Presentations

Gave the presentation for mentality today. I felt it went quite well. I was asked by James field, "how much of it is actually mine", as he is a 2D designer I knew this was going to be asked. I hope he can appreciate just how much time was spent on scripting and getting things working for this game. I did want to add more custom 3D meshes and textures, but other things took over. I felt that I made a demo that clearly shows the concept for this game, so I hope everyone else saw that.

The Hand in

Handed it in this morning! Spent the night bug fixing and making sure I had clear instructions.



I had rebranded, new scheme, from the proposal because even though the game is set in the mind of a person on a space ship, the player never actually see's space. And also it did feel very generic. So I went with a scheme that felt more like a puzzle game.

Only the presentation left!

Tubes!

Finaly got the tubes working. Its taken me a long time to get these working correctly. I've had to pretty much invent a work around to get it to work. By using 7 different entities I can get the physics object snapping to the path getting carried along and triggering other events.















Thanks to the steam forums for help here! very useful.

Bringing to life

I've felt that the levels appear quite flat and need more texture to them. I have added the use of black to the levels to try and make it feel more layered. The tube room also has a tiered ceiling now, that adds a subtle depth the the room I feel.

Lighting

I have been working more on the lighting as I wasnt happy with it. I have now used an animated sprite texture and more focused spot lights inside the indents. These lights now are coloured blue to fit in the theme.



Technical issues with implementing the puzzles are troublsom, I'm having to spend a lot of time on scripting these levels.

Latest

Had a tutorial with Tom today. Showed him a video of the new lighting scheme i have developed. The level editor Still doesnt work!.



I have an indent around the walls and a glass panel at the front of the indent. Inside the indent I have lights that shine the length of the indent it glows through and lights the room. Still needs work but gives a nice washed out feel yet very sci-fi.

Tutorial

After my tutorial with tom, we're having more problems with steam. I brought in levels to show him but the maps will not run on college computers.
Also I need to get into the documentation.

Mapping

So, I need to get the levels made, so i have started on the most complicated. At least i think it will be the most complicated. The tube room, also makes sense as i have a firm design I can follow for it.

By using the tube models in the source sdk i have managed to align them all into a tube network. Very fiddly as they cannot be snapped together and as i have so many twists and turns it is taking a long time. The room at the moment is just a big rectangle, i will have to sort that.

Status

After my session with tom last. I now know I cannot show him my work in progress inside the level editor. This is really frustrating, as i means taking video's each week and means less creative input from tom. He has been very good about talking with the IT department to fix it though.
I've been working more on the tube room and I now intend to make a tutorial level as the first level of the game to introduce the player to the puzzles ahead. Still need to visualise the last puzzle.

Characters

I wanted to get into modeling by now, but time is flying by. I have got a basic sketch for an alien that i hope to use in a scene. I've decided not to worry about modeling the main character, as the player will never see it. Its purely first person, so thats just making more work for myself than needed.




I've also started the story, after speaking to Tom though he told me not to write a full story for the project as they wont read it. Only a synopsis is needed and info on any characters. Which is a shame as I quite liked the thought of writing a big story for the game to lead into any sequel plans. Will try get the synopsis up next week.

Steam

After trying to get steam on the college system we failed. Spent 20 minutes trying to get it working today with Tom. Looks like a major problem!
Will be speaking with IT to get it working. Will try to make videos in fraps for now to show tom my work.
Tom will be speaking to people to try and get steam working.

Synopsis

As promised this is a synopsis of the story. I also have looked at making a letter that will serve as an introduction to the story. The letter is written in the present and tells of the state of the world, which introduces what happens in the past. i.e. the game.


"The year is 1947, the world is still recuperating from World War Two. The UK is in economic crisis. India and Pakistan are granted independence. The cold war is brewing between America and Russia, the arms race has just begun. Charles Yeager breaks the sonic barrier. President Truman is president of the USA.

The player takes the roles of a character that was taken in the first abduction by aliens that arrived in orbit around earth in 1947. The main character is the subject of mental experimentation, testing humans’ mental capability. He is submitted to a battery of tests that involve puzzle solving that require detailed analysis and find solutions. He never knows where he is, only that he is trapped and wants to find a way out, unknown to him all the puzzles presented to him are projected into his own mind. These tests were to provide the aliens with the perfect data to enhance their genetic experiments on the human race, to be later released on the planet beneath them ten years after."

Level Design

I have spent the last week on creating a level design for one of the maps.
The tube room, this level i aim to be a big puzzle in the demo. Many tubes will take an object and suck it up, but only one tube will drop it onto a button that opens the exit. Hopefully i can add some weighting elements to the button, but we'll see.

So I have done some drawings to work out the layout of the room, as a tube network will need to be planned so i dont overlap or anything. A3 sketch on an A4 scanner so its abit cut up. but you get the idea.

Initial puzzles

As a puzzle game, i have to think of interesting puzzles that I can realisticly achieve. I've been sketching some ideas. below are a couple of ideas I have.

One is a variation of the see-saw idea where the player puts an object into a tube and the tube takes it and drops it on the end of a see-saw, and if the player is standing on the other side, they will be boosted up.



The other is an idea to get the player touching things. a big panel of buttons that the player has to match up their length and once they are all aligned the door will open.

Pre-Christmas Report

Before the university broke for christmas, we all were asked to give a presentation on how we are working and what we have been up to since the project started. Below is a link to the flash presentation aid I created for this.

Click here for presentation