It’s a while since the last post. Kind of busy with a probability course at the PhD program, but now is time to spread the good news…
We are now deep in a new game project with Unity3D game engine. This time we’ve got funding, so we could set a small team of artists and developers to try to make something amazing.
The game will be called França Antártica and it’s a 3rd person action game. It’s set during a period of brazilian history were France tryed to invade our country (XVI-th century).
We’re currently developing the demo version, with consists of the first level, set in the jungles and beaches of Guanabara Bay in 1552. The main character is Jeró, a curious indian who gets involved with the history while trying to help his tribe.
There’s an official blog for the project where we’ll be posting screenshots and videos.
Enought said, next time I’ll talk about the AI I’m developing for the game, with data-driven HSM (hierarquical state machines), intelligent agents and a very special storytelling mechanism based on PNF-Networks (I’ll talk about this as well).
This was a work in progress for an entry to Gamasutra’s contest Games of 2020 (againg with Carlos Ranna):
1 – Nerverending Saga
The definitive adventure
Neverending Saga is an adventure quite like no one before. It is a world set in another dimension one can enter from anywere, anytime he wants. It is like a dream, but with unimaginable sensations, frenetic pace and painful consequences.
Concept Art by Carlos Ranna
2 – How it is controlled
2.1 – The controller:
The key for saga is the revolutionary Mindset-I, a direct-to-brain controller that is similar in shape to a current brain control headset. However, it is capable of not only map the collected electrical waves as input, but also affect these brain waves to form sensations such as images, sound, smells, pleasure, disconfort, pain and even terror.
2.2 – The input:
The player can enter the game from wherever she is by connecting her Mindset-I to the “Net” through any device such as a computer, terminal or handheld device. She just has to stay confortable, start the game and forget about the “outside”. If one wants to walk, just think of it. If one needs to fight, just imagine the attack.
2.3 – The output:
There’s no monitor, no speaker and no headphone, only Mindset-I. The game is experienced directly inside the brain through real senses. When walking, the world images pass by as the sounds and whispers are heard through the incredbly detailed environment. More importantly, the player feels everything, so if it’s cold, one better look for a shelter. Eating something poisoned causes disconfort and when someone gets stabed, the pain is as real as it can be.
3 – Design concepts and innovations
3.1 – Weapons and skills
Anything can be used as weapon or armor, as long as the player can handle it. The skills are all inside everyone’s brain, one only have to learn how to control them. Many are good at using katanas while other feel are more confort and safer with an axe.
Skilled players are able to concentrate a physically manipulate objects from distance or even load them with electricity or other form or energy. When the will is strong, an electrified sandstorm can be as deadly as a a small army. There are no limits on what one can do, even flying is possible.
3.2 – Punishment
Everybody knows the main difference between a paintball match and a first person shooter game: the pain. The fear of being shot by an air propeled paintball makes one think twice before going outside any protecting obstacle. In Saga, every hurd causes real pain. This makes every move more important than ever and every fight becomes a life or death survival of the fitest.
There is no need to count experience points or health levels, any fight is over when someone can not handle the pain anymore, all measured by the Mindset-I.
3.3 – Balance
There is the question of balance. How can inexperienced or casual players survive in such hazardous environment?
The key to balance is limiting the power of the player (and npc) weapons. Depending on the area where the player is, there is an atenuation on the amount of damage she can inflinge. One can use any of the learned skills or combine them anywhere, the only difference is that certain areas are made for players still learning their skills. In these areas the atenuation factor avoids unfair fights so even a rookie has a chance again a more experienced player. The veteran has advantages still, since he can control his defence skills better, and be faster at using his powers.
Another important consequence of this atenuation is that the “punishment” sensations generated by the Mindset-I are also dimished, so the pain and disconfort are not as strong as the open areas of the world. Actually there is a small attenuation factor applied even in open areas. This is used as a reserve to be unlocked only in rare worldwide events or catastrofes such as wars or plages.
3.4 Business model
Play solo or as a group, exploring the environment, gaining (real) experience, gathering resources and dueling is all free to play. You can even have you clan and fight for territory, as long as the other clan accept the chalenge. Solo and group quests, dungeons and dueling arenas are all available for an afordable price, but be careful, the dangers are more expensive as well.
The player can use credit card to get some virtual currency, and with it buy better clothes, equipment, not only from dealers, but also from other players.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: game, game controller, input methods, mindset
A brainstorming session with graphic designer friend Carlos Ranna, about a future game controller:
1 – The controller:
The revolutionary Mindset-I is a direct-to-brain controller that is similar in shape to a current brain control headset. However, it is capable of not only map the collected electrical waves as input, but also affect these brain waves to form sensations such as images, sound, smells, pleasure, disconfort, pain and even terror.
Mindset-I can be hooked to any device with an USB-7 port. It’s universal driver architecture provides for a true plug’n'play experience. Power requirements vary acording to the version, as explained below.
1.1 Versions:
- Mindset-I Classic – the original mindset, the first brain interface with true read-write capability. Requires a 10 watt USB port, already present in most current Cloud-Terminals.
- Mindset-I ToGo – enjoy the pleasure of reading and writing waves on your brain with full mobility. Compatible with the majority of handhelds in the market.
- BrainWave Booster – discontinued product. Click here<fake link> to find legacy drivers.
1.2 Features
2 – Games
Mindset-I Classic and Mindset-I ToGo ship with a copy of Brain Sports, an adictive collection of so called sports that can (now) be played with the power of your mind. The folowing list with reviews was published in the last issue of the Game Developer Magazine.
List of brain controled games, with respective sales numbers and mini reviews:
#1 – Brain Sports
#2 – Hyper Mario Universe in a Nutshell
#3 – Ultimate Final Fantasy XX
#4 – Brainball Deluxe
#5 – GTA X – Pimp Town Ride
#6 – Neverending Saga
#7 – Boxing – Champions with no brain damage
It’s been a long time since I wrote my last post here. To celebrate the return I’ll write about a recent experience I had in game development: The Global Game Jam.
The 1st Global Game Jam was quite an event. 40+ universities around the world hosted a tour-de-force where small teams of around 3 students had to design, develop and present a complete game in only 48 hours. That’s it: 48 hours…
There were no impositions on genre, tools or previously-coded-stuff, only the theme, that was set to be announced at the beggining of the contest. Here in Niteroi-RJ-Brazil we had ~40 students locked inside the computer science department for the whole weekend. In our site, we were limited to use Microsoft’s XNA 3.0 tool chain due to licensing and practical issues for the lab staff… Besides, that served as a fair environment for the local teams to compare against each other.
When the contest started, we all saw a video of the contest organizers and attended to a local keynote about game design. Pictures of this keynote and the whole event can be seen by clicking THIS LINK. So, lets start talking about what matters… First the team:
The Team
Our team was composed of a lead programmer (me) and two graphic artists: Micheli Knechtel and Carlos Ranna. Me and Micheli already had experience in game develpment, while that would be the first one for Carlos, a gifted 2D artist.
I met Carlos that day (he lives in another city and came specially to the Game Jam) and we had to rush in making the asset pipeline work for the three of us. We all worked as game designers and soon started talking about the ideas for the just-announced theme…
Theme
When the theme was announced, some people started having chills, since it was a bit odd:
- “As long as we have each other, we will never run out of trouble…”;
- 5 minutes maximum gameplay session;
- include one of the following adjectives in the design: tiny, busy, traveling.
Our team had some stuff already set up and the first thing we thought was if what we already had could fit in that theme somehow. We had prepared a flexible (code) framework that could still be used, which included the excelent Farseer 2D Physics Engine.
We also had a decided before that we were (probably) going to do a 2D platformer, so we had previously designed a (generic) character sketch with tile based animation (early prototypes):
Early run animation sketch for the game character
Jump Animation Sketch
Early prototype for the animation tile - without the proper coloring scheme
The Game
To make a long story short, we decided to create a simple puzzle platformer where tiny creatures do not get along well with each other, and have to be led (pushed) out of a pipe system by a special one (player). We decided to create the maps with a tile based approach to simplify level design and physics integration. After a couple of hours of prototyping (and character refinement in the art department) we decided through testing that the concept was good enough to carry on and started talking about setting.
It was a tough decision, but we finished with a Old/Rusty Pipe System which eventually led to the game title: Pipe Mayhem.
These are the core mechanics of the game, along with the explanation of how it relates with the theme:
- The leader creature has to lead the other to the exit by pushing them (they are TINY, related to the setting);
- You have a time limit to finish a level and the small creatures do not get along well, so every time they touch each other a fight is started and the time runs out faster (as long as we have each other…never run out of trouble);
- The first levels are supposed to be easy and become more difficult as the player progresses. Each level take from 30 seconds to 2 minutes to finish (5 minutes game session);
- If any of the creatures (including the player) falls through a hole, the level is restarted, until the player run out of lives.
The following screenshots better ilustrate the concept art:
in game screenshot
release picture
I personally liked the art finish, specially considering the 48h time schedule. We used some parallax for the background pipes and a lot of alpha transparency.
Post Mortem
Just a list of what went right and wrong with the experience…
What went right:
- Previously coding a flexible architecture: I adapted my beloved game object component system that I wrote about in the past to the XNA 3.0. It helped keeping things small and organized, allowing fast modifications and ajustments in the code;
- Tile based levels: by using a general tilemap editor, such as Tiled, enabled fast composition of layered levels (physics, visuals, exit), and also helped the artists visualize when some tiles were missing on the tilesets;
- Early prototyping: we decided long before starting that we were going to meet and put ideas on paper and then code a prototype to see if thing were going to worked or not. After having done it, we were confident enough to keep on the chosen design;
- Intra-team integration: listening to everybody’s opinion and getting along is key to a good game development (or any other kind of teamwork);
- Inter-team Integration: the amount of shared ideas, code and “testers” was a good indicator of how was the whole experience was for everybody.
What went wrong:
- Sleeping: since it was a one-of-kind experience for all of us, nobody had a clue about how to manage time, and I finished up sleeping only 3 hours in the period. That ended up being very counter-productive, since in the last ours I was spending some 5 to 10 minutes to realize a simple FOR LOOP. Most of the time during the course of the Game Jam I was just wandering around and could have slept more without any prejudice in the coding of the game;
- Lack of experience with tiles: none of us (my background is 3D game development) had made a tile based game before (only some directions and ideas) and this proved to be the main bottleneck of our asset pipeline. Having to re-assembly a whole level (or every level) on the tilemap editor just because of a misplaced (or lacking) tile is very counter productive. I will write a whole post on this subject together with the artist Carlos Ranna just to explain good direction we didn’t find online.
- Lack of testers feedback: since all the teams were really busy on their own games, the play tests we performed were good but not sufficient. I’d take some more to really got helpful feedback from them. Due to the small time schedule, the tests were also too near the deadline, and only minor modifications could be done (not that many were suggested). A advice is to prototype agressively and spend some time on testing these prototypes with outside players early in the development.
Conclusion
The overall opinion was that the game jam was and unforgetable event in all aspects. As for our game, Pipe Mayhem, we were so happy about what we accomplished in 48 hours that we are porting it to flash and soon I’ll be posting about the process of trying to make it comercially successful.
Update: new demo (v0.3.5) available.
We are getting close to beta stage, I mean, having a complete version, with all features and levels, that will eventually evolve to be a release candidate. Our schedule is very aggressive, so we’ll publish a new demo version (0.3.x) in the next couple of hours. The new features are very interesting:
- 3rd level is now available (as planned);
- New GUI status message on the bottom (to help figuring out important events);
- Warping (New Game Mechanic!!!)
I’ll talk a bit about the warping system since this mechanic took a while to develop and changes some bits in gameplay. It’s now possible to do brief warps through the track by tapping twice to the same side or by pressing the mouse button. It’s a brief but useful advantage, specially for the novice player.
However, the warp consumes stamina very fast, and it’s not possible to activate it if the level of this resource is lower than 75%. We think this is interesting because it becomes difficult to the player to use this advantage at the finish line, unless he is very good in saving his stamina. On the other hand, it’s a good tool for the start, which is been a disapointment to some players to see the AIs going fast from the beggining.
We hope you enjoy this new feature and also expect some feedback since it’s still being calibrated.
In the next (long) post I’ll talk about the 4th and last level (mechanics variation) and some features planned to the final release of the game.
Here’s a new screenshot of the 3rd level starting line:
3rd level screenshot
Filed under: Uncategorized
A new demo is available (V0.2.1), this time including a playable level 2:
This release includes the following features:
- Playable level 2 (has to finish at least 3rd on level 1);
- Added soundFX for collision, damage and powerup picking;
- New song for the second level;
- Now there are maps before each level, that help find the way through the level;
Bugs corrected:
- Position computation was wrong when some sperms die, now correct.
The next release is planed to september 15th. The most important planed feature is the addition of the third level (fallopium tube).
We’re also considering implementing an online high-score system for the fastest sperms around.
New screenshot of the second level:
Second level - Uterus
New demo version, adding the following features:
- Life system (finish 3rd or up to continue, no more lives -> game over);
- Much improved GUI with nice buttons and messages;
- Improved graphics and displacement of obstacles;
- Powerups now ON;
- Difficulty Levels (need balance, but already there);
The link is the same, from the graphic designr website:
Here, some screenshots:
New main menu - difficulty levelsPowerup pickers
Powerup pickers
Filed under: Uncategorized
Here is the link for the first playable demo of Sperm Racer:
http://www.pedrothiago.com/spermracer.html
Please wait a bit before clicking on the start button, the fisrt level takes some time to load (I’ll fix this on the next release).
Plus, we have some new artwork of the powerups and current screenshots:
Sperm Racer Powerups
Main Menu background
Development screenshot form today
Good news everyone!
Sperm racer development is going well and has nearly reached beta stage. We will publish a playable version of the first race “track” very soon. Here is a updated in-game screenshot:
As noticed from the above image, we have a lot of new features implemented, such as:
- Sperm animations;
- HUD with stamina, health, and a RADAR;
- Trail bubles – particles;
- Positions;
- Track wayspoints;
- Other sperms AI;
- Power-ups;
- The first racing “track”;
- Start count-down;
- Several other scripts…
In the next week we will be finishing some issues and release the first beta for testing. We also promise to give more details on development stuff.
