$9.95	$9.99	$22.95	$10.95	$8.99	$28.00	$3.99

What does everyone think?

EDIT: Those are all the different extension my domain hoster can register with. We can register with more then one extension, and have them all point to the same site. We can rule out .tv, .tel, .im, .co because of how expensive they are. .info is the cheapest, but .com, .net & .org are the most common.

I'm planning on going with the Start-Up plan from A2 Hosting http://www.a2hosting.com/services/web-hosting/ because they have subversion included in the hosting. I'll be getting a domain name from my own domain hoster so we arn't tied down to A2 Hosting if things go south at some point, and also because its much much cheaper.

The Story So Far

Evening all, here is tonight's homework: read this : P

For those of you who didn't make it to the meeting today we clarified a couple of things, the most important thing being our first game for next year. We decided on the interactive, potentially iPad-orientated interactive storybook.

The game will, of course, be narrative focused, meaning the mechanics of the game need to primarily work around improving the player's experience of the story. We decided the best and easiest way for the game to work was by leading player's along a set path broken up by various rooms, each with puzzles that need to be completed to progress. Naturally, the gameplay wouldn't be as linear as I make it sound : P. But yeah, rooms were the easiest way to get the player to experience the story the way we want them to. Also makes development easier e.g. each room is a level.

The most important thing about a narrative-driven game is the narrative! And I promised many of you I'd write out my totally erratic and very unstructured game idea : P. I usually have difficulty keeping things short, but I'll do my best to keep this down to base ideas and not go into an actual narrative.

---------------------STORY! ----------------------

A girl* wakes up in a locked room. She has no recollection of anything; complete and utter amnesia. She doesn't know her name, where she is, or why she is locked in the room. The room appears to be a storage area of some kind, full of crates and lockers. The narrator^ begins to detail the girls thoughts and her lack of memories, speaking like he's reading a book, describing the situation etc.

After solving a relatively simple puzzle, the girl opens the door and makes her way out of the room. She finds herself in a much larger room, potentially a kitchen. The narrator continues to detail her exploits, surroundings and situations, he focuses a lot on her thoughts and fears.

For the beginning of the game there is no one around. Not a single person. Anywhere. The narrator's explanation of the protagonist's thoughts focus a lot on her paranoia e.g.

"As her eyes darted back and forth, once searching for danger, now they searched for anything at all. The lack of life, the lack of movement...it was inexplicably unnerving. A thought crossed her mind. Maybe there were people around, maybe she simply couldn't see them? What if they were everywhere, watching her, giggling at the fool she appeared to be? What...what if they weren't people at all? Her thoughts grew ever darker and, when fear had almost frozen her, something moved. She jumped. Her heart felt, for a second, as though it would explode." yada yada yada...

Eventually, the character begins to uncover knowledge of the occurrences upon the ship% via journals, computers etc.# She also begins to randomly enter strange, out-of-place worlds seemingly modelled around works of fiction the player finds about the ship. For example, the player finds a child's room where a tv shows a short and cute cartoon about bunny rabbits. Upon entering another room the player finds themselves in the cartoon world seen on the tv. Eventually (possibly when entering another room) the player turns into one of the bunnies. Puzzles are solved and the enemy is often met in these dream worlds.

The enemy in the game is a strange entity that doesn't truly exist in corporeal form. The ship encountered it when travelling through an unknown phenomena in space and was immediately infested. The creature feeds on logic, reason and memories, using these things to strengthen itself and hold its form in our reality long enough to, in fact, devour the crew.

The crew's natural reaction to the infestation was to plan, learn and search for a weak point, not knowing this approach would ultimately empower the monster and lead to their steady defeat.

Soon the girl finds out she was brought upon the ship from another planet, one completely devoid of life. She was found in a catatonic state, rarely reacting to outside stimuli. Eventually she began to communicate with the crew but could not remember anything of her past. The captain locked her in the storage room, hoping to keep her safe.

After further exploration and puzzle-solving, the player learns the creature's weakness is imagination. The dream sequences are triggered by the creature attempting an attack and encountering imagination rather than memory or logic. The girl is consequently pulled, temporarily, into the strange reality of the creature which has moulded around her imagination. The puzzles she completes in these worlds are modelled around the actual stories of the works of fiction she draws her inspiration (the cartoon of the bunnies). Completing the puzzle actually harms the creature, sending it back to its reality and keeping the girl safe.

Eventually, a fantasy novel from the captain's room$ leads the girl to enter the final fantasy! world where she defeats the creature. At the last moment the creature reaches into her mind to make a final attempt to draw out her memories. In doing so, the girl does remember a short glimpse of her past, however this allows her to unleash some sort of power she once learnt, which destroys the creature for good. @

The final sequence shows the girl reaching the cockpit and starting up the ship.

* The main character doesn't have to be a girl, but I'm going for a less crazy Alice in Wonderland feel for this. I was thinking the narrator says something along the lines of "She didn't remember her name. For the sake of the story, let's just call her Lost". That would act as her name throughout the game.

^ I was thinking of an awesome, wise-sounding male voice for the narration. Like freakin Morgan Freeman. Reckon he'll come in and do it for free?

% Doesn't have to be a ship, I was thinking spaceship because of the inherent claustrophobic, can't escape sort of theme that would work well with the idea. But yeah, could be in a jumping castle for all I care.

# Probably could work out a more unique way to unveil most of the story, but we'll worry about that later : P

$ Could have a rather large story surrounding the captain and his character development.

! Unintentional : P

@The ending is very much open to change. Well, everything is, but the ending more so.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ok! So that's the very skin of what I've concocted in my crazy brain. You guys can now pick it to pieces ; )

Idea 5: DragonKeep

Well uhh...things have quietened down a bit... *watches tumble weed roll past* So I guess I better stop being a lazy-ass and post an idea I had!

Overview:

DragonKeep is a 2D iPhone game which utilises tilt and touch controls. You play as a knight who collects treasure by venturing into a dragon’s lair. As you pick up more and more treasure you’re character slows down. The farther into the cave you go, the higher the chance of finding rare/valuable treasures. Eventually the dragon will show up to chase you out of your cave. When you see him you must run back to the entrance where your magician girlfriend is waiting for you. She takes all of the treasure off of you and sends the dragon back into his lair. If the dragon catches you he sends you flying out the cave, causing you to drop all of your treasure.

Story:

The story takes place in a fantasy land where magic and adventure are abundant. The hero of the story is a somewhat small knight on a mission to win the affection of his cute girlfriend, who happens to be a powerful mage! He has run out of ways to impress her so he promises to bring her the rarest (and shiniest) treasure in the land. Unfortunately after he makes the promise he discovers all the treasure in the kingdom has been stolen by the most fearsome dragons around! So his girlfriend accompanies him to the mouth of the cave, wishes him luck and tells him he better not come back empty handed!

Gameplay:

The player moves left and right along a 2D plane (like a platformer game for example) by tilting the iPhone left and right. They begin each stage at the entrance to the cave standing next to their girlfriend. They must venture off into the cave. The player finds treasure on the ground as he goes along. To pick it up, the player must touch the treasure with their finger and drag into onto your knight’s head. They may throw it off at any time by touching and dragging it off. Along with treasure, the player may find power-ups along the way which might be used as a weapon against the dragon, a distraction, a speed up or anything else.

Treasure and objects stacks on the players head. Only the top object on the pile can be thrown. Thus to use certain items others must be sacrificed if they were picked up in a certain order.

The dragon would appear ‘randomly’ along your way. This would of course have restrictions on it so it could be finetuned to offer an enjoyable experience. (i.e. walk into cave ZOMGDRAGON) It could be based on the number of steps the player takes so as to prevent ‘cheating’ by leaving all the best treasure/power ups for a quick return trip.

When the dragon appears he will chase you back the way you came. The player must run or they will die. Power ups may be used to spice things up. When (or if) you make it back to the cave entrance, your girlfriend takes all the treasure off of you and awards you a rank based on how much shiny you brought her. Pray you didn’t disappoint her.

Inspiration:

I actually found my inspiration for this game somewhere odd. In Team Fortress 2 when you play as demoman you can ‘collect’ the heads of your foes by killing them with a sword. For each head you collect you gain a health boost and a faster moving speed. This has a cumulative effect, so the more heads you collect the stronger/faster you become. However, dying causes you to lose all the heads you’ve accumulated. For me this generates a huge rush of excitement as the thrill of becoming unstoppable grows with each head. However, an unexpected outcome is that although stronger than usual, the player tends to play more carefully than they would without the heads. The desire to ‘gamble’ comes into play.

Thinking about this made me realise many other games make use of this mechanic. An indie game called ‘Recettear’ I played recently had a dungeon crawling aspect, in which you collect increasingly rare items as you descend. You face stronger enemies too and dying of course costs you all of your items. Do I play on and hopefully find even more shiny? Or retreat to my base and keep what I have found?

Aside from this mechanic, I am inspired by bright and colourful games like those by Nintendo. Nintendo also is excellent at making item ‘collecting’ very satisfying with addictive sound effects and visuals.

I am also inspired by the ridiculous amount of money these games earn on the iPhone store. ‘Cut the Rope’, ‘Fruit Ninja’, ‘Angry Birds’ all feature a bright energetic aesthetic which has a mass appeal.

Important points:

• Making rewards ‘rewarding’
• Getting the randomness right
• Replay ability
• Extra mechanics to prevent oversimplification
• Implement someway to pass the dragon so you can be chased further into the cave
• The game doesn’t ‘need’ to be on the iPhone particularly. I just thought it was fitting. It would work just as well on anything else really.

******************************************************************************

Ok, I guess that's it. Let me nom on some feedback, and let me know what's going on with the club in general. And Jacob, I sent you a steam friends request. Accept it already. >_>

John.

MEETING

3rd Year Meeting

Time	Tuesday, December 7 · 11:00am - 2:00pm
Location	RMIT University
Created By	Jacob Paris
More Info	Right well the blog has started to slow down so I think it's a good time to have a meeting : ). Tell me if you can't make it, we really need everyone there. Oh and could Andey please add John and possibly get in contact with Tim : )

From the Rainbow Ninja Orifice emerges a new contender!

Hello there, I have been accepted into the clan by the one you call Andy. He even inscribed his name on me. (With permanent ink I might add) The name my mother bestowed upon me was ‘JOHNPUTTHATDOWN’, but most people call me John for simplicities sake.

Silliness aside, I am a designer with skills in... game design, 3D modelling, and getting things done even if it means risking my sanity from lack of sleep. Engines I have made games in are Unity, torque2D, flash, unreal and game maker. (hells yeah) In DIM2 I made Turtle Time, (a top down race against the clock maze game) Fantasy Parking (a hardcore parking simulator) and Shoot Things (a homage to classic SHMUP games which didn’t turn out…amazingly, but it worked!) Apparently I am also a fan of parenthesis.

I already know Andy and Dylan, and I know of Jacob but have barely spoken to him. L Oshroth has been on my friends list on steam for 6 months but I haven’t spoken to him. I have no idea who the other members are. Sorry!

I realise that you guys are probably..overloaded with designers at this point and you would probably rather another programmer, or at least somebody good at programming, but I promise to work hard and try my hand at whatever needs to be done. The only thing I am really…non-useful with will be 2D art creation. I can texture of course, but drawing is not my forte.

Anyway I look forward to meeting you and working hard to make the best game we can. I’ll start throwing ideas at you as hard as I can soon.

BaiBai~!

Idea 4: Boss Fights

Ok this is kind of a jumbled idea but i'm going to try and map it out and see what happens.

Basically ive been playing dead space lately and the other day i was watching James Cameron's Avatar, whats his face was controlling the Avatar who was attacked by a big black panthery lizard thing that proceeded to corner him under some giant tree roots and claw at him. The first though that came into my head was that he should use his big ass machine gun to shoot its arm off, slowing it down and causing it to take bleed damage, obviously dead space had seeped into my brain, but the point is that i began to think of a game.

The basis of this game is that all your enemies are way bigger, faster and stronger than you and the only way you can defeat them is with planning, persistence and basically making the right decision when backed into a corner, unlike what's his face from Avatar.

So if you're not following at this point id like to restate my idea as a combination of Dead Space, Shadow of the Collosus and Bioshock.

The game could be played single player or with up to four players, the enemies would get tougher with each additional player, and there would be some kind of story i imagine, but the point is that you start in some remote village and people in the village give you bounties for destroying these powerful creatures. By going on these bounties you gain money for weapons, experience points for abilities, and unlock new areas, eg: Bob of village 1 wants you to kill the six legged panther lizard thing blocking the forest path to village 2.

Once a creature is killed it remains dead forever, however you may be required to kill another beast of the same species in a different area. because the beasts are so tough, planning your attack and using the surroundings is crucial, and having the same beast in a different setting would offer a completely new battle. of course certain beasts would be key to the story, and they would be the only ones you are required to defeat, so you never have to fight the same enemy twice, however gaining extra money, XP and equipment would be a big advantage.

There are three memorable moments in my experience of gamin that im trying to capture with this idea so i should make my intentions clear by describing them.

One is from kotor, the point where you are basically locked in a room with 2 rancor beasts. Fighting these things directly is pretty much suicide, especially for my character who was a rogue. The way i solved this by going stealth and placing a chain of every mine i had collected since the start of the game zig zagged across the room, then unstealthing and running along the pattern as the rancor beasts followed me, constantly being exploded and gassed until they died. Actually making a plan, using the room to my advantage, and defeating two tough enemies against the odds made this one of my favourite moments in kotor.

The second is from dead space, id like to add spoiler alert if anyone is planning on playing this game in the near future. The final boss of the game is extremely easy, i was playing the game on hard and beat it on my third try, all you have to do is side step his attacks a few times so that it exposes its weak point and then shoot. There was, however, one point that took my by surprise, nearing the end of the first phase of this boss, it launches an attack that is impossible to dodge, resulting in the player being dangled by the foot as the creature tries to eat you. At this point you have to act quickly to destroy the boss' final two weak points in the 30 or so seconds before you are eaten, this is made difficult by the creature constantly moving as well as shaking you which throws of your aim. Being taken to a point where youre really pushed against the wall and have to react quickly to escape is what made that boss scene memorable and the fact that youre using your weakened position to actually further your progress in defeating this boss makes it all the more rewarding.

The third is bioshock in general. The thing i like about bioshock is the way you can customise your traits, and by picking those that work well together you can massively increase your attack power. My preferred tactic as far as taking on the big daddies went was to freeze them with the wrench as quickly as possible and fire trap bolts around them while they were frozen, then knock them down with an explosive, freeze them again while they were down and repeat this process until they were good and dead.

Hopefully that's all made clear what i'm going for with this idea.

Also i would like to include John Gregg in our group, i think it would be nice to have another designer on board. He's also done the iphone course so he will have extra time to dedicate to the subject and prior knowledge if we decide to do an iphone/pad game. If anyone has objections they'd prefer to keep private, please comment or email me, otherwise ill invite him to the blog next friday so he can see where our ideas are heading and further discuss what were going to be doing.

Idea 3: Book

Hey guys! Hope you're all still checking up on the blog : )

This is my third idea and it's finally a single semester one. It's really very simple, an interactive children's story book for the iPad/iPhone. Illustrations appear on the screen and the story written on the bottom. The reader can click different parts of the illustration and make things happen. For example, Red Riding Hood. The kid whose reading can touch the wolf and it will shake its fur and growl. They can pick up red riding hood's muffins from her basket and throw them about.

Having done the iPhone course this semester, I'm pretty sure this would not be a difficult thing to achieve. In fact, having completed basic iPhone games in a day, we could potentially have whole pages of the book done in a day or two. We could use a really nice art style to bring it all together, kind of like this flash game:
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/550407

This one would be easy, but also pretty cool in my opinion : ).

Jacob out!!!

Idea 2: Evolution!

Figured I better post a few more ideas so we can start to compare and contrast : )

Ok, idea number 2:

My second idea is another multiplayer game that follows a Unreal-style death match. Players start off as tiny little critters that can't hurt anything, break anything or even move very fast. For the start the players just run around eating other smaller critters which gives them evolution points. These points can then be spent on, say, four different stats. For example: strength, speed, stamina and acrobatics. Of course, the more points in each stat the stronger, fast, healthier, or more acrobatic they are. At the start, the major focus is finding and devouring as many of these tiny animals you can and collecting points. Having better stats obviously helps you to more quickly collect more points but no one stat has any advantage over the other, at least at the start. Example: high acrobatics lets you jump high and get to platforms with animals on them, while high speed obviously helps you search faster.

After acquiring enough points in one stat (say 5) the player character then evolves into its second stage based on that stat. Example: a player with 5 speed turns into a super fast wolf-like monster, while a player with high stamina turns into a massive rhinoceros-like monster. Of course, monster designs would have to be more unique than that : P.

But yeah, once the second tier of evolution is reached, players can start the fight. They generally attack each other with ranged or melee attacks (I'm thinking some creatures wouldn't have ranged attacks and some wouldn't have melee). Players continue to collect points but can now receive them from killing enemies .

Player's can also eat larger critters now which 'merge' with the player character, giving them special traits. For example, eating a bat gives the player character bat wings and allows them to glide, while eating a chameleon gives them the ability to turn invisible temporarily.

After spending enough points in another stat (say 10) the player then evolves to the third tier of evolution (I'm thinking they'd look more human-like). The second tier evolution determines the third tier evolution. For example, a speed-focus second evolution will have a different strength-focus third evolution than a player who'd chosen to have a stamina-focus second evolution. Basically, the third tier is a combination of the second tier focus trait and the third tier focus trait e.g. a strong and fast character. This means a total of 21 characters (including the first little critters), more if we have time. I think the benefit of this is that it's easy to lay down another few models with changed variables and make it possible to evolve in different strains.

When a player dies, they restart at first tier but have, say, half the evolution points they had collected before dying. That way, there's a penalty to dying but players don't have to start from scratch. They also get to try a different evolution strain if they want : D.

I'm thinking this could be good as a Team Fortress-style capture the flag type thing. Each player would no doubt be focusing on different traits and would end up being quite different from other player's, allowing teamwork to be fun and interesting. I like the idea of a fast creature stealthing past the enemy team's guards using a chameleon-trait : P.

Anyway, I wrote this pretty hastily so there's probably a lot of things I've missed. You guys can point out my many mistakes : P

Comment away!

Zombie Game - Jacoooooooob

Righto guys it's time to get this blog a-rollin. That's right, I just said 'a-rollin'. Deal with it.

We have about 4 months to get our game concept/s all designed and purdy, so time to get started on the awesome idea making! I think it'd be good if any of you get bored that instead of running off to look at Youtube videos or porn (lookin at you Logan) that you'd come here and lay down a hard dose of creativity. The more ideas the better, so write em down even if they seem stupid : P

So anyway, I've talked to quite a few of you about my zombie shooter idea, but I thought it'd be good to get it all dished out on the blog.

The initial concept is pretty simple: a co-op, mulitplayer zombie shooter; entirely first-person. Thanks to Left4Dead we know how exploding an infinite supply of disgusting monsters with your friends can be awesome fun. Of course, this game would need to stand out from Left4Dead and other similar games.

The main way this game differs is that it's not about surviving a zombie apocalypse, it's about killing as many undead creatures as you can and wiping an area clean. Of course, surviving long enough to take them all out is the challenge. Zombies could easily overpower and nom on a single player with a single gun and dull tactics, so working together and using each other's skills is important.

The first feature of the game would be an open world; in my head I see a sort of decrepit city with crumbling skyscrapers and trashed shopping malls overgrown with plants. It wouldn't be too difficult to create a single, enormous level and I think we could make it really fun to explore. Player's could climb up tall buildings and look down from roofs, enter subway systems and sewers, we could possible even have some nice movement mechanics going on to making getting around more fun e.g. long jumps, wall jumps etc.

The second feature was the character selection. My proposition was for the game to include class selection mechanics. You start the game, choose a class (or two classes, if possible) and enter the game with your friends. Classes would include more typical options such as Sniper, Medic and
Soldier as well as more unique options such as Samurai, Trapmaster and Pilot. Each class would have unique abilities, weapon proficiencies and stats - such as speed, health, defense, stealth etc.

After working through this concept with Andey, we decided a better idea would be to have a set number of characters to choose from that came with default stats and the classes would act more like perks in a Fallout game. Basically, you have a set number of the classes you can choose from (most likely two) and each class gives your character several abilities as well as improvements to their stats and weapon handling abilities. For example: you choose the character John Asskick who is a basic soldier character with rounded stats. You then choose the Heavy class, which improves the characters stats and gives them better accuracy and more damage with heavy weapons. The second class is a Brute class which gives John a bunch more health and defense, improves his hand-to-hand combat, and lets him charge through hordes of zombies with a special move. This makes for a pretty decent tank character, absorbing damage and hitting hard. But the choice doesn't have to be so obvious, John could've taken the Samurai class as his first class, giving him great agility and furthering improving his hand-to-hand skills (you'd also get a kickass samurai sword, naturally). It all depends on the person playing. I think this kind of mechanic would make the game insanely fun in multiplayer games.

This kind of mechanic would also work well in development cos we'd only need a couple of player character models that wouldn't change depending on the class. We'd also be able to set player variables, such as speed, that would be universal over all the characters. The variables could easily be tweaked by the classes e.g. speed + 10.
They'd all basically be the same character just with different numbers in their variables.

We also thought a day/night cycle could be interesting, where after a set amount time the zombie's A.I. changes. For example, during the day the zombie's are pretty much dormant, hiding out in buildings and undercover areas. This allows player's to move around easily but makes it more difficult for them to find the zombies. This also sets the scene for more close-quarters battles in buildings where the zombies are hiding. As soon as night hits the gameplay changes completely with the zombies actively hunting down the players, moving out in the open and highly aware of their surroundings. This makes the zombies easier to find but leaves the player's constantly on guard, often needing to hide themselves.

In the end, the players would move around the world however they want; jumping from rooftops and smashing through windows. They'd be able to communicate through an open chat window and develop tactics. They'd each use their own unique skills to get through certain situations. One player can set a large explosive trap in the street while another player keeps watch over him with a sniper rifle from a nearby rooftop. When the trap is set another player uses their quick movement to lead the zombies into the trap without taking damage themselves.

The main appeal about the game, I think, is that it sets the stage for the players to make so much fun for themselves, much like games such as Team Fortress. Of course, this kind of game would take a lot of time to do well or to even get working at all. If we did decide on this idea we'd probably have to do the single game over the year, rather than the two games.

Anyway, throw feedback at me and start posting your own ideas, as many as you can! GO GO GO!

Love always,
Jacob xoxoxoxoxoxo

Lets get it started in here

OK, so since last Wednesday I've clocked up nearly 55 hours on kotor and at least 15 on TF2 so I figure its about time to start doing something productive. I was hoping Jacob would have posted a thorough  description of his idea by now but regardless, I'm going to start trying to be productive. Based on what I can remember of Jacob's idea, I think the foremost issues we need to consider are the engine and the AI.
The most obvious choices I can think of for the engine are Unity, Unreal and Source.
I thought id start a list of some pros and cons, feel free to add/comment:
PS: I don't know heaps about source, I've played around with some half life levels but that's about it.

Unity		Unreal		Source
PROS	CONS	PROS	CONS	PROS	CONS
fully custom AI	basically no default AI	descent AI	'dumb' AI	good AI	(probably) hard coded AI
full work-flow control	all assets made from scratch	basic fps assets and creator	more limited work-flow control	strong fps assets and physics engine	?
familiar with work-flow and scripting	weird animation management	familiar with work-flow and imporation	troubles with importing animation?	variety of strong asset managers	low familiarity

Just a short list to get started, hopefully it will develop as we come closer to a decision.

BLOG IS UP!

We're up and running.
Have we decided on a team name yet?

Try and be as productive and creative as possible on this blog and also use proper english as much as possible because hopefully we'll be putting most of the stuff we discuss here in the design doc.

bt 4 now im goin owt lol.