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.