Homework 6

Homework 6
Assigned: Friday Oct. 16, 2015
Due: Friday Oct. 23, 2015

Analyze two games (one that you like, and one that you do not like, or like less). Address the following issues:

1) the Tetrad
2) Balance
3) Emergent properties (check the book out)
4) Interest curves (check out the book)
5) Explain the reasons you like or dislike the game and relate this to Game Design issues. 

Put this in your Blog. Each game will count for 50%.  Each of the 5 subtopics will count for 10 points (for each game), for a total of 100 possible points.

Do not forget to state your contributions to your Teams' game and what you plan to do in the following week.

The two games that I’m going to compare are Final fantasy 10, and Final fantasy 10-2, which is the lesser known sequel to FF10. For more Final fantasy 10 was as far as turn based RPG’s go, is probably one of the best games I have ever played. The game allows for easy gameplay, and the learning curve to understand how the leveling in the game, as well as the abilities that each character has are easy to understand, and are typically predictable in knowing what the outcome may look like. But when the first Final fantasy 10 is compared to the sequel, final fantasy 10-2, It’s almost like you’re playing a completely knew game. The story tries to pick up right where the last one left off, but the problem with that is, is that Final Fantasy 10 had a pretty solid and concrete ending for the most part. Final Fantasy 10-2 adds random character and world developments that just plain don’t make sense, such as making the quite, and shy protagonist summoner from the first game into this outgoing, gun wielding, female idol member that fights things with her singing voice. The drastic change in mood and temperament from the first game makes the second act as a bad example of a comedy, when the first game was seen more as a drama. As far as game mechanics go, the second game tries to make the game more fast pace, where turn based is now rushed, which doesn’t allow the player really any time to think about which ability to use next because they are rushed into deciding. The player being rushed into deciding what ability to do next takes away from the original game in which the player could try and be more strategic in deciding what to do next. The Balance in Final Fantasy 10-2 is completely broken by this, the characters talent tree, and leveling system is drastically altered and made to be more complex, to the point that even experienced Final fantasy players tend to have trouble in understanding what everything is, and where everything is at. They were ultimately too ambitious in what they wanted from the final fantasy sequel, and it’s the perfect example at how “more” does not always mean “better” in regards to total content that can be found inside of a game. Final fantasy 10, is one of the best-selling and most widely known in the series, but with the sequel, people don’t tend to even remember it, because the story is so broken, scattered, and different that it just feels plain bad. Even the cut scenes and art from the second game just seem rushed and it seems like less effort was put into making it look good.  The first game really nailed, it with likeable characters who are even 10 years after the game are still widely known and liked, but the second game got rid of those characters, and did not develop the recurring ones hardly at all, but rather gave them a completely new persona that just seemed to make a large portion of the fan base angry. For the most part, people who are fans of the series do not typically like to relate the two game together in even the same universe because of how different the game is. Even the monsters in the seconds game seem less important as some of the most powerful creatures in the first game can be captured in used as pets in battle In the second game which not only alters the gameplay for the worse, but the game does a lackluster job at explaining how this is even possible as this deviates from what the monsters actually are, and what they are made out of from the first game. The second game just makes them appear as beasts, rather then what they actually are, “spawns of sin” which supposedly should have gone away at the end of the second game with the climax, and defeat and destruction of sin. All together the first final fantasy remains almost a classic by video game standards today, with the new gen getting a collectors edition recently, while the second game remains to be liked by most of the fan base, even if people try to like it for what is. But honestly. That game is just bad.

Final Fantasy 10:

1) The Tetrad

*explained in paragraph*

2) Balance:

The game feels well balanced, each character has their own benefits to be used and leveled up. And the difficulty curve of the game works well with the player. “Good players” are able to proceed faster through the game if they are “better” but players who are not as good, have the option to sit back and farm experience levels from enemies to prepare for later challenges.

3) Emergent properties (check the book out)

This is one of the best games at making the game more emergent by creating good characterization that makes you more involved on an emotional level with the characters in the game.

4) Interest curves (check out the book)

This game creates a series of story arcs, throughout gameplay, that allow for multiple different issues to develop and allows for there to be multiple interest’s curves with each new arc, or area discovered.
5) Explain the reasons you like or dislike the game and relate this to Game Design issues. 

*explained in paragraph*

Final Fantasy 10-2:

1) The Tetrad

*explained in paragraph*

2) Balance: The game feels less balanced, there are certain character in the game who will always be better than the other, making some of the character completely useless to the game content, which just makes the game more complex.

3) Emergent properties (check the book out)

The games attempt at being emergent with characterization fails, as characters try to be funny by giving one liners, and it just makes no real connection to any of the characters. The game feels less explorative and more singular throughout the game, as you are forced into a certain direction, without really getting to explore as much as the first game allowed. The emergent properties in the world just feel limited.
4) Interest curves (check out the book)

The game is completely linear, and tries to have one singular goal to meet throughout the whole game, so it feels dragged on, and the interest of what actually is happening in the story at the time just feels chaotic and confusing as random characters and groups are added that had not previously existed in the previous game. It just isn’t as captivating.

5) Explain the reasons you like or dislike the game and relate this to Game Design issues. 

*explained in paragraph*

What I am working on for the team game

AI am continuing to work on the mesh for the main protagonist of the game, as well as beginning to learn how to import the model into unreal and inserting the skeleton mesh into the character so that I can make animation. Hopefully by next week I will have most if not all of the model done on blender, and I can begin working on animating. Ill also be looking into audacity and how I can make music for the game. Also I will be writing notes to be found as collectables in the game to add to the story.

GD2015 Homework #5

Joshua Upton/jsu13@my.fsu.edu

Homework 5
Assigned: Oct. 1, 2015
Due: Oct. 8, 2015

In this homework, we ask each of you to create a blueprint that will does something useful for your game. In your blog, please include snapshots of the blueprint, of the constructor (if used), of your object within the game, and an explanation of its planned use.

The blueprint should contain at a minimum the following components:

1) a static mesh  [20 pts]
2) one or more arithmetic operators [20 pts}
3) the blueprint must transform the object in some way (scale, translate, rotate) [20 pts]

We will assign 20 pts for the write up and 20 pts for the images you include.



I made some cubes that can be destroyed when either stepped on, shot at or dropped. The mesh breaks into smaller peices and can scatter, and each peice has its own physics. the static mesh is a small cube, that can simulate possible mines, if we decide to add an explosion to the mesh breaking, and causing damage, or the mesh could be used as a basis for decoration or environment destruction.


1. This is the mesh:  Its a small static mesh, that when either dropped, shot, or stepped on is destroyed and causes player damage.







2. arithmetic operators. (sorry for bad quality, screen capture on my laptop is running strange)

Youtube link for better quality on the sequence.:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGCKEzwUkME&feature=youtu.be








3. the blueprint causes the object to shatter into many different peices and give each piece velocity.


Quick demonstration of what happens when a character run over the object.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEgURwzbBck&feature=youtu.be     




Planned use. Once the character hud is finished, this can be used as a sort of trap in the game that the player has to avoid, otherwise it will cause damage to the player. This could act as a minefield, or as some sort of falling attack from above that the player has to dodge, or else it will injure the player. the arithmetic sequence will allow for sound effects, particle effects (explosions ect.) but for now it a simple destruction that has peices that each have there own velocities.

gd2015 assignment #3

Assignment 3

Homework 3: The Tetra Due: Thursday Oct. 17, 2015 Now that you have an initial storyline, follow what we have done in class and apply it to your own game. Discuss each element of the Tetrad (Story, Technology, Art, and Mechanics) and how each element relates to the other elements. Suggest a minimal prototype for your game that if implemented would convey the essential elements of your game. Chapters of use in the book (2nd edition) are 4 (Venue), 5 (Tetrad), 12 (Mechanics), 17 (Story), 20 (Characters), 21 (Spaces).

Story:    A young girl wakes up on the shore of a beach on an island, with no memory of who she is, or how she got there.Aside her is the wreckage of a boat which seemed to have carried her to the island. She must overcome various obstacles in order to regain her memory, whilst not giving into despair or grief. Using her surroundings and braving the elements our heroine will have to travel where no other has gone before in order to obtain her true goal.

The first level of the game will be to find shelter in a cave that she sees off in the distance. (or maybe give the option to choose a direction, either a cave in one direction, or a little hut/house with a mysterious light in the other direction) She encounters different beasts, or animals during the trip to the location; where she uses any tools available to her to fend of attackers. Upon reaching the end of the first level,  a dialogue sequence will start which will determine the fate of our heroine.

The second level of the game will be to reach the top of a mountain, or hill on the island to get an understanding of where she is. encountering different wildlife, enemies, and

people along the way. Upon reaching the top of the mountain a hooded figure stands there and tells her that all of her questions will be answered if she would only close her eyes and listen.The hooded figure fades away and the the girl passes out. The game ends with a closeup of the girls eyes quickly opening as she lay in a hospital bed.

Story can be added through text boxes. (think final fantasy or other rpg’s) or Notes, that act as collectables throughout the island.

Technology: projectile weapons.

Rock tossing to divert attention away from yourself.

Guns for enemies.

Blade weapons. knives/swords

Stealth Mode Feature

Changing of Environment (night, day, rain, snow, etc..)

Deformable Scenery

Health Bar and Breathing Bar

Art: Mountain/hill, (think Hawaii), plants. Cabins.

Source

Source

Paradise music, ambient jungle sounds, waves sound

Mechanics:  Third-person platformer, with world exploration, and task oriented goals. Ability to pick up and collect objects, ability to manipulate the environment (such as lowering a bridge or moving a boulder, etc). Stealth ability/crouch/stalk. Sprint. walk/neutral. Short missions that may involve gathering objects by passing through enemies. There should be two types of approaches for the player to take: 1) a direct approach, which may involve confronting and killing enemies directly and 2) a stealth approach for which.the player can achieve the goal without violence by avoiding detection. There will be a real-time HUD that shows the player’s health, stats about collectibles, weapon information, etc. There should be feedback about achievements reached (such as collecting n items or killing n enemies).  Text based dialogue between characters. A menu that allows the user to review past messages, dialogue, perhaps view a map.  Possibly have the ability to gain experience points by performing different actions. The game will have a limited set of sound effects as well as a musical theme.

The idea is to provide more than one way to flow through the game, to give the player a sense of choosing his/her own adventure and increase playability. Collectibles add another dimension to the fun and playability of the game; players can optionally choose to try to collect all the items. The player can finish the game to different levels of completion, in order to appeal to various levels of abilities or interests among players.

Ledge grabbing to pull yourself up.

Simple/Minimal Prototype: Large island like map that is open world and completely accessible. Main character is able to walk/run around the island and determine what is needed for survival. They will be able to acquire certain materials and tools and store them in their personal inventory to either later equip or use them. The main character will have to traverse certain paths in order to reach the end of each level. They will have the ability to run the section of the map in either stealth mode or just charge straight through the area. Either choice of the user will directly impact the playability and storyline of the game. The user will also get a choice to degrade certain objects in the game in order to effect their stealth rating. If possible an experience system would be beneficial to further the different types of  strategy in the game. Overall the game will focus on the characters journey defeating enemies and sneaking obstacles.

Our first game document.

Team 6 Game Document

Phone Numbers

Josh Upton  (850) 499-5608

Teddy Botana (786) 399-4504

Vincent Sabarre (850) 368-5473

Leave the red highlighter for things we want to edit out.

Assignment 2

Ross Island

1. What type of game will you be creating?  [25 pts]

We decided that a 3rd person RPG Platformer would be our game. A amnesiac girl washes up on a shore of a beach and she must find shelter whilst also trying to regain her memories. We haven’t figured out a title, but it will borrow elements from games such as The Forest, Tomb Raider, and Fallout.  

1. What is the quintessential experience you'd like the users to feel? [25 pts]

Like with most survival games, the main experiences we want the player to feel are senses of Adventure, Intrigue and Curiosity. Having to fight for survival is the perfect way to get a user drawn into a storyline. By pairing a general sense of curiosity for the surrounding world and our unique survival adventure, our players will instantly relate to our main heroes epic tale and be drawn into her world.

1. What is the theme of your game? [25 pts]

Remembrance of the past, fear of the unknown and survival of the fittest. We are also aiming to implement the Stages of Grief; Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance, as symbols throughout the levels. We haven’t decided what exactly the protagonist will be grieving over, but maybe in her coma-induced state she dreams up this world, and has to go through the various stages because she doesn’t want to die.

1. Provide an initial storyline [25 pts]

A young girl wakes up on the shore of a beach on an island, with no memory of who she is, or how she got there.Aside her is the wreckage of a boat which seemed to have carried her to the island. She must overcome various obstacles in order to regain her memory, whilst not giving into despair or grief. Using her surroundings and braving the elements our heroine will have to travel where no other has gone before in order to obtain her true goal.

The first level of the game will be to find shelter in a cave that she sees off in the distance. (or maybe give the option to choose a direction, either a cave in one direction, or a little hut/house with a mysterious light in the other direction) She encounters different beasts, or animals during the trip to the location; where she uses any tools available to her to fend of attackers. Upon reaching the end of the first level,  a dialogue sequence will start which will determine the fate of our heroine.

The second level of the game will be to reach the top of a mountain, or hill on the island to get an understanding of where she is. encountering different wildlife, enemies, and

people along the way. Upon reaching the top of the mountain a hooded figure stands there and tells her that all of her questions will be answered if she would only close her eyes and listen.The hooded figure fades away and the the girl passes out. The game ends with a closeup of the girls eyes quickly opening as she lay in a hospital bed.

Picture reference

Game Name: Night and Day (good parallel between the dream and the coma perhaps)

-RPG

-Curiosity/Fear

-Adolescent protagonist has to gather materials/essentials to survive the night which will have enemies and things that will negatively impact his/her stats.

-Essentially the main character lives in a town that contains materials that are alone useless but can be used to help the character survive the night. At night the town/lighting turns dark and out of the shadows come monsters/enemies that can either hurt the character or diminish their supplies.

Josh U: Start

(These questions need to be in paragraph form, I “finished” kind of an outline of a story, but you guys can change or edit it if you want.I feel like this shouldn't be too complex to make a pretty linear level through this, and adding  obstacles along the way.

1. What type of game will you be creating?  [25 pts]

We decided that a 3rd person RPG Platformer would be our game. A amnesiac girl washes up on a shore of a beach and she must find shelter whilst also trying to regain her memories. We haven’t figured out a title, but it will borrow elements from games such as The Forest, Tomb Raider, (insert game).  

2. What is the quintessential experience you'd like the users to feel? [25 pts]

Like with most survival games, the main experiences we want the player to feel are senses of Adventure, Intrigue and Curiosity. Having to fight for survival is the perfect way to get a user drawn into a storyline. By pairing a general sense of curiosity for the surrounding world and our unique survival adventure, our players will instantly relate to our main heroes epic tale and be drawn into her world.

3. What is the theme of your game? [25 pts]

Remembrance of the past, fear of the unknown and survival of the fittest. We are also aiming to implement the Stages of Grief; Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance, as symbols throughout the levels. We haven’t decided what exactly the protagonist will be grieving over, but maybe in her coma-induced state she dreams up this world, and has to go through the various stages because she doesn’t want to die.

4. Provide an initial storyline [25 pts]

A young girl wakes up on the shore of a beach on an island, with no memory of who she is, or how she got there. She must overcome various obstacles in order to regain her memory, whilst not giving into despair or grief. Using her surroundings and braving the elements our heroine will have to travel where no other has gone before in order to obtain her true goal. with a single bow and arrows made of sticks besides her. The story is basically trying to figure out what is going on. (Maybe she is in a coma and different objects or locations on the island will help trigger memories).

The first level of the game will be to find shelter in a cave that she sees off in the distance. (or maybe give the option to choose a direction, either a cave in one direction, or a little hut/house with a mysterious light in the other direction) She encounters different beasts, or animals during the trip to the location; where she uses any tools available to her to fend of attackers. the bow and arrow to fend off attacks.. Upon reaching the end of the first level, maybe a dialogue sequence will start which will determine the fate of our heroine, (not a cutscene unless we ever found time to do that) but something that can

The second level of the game will be to reach the top of a mountain, or hill on the island to get an understanding of where she is. (maybe encountering different wildlife, enemies, and (memories/beasts or people along the way) .upon reaching the top of the mountain a hooded figure stands there and tells her that all of her questions will be answered if she would only close her eyes and listen.The hooded figure fades away and then the girl passes out. The game ends with a closeup of the girls eyes quickly opening as she lay in a hospital bed.

Picture reference     

(Also let me know if you guys think I should perhaps change the character design that I’m currently working off of) I’m going to change the colors and edit/change the clothing more to make it more my own. But as far as making this game third person, i think unreal has a way to just import character designs that have built in animations for third person as far as walking goes and all.  We have not really assigned jobs yet, But i figured i could practice character design and things with blender because I (josh) don’t really know how to program unless it’s with html. I Could also work with making music with audacity for the game after i’m done with this characters design, but we need to collectively decide on what you want the music to sound like. personally maybe something soft/eerie if we decide to go with my story, which in that case i can make quite probably repetitive music that should not get too annoying.. Also if we decide on this particular story, then i can come up with the dialogue that the protagonist says to go along with the story, although i don’t know how I would add text to the game through the programming or whatnot.

Josh : End

gd2015 Entry #2

Blog Entry 2

Just a quick little doodle I did with Microsoft paint to show off my mad art skills.

Realistically, I'm not a very good artist, and have never really taken an art class. obviously...

I can create my own images to make them my own through editing. I used meme creator for this example, So while I'm not very good at art hopefully I can learn how to manipulate images to make them my own.

Two Game that i enjoy, and why

Destiny (PS4)

I Enjoy Destiny for a variety of reasons, personally i feel like the game lacks story which is one of the biggest flaws in this massively popular game, but I find that the multi player, and character capabilities, are enjoyable. Personally i like having characters that have multiple abilities that they can change depending on the situation at hand. I also enjoy the game having a class system which allows for interesting interactions between players during multi player pvp. While the game lacks for story and for me , good voice acting, the game makes up for that in enjoyable repetition of online competitive play.

https://www.destinythegame.com/taken-king?utm_campaign=destiny-taken-king-Launch-us&utm_medium=search&utm_source=google&utm_keyword=destiny-Exact

Pokemon games

I highly enjoy any game that contains Pokemon, whether it be the classic Pokemon yellow, on Gameboy color, or the use of Pokemon in Super smash bros.

As a general rule i really enjoy these games because I find that the character creation is always really amazing. much of the games give characters different personalities whether it be a simple cute smile, or a ferocious growl by a Charizard, I really enjoy games that use many different kinds of designs for characters, and then have those characters interact. The Pokemon games hold a special place in my heart because of the simplicity that can be used to create these personalities in the Pokemon,

http://www.pokemon.com/us/pokemon-video-games/

Game design entry #1

Joshua Upton/jsu13
gd2015 Blog entry #1


Video with voice over YouTube link-

http://youtu.be/uZY6uH70hUM

Video description- This video is a simple and short 30 second introduction, stating what software I will be using to record videos during the course of the semester. I chose this software because it will allow me to easily highlight certain things with a paintbrush tool that is built into the software to highlight important aspects of a project that i may be working on during the semester while i work on the game.