Game Blog Week 7

Posted by Matt Arnold on Mar 28, 2011 in Facerocker Games | 9 comments

Wow, a month and a half in. I have started to realize that my entire life is now centered around this game. A friend of mine told me he would be back in town first week of May. My first thought: I will be bug testing, and level tweaking then. Joe Wright’s Hanna comes out the week I should have every level blocked out. When Doctor Who Season 6 comes out, my entire game should be playable from beginning to end in some form.

So this week was actually a lot of snags, and not much exciting to show. Awesome start to a blog, right?

First, lets have some good news. Art is coming along with Niko getting to the 3D character models of Zero that you saw last week. We are also getting an art pass at the first area of the game. This is to prepare for my artists which it seems like I have finally found.

Game Dev Tip #1: Know talented people.

Some people don’t want to say that because it makes it appear as if you are saying unless you know people, you can’t succeed. That is not it at all, but man does it help. A lot.

The last 2 weeks I have been searching for artists, realizing that I need to get assets in sooner than I needed. I don’t have much money for it, and the art is a rather important part in selling this game.

Then it dawned on me. One of my great friends in high school went to LMU film school. I hung out with him from time to time, and all his friends were great artists – most are working at WB or Marvel now. I sent them email and instantly I got two really talented people wanting to work on something fun and exciting, or just a chance to be part of the start of a cool game company.

That plus have the guys upstairs do some work, and Jimmy will hopefully be doing the music. Good friends are the most valuable asset your have.

So, the two big hiccups this week:

Hiccup 1: Programmer Hell

Morgan should feel free to add to this. Redoing our physics wasn’t much of a problem except for one major mechanic; climbing.

The second item you get is the spikey wheels that attach to your side. They let your climb up certain walls (you also go a lot faster, but lose the ability to jump). This was originally the first mechanic Morgan put it, because it was easy with the physics system. Essentially, when Zero hit a wall, the game just switched the direction of gravity for Zero. Hit a wall, turn gravity along the X-axis 90 degrees, and now he is “falling” forwards onto the wall.

Well, Zero is no longer a physics objects, and the mechanic is proving a pain. One solution involved rotating the character collider (the “object” that is Zero in the script) similar to the gravity, and redirecting the controls and what not. Morgan than discovered Unity actually makes it impossible to rotate the character collider for some insane reason.

Anyways, Morgan figured it out, and it is working nicely. It would have been done quicker, except as the title suggests, he had a crappy week. 2 power outages each lasting around 10 hours, and one hard drive – each on different days. We had some rage sessions on Skype for sure. Good times.

Hiccup 2: Rethinking the Final 2 Items

The danger of making a game like this with such a small team and limited time is readily apparent to me, hence why I have forgotten what sleep is like. One of the biggest issues is the implication of any mechanic has on the rest of the game. I have a lot of ideas for fun weapons, but I choose 4 that I thought were the easiest to do, while still being entertaining and varied. However, deep down, I always knew the last 2 items were fun, but limited.

Well, sure enough, it was the day I decided to lay out the detailed enemy designs that those weaknesses came to light. The last 2 items just didn’t fit nicely together. It wasn’t simply that they weren’t different, but there weren’t any drawbacks. 1 also seemed to just make you invincible and add a small layer of exploration. Finally, it became clear no one would play as plain Zero (aka, Link with Sword and Shield).

That was a good day of rethinking the entire core mechanics of the game. I think I sent 6 sporadic emails to Morgan changing my mind, at like 9 in the morning (Morgan’s hours are like 2pm, to 5am), calling friend, family, anyone to bounce some ideas off.

No one was around. I took a 2-hour nap. Woke up. Looked at my chicken scratch, and figured it out. I switched the order you unlock the last two items. I added disadvantages and advantages in combat for each weapon, added a “normal Zero” selection in the UI, and a few features to add some fun, including one major addition, shooting.

There is no better feeling in the world than cracking a problem. Its moments like that that make me want to make games and movies. In my experience, they are more about problem solving than anything else. Whether it is how to get a scene to work, what ability an enemy should have. Those who think of them as problems to be solved instead of reaching for some instinctual, subjective, ambiguous artistic solution are more likely to succeed in finding an answer.

I was worried about Morgan’s reaction, as some of the additions and changes felt pretty major to me. However, it is early enough, and the levels around those two items have yet to be designed. Morgan: “Awesome, those sound great, and shouldn’t be a problem”. He had the early prototypes up that same day. Awesome.

All is good.

Next week I should have some more concept art (Josh is working away at the environments) and hopefully some 3D models.

Once we get some basic assets in, I will start demonstrating some of the game in motion, and discuss more about the levels.

To keep abreast on the production of the game through out the week, follow me on twitter: www.twitter.com/mattlarnold