Devlog : Initial Prototypes

Week 1 (30th Jan – 5th Feb) – Discussing Ideas:

We were given the theme of “resist” to base our prototypes around. Having a theme to work around helped a lot when coming up with ideas, as often, if there is no theme, I get overwhelmed and do not know which ideas to pick and choose.

I began by researching synonyms of “resist” and found a few that brought some game ideas to mind – one of which was “repel”. It made me think of viruses and how our bodies repel any pathogens that enter our bodies.

I made a quick concept sketch of a tower defence game in which the player controls antibodies and has to resist the pathogens from reaching the end.

Another synonym of resist which gave me a game idea was “abstain from”. It made me think of abstaining from an addiction and so I began to imagine a game in which the player has to manage an addiction of some kind (alcohol, drug etc.). This could be some kind of post apocalyptic survival game in which the character has an addiction of some kind that they have to balance between resisting and giving into it.

(Seltzer, 2016)

After doing some further research on “resist”, I found that this also ties into the psychological saying “What you resist, persists”. This could lead to some interesting mechanics in the game of having to manage the addiction.

After coming up with my initial ideas, it was time to feedback to the group. After presenting my ideas, we all agreed that the virus tower defence game would be too simplistic for a long group project and that the resisting addiction survival game isn’t a polished enough idea. Whilst this was hard to hear, I did agree with the points my teammates made about my ideas.

The ideas we did choose are much better suited to a large group project.

Idea 1:

This concept was a 2D top down survival shooter in which you worked at a store during COVID times and you had to resist the customers grabbing all of the toilet roll. There would be waves of enemies (customers) that you had to fight off with various weapons (store items). We liked this concept due to it tying the theme together with an event that happened relatively recently.

Idea 2:

The concept for this game was a prison escape game in which you were resisting being arrested. You would do this in multiple ways such as solving puzzles, hiding and sneaking past guards, and using weapons in certain cases. The whole gimmick of this game would be that nothing really made sense, for example using objects that shouldn’t be in a prison to escape such as lightsabers or nerf guns.

Idea 3:

For our final prototype we chose an underwater collection game in which the player resists the oceans pressure the deeper down they explore. Solving puzzles and exploring will be the main way to gain the collectables.

We chose these prototypes because all three offer something different. We wanted to showcase our ability to work in both 2D and 3D, as well as multiple genres. The first idea is more action oriented, whilst the other two are more focused on puzzles. This is important as it will allow us to easily see which genre works best for the theme of resist.

Week 2 (6th – 12th Feb) – Working On Prototype 1:

For the first prototype, I was assigned the role of artist. In a real game studio they have separate artistic jobs such as concept artists, environment artists etc. but as this was only a team of 6 people, I covered all of those roles.

To keep track of each other’s work, we set up a HacknPlan which helped us keep on track with our deadlines. Since we only had one month to complete three prototypes, it was essential that we kept on track the entire way through and never got behind. Thanks to HacknPlan, this was made much easier.

Character Design:

I started by designing the main character. To do this, I used various references of supermarket worker attire (mainly Walmart). I created two variants as various top-down shooters have different styles. Some, like Hotline Miami, have a fully top down style like the one on the right, whereas other, such as AK-xolotl, have an angle in which more of the characters face can be seen.

My idea would of been to have the left style and have a separate hand sprite that holds a weapons and can be controlled via the mouse. However, after a team vote, we decided to go with the right hand side design instead as it is more like a traditional top-down shooter style.

Enemy Design:

After deciding on the style of top-down shooter, I started on the enemy designs – using the descriptions that Jack had given me on HacknPlan.

The blue shirt guy is the standard enemy, who deals a moderate amount of damage and is average speed.

The red shirt guy is the small enemy who is extremely fast but deals little damage.

And finally, the green shirt guy is the slow enemy who deals extreme damage but is not fast at all.

Unfortunately, none of these made it into the prototype apart from the standard enemies as the coders focused mainly on the basic mechanics of the game, however working on these now makes it very easy to implement them if we chose this as our game to continue.

Rest Area Floor Plan:

Initially, we discussed having an area that the player could go to every 5 waves or so to restock on weapons or buy armour. I created this concept art to represent the types of things which could be bought here, such as armour, food to heal and weapon upgrades.

Again, sadly none of this made it into the prototype, but it was useful to have these discussions and concepts in case we took this game forward.

Week 3 (13th – 19th Feb) – Working On Prototype 2:

Character Concept:

I was asked to do the artwork for this prototype as well and so I started by sketching some character concepts.

Since this was Maks’ game, I asked him for a brief on some characteristics of the protagonist. He listed that they were:

  • Skinny
  • Shaggy hair
  • Rough beard
  • Wore orange prisoner outfit

With this information, I was able to put together this concept art for the character. If I were to improve it, I would add multiple head and body angles such as from the side and from behind.

Prison Guard Concept:

Even though we knew we would not have a prison guard mechanic in this initial prototype, it was something we wanted for the full game if we continued with this one.

Again, I asked Maks for a description of the guard:

  • Fat
  • Chin strap beard
  • Wrinkled / old
  • Grey balding hair
  • Missing an eye – eye patch

This time, I created multiple different head options to give the team a choice of which one they liked the best. Ultimately, we chose the one third from the left as the eye patch made him more distinct.

Prison Environment Concept Art:

I created this prison cell concept art to give an idea of what the starting area of the game could look like. This was extremally useful to Jack, who was making the level in Unreal, as he could use it as reference.

I also created this hallway concept art. The middle section is a stairway to go downstairs.

(Gillette, 2022)

I made sure to use only grey tones for both of these pieces as that is the art direction that Jack wanted for the level. It makes sense as grey is a very flat and depressing colour, which is fitting of a prison.

This is how the concepts translated over to the Unreal level that Jack created.

Week 4 (20th – 26th Feb) – Finishing Prototype 2 and 3:

Tools Concept Art:

I designed some concepts for the various different tools that can be used during puzzles to escape the prison. These include a lightsaber, nerf gun and a crowbar.

Like I mentioned before, the gimmick of this game is that you use tools that are not supposed to be in a prison to escape.

Prototype 3 Enemy Concept:

As Minnie had already done most of the art for this prototype by this point, I only had the enemy concept art to do.

Whilst I was a little annoyed that my job (artist) had been intruded upon (as I was looking forward to doing some underwater environment concepts), I appreciated that we had a deadline to hit.

The only brief I got was large sharp teeth and so I loosely based it off of an anglerfish.

Week 5 (27th Feb – 5th March) – Finishing Touches & Presenting:

We decided to have a Teams meeting on the 28th February to finalise everything and work on the PowerPoint together.

However, as we did not get all of the PowerPoint finished in this call, once we checked it later that week, we saw that Minnie had chosen the prototype we are taking forward without consulting any of us.

Whilst I did not mind too much, some of the members who did were ill that day and so could not argue the case against it. Ultimately, we did end up choosing the game she wanted, however it did disrupt the harmony of the group a little bit.

Despite these issues, we finally presented our three prototypes and chose Marine Majesty as our game to take forward.

References:

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