FMP 23 - Evaluating the Project

In this final post I will just semi-quickly go through my thoughts about the project I handed in.


I stated in my design folder that I wanted to have a completed first chapter of the game, and while the definition of chapter is definitely vague, I initially thought I would have a longer demo - as per the previous post, there is a very good reason for that. All the corner-stones have been lain now, which means that actually adding to the project will be a breeze - I definitely think it is possible to double the length of the demo in less than a day for example; the only thing that will take time now is asset-creation.


I am really pleased with the different scripts, and seeing them work together is always a joy (not so much a joy when you get an obscure error you cannot fix).

Regarding the characters, I had initially planned to create them in the same style (with sprites) as my previous game, but that could not work with a non-orthographic camera. Creating them in my own way, with a series of two-faced quads, was a lot of trouble, but it definitely taught me a lot about the best way to go about it - I am now almost 100% sure that the characters in Paper Mario are indeed frame-to-frame animated, and are drawn completely per frame, instead of stitched together. I think I will try my hand at this, at least with complex characters, which will also teach me more about traditional animation.


I am quite pleased I managed to add a little puzzle to the game - the assets themselves were quick, but again, it is just a model that can be exchanged, when the code works it works. Some of my favourite parts of Paper Mario and Monkey Island were just discovering random things because you went to look. I think I will add more little things like this, and more puzzles in general.


The enemies were a lot of fun - the coconut especially. I had initially planned for a larger presence of monkeys, and even sketched out a mean, obese Monkey King, but they did not make it in. The fact that they are sketched out and planned for makes it quicker to add though.


Lastly, regarding the world itself, I am really happy with how the different 'world-tiles' work together - it feels akin to Paper Mario to me, like exploring a jungle, and that is what I wanted.


To sum up - I like what I produced, and even though it was not as much as I had hoped for initially, it was the right choice to delay adding more stuff for increased functionality. I have no doubts that the game will expand rapidly from this point on, and with the things I learned from making this project it will be all the better.


Thanks for reading! I'll be back in some shape or form!


-Mads

Cardboard objects

One thing I'd like to show here, with 10 minutes to go, was just some of the objects I made that I don't believe I have shown yet - inspired by the textures from Paper Mario, I made some of the 3D objects with a cardboard-like texture on them. I don't think anyone but the most eagle-eyed will actually be able to see it in game, but that is partially what the blog is for!

It's a little touch, but I quite like the effect it has when you look at it.

That's all for this post!

FMP 22 - 7th September : Evaluation - Process

Now we are here, at the end of all things, I felt I should combine the last weeks process post and do a little evaluative review of the entire process I had, regarding the time-schedule and how I managed difficulties and so on. After this I will write a post about my thoughts about the project I handed in.

First of all, the entire process was a bit skewed because of my late start - which was my fault, but it is still a fact of the matter.
Besides that, I realized once I had started and were researching how to overcome certain obstacles, and especially programming-wise, that I did not want to cut corners on the project from a longevity-standpoint - as in, I created everything in order to support continued work.
For example, the dialogue and combat system, which could have been created on a case-by-case basis, are instead examples of multi-threaded programming that can be expanded as much as needed with very little work compared.

Another example - several of the characters have joints and parts which were drawn separately in order to be better for animation, even if I did not have enough time in the end to use them - but that comes later.

I managed to pick myself up and reschedule my remaining time, and even though the programming took longer than expected - in essence, because I wanted to continue working on it, it became a much more programming-oriented project than I had envisioned - I still managed to complete my list of tasks.
In the future, I believe I will allocate more time to programming, and continuously evaluate whether or not some pursuit is worth it - I spent a long time trying to make the models appear flat like paper for example, which in the end taught me a lot, but it also took away time from other things.

I did think the blog was a bit of a nuisance at times, but I do think I will continue blogging in some shape or form - maybe only if I have something I am really pleased with though.

In the end, I am decently pleased with the process - it was tough going at times.

FMP 21 - 29th August

Regarding the playable character, I have yet to produce something I am completely happy with, and if I am honest, I doubt I will in this time-frame - he's starting to look decent enough, but in the final stretch here, imagination and creativity fails me.

As it looks now, I'm eally glad I had a buffer period here at the end!

This week was for producing more graphical doodads like trees and textures to populate the areas with, and here are some screenshots of that:

 

 It's starting to look up I think (as well it should, there's a week till hand in)!

 Level design is never really done, you can always tweak and alter things to be a little better. I've been looking a lot at the earlier Paper Mario games to try to research how they made their scenes work, and how full of graphical objects they were.

I recently read an article on Gamasutra about level design and telling stories through the level, without dialogue or exposition, and while a demo like mine has next to no relevant story, I have added a single piece which I hope to enhance upon further in the future versions, and get a sense of mystery to this island.

Till next!

Source:

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/DanTaylor/20130929/196791/Ten_Principles_of_Good_Level_Design_Part_1.php

 

FMP 20 - 22nd August

Done with the 'Forefront'-posts for now, I have been able to focus a bit more on the game, though it did bite into it a bit anyway.

I spent some time finishing up the event-system (and by 'event', I mean a little cut-scene of sorts) - it's a little bit messy, but I cannot see how else to make it without having an obscene number of scripts or script-to-script interaction. It is definitely possible to add more events to it, but if that gets too messy then I can just make a new script for that scene and so on - the ground-functions are there, and it works, so.

I spent the last of the week researching- and drawing different versions of the players partner for the game - where did they meet, how (which is why I planned the event-system for here), and of course, what would the character look like.

I like the Paper-Mario approach of none of the partners being human, so, beyond the Parrot-partner you get in this demo, I also had plans for a type of sophisticated Monkey, maybe a stowaway Sea-rat, an ensorcelled Cannon maybe even - stuff like that.
For this version, only the Parrot will be included - simply because there needs to be a reason and a story behind why the characters are introduced, and that does not take place in this demo.

One thing I haven't really talked about yet, is the difference in dialogue between Paper Mario and Curse of Monkey Island, example. In Monkey Island, the main character, Guybrush, and his interactions and dialogue with different characters is one of the main parts of the game, and all of the dialogue is recorded by actors. In contrast, in Paper Mario, Mario doesn't say a thing (he sometimes shakes his head and stuff like that) - instead, all of the dialogue is handled by the partners. This makes sense in the Mario-games-universe, because Mario never actually has lines, and it is a cool approach, because it means the player can put themselves in Marios stead more easily.

For this demo I have planned for the partner to handle the speaking, but I have yet to decide if the main character will talk in future versions of the game.

Till next!

Forefront 10 - Animation and Unity

The topic I want to discuss today is simply animation itself, with a focus on classical, 2D animation.
The fact of the matter is that most indie-games are 2D - making games in 3D might require skills beyond what small teams can provide, and it is also extremely timeconsuming. Furthermore, as triple-A games frequently have dozens upon dozens of people working on them, every artist is very specialized, and a master of his or her craft. With 2D, anyone who can draw can pretty much draw both backgrounds, spell effects, characters, icons and so on.
Because most indie-games are 2D, they are also animated thereafter, and so I will have a look at some of the classical principles, and how they apply to other projects and my own, and top off with a few examples of different styles of animation.

(Note: my go-to book is The Animator's Survival Kit, and I am not allowed to post pictures from it, so this might have fewer pictures than I would like)

Many 2D games, and pretty much all of 'pixel-art' 2D games, use frame-to-frame animation. This means that every frame in every animation is drawn separately, then stitched together. This affords the animator the use of all of the traditional Disney principles, like squash and stretch and exaggeration (note that some of the principles are to do with staging - for obvious reasons those cannot be controlled by the animator when someone is actually playing the game) - for the frame needed, the animator simply elongates or exaggerates what is needed, and the effect is palpable, as thousands of traditionally animated works can attest.
In my game however, those two principles are not applicable (which is why I am discussing them). My project is based on Paper Mario, and more context-specific, on paper cut-out animation, that is, every joint is a separate piece, which is the rotated - think smooth stopmotion animaton.
While it is definitely possible to use the scale-parameter in Unity during an animation, this will often prove to be woefully inaccurate. An alternative approach
I chose this form of animation because I wanted the game emulate the Paper Mario style, and because it is much much faster. Additionally, and I like this point, the different joints can be update graphically, and this will, if done correctly, transfer into the Unity animations, and so the look of the model can be changed even after the animations are done - this is nigh impossible with frame-to-frame (I certainly have no idea on how to do it), and when you are a learning artist, this is a golden opportunity to iterate on characters.
One way to achieve the mentioned 2 principles is to include alternative joints, which you then 'swap out' with the original when needed, but this conflicts with the points made in the previous paragraph.

Looking at a series like Paper Mario, it can appear to use both frame-to-frame, and joint-rotation animation (Forward Kinematics). The 'Idle' animation in Colour Splash for example, for both Mario and other characters, appears to be a simple loop between 2 different frames - not really animated at all, really, but this fits with the paper-craft style of that particular game.
In my own game, which has edged away from this style, I have created several joint keyframes (for as many as 120 frames per animation) and then allowed Unity to interpolate between them with its Animation editor.
One problem with this approach that I cannot envision a solution for is how grounded the animation feels - with frame to frame, each leg is simply draw on the ground, but with frame rotation, as the upper leg, lower leg and foot joints all rotate together, getting the foot to feel like it actually impacts with the ground is exceptionally tricky.
For this reason I may opt to change to normal frame-to-frame later if I improve sufficiently as an artist, and if and when I am completely happy with the design of all my characters... most likely not.

To include it in this context, Curse of Monkey Island uses a large number of traditional frame-to-frame animations.

One really interesting new project on the 2D animation game scene is the game Cuphead, by studio MDHR.

Trailer from E3 can be viewed here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TjUPXAn2Rg

Cuphead uses a design and animation style similar to the old Fleischer Studios cartoons of the 30's - it's brilliant, bonkers, and quite a visual treat to behold.

Returning to Unity for the final stretch of this post (this turned out longer than I had thought), I will briefly talk about external animation programs for 2D animation, like Spriter, and Spline for example. These engines greatly increase the options and speed with which animations can be created, and they also support such things as distorting meshes, bones, and Inverse Kinematics - meaning, amongst others, that the model can finally feel grounded! I am fairly sure the animations can be transported into Unity as well, with the only downside being that they aren't free.
Animation packages can also be purchases on the Unity Asset store, such as Puppet 2D (https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/14024)

I think that's all I had to say on this subject!

Note that while the assignment brief says we need at least 10 blogposts, and while I hope to include more, this all depends on how the next couple of weeks are going to go - having less time than planned hasn't helped.


Sources:
Spriter from BrashMonkey. 2016. Spriter Features | Spriter from BrashMonkey. [ONLINE] Available at: https://brashmonkey.com/spriter-features/. [Accessed 03 September 2016].

Spine: 2D skeletal animation for games. 2016. Spine: 2D skeletal animation for games. [ONLINE] Available at: https://esotericsoftware.com/. [Accessed 03 September 2016].

Principles of Animation. 2016. Principles of Animation. [ONLINE] Available at: http://minyos.its.rmit.edu.au/aim/a_notes/anim_principles.html. [Accessed 03 September 2016].

 Cuphead - in Don't Deal with the Devil. 2016. Cuphead - in Don't Deal with the Devil. [ONLINE] Available at: http://cupheadgame.com/. [Accessed 03 September 2016].

FMP 19 - 15th August

So I figured out what was wrong; instead of writing String.Split(" ",[0]), I should have written String.Split(" "[0])

Hard going finding that out. I have started the event-system, but it is getting quite complex indeed.
One thing I will highlight however, is how I have, when I could, refused to take the easy way out. When I used to program, I would tackle each problem head on, complete it, then move onto the next part. The problem with this approach, however, was that when constructing subsequent scripts, previous scripts might not have been crafted with those other scripts in mind, and so rewriting or altering was often necessary, time consuming, and confusing.

With this project however, I have created everything to be expanded upon - the dialogue system works with every character, and the scripts can be seamlessly changed, prolonged, or shortened, all without messing with any scripts at all. At the same time, the combat system reads and spawns enemies based on which layer they are on and what their names are - things I have not used before either.
It is a rare joy to craft something that feels like an actual working cog in a machine, and know that it will keep turning whatever you throw at it.

In related news, I am not satisfied with my pirate character, though I must have drawn half a hundred sketches by now. I will let him sit for a bit while I move on to the next issues.

Till next,

FMP 18 - 14th August

Another week gone by - and it hasn't gone as planned.
Programming is a capricious mistress, and sometimes, things that are supposed to work, simply do not.

I looked at scripts that can load and read .txt files, and then I attempted to split said file up into what different characters had to say in the dialogue bits - and it simply did not work. I am programming in JavaScript, and the only help I could find that somewhat correlated were in C#, and I am not about to start messing with a different programming language with a month to go.
At the same time, planning and writing the forefront posts this last week were more tiring than I thought, so I will have to work longer hours than I had thought the last few weeks.

Per my time-schedule, I had to have all 3 scripts - combat, dialogue, and event, finished, and have my pirate character almost drawn, but I am still in the middle of the dialogue bit, and so am about 5 days behind schedule - these blogposts do not help.

Till next,

Forefront 9 - Monkey Island

Insprieret af look, humour, characters.

Today I'll talk about the Monkey Island games, and most specifically, the Curse of Monkey Island (the 3rd one).
These games were humerous pirate adventures, with silly, ridiculous characters, plot-lines, and a lovely colourful setting. Developed by the now defunct LucasArts, they were comedy games at heart, and it seeped into every puzzle and interaction. It's characters and interactions have been hugely influential on my game, and I hope to infuse it with as much humour as those.

This game has been so influential in fact, that whenever I think of Pirates and games, I instantly connect it with monkeys! I even planned for a Monkey King to be present in my hand-in version of the project, but while he has been sketched out and written into the story, I think I will have to end the game before the story progresses to that point.

Not a lot of adventure-puzzle games, without a focus on action, are made anymore, and the humour, setting, and especially character art (though I am nowhere near as good an artist obviously) have directly influenced my choices in both type, design, and character. It is with that reasoning that I have included this semi-old, but evergreen, game in my discussion of the games at the forefront of what I am trying to achieve.
As an additional tie-in to Paper Mario, as Monkey Island games are puzzle games wherein the player frequently has to employ outlandish and obscure items to bizzare problems, a small part of that puzzle element was actually also present in Paper Mario, wherein the Player sometimes had to use items in correct locations or the like.
As stated before, I fully intend to continue the work on my game after this project has ended, and I have high hopes for it. When it comes to constructing puzzles or interactions, it is this type of game I will turn to.

Till next!

Curse of Monkey Island. 1997, PC [Game]. LucasArts

Forefront 8 : Gamasutra - gifs and promotion

For today's post I'd like to talk about something realy important that is often neglected in education, and that is promoting and advertising your game, and how to go about it. Various Facebook-groups exists to showcase your works on for example, Screenshot Saturday, but these only go out to other members of the same group, or unless those same members share the pictures. The case is the same with Twitter.

I saw an interesting article, which coincided with a trend I saw earlier during the summer at E3, and that was about using animated gifs as promotional material - firstly, the clips are small and quick, thus unintrusive. Secondly, they play automatically, and so whomever is watching does not need to sit through ads or even actually do anything.
I saw this very idea at work during E3, when the new Legend of Zelda game, Breath of the Wild, was announced, and someone had made gifs out of some of the most interesting scenes and scenarios, and these gifs were widely shared and liked.
Here are some examples of those gifs - diminutive clips that unobtrusively and without the viewer having to do anything, showcases some key aspects or new eye-catching features from a game.

I am seeing more an more of this kind of promotion appear, and I think the ease of watching them, combined with being able to, in a few seconds, show something flashy or interesting from your game, is going to become very big in the future.
The following article talks about using gifs in promotion, and what to do/what not to do:
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/BundyKim/20160707/276365/Marketing_in_Motion_A_Year_of_Making_Gifs.php


I am pretty confident that I will use gifs in the near future to bring some focus to myself as a game artist. They are free, easy, and are driven by imagination rather than brand or money.

Sources:

Gamasutra: Matt Mirrorfish's Blog - Promoting Your Game With Animated GIFs. 2016. Gamasutra: Matt Mirrorfish's Blog - Promoting Your Game With Animated GIFs. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/MattMirrorfish/20160105/263028/Promoting_Your_Game_With_Animated_GIFs.php. [Accessed 02 September 2016].

Gamasutra: Bundy Kim's Blog - Marketing in Motion: A Year of Making Gifs. 2016. Gamasutra: Bundy Kim's Blog - Marketing in Motion: A Year of Making Gifs. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/BundyKim/20160707/276365/Marketing_in_Motion_A_Year_of_Making_Gifs.php. [Accessed 02 September 2016].

Forefront 7: Unity technologies and lighting

This post will be about the Unity engine itself, and more specifically the upgrade to Unity 5 which occured a little over a year ago. A key aspect of software development is keeping up to date with the newest the engine has to offer, and so this post is about that new version and which aspects I could add to my game.

Unity 5 introduced Real-time global illumination, which means that, rather than stopping when it hits a surface, light will bounce around, illuminating corners and faces that would not normally have been lit. (https://blogs.unity3d.com/2014/09/18/global-illumination-in-unity-5/)
I watched some tutorials on how to set it up, and after adjusting the settings a bit, it mostly involved setting the object in question to 'Static', in the Unity inspector. Global Illumination brings a much higher degree of realism to games, and while this additional realism is not crucial in a 2D/3D cartoonish game like mine, it does make a noticeable difference in the feel of a scene, and, to me, makes it possible for the scene and the game to achieve and entirely different feel, and thus also, to introduce a different mood, something vastly important.

Here is an example of a scene without, and with Global Illumination added (in this example, whether or not the objects were set to 'Static'):

Can you spot the difference?
The picture above is with 'static' set to off, and below is with 'static' set to on.
The entire level feels much more lighthearted with this setting on I feel, and this with only static surfaces - when it comes to changing lighting circumstances, like a day--night cycle, or a bonfire, it is even more effective

While I didn't have time to introduce it in this version of the game, I have several ideas for scenes involving extraordinary lighting - the pirate main character could enter a temple where the light wuld bounce off surfaces and studded gems, or venture under a tree and light up the dark underbelly of the jungle with a torch. Even something like stalagtites and an underground lake would be possible, possibly easy, and very cool.

Update: 

Another thing coming soon (in Beta right now, which you can actually download if you want to), is upgrades, amongst others, to the Particle System! The particles can now be set to emit light onto surrounding surfaces, and a parameter of noise can also be added! These additions are wonderful, as explosions and the like will get much more realistic and easy, and the noise parameter ensures I don't have to program it myself!
Case in point - I have made a little bonfire for the game with a flickering light, but it involves several different objects and scripts, and even a Wind Zone, which I havent used before - much easier to just do it in the Particle System editor. I won't upgrade my project at this stage, but I can't wait to tinker with it!

Till next!

Sources:
Unity Technologies Blog. 2016. Get the Unity 5.5 beta now – Unity Blog. [ONLINE] Available at: https://blogs.unity3d.com/2016/08/30/get-the-unity-5-5-beta-now/. [Accessed 02 September 2016].

Forefront 6: Paper Mario: Color Splash

- allerede skrevet en del ting om.
Kig på decision making process måske, scores fra de andre spil, kig på kritikken af sticker star, både fra reddit og metacritic (critics og users), og begrund at Paper Pirates bør findes!

The post today will be about Paper Mario: Colour Splash.
I've already written a lot about this game I feel, so this post will be a bit less research-y.
It's no secret that the first two Paper Mario games were the best received, with Sticker Star especially being unpopular with fans, who took issue with the fact that all of the things they loved about the initial two games - partners, story and new characters, were all removed. When the trailer for Color Splash was revealed earlier this year, many fans were again let down because, seemingly, Nintendo had not taken the criticism of Stick Star to heart, and so the trailer showcased the same resource-based combat system, the same lack of partners, and no new characters at all. Things got even worse later when, in subsequent videos, all that was shown was different colours of Toads.

With the ongoing criticism, I feel like I should take a step back from the game, design-wise, and instead have a look at the Games Art side of it, because the game is gorgeous - the textures are incredible, and the sense of colour and style that Nintendo is famous for is indeed still there. Everything looks like it has been literally crafted out of paper, and in that sense, the game takes after Yoshi's Wooly World, wherein everything looked like it had been made out of wool - a game that was also praised for its art-style.

However!

I acknowledge that the game is gorgeous, but ever since I saw the initial release, something in my subconscious mind was telling me something was wrong, and that message has finally been delivered to the conscious level of my internal structure: the game looks so good, that it actually prevents immersion - I will elaborate.
When I play RPGs, I do it to immerse myself in a story-world, and to go exploring, find rare items, make digital friends and so on. I can climb mountains, cross seas, and battle beasties to my hearts content. Games are meant to trick you into believing their story-world is real, and that you are in it, as an actor. We've seen this evolution for over 20 years, as graphical fidelity and believability has improved, and now with VR as well.
However, and this without having actually played it, I see something wrong with Colour Splash - how can I immerse myself in a world, when the world so very clearly shows me that it is fake? Graphics in the old days were limited, yes, but after a while you became immersed in it - a green sphere could be a tree-crown, and you'd learn to accept that it was a tree-crown, and all the green was soft leaves. I cannot do that with Colour Splash, because I know the leaves wont be soft, because they are made of cardboard - everything is. It doesn't feel like going on an adventure, it feels like moving a character around world I made in my basement and that, to me, impedes immersion. It doesn't feel real.

That is why I have decided to lean away from Colour Splash as graphical inspiration for my game - I appreciate the craftmanship, but it would be the wrong choice to try to emulate something similar. I much prefer the art style of, say, Thousand Year Door, and so, as with all other aspects, the first two Paper Mario games will remain the graphical inspiration.
I have searched for other 2D/3D cartoonish partner-based RPG's, but I have yet to find any.

This was a much longer post than I had anticipated, but I hope my point came across.

Till next

Sources:
Paper Mario: Color Splash. N/A. Wii U[Game]. Intelligent Systems, Nintendo.
Metacritic. 2016. Paper Mario: Sticker Star for 3DS Reviews - Metacritic. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.metacritic.com/game/3ds/paper-mario-sticker-star. [Accessed 02 September 2016].
TechRadar. 2016. My hopes and fears for Paper Mario: Color Splash | TechRadar. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/my-hopes-and-fears-for-paper-mario-color-splash-1316789. [Accessed 02 September 2016].

Forefront 5: Ori and the Blind Forest

Note: I was originally going to write about Shovel Knight, another dedicated reimagination of old school platformers, but I felt that, since Shovel Knight uses pixel-art where Ori and the Blind Forest has textures, that Ori would be a better fit.

Ori was created in the 'Metroidvania'-style, and sought to recapture the magic of old games like Metroid and Zelda (http://www.oriblindforest.com/#!about/). Per the critical acclaim, I'd say they succeeded (http://www.metacritic.com/search/all/ori%20and/results)! It is also made by a very small group of people, and is then, like most of the other games on my list, an indie game made in the style of older games while choosing certain areas to upgrade or envision in a new fashion.

The game was especially lauded for just how beautiful it was, and while I love the art style, which is to me reminiscent of Retro Studios games like Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze with its large flat blots of colour, it is not easily transferable, as Ori is a 2D game. Still, I can be inspired by the artistry and colours and lines of the textures and settings instead.
One thing I liked is how the developers talked about making every frame of the game seem like a painting, and that's a nice principle to try to remember - every place in the game should look or be special.

Screenshots:

Till next!


Ori and the Blind Forest. 2015. Xbox [Game]. Moon Studios, Microsoft Studios.

Forefront 4 : Mighty No. 9

For this post I'd like to talk about Mighty No. 9. I am a little bit tired, so bear with me - I have been working along with researching these posts, but it isn't going as quick as I had hoped.

Mighty No. 9 is considered a spiritual successor to the Mega Man games, and the project lead even worked on those. It was developed following a very successful Kickstarter campaign, but unlike something like Yooka-Laylee, it had a very troubled production.
Following numerous delays and accusations of mismanagement, Mighty No. 9 released to a bonecrushing metacritic-score in the low 50's, and so was widely considered a major disappointment.

While I have not played the game, it, like Donkey Kong, Axiom Verge and Yooka-Laylee (and me) was trying to emulate what was great about old games in a new way, but, unlike the other released games (and hopefully me), it failed. Reading through the reviews, it seems like Mighty No. 9 failed to grasp what it was that was actually fun about the old games, or if it misread which of those concepts should be updated or modernized.
Some negative opinions might also have been directed towards the game on account of the obscene amount of money it raised as a Kickstarter campaign, while at release still suffering from bland graphics and framerate issues.

The case here is then, that nostalgia can be a powerful thing when channeled and honored, but it is by no means enough. The new game can borrow mechanics or features, but if it copies too much, or if it does so without soul, charm, or anything new to bring to the table, then it will be forgotten.

Till next!

Mighty No. 9. 2016, Multiplatform [Game]. Comcept

Forefront 3: Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze

For today's post I'd like to talk about one of my favourite games of recent years - Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze.

I grew up loving the Donkey Kong games on the Super Nintendo and Nintendo 64 - interestingly, the love for these games what was led me to become interested in, and subsequently back, Yooka-Laylee.
The side-scrolling Donkey Kong franchise was always known for about 3 things: It had graphics far surpassing what was normally possible on the system it was played on (Donkey Kong Country used pre-rendered sprites to simulate 2D - I believe it was the first game to do so, and it was absolutely mind-blowing!). Secondly, it had an absolutely brilliant soundtrack, a true evergreen in the gaming world (I'll get back to this point). Thirdly, it was a pixel-perfect platforming experience.

In 2010, at E3, Nintendo unveiled a mystery title - slowly, the Donkey Kong music began increasing, and as it turned out, fabled Retro Studios were handling a new version of the classic Donkey Kong formula, and the game was a critical and financial success. Four years later they released its sequel, Tropical Freeze, on the sequel console, the Wii U, and here we are.
Interesting titbit: David Wise, who worked for Rare during the 90's and who helped score Donkey Kong Country, returned to score Tropical Freeze, which was widely acclaimed for its soundtrack (amongst others). More interesting titbits - some of the people who are now making Yooka-Laylee, which is being scored by Wise, used to work at Rare in those days. There's quite a pattern here!

Back to business: the reason this game is at the forefront of my slice of the industry, is firstly, because it is an extraordinarily brilliant game.

The graphics are amazing, the soundtrack is stellar, and the gameplay and difficulty is taut as ever.
I really love the character design too, and the general art-direction has inspired much of what I like about gaming - colourful, cartoonish style with lots of character.

 

The game received critical acclaim and was a sales success. It was also a new version of an old game, which took an tried-and-true formula and, in many eyes, improved on it, or at least improved on the areas where there could be improved in the first place. 

While Retro Studio is a subsidiary of Nintendo and thus has lots of manpower and funding, it is the kind of game and experience I want to craft, and the art-style has been hugely influencial to me.

I even have some ideas for some graphical features I'd like to try and craft, directly inspired by this game - if I manage, you'll see a blogpost about it.

Till next!

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. 2014. Wii U [Game]. Retro Studios, Nintendo.

Forefront 2 : Axiom Verge

For this post I will be talking about quite a phenomenon in the gaming industry: the game Axiom Verge.
Axiom Verge released earlier this year for multiple platforms, and received critical acclaim with not just critics but also users (see Steam reviews for the game).
A game in the "Metroidvania"-style (I really dislike that portmanteau), it seems especially inspired by Super Metroid, and utilizes a lot of concepts and mechanics that were present in that classic game. Interestingly, Axiom Verge, unlike many other recent games in this style, has opted to not give players any actual map or hints about which way to go, a very interesting turn of events: many recent games are ripe to bursting with tutorials and hints, and while the developer most assuredly is well-meaning, I believe that excessive 'hand-holding' might actually detract from the feeling of
 progress and achievement - perhaps this is one reason that Axiom Verge is so loved.


The amazing thing, and one of the reasons I consider this project at the forefront of my own personal slice of this industry is that, amazingly, Axiom Verge was created by just one person! The developer Tom Happ started working on the game in 2010, and thus had a 5-year development. A new game, referencing and harkening back to popular older games, and made by a single person? The fact that it is possible for 1 person, through faith and perseverence, is a bright light on the horizon for me.

Sources:
Metacritic. 2016. axiom verge - Reviews, Articles, People, Trailers and more at Metacritic - Metacritic. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.metacritic.com/search/all/axiom%20verge/results. [Accessed 02 September 2016].
Nominees | The Game Awards 2015. 2016. Nominees | The Game Awards 2015. [ONLINE] Available at: http://thegameawards.com/nominees/. [Accessed 02 September 2016].

Forefront 1 : Yooka-Laylee

Today I'll talk about the upcoming game Yooka-Laylee, developed by Playtonic Studios (http://www.playtonicgames.com).

First a bit of history:
Back in the 90's, when 3D platformers first came out, there were a series of very popular ones, among them Donkey Kong 64, and Banjo & Kazooie. These games similar in a lot of ways - colourful, cartoonish platformers with lots of collectibles. With the recent popularity of indie-games and games made by smaller studios becoming famous, some of the developers from back then have taken to crowdfunding and produce projects that harken back to those ages - with updated graphics and functionalities of course.

On such project, and a very anticipated one at that, which crushed its Kickstarter-campaign (and which I helped back, for that matter! Does not happen often), is Yooka-Laylee.



Headed by people who were on the actual teams who made those games back then, Yooka-Laylee has been receiving lots of positive early-view previews.

Trying to analyze the game a bit, from videos, interviews and previews, the game seems to simply be a modern day version of some of the games that inspired it - with changes made where a contemporary gaming-community expects it of course, so a thing like incessant grinding for coins, which was acceptable back then, has most likely been turned back a bit, but we will have to wait for reviews to get the complete picture.
The game largely speaks to and benefited from the nostalgia of gamers who played the games from back then, and this is also the feeling that the developers seek to bring forth:
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7piOjxp13-U)






Yooka-Laylee is a prime example of the forefront of the 'indie-'industry, which I am attempting to pry my way into, and even further, an almost direction comparison to my own project:

• It is a new version of an old game, the type of which isn't really made anymore.
• It embraces its heritage without copying it, upgrading graphics and features.

 Most importantly, it fills a hole in the gaming industry, taking a place that no one really is really occupying.
All of my skills are vastly inferior to the Playtonic team's, but their sense of character, colour, design, and the very fact that a project like my own can succeed is inspirational.


Sources:
Playtonic Games. 2016. Home - Playtonic Games. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.playtonicgames.com/. [Accessed 02 September 2016].

FMP 17 - 7th August

Week 1 done of the new schedule, and so far I am on time - I interspersed the drawing with a bit of programming as I was getting increasingly anxious about how little time I have remaining, with as many tasks before me as I do.

Week 1 called for 2 new enemies and a little programming, and after some research (a lot) and a bit of doodle-ing (a lot), these two came up - I am sure I could manage better if I had more time and an imagination-surplus.


















Note that while a basic Wander-script is in place, the enemies cannot fight yet. It is gruelling, but somewhat amusing, to put the figures together in Unity - I'll devote a separate blogpost to this later.





This is my planning out of the combat-script - invaluable, really, when you are trying to keep hold of so many different actors and functions.

--

Unrelated, but I realized I haven't written much about the games I've looked at for inspiration, or some of the evolutions in the industry - I'll have to get on that soon.

Till next!

FMP 16 - 31st July

Here is my revised time-schedule  - I did it on paper because 1: It is faster - 2: it is easier to ammend and strike out, and 3: I can hang it where I want for motivation.













With an up-to-date schedule I can finally track my progress with the time that is actually left.

Till next!

FMP 15 - 30th July

While I am working on the revamped time-schedule, I thought I'd introduce the methodology I will use when constructing difficult scripts.

In my bachelors degree I learned that by far the best way of coding was to plan it out first, and secondly, that developing a visual understanding of how the different aspects of the code cooperates, was usually a good idea (the course was Model Oriented Programming I believe - and I got an A+, if that matters!).

The visual way of planning programming projects is also reminiscent of how visual Unity is, with it's drag-and-drop functionalities.
When I get to the actual programming I will upload the pictures here.

Till next!

FMP 14 - 27th July

I realized I just contradicted myself yet again, but this is semi-important:

When we handed in our design document we also had to include a Gantt-chart which detailed our time-schedule. Now while I did that and the document was signed off, the time-plan also began in May, while this project didn't actually start till the 30th of June when I learned I couldn't come back for another semester. Therefore, needless to say, I needed to adjust my schedule significantly, and in some cases even drastically!
While this has been an unspoken truth until now, I felt I needed to chronicle it.

Until now I have been following my schedule as laid out during the month of May, however I have had to include programming where breaks should have been, and so am quite weary as we head into the final month. I have made notes on how to revise my chart, and will include its revised form in another blogpost.

Till next

FMP 13 - 26th July

Alright, so before my hiatus I figured I might as well add in a model and do a real test, and it looks like this:


























With the blue squares being the invisible lines of the double-faced quads.
One problem with using textured quads instead of a sprite sheet is that you can't define the rotation pivot while doing it, so I had to parent each separate object to an empty gameobject in its pivot position - quite a hassle.




















As you can see this quickly becomes time-consuming and complex - this is a very simple model after all, with no facial controls or anything like that, but I suppose it is unavoidable.

I might increase the complexity of the model later, but for now I am too busy. I plan on returning to the blog in about a week or so.

FMP 12 - 26th July

I figured it out! This is quite ingenious, I really must say.

The sprites in the game were giving me a bit of headache - not did they cast no shadow, they didn't receive any shadows either, or were affecting by lighting. All surmountable issues I would say, but graphical fidelity is paramount, and the sprite model breaking itself because of which angle you viewed it at was unacceptable (no help arrived from the Unity forums btw).

So what I did instead was the following: textures, rather than sprites, do not show through each other, so I could make the model with textured quads!

Issue 1!
Quads are 1-sided, which means they only display their graphics in 1 direction, and this conflicted with changing directions, because I wanted them to rotate. In Paper Mario, as the models are made of paper, when they rotate you can see how thin they are - more paper-y subtle goodness!
I could resolve this issue by making the model a very thin box instead, but the texture might show on the top and sides, and the top especially frequently displays a small disruptive line, which was unacceptable.
What I did instead was to take a box in Maya and simply delete the middle, then, selecting both faces, I'd map them from the same direction, so when a texture was applied it would be 'facing the same direction', thus correctly being able to rotate!




















This worked like a charm, and I was quite pleased with that. When several objects had to be stitched together in form of individual limbs (for animation purposes), the setup it took was like this:


A bit time consuming, but it was the only way I could think it might work.
However, one problem still presented itself, and that was to do with any objects behind the actual model - for example, in a side-view, the arm and leg on the opposite facing side of the character. Until now I had controlled which objects were visible on top of each other by adjusting the scale of the 'double-quad' in that direction, but this could not work with these limbs rotating the character, because they would show on top of everything when rotation.

To fix that I made an inverse version of the double quad, that is, a box with the sides cut off, normals inverted, and then UV mapped like before, and that worked! I haven't applied it to a finished model yet, but I'll upload a picture when I do.

Till next! I might take a few days break from this blogging, it is tiring me out and it's almost August already.

FMP 11 - 25th July

I have had the problem of sprites showing through the character at different angles (see the boar-sketch from a week or so ago), and I'll log some things I've tried here:

Billboarding
A billboard is a type of 2D object that always faces the camera - think the enemies in the first Doom game, or often things like tree-crowns and shrubbery sprites; in essence, things that you are not supposed to see from the side (because they are flat).

I couldn't get this to work properly though, even though after research I tried making my own billboard shader. While the model did turn, it was apparent that it did so, and was distracting on the eyes.

Separate Camera
I tried using a separate camera as well. In Unity, separate cameras can be used to view different objects, and so I attempted adding an orthographic camera, and setting its culling to only the Sprites-layer I had created, but this did not work either, as the model still showed through parts of itself.

One tough way to fix all of this would be to, instead of animating the sprites in-Unity, I could draw each animation and export each frame as a separate picture - but this is simply not feasible in the timeframe, nor is it fun.

This was all a problem I had not anticipated, because my previous game was orthographic, and created parallax scrolling through scripts.

FMP 10 - 23rd July

I think I have a solution to texturing the ground, and that is to simply tile the textures - I hadn't really tried this before, but once I figured out how easy this was and how easy it made making objects of various sizes, I decided this was most likely the proper way to do most of these things. I looked at Paper Mario and tried doing something similar to the jungle texture in that game, as that is where this part of the game will take place!

The way I learned to make something tileable is to create the drawing in photoshop first, then use filter->offset, with half the height and width, and then smooth out the middle! Simple and easy, and works like a charm.

This is the tile I made with the pattern tool:









I deliberately made the texture very small - somehow I felt the calling of older games and the need to preserve space! Pasted on the ground tile from earlier it looks like this:


While an improvement from earlier, it clashes a bit with the colours of some of the other objects. The very texture itself also looked a bit 'camouflage-y', and by extension, a bit too serious for what I as trying to achieve. I had another look at the paper mario games, and learned that even in the Thousand Year Door, what passes for grass need not look like grass actually, so I tried another texture again, but this time I couldn't use the pattern tool due to the shape:










And posted on the model it looks like this:











I think this harmonizes a lot more with the playful look I am going for, so I'll be using this for now. One thing that doesn't look right is the side of the object, so I made a different texture for that, and in order to cover the edges with grass I made a simple 3D-object shaped liked paper shaped like grass, to hang over the edges - a bit of a hassle to do so, but it might look good.

Here is the result (from next day):













While this might work if the grass itself was a disembodied object with shadows and such, right now it just looks distracting. I am very happy with how the rock-part of the texture went though - also tileable.
Regarding the grass, I went back and had a look, and was struck by how I hadn't thought of it before:




















It seems the grass is simply a part of the side-part of the texture, so, trying my hand at that, this was the result:















Not only is this much, much easier because, as it tiles, I need not adjust anything afterwards, it also looks better.  I am happy with this - it reminds me of older Mario games, which is exactly what it should.

FMP 9 - 21st July

Took a bit of a break - I feel like that is important to retain some level of energy and imagination.

Not many words today, but I finally dug up some of the sketches I did.

 

I am working on the main pirate character, friendly Pirate NPC's, and two different enemies right now - a boar and a monkey. I quite like the boar-design, but the monkey doesn't feel right to me yet. Guess that is the point of iterative design! I remember seeing a video on designing characters where you really just tried a lot of different combinations of facial accessories, body features and even bone structures, and then you could choose which parts you liked from which character and then combine it in the end. I should try that.

Till next!