MDDN 211:Crazy Weather

So far I have been able to get a lot of the footage for my video because of the weather (wind and rain typically means a lack of boats in the harbour, and waves that definitely don't look serene). If it doesn't clear up soon I'm just going to have to film what I can and use colour correction and slow down footage to help make it look more peaceful.

MDDN 243: Game Proposal/Write Up

Galaxy Guardian is a top down space shooter, in which the player must defend planets from wave after wave of enemies, who are trying to steal the planets’ resources. The player must defend the planet for as long as they can, to try and get the highest score possible.

The player has 3 lives, and can be killed my enemies, flying into obstacles (such as the planet being defended), and asteroids.After the player loses all three of their lives, the game is over.

Main Mechanics:

Moving/Rotating

The player must maneuver around the screen to eliminate enemies, while also avoid hazards such as asteroids.

Shooting

The player must shoot enemies to prevent them from stealing resources from the planet.

Power Ups

The are four different power ups, that the player collects from destroyed asteroids.

-Extra bullets: allows the player to shoot double the amount of bullets for a limited time.

-Score multiplier: Multiplies score. These stack on top of each other until the player dies, at which point all multipliers are wiped.

-Bomb: Clears the immediate area of all enemies.

-Extra life: The player gets one extra life.

Environmental Message:

The environmental aspects of this game involve

Protecting the planet from the enemy ships. If the player fails to do so, then the planet loses resources, and begins to turn into brown, barren wasteland.

The player must also collect solar energy which randomly spawns around the map. If they fail to do so, the ship will lose power, and they will be unable to move or shoot. The will just have to sit and watch as the planet dies.

MDDN 243: Presentation Video

MDDN 243:Movement Prototype

I've managed to get my movement working! Though I had to rotate the image of the ship I was importing as I was having trouble to get it to move in the right direction.

MDDN 243:Space Ships

So I got a drawing tablet this week that I've been practising with, and I think I'm getting the hang of it. Here is the process it took for me to get to my final enemy ship design.

 

My final two ship designs: Enemy ship (red) and Player ship (blue)

I wanted them to be clean, simple, and easy to identify.

MDDN 243: Solar Panels

As the player ship in my game will be Solar powered, I have looked into solar panels, and how they look/are portrayed on spacecraft.

They are commonly blue with white stripes/grid patterns, so that is what i'll most likely do on my ship. I will probably go with either the darker blue or the much lighter blue/cyan for the colour as I have blue on the wings of the space craft and I don't want to have the same shade for the solar panels.

MDDN 243: Spaceships

I've looked at a few different examples of spacecraft in top down space games as inspiration for my game.

Gratuitous Space Battles

Lots of really interesting designs for the GSB ships, but they are all quite complicated. Though I like the shapes of the ships.

Faster Than Light (FTL)

The FTL ship have nice simple designs and colours.

Beat Hazard

I really like the shapes and colours used on the Beat Hazard ships, and I think this shape would be easily recognised by children. 

Space Pirates and Zombies

The SPaZ ships looks cool, but I don't think they would be automatically recognised by kids as spaceships

I want a design that is simple, and is easy for children to identify as a spaceship.

I am thinking of using a combination of features from the FTL and Beat Hazard ships, as I think the ships in these two games would be easily identifiable for children.

MDDN 243: Lo-Fi Protoytype

A few pictures of my lo-fi prototype. Included are images of the meteorite (before and after it is destroyed and reveals a power up), the planet at full and low health, the ships (2x red enemy, 1x blue player) and an overall picture of what it looks like when it is put together. 

 

MDDN 211: Serenity

I have decided to go with the emotion 'serenity', focusing on the serenity of nature.

I will be using a lot of slow shots (such as pans) to show this emotion in video.

Serenity:
Noun
-The state of being calm, peaceful, and untroubled: "an oasis of serenity".

MDDN 243: Idea Updates

Idea 1:

A Platformer in which the player would collect keys to free animals from cages that are spread around the level.

-Different coloured keys would open different cages (e.g: Blue key would open blue cage etc.)

-The player would have to get through puzzles in order to collect keys

-After the player frees an animal, the gain an ability related to that animal until they collect another one. (e.g: freeing a monkey would give the player the ability to climb trees, freeing a bird would allow them to fly or glide for short periods of time).

Idea 2:

A top-down shooter in which the player would have to defend trees plnted in the middle of the screen from the loggers that are trying to come and chop them down.

-The player would defend these trees by shooting seeds that randomly spawn around the map at the loggers.

-There would be a few different types of seeds, with each one being a different colour.

-Different coloured seeds would have different effects on the loggers, with some slowing them down, and others causing splash damage or doing extra damage.

-The longer the player lasts, the more enemies would spawn.

-The goal would be to get the highest score possible.

Idea 3:

This idea started out as a Platformer that involved growing plants, in order to use them to jump to higher locations in the level. The player would have to collect water or fertiliser to grow these trees to bigger sizes.

I narrowed this idea down so that the whole level involved climbing the tree, rather than also moving around a larger level.

-The player would travel up a giant tree, finding animals and collectables such as monkeys, snakes, birds' nests/eggs, and feathers.

-The player would also come across rubbish and enemies.

-The player could either get rid of the rubbish/enemies or just jump past them. If they jumped past them, the tree would begin to look more and more damaged and dead as the went up, making progress hard. If they got rid of them the tree would continue to be green.

-If the player falls out of the tree they die.

The idea I have decided to go with is an expansion of one of my earlier ideas, which was top down, with the player defending trees.

My final idea involves the player (a spaceship) which must defend a planet form waves of enemies who are trying to steal the resources of the planet. As the planet loses health, it begins to turn brown, rather than the bright green and blue it started out as. The player must also collect solar energy to keep their engines running.

-The player must defend the planet from enemy ships that want to steal the planets resources.

-The player shoots enemies to destroy them.

-As the enemies steal more resources, the planet looses health and begins to turn brown, rather than the bright blue/green it starts out as.

-Solar energy needs to be collected in order to keep the ship engines running.

-The player can collect power ups that are dropped by asteroids when they are destroyed.

-Power up abilities include:

     -A temporary increase to player movement speed.

     -Two projectiles fired at once (rather than just one)

     -Extra player life

     -System override (destroys all enemies currently on screen or immediate area).

-The longer the player lasts, the more enemies would spawn.

-The goal would be to get the highest score possible.

MDDN 243: A few Ideas

Some quick ideas I have so far:

Collecting keys in a level in order to unlock cages to free animals.

Inspiration for this idea came from Croc: Legend of the Gobbos, which involves going around collecting little furry creatures that are spread around the level. Some of them are locked in cages, and the player has to find the key (which is also hidden in the level) to unlock the cage.

Growing and using trees to reach high places.

The player could collect things like water or fertiliser to make trees grow taller. They would then jump up the trees to reach higher areas and objects that they couldn't reach before.

MDDN 211: Final Iterations

My final three videos for MDDN 211 (Now with fixed credits):

Happy Atmosphere

Dramatic Atmosphere

Sad Atmosphere

The songs I used in my videos:

http://www.jamendo.com/en/track/261436/enclosing-part3(enclosing part3. dramatic)

http://www.jamendo.com/en/track/1045504/wishes(wishes. sad)

http://www.jamendo.com/en/track/247624/baraat(baraat, happy)

MDDN 211: Footage I Used

All of the footage I used was from archive.org:

http://archive.org/details/gov.archives.111-tv-360
http://archive.org/details/gov.archives.arc.38954
http://archive.org/details/MyJapan1945
http://archive.org/details/1946-08-05_Jap_Films_of_Hiroshima

MDDN 211: Slight Change of Plans

I have changed my theme from Farmland to war because I was struggling to find footage.

I will now be doing a sad iteration showing damage and injuries from war, a happy iteration with bands, marching soldiers and planes flying overhead, and a dramatic iteration with a lot of explosions and footage of soldiers shooting.