Week 9 Project Report

Beta Testing in Full Swing
The game's beta test demo release has been posted on this website under "The Demo". A feedback and patch notes list has also been dispatched to help gather, and give, news from/to the playerbase that is testing the game. Feel free to head over there now so that more feedback can be obtained!

Several audiences have been reached as projected in a few previous reports. A few friends located in the Commuter Lounge on campus have been shown the game and have given very helpful advice and feedback. Additional audiences from on-campus groups and Drexel recognized organizations have been reached as well, such groups like the Anime & Gaming Organization and Drexel DragonLAN.

Bugfixing, tweaking, and other modifications will be made in response to tester feedback and how well they performed while playing. Some feedback has already been received thus far, and work is already being done to determine the best ways to fix the issues!

Media Design
Sound is being added to the game such that more immersion can be added, and it will be less dull in terms of engaging the user. Jumping, ambient, and other sound effects are currently in the works!

Level texturing is being reworked to yield less confusion to the player in deciphering which elements are which.

Week 8 Project Report

New Levels
A few new levels, along with new level mechanics, have been introduced over the course of the last few work days. Below are some explanations and examples of those puzzle elements.

This level (seen in figure 6-5) is the introduction of puzzles that use the Light.  Some of the puzzles are a little tough so another level will be added before it.  This level involves using the light to cross blockades, Using the light to get over platforms, Getting to switches, climbing and jumping.

Figure 6-5: A look into the use of light puzzle.

Figure 6-4 shows the uses of specific platforms which activate via player contact. The player itself is it's own power source! While in Figure 6-3 it's time to climb using variations of the use of the light. The player must carefully shine the light and jump precisely to get to the top door.

Figure 6-4: Platform introduction puzzle.

Figure 6-3: A climb to the top with careful use of the light.

Figure 6-2 displays a level where the player must traverse the darkness with only a trusty light upgrade! Platforms, obstacles, and (quite frankly) the entire level will only show when lit. Meanwhile in figure 6-1 the game introduces the mechanic of light-activated platforms that the player can easily maneuver.

Figure 6-2: It's not broken! It's just a challenge in the dark.

Figure 6-1: Introduction of light-powered platforms.

Click here to play the demo of the game created thus far!
The levels have not been finalized with art nor has sound been added yet. But most gameplay mechanics are functional and the missing/incomplete content will be fixed in the coming week. However a beta test version had to be pushed so that more opinions can be made.

Week 7 Project Report

Overview
-Add new levels to game
-debug current levels
-Finish making and implementing light mechanic
-Create opening and get light cut scene
-Beta test game so far

Levels
There have been a few new levels and a few new animations added to the game. Below is a brief description and overview images of the first 5 levels:


Level 1: In figure 5-7 is the level that introduces the game. Art was added that informs the user of the controls that he/she will need to play the game.  The player is faced with a door which he must open by using the two switches in the middle of the level.

Figure 5-7: Overview of level 1.

 Level 2:  This level is a test of the players platforming ability as seen below in figure 5-6.  Players will first be allowed to miss with little consequence.  Then the stakes are raised and the player dies if he/she misses a jump.  Elevator are introduced in this level.

Figure 5-6: Overview of level 2.

 Level 3:  This is a non-dangerous level (seen in figure 5-5) that is fun with the newly found elevators.  The elevators shoot the player into the sky so he can jump from elevator to elevator in order to get to the switch.  Once the switch is hit the door is opened allowing the player to go into the next room.

Figure 5-5: Overview of level 3.

 Level 4:  The player is given the light, Which is a game mechanic that can change whether certain objects are there or not. The light is used to escape the room as seen below (figure 5-4).

Figure 5-4: Overview of level 4.

 Level 5:  This level was found to be a little too difficult.  The player tests both his platforming and his newly found light skills to get across.  This level (as seen in figure 5-3) will be moved to later in the game.

Figure 5-3: Overview of level 5.

Light Mechanic
Art
Rescaling the art, which wasn't much of an issue because the art is stored in a graphics type within Flash. Rescaling the graphic as a whole versus frame by frame re-scaling saves a lot of time.

The tileset is completed along with an updated graphic as seen in figures 5-2 and 5-1. Here are some samples

Figure 5-2: Materials/object texturing.

Figure 5-1: Player indication of movement keys.

Beta Tested

Week 6 Project Report

Black Ice games had several jobs that needed to be done this week.

Overview

-Black Ice Games changed from using XNA to using Stencyl.
-Build Tutorial Levels- including character movement, switches, doors, scene changes, and blocks.
-Design basic art to import into the game
-Design prototypes for puzzles
-Work on figuring out how light mechanic will work.

Reason for Switch
Black Ice Games recently decided to switch to Stencly instead of using XNA.  The goal of Black Ice Games is to create a well designed and fun to play puzzle-platformer.  XNA was found to be a little to difficult and time consuming to use for this purpose, and with the time constraints that are driving the development, a faster method was needed.  Stencly allows Black Ice Games to step into the development of the game faster.  This will allow for an overall better designed game during the time given.


Tutorial Level

Figure 4-4: Concept of Tutorial Level

Above, in figure 4-4, is the tutorial level that was being designed to test some basic functions.  Doors and switches were created, and debugged for this level.  This level contains a very basic puzzle, that involves the player pushing two switches in order to open the door.  This was not only the basis of the tutorial level but a test of the new Stencyl program.  Figuring out how to use this new program for a simple task helped to understand the program as a whole.  The final important part of this test was finding out how to switch the stages of the game.  It would be difficult to debug a large single staged game so the ability to have many stages that are easily connected is very helpful.


Art

The character animations for the idle stance is finished. For the movement, a simply code of adding slight rotation will give it more of an illusion of movement. The texture/tileset of the stage will resemble the same art style of "Limbo". Art is being develop in Flash.

Puzzles

Figures 4-1, 4-2, and 4-3 are all concepts and initial designs of puzzles to be implemented in the game.

Figure 4-1: Design of intro stage involving movement and elevators.

Figure 4-2: Rough concept of very first stage.

Figure 4-3: Rough design of first or second stage involving the light.

Mechanic

A key mechanic in the game is to allow the player to use a light that will reveal hidden objects. So in the implementation of this idea the light actor has to follow the position of the mouse. So far it partially works. The main issue right now is that the light doesn't completely follow the mouse as the screen scrolls. In the image below it can be seen where the position of the light is compared to the actual position of the mouse.

The switch mechanic uses values as boolean in order to activate various object when the character is within range and presses the action button.

The door is an actor that has a colliding surface when active and a non colliding surface when inactive.

Elevators push a player up or slowly lower the player down when active.

Week 5 Project Report

Not too much work has been done in this week due to most students having midterms throughout this week. But in the little off time, a little bit of additional puzzle design and a lot of character concepts were completed. The still stance of the character has been animated and was attempted to be implemented into the game.

Again, not much, a little housekeeping work was delegated to the team members in order to ensure a better grade on the blog. Hopefully a higher review will be obtained, a lot of fixes and changes were done to this site.

Character Design with Animation

Below is figure 3-1, a quick clip of the newly designed character. It is a quick clip to show the animation of the character. The gears inside rotate, the gears outside revolve around the character, and there's a quick zap of electricity to keep the little guy running.

 

Figure 3-1: Video of a more finalized design & animation of the character.

Shifting Gears

Black Ice Games has decided to change the program that Project Illuminate is being developed in. Instead of XNA, Stencyl will be used. Stencyl is a more graphics type IDE that seems easier to create a game in. It also allows actual code to be written in action script. Plenty of customization is available different behaviors for the actors (characters) and the scenes (levels) can be created in a way sort of like the program Scratch. If anyone is interested here a link to Stencyl's website: http://www.stencyl.com/stencyl/overview/

Black Ice Games is in Overdrive!

We've been doing some continual concept work on the whiteboard as seen in figures 2-1 and 2-2. The whole group is collaborating and bouncing ideas off of each other very well. Let's hope progression on the actual project will go smoothly as well!

Figure 2-1: A glimpse of the concept work (part 1)

Figure 2-2: A glimpse of the concept work (part 2)

Week 4 Project Report

Black Ice Games has pushed development and began to draw up schematics of level design, obstacle concepts, and world art. Group collaboration over level design concepts and game mechanics challenges (i.e can objects go through the light and appear in present time?). The collaboration still left a few questions unanswered, but development has progressed quite a bit.

Group members were assigned to more specific parts of the game's development. Also, group members were requested to return with some story, puzzle designs, and programming assistance (ways to help in our adaptation to video game programming mechanics).

Week 3 Project Report

Initial ideas were ran through in a few meetings prior to the in-lab meetup. Several concepts, design constraints, and  mechanics issues were discussed. From whether or not the object will reset when/if the light leaves it's sight, to deciding what we could, or could not, do based on our programming abilities.
The group also agreed to using Microsoft XNA framework as the game engine to work off of. In this decision, all members were assigned to practice with the engine and create the sample game skeleton provided by a tutorial website.

Everyone was requested to complete the tutorial from where ever point they left off at. Keeping up with the website, and planning time for some more meetings were also set aside for Facebook communication (Facebook being the tool of contact when not meeting physically). Any idea(s)/aid(s) in helping to develop the game were asked to be posted to the Facebook for us to see and review.

Day 9

I proposed to the group a character design shown in figure 1-1, seems like a pretty good start to this project. Looks nice and gives the group something to work with as a temporary sprite for the game.

Figure 1-1: Prototype player design

Week 2 Project Report

Project ideas were cycled through, the idea for the Drexel game has been thrown out and replaced with another, related idea. This new game design will incorporate the tales and puzzles of a small robot who has the power to see back in time via a single flashlight. The game is planned to be a platformer that is primarily focused on puzzle elements.

Initial and rough designs were brainstormed and group members were asked to find a proper game engine platform such that this type of game could be designed upon. In addition, group members were also all delegated to begin brainstorming on possible development ideas (story, game mechanics, puzzles, etc) for the game. Each group member also took up to perform specific parts of the upcoming project proposal that is due in week 3.

Day 2

Hey there everyone!

Windows players rejoice, we are developing in XNA (Xbox players can too rejoice)!

Currently, we have divided up the responsibilities for our Engr-103 class as we all research more about XNA.

Kevin worked with Android SDK before and it's really similar in the sense of how content is handled and the methods are called, but besides that, it is still new!

A lot of this right now is piecing different tutorial scatter on the web together to achieve our goal.

Day 1

Hey everyone,

Kevin Mai here updating you guys on current development of out new game for Engineering Class.

Currently we have an idea of a platform game with a unique art style that is similar to Limbo. I'm not going to say much about until the game is more concrete in development, but I will say we are all eager to get started!

The group have decided to developed this in Microsoft XNA, which we are all new to, but this is just a small obstacle. We are all Computer Scientists, I'm sure we can get this done.

Keep an eye out for further development!

Since I'm really into media, there will be snapshots and video of our development!

Week 1 Project Report

Initial ideas and project development have been discussed amongst the group and TA's. Ideas of a Minecraft project involving ways to incorporate ENGR classes into the game (given as a idea from a TA). A strong idea was to create and develop a video game that will be teaching new elements to the programmers, fun to play, and captivating to a lot of audiences. One idea of which was a video game based in/around Drexel's campus, lifestyle, and humor (i.e, make fun of the fact that Main building's corridors are a maze.


Project members were delegated to one single assignments of attempting to find a good project design for a video game idea.