A Colourful Week for WASD

This week, WASD has been talking over more ideas to add to our game, as well as doing some work towards our game. We have decided on using a theme of colour, actively changing the colours of the environment depending on the state of the game, and also using different colours to represent different things in our game. We are still hammering out the exact details of how we will use this theme, but we already have some ideas we're excited about.

Our lead artist, Sedona, has been drawing out some concepts for levels this week, and our whole group has been talking about how we will implement all the mechanics we have come up with, as well as which from our long list of ideas we will actually keep to add into our game. The programmers in the group (myself included) are also planning on reading up on WildMagic++ this week to get a head-start on programming using this engine.

I have started modeling the boss in Maya that I drew a concept for so I can get this done as soon as possible. All of the basic shapes are there by now, besides the hands, but almost no detail has been added so far, so that will be my next task.

The 3D model for my boss character, the Totem Guardian. His lower legs look extremely bulbous because I haven't added detail yet to make them look like they do in the original concept.

We will be finishing our commitment document for Game Development Workshop this week, so this will be our first group task besides planning. After we are done this, and after our programmers have a general feel for WildMagic++, hopefully we can get started on actually putting together a game.

It's a New Year, and WASD is Back!

It's a brand new year, and so we are now working on making a new game. Team WASD is still together, with four dedicated members: Dan Stepchenko, Dan Cortens, Sedona Parnham, and myself. This year, we plan to make a game entirely different from our previous creation, Raptor Racers.

So far, we have a concept, but many details have not yet been hammered out. Our concept focuses around the idea of attraction and repulsion, specifically in the context of magnetism, in a "tribal" themed world. The player will be able to navigate a world (likely in 3D platformer style), fight enemies, and manipulate the world and metallic objects within it using magnetic powers. The main goal will be to fight enemies and solve puzzles in order to make it to each next stage in the game, where the main character may then gain more power to use in further levels. We also have plans for a multi-player mode, though this would likely be implemented next semester. However, we recognize that this concept could potentially cause problems for us due to its relative complexity, so we are planning on taking this one step at a time, completing the more important aspects of the game first, and then seeing what we are able to finish.

We have plans for the main characters (there will likely be 2 to select from), a friendly NPC, and a couple of bosses. A number of these have been sketched out on character design sheets in three poses for our 3D modeling class. My sketch, shown below, is of one of the bosses in the game. The bosses will likely be guarding an artifact or a power that the player must collect to advance, and they will also likely all be robotic or at least have a similar feel in order to fit with our theme. This boss is a robotic being that also resembles a totem pole in order to fit with our tribal theme.

Besides this character work, we have been discussing a possible story behind the game, but have been avoiding going too far into this before we are given our potential "themes" at the Game Development Workshop. I have also started on a particle system over the weekend, for sparks when metal hits metal. This is about halfway done or more, but there are a few visual issues I need to fix in order to make it more appealing to look at, and a few methods I'd like to compare. For instance, I have one version of the particle system using spheres, and another using lines and varying transparency. I am planning on comparing a few different ways of doing this particle system before completing it. I will also possibly need to adapt my code to work with WildMagic++ and Havok rather than OpenGL. However, I at least know I have a basis for the particle system so far.

 

Sparks particle system using spheres. Right now, the spheres fall in a fountain-like pattern.

 Sparks particle system using lines. The lines also fall in a fountain-like pattern, but have a shorter lifespan than the spheres, and become more transparent as the particles age.

Altogether, we haven't done a whole lot of concrete work yet because we are waiting to learn about WildMagic++, Havok, and to be given our additional theme, but we do have a solid concept and characters, and so we are hoping that this is starting us off on the right track for this year.