Movement and Shader Scripting

As it stands I have been focusing on scripting a character movement system and some basic toon shaders for our game. So far I have a basic working movement prototype and our first shader finished.

Character Movement

The above screenshot shows the test scene that I have set up to test the character movement scripts. As it stands the current features of this script are as follows;

• Basic 2D movement along the X axis.
• This includes running and walking functionality.

• Basic jumping.
• Jumping heights vary depending on the current speed of the character.
• The ability to control the character while jumping against the characters current speed.

• Directional Rotation.
• The character rotates towards the camera in 3D space to face the direction in which it is moving.

While there are currently not very many features to this script over time I intend to expand upon it to incorporate the use of;

• Momentum and sliding.
• The ability to jump off from a wall.
• Movement acceleration.
• Other physics interactions.

Toon Shader

While having scripted this I have also been working on a fairly basic toon shader for our game. While this is usually something that would be done much later in development I decided to do it early on in case any issues arose that could potentially result in us having to change the games visual style. Below is a screenshot of the unity scene that I have been using to test the toon shader.

The toon shader has a few editable properties that can be used to change its appearance;

• The amount of shading bands can be changed to alter the "blockiness" of the shading.
• There is a property that allows you to limit the amount of colours used by the shader's base texture.
• It is also possible to change the size of the models outline.

Currently the shader gives a really nice visual style to the 3D assets that I have tested it with, there are however a large amount of changes that I would like to make. The first is that due to the way in which it has been written, when the 3D assets are set to receive shadows its causes some visual artifacts where the toon shading and the received shadows overlap.

I would also like to change the way in which the outline is created. Currently it is done by using rim lighting that is set as solid black, this creates a nice affect but is often predictable and can create strangely shaped outlines with some assets.

All Character Concepts

Character Concepts

By Elliot Bird

The Designer

The main character for the game, a scruffy, student computer game designer or gamer.

Here, i have tried to achieve a cell shaded look.

i have also changed the texture to emphasise the sense of being in different worlds.

Standard Enemy

Design 1

Started with a basic design that could possibly be used in all game world. For each we would add little accessories relating to the environment to give more of a specific world effect.

After painting the ice concept i did a few colour variations of each monster to see if they might be used in all wordls however they look a bit too specific to their own worlds to be used across each one.

 After having a group discussion we decided the best thing to do would be to design 3 enemies,

- Standard (roaming enemy)

- Projectile (enemy that fires missiles)

- Arial (Flying enemy)

and then texture each enemy 3 times one texture per world, allowing us to use the same enemy mesh across all levels.

Here is the base for the standard enemy, based on a hedgehog. It will patrol platforms back and forth and kills you when collided with.

Design 2

  

 Colour Variations - According to worlds

 

Accessories added to make clear what worlds the monsters belong to

 

The accessories couldn't be part of the base mesh so they are attributes that would have to be added after the creation of the base.

Rather happy with these designs, the creature looks reasonably feasible and as if each are suited to there assigned environment

We also discussed the possibility of having two strengths of standard enemy, one being the standard creature without accessories and one set with accessories that maybe take two hits instead of one to defeat adding to the difficulty aspect of the game.

Projectile Enemy?

Using the standard enemy as a base i added in some glowing orbs that they could possibly shoot at you with some kind of power. Still unsure about this however

as a group we decided that it would be better visually to have a specific enemy for projectile attacks rather than re-use a previous design.

Arial Enemy

This concept is for the arial enemy, based on a jellyfish, but combined with the standard enemy concept to create a consistant look. Again i have given them colourways so as to indicate their relavance to each level/world.

It will be located in the air floating smoothly up and down inbetween two platforms. Like the standard enemy, if collided with you will perish, you can either use timing and pass it at a convienient point of its animation cycle or jump on it to defeat it.

'Bug' Enemy

The bug enemy is an enemy that patrols platforms but can 'stick' to it so to speak, it will be able to traverse along the top of the platform as well as crawl along the underside of them making it hard to jump or navigate below a bug inhabited platform. These enemys will appear most in the binary level, where 'The Designer' has managed to finally access the code behind the game.

Design 1

The glitch enemy will start appear towards the final level and is not an enemy that the 'Designer' is meant to have designed. it is a being created by the glitches in the game that are attempting to eradicate you from their world.

Due to the fact that a glitch or mechine has created these enemys i have tried to keep to quite a robotic design that feels cold and unrelatable to the fluffyness of the usual enemys you will come across.

After a group discussion we decided that this enemy had too many humanoid attributes for something that was meant to be a 'bug' in the game, however we did think it would make a good final boss when made 10 or 20 times bigger than the Designer himself.

Design 2

  A rough design for the Bug enemy that is more of an accurate visualization of what we had in mind for this type of enemy.

A set of possible movements for the character giving us a clearer view of how it might look in game

This design i do not feel fills the criteria we are aiming for, it needs to have more bug-like features as opposed to the robotic ones i have chosen to make clear in these designs. Things like several eyes and multiple limbs and antena would add to the bug like qualities i am aiming to achieve.

These bugs represent faults in the game and come from the game therefore i have designed them with an electrical current running through them to give a sense that the game is powering them. 

Colour ways, not too keen and these enemy's

 

Design 3 & 4

In opposition to Design 2 these designs are very strong in appearance whereas design 2 looks a bit feeble and un-bug-like.

These designs i feel are effective, although with a realistic style, i think it would work as a good contrast to the current soft cartoony feel and as enemies would pose more of a threat to the 'Designers' world.

Design 5

Design 6 & 7 (Silhouettes)

Animal Enemy concepts.

After having discussed several enemy ideas we wanted the game to feel like there was once a 'unbugged' version before our protagonist entered his own game. While i really liked my first designs it would be much more efficient on time to have enemies that can exist in each world.

We wanted to explore animals and creatures that could differentiate in any of the selected worlds. If these animal type of enemies were used in the final game then we can create several version of each, forest/ice/fire and of course the digital bugged version. Other design process are needed to determine what would be the visual effect to show these animals are infected by glitches.

Some point down the line i decided to try and come up with a flying type enemy. An enemy that can patrol the skies purely to get in the way of the player. Above you can see my first sketches, i wasn't too happy with this design as the stature seems a little too tall and more towards realism compared to the happy cartoony style we are hoping to aim for.

 A mock up of a more refined possible flying enemy, i doubt this will be used in game but i am quite happy with the design. Compared to my sketch i am much happier with this as the more skinny, freakish approach works with this design and i also added more robot/bug like features. Multiple eyes and a broken antenna could be an easy theme to keep the enemies consistent.

So while thinking of animal enemies that could live in each world but of course with different characteristics i came up with this frog design.  The group seemed to like the idea of having this guy as a ranged enemy, using his tongue to attack the player from afar. 

I went over a few colour schemes and 'accessories' to differentiate the frogs in each world. By doing it like this we can use the same base mesh and add on the 'accessories' after while using the same rig and animations while only needing a texture switch during game. 

Also decided on giving him a tail and maybe a longer snout as i noticed a common theme within our pre-bugged enemy designs is a cross between two animals, in this instance a frog and a lizard. 

Concepts and Ideas. Level designs and Characters.

Here is one of the original mind maps to generate ideas and elements that will be used.
You can find a full list of mechanics and gameplay elements on the blog post below.

First level designs and ideas, this shows a really basic visualization of what the levels could possibly look like. Each world theme will contain various game changing mechanics to increase difficulty and different puzzles for the player to solve. While this in no way demonstrates the aesthetics, it gives a nice feel on what each level represents. 

Some of the first enemies and main character designs, i believe we are quite happy with the general look on the main character and is definitely close to what the final character will look like.

Another few character sketches i did for a collection of slimy looking bugs all with a similar theme and style. Each type could easily demonstrate certain attacks and obstructions for the player. I personally am quite happy with these designs but as a group we believe it would be a lot of work to design and model/texture/rig/animate a large collection of enemy types. 

Final Ideas and Concepts

Discussion on 15th of October deciding on the finalised mechanics and concepts for our game.

Finalised Ideas and Concepts

The Main Character:

• Can run, jump, duck and jump of walls.
• Enemies are killed by jumping on, unless they are bugged/ bugs are required to be stunned with bug spray first.

The Mechanic (Controllable companion):

• Hovers behind you, flies when you take control it.
• When controlling The Mechanic you must stay within a certain radius of the player.
• The Mechanic is much smaller than the player.

Enemies:

• Three enemies based on the 3 themed worlds, each will use a similar skeletal structure to save on rigging and animation. 

Level Mechanics : 

• Level One:
• Forest Themed.
• Strong winds that push the player.
• Basic puzzles and platforming.
• Showing signs of game bugs (25% bugged).
• Level Two
• Ice Themed.
• Slippery / Icy floor.
• More puzzle orientated than platforming.
• 50% bugged.
• Possibility of having blocks slide along the icy floors.
• Level Three
• Fire Themed.
• Falling volcanic rocks.
• Equal balance of platforming and puzzles.
• 75% bugged.
• Level Four
• Bug / Code Themed.
• Bug / Glitch void chases you through entire level.
• Must keep running.
• No puzzles, only platforming.
• Ends with final boss.

Possible Features / Stretch Goals

General Game Mechanics / Features

• Level grading system (the more bugs you destroy the better grade you get.
• A shop or similar structure at the beginning of a level bugged out, showing that there was some sort of prior objective or activity before the game became bugged.
• Game opens and closes similarly to a PC.
• Static / noise screen overlays to make it looked more glitchy / bugged.
• The Mechanic has some sort of comedic white glove that it uses to interact with objects.

Intial Ideas and Concepts

After several meetings with my team we have come up with some base initial ideas for our game.

Main Base Ideas:

• It will be a Puzzle Platformer.
• Our game will be made with a 2.5D perspective (a side on orthographic camera, with 2 dimensional character movement but with all assets modelled in 3D).
• There will be a controllable companin character that aids you to solve puzzles.
• Each group of levels will be themed independantly.
• Enemies and and puzzles will be themed to correspon with each level.
• In game puzzles will mostly be navigated by your companion.

Base Story Ideas:

• The main character is a game developer.
• The controllable compain is named "The Mechanic".
• He is bug testing his own game and created the "The Mechanic" to aid him while bug testing his game.
• There will be some sort of element of parody, between "The Mechanic" and the main character.
• The game bugs will appear as some sort of enemy.

The ideas for our game and the artist style has been inspired by many different games.

Art Style Inspiration:

• Royal Revolt.
• The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.
• Super Mario World.

Gameplay Inspiration:

• Angry Video Game Nerd Advetures.
• Super Mario World.
• Manuganu.
• Braid.
• Super Meat Boy.
• vvvvvvvvv.
• Limbo.