The Game Ptich

So for our final task we were to pitch our game idea to prospective publishers to see what they thought & if they would publish it. Now this task may have seemed daunting for some but I have never had a problem with public speaking so was fairly confident that I could at least help my team secure a good mark for this task. The original plan for the pitch was to have a video, then some talk, then a game demo & then some more talk but due to some technical difficulties the demo had to be removed which is just as well because we originally thought that the pitch was to be 15 minutes plus questions but it was actually to be 15 minutes including questions.

So basically we had set out to have round about 5 minutes of speech each on the key areas of the game that we had the most focus on. I had been originally given the combat, levelling systems & game engine. But I ended up adding in some info on the game style & overall influences as well info on how the game would sell more copies.

I personally felt that the pitch could of gone a bit smoother but we got excellent feedback which was a great relief as some of the group members were extremely nervous. As I said the pitch could have gone a bit smoother but overall I think we done well and with realising we had to cut our fifteen mins down down to ten that was not easy as we had to leave out a lot of information we wanted to say.

Overall though I feel we done well enough to merit a good mark & I'm proud of what we produced & the effort that all the team members put in

On to the pitch

So this week after handing our GDD in, we were straight onto the pitch. We already had a pretty solid idea of where we wanted to go with the pitch which helped a lot. So we basically laid out a very basic structure of how our pitch is going to be set out & who was to speak on what sections.

Essentially we decided to cover five of the major points of our game as well as throw in something a little different to make us stand out from the crowd. We decided to make a short video & a game demo to make us stand out from the others. I was assigned with the combat systems, levelling up systems & the game engine that we would be using.

We had to have about five mins worth of material each to fill the full fifteen minutes of the pitch. I wrote out a basic structure that my section was going to take & felt pretty confident that by improving upon this base I would be able to speak confidently for my part.

I had some trouble condensing everything I wanted to say into the five minutes but I got there in the end & I am fully confident in the material I have prepared

Game Design Document - Finished

So we finally finished our GDD & got it handed in on time thankfully. There was a lot of information in our GDD with concept art to show exactly what we meant. In some sections I think that we could have had some more concept art or a little more explanation but at 49 pages we were pushing the boundaries with the amount of information we had. Looking back over the project I think I may have done one or two things differently, like I would have made sure everyone had the same ideas about certain points in the game as towards the end we had slightly different views on how stuff should be done but we worked it out in the end.

 So now we have to focus on our 15 minute presentation to the potential investors, we have had some great ideas to make us stand out from the crowd I shan't be revealing them just yet as I want them to stay our ideas. Though what I can say is that we are going to have a lot more visual content & possibly some interactive content as well. I think we will have to condense our pitch to 15 mins just because of the amount of content we have but I personally think that the topics we should cover are:

1. Game Story
2. Characters
3. Level Up System & Combat System
4. Game World
5. Concept Art/Videos/Interactive Content

With the above outlined I think that we will have plenty of information to cover the 15 minutes & have a very short time for some questions at the end. I personally feel that the points outlined above are the major points of our game & game play & as such they should be the major selling points of our game. I will also post up a copy of the Game Design Document for anyone who is interested.

GDD Week 10

This week there isn't a lot for me to write about because all we have been doing is finishing up the GDD & with the hand in to be next week it is a good stage for us to be at. It means that while we finish up the design document we can focus more on the pitch. The pitch I haven't really spoke about before but I will be talking about it a lot more in the coming weeks.

Basically we have to pitch our game to publishers for 15 minutes with a presentation & be able to answer any questions that we can on the game. Luckily for I have no problem with public speaking so that shouldn't be much of a problem as well as having worked on the game relentlessly for the last 10 weeks I'm extremely confident that our group knows all there is to know about the game.

I have just finished up a few sections in the design document & there is of writing this only a couple to do & one or two to finish to a more complete state. I think that over the last 10 weeks our group has shown the commitment & dedication that a real design team would have shown to the task at hand. Anyway we have chosen to go with the Flat Red Ball Game Engine as it gives us all the features that we need & it makes them very easy to use. I will not go into great detail here but I will link the feature list for the engine in case anyone is interested.

http://www.flatredball.com/frb/docs/index.php?title=FlatRedBall_Features

GDD Week 9

This blog has come a little later as I have had so much going on but none the less. This week I finished off all the skills & character bonuses which will be shown below in a complete table. The skills & level shown below will be the starting levels for each of the characters.

Game World - The Map

So I have been working on getting a map drawn up for our game so as people can see the layout of the world we so readily speak about in our previous blogs. I came up with a few different layouts & then decided on the one below.

I chose this layout as it had ample land mass as well as a lot of inland lakes & a couple of islands some of which I eventually removed as you will see in this next image.

I removed some of the islands & lakes as after looking at them they just didn't seem right to be there. So once I was happy with this I started to put in preliminary place names & locations as you will see in the next image.

This is what I have so far but it is subject to change & more places will be added in as they are finished.

Game Story

Today we decided to get the basis for the game story started.

The four people go into the pods & their respective timeline memories (with the exception of the scientist, who is in the pod for the process of carrying out live debugging and maintenance).

A virus released into Dreamscapes Somnium system by a free radical terrorist group has started to eat away at the memory cores in the system & takes them into its own being in such a way that the machine becomes self-aware in a sense.  As such the virus can change the memories in the system to bleed into each other causing the memories to either have aspects of more than one memory or jump between memories.

The inhabitants of the pod don’t realise at first that the machine is malfunctioning and by the time the scientist realises what’s going on, the virus has taking a firm hold of the machine and starting to cause major malfunctions within each of the individual members’ eras.

During the events of the malfunction the individuals are under the impression that they are on their way to exit the pod and get out of the machine – however due to the malfunction, the illusion of escape is diminished.

Together the four characters must work together to overcome the virus and escape the pods. They do this by completing the story lines that there memories have created for them. This means that they will have to use all their skills to overcome the obstacles set before them by the virus. The world shifts will happen when the virus has been harmed in some way it will shift the world to try to make the players weaker & therefore easily defeated.  The scientist has his own agenda though and wants to isolate the virus and study it.

Towards the end, there is a “zone shift” into Somnium. The characters wake up in their respective “virtual” homes, believing that the previous events were just a figment of their imagination, they start to realise, through subtle changes in the world, then the presence of beings that do not belong in the material world, that they are back within Somnium, as they venture towards the dreamscape building in hopes to solve the problem. As they get closer to the building the virus becomes more aggressive, they remember their previous battles and realise that they still have the skills and head out to take on the virus.

/*The scientist has the ability to fight the virus through his upgraded debugging pod but has to complete tasks to gain access to this feature; his particular missions will entail some maintenance aspects within the world. This will enhance skills such as security and slicing as the character progresses enabling him to access more complex security terminals and programs.*/

Multiplayer

We had initially decided that we would have all players on the one server in parties of four with all the different era's loaded in & have the world change events happen during quests. That way you could not just go to the era that you wanted to you had to wait for the event to happen. But we eventually decided against this as it would be to difficult to implement with the persistent world changes we could not guarantee that the world would be the same for everyone because of saves.

We then decided to go back to the original idea of just having a localised server & having a four player Co-Op which could be played locally or online. That way the persistent world changes could be managed a lot easier, players would be able to take in their single player characters with all the skills & items they have unlocked but as such the difficulty of the multi-player will increase significantly. The level of the enemies will be taken from the average level of the amount of players playing so as to always have a balanced but challenging game.

There will be more quests in multi-player that aren't there in the single player game, there will also be extra enemies in the multi-player these will be discussed in detail at a later date

I will divulge more details of the multi-player aspects of our game as soon as we finalize all the details

Level System

Today we managed to hash out a basic layout for our design document & who would be focusing on what areas of it to complete. I will provide a link to a version of the document if you want to look at it Game Design Document. So over the last week or so I have been working on the levelling up system & combat system. I have laid down the ground works for the level system which is as follows.

No Levels
There won't be levels in the traditional sense that you work towards filling an XP bar, there will be a skill tree that will allow you to train the skills up as you wish although some of the higher skills will have low level  skills as pre-requisites before they can be trained.

Training
You will continually gain XP while you play the game albeit at a slow rate but as long as the game is active & not idle you will gain XP which you will be able to put into the skill you are training just now. But you will also get XP for completing quests & killing enemies which will stockpile & you can then assign the XP into any skill that you are currently able to train.

Skill Trees
Each character will have their own skill tree but will have the option to train the other characters skill trees if they desire but they will lose out on the character specific bonuses their own skill tree provides them. Also there will be higher XP requirements for training another characters skill tree.

General	Mercenary	Templar	Witch	Scientist
Health	Gunnery	Melee	Magic	Science
Fitness	Pistols	Knives	Projectile	Chemistry
Speed	Rifles	Swords	Transfigure	Biology
Strength	Shotguns	Blunt	Conjuring	Physics
Spirit	Explosives	Throwing	Necromancy	Healing
Mind	Grenades	Concealed	AOE	Combustabl
	Bombs	Axe	Persuasion	Dream

Very quick & basic outline of a simple skill tree with the general skills applying to all classes but specific skills within the general window provide more benefits to the particular classes for example the strength skill applies to all classes but specifically to the Merc as the higher your strength the better your weapon handling comes.

Will obviously need to be looked at in a much more detailed scale but this should provide a decent base & you should get a basic grasp of what the skills are but I will I think we should have a level system for each of the skills some to 5 levels some to 3 levels etc etc of course they will each cost a set amount of XP but that price will increase as the skill level increase

Character Design - The Mercenary

The mercenary back story proved to be the more difficult out of all the character classes to write & as such has taken me a bit longer to get it down.

The merc was originally envisioned to be the perfect soldier who had just had enough of the relative peace that the time had brought. The PAX BRITANICA as it was known then but we decided to change it up so that there was more of an edge to him. We decided to keep the idea that he was highly decorated & highly skilled but he had to go AWOL for reasons that will become apparent later in this blog. The merc is a brooding slab of a man 100% pure  muscle, straight to the point but never cruel or rather never intentionally cruel. He has all the manners of a British Officer which we all know are impeccable. The concept art for the merc will be added to this blog later on.

The following is some of the back story of the merc & why he had to go AWOL

We were stationed in some back water of India in the Jharkhand region of East India to be precise. We had made our way hear chasing a group of rebels & only a core group of them survived. They where to be brought in dead or alive it made no difference their crime was one so heinous it could not go unpunished. These savages had attacked raped & killed the governor's daughter. I mean who did these Neanderthals think they were they had no right to even lay a finger on a British citizen. As such we were merciless in our justice as we meted out death to all the rebels & those that helped them.But our commanding officer was to be wed to the governor's daughter & he had took this mission personally vowing to kill every last one of the dogs who did this to his fiancée. We finally managed to track the rest of the scum to their village where the locals hid them. Our commanding officer gathered all the villagers in the middle of the village & started to execute them one by one women, children first to get the men to give themselves up. I couldn't stand by & watch, I had to do something I told him to stop or I would stop him myself he ordered for me to be arrested but that wasn't going to happen I knew I would be tried with cowardice & condemned to death. So I did the only thing I could do I drew my pistol & shot him through the head, then I ran.....

The merc's world is going to be based on a Victorian style era with quintessential British gentleman rounding off the era. There will be a lot of Victorian style architecture with a slight steam punk influence to give it the quirk that it needs to be distinguished from the other era's. The colours in this world will be very bright & rich to give the impression of a great wealth within the world with lots of items coming from the British colonies within the empire. There will be lots of grand villas with towns attached to them with a prominent presence of the British army to keep the peace & the savages in line. The British army will be among some of the hardest enemies within the game as they have the best training in the world, this in turn makes team work more essential within this realm than it does in the others.

Character Design - The Templar

Today we decided to focus on character design & level setting. It was decided as that I already knew a lot about the Templars & the Naepoleonic era British Army that I would design the Templar & the Mercenary.

First off I shall start with the Templar as the concept art for him has been started. My original idea for the Templar was to have the shining knight sort of hero type that most people like to see as the hero in a story but I thought that there could be an more interesting dynamic if he was an anti hero of sorts. He will do good & he will do it by any means necessary even if that means being evil himself. The player will be given choices like after defeating a group of bandits do you kill them & potentially ridding the world of the problem forever or do you let them go & see if they change their ways? This would create an inner battle within the player that they should be doing good but how far should they be willing to go to achieve the goals for good of the world that they are playing in. 

Below is how the Templar was initially envisioned as a clean cut knight as any self respectable Templar should be.

As you can see this was a very basic concept design but for all intents & purposes it portrays the image we thought we wanted. After some thought I decided that I would change the Templar from a hero archetype to an Anti-Hero Archetype to add another layer to the characters as with an Anti-Hero there is some much more possibilities for internal conflict not only within himself but within the group if the others don't approve of his actions.

Below is the revised version of the Templar in all his Anti-Hero rule breaking glory. From the ripped cloths to the blood smeared cross painted on his chest with the blood of all the heretics he has cleansed over the years.

As you can see here there still needs to be some work done but this character is a lot less appealing in the sense that you can tell that he is dangerous & is potentially unstable. From the start I had an idea in my head on how the Templar's helmet should look. It should be a rounded medieval style helmet with a cross for the eye slits coming down into a round Roman style helmet at the bottom. Below is a picture of hoe the helmet will look.

Now that I have got most of the Templar's concept art out of the way I shall go on to tell his back story & a little of his history.

A high ranking member of the Knights Templar he has been given garrison over an area that has high heresy levels. This is due to his outstanding combat record & faith to the Order during the crusades he has fought many battles & killed many men which has led to him questioning his beliefs. He has started to break the rules of the Order to get his mission done, many believe this has left him mentally unstable but no one will question the methods of such a esteemed knight. All he ever wanted to be was a Templar his family where devout followers of the faith & as a boy he grew up listening to the tales of the brave knights. With such an upbringing it was only natural that he apply to become a knight & as such he has a fanatical love for the Order & it's rules. The Templar will often break the rules of the Order to punish heretics but he see's this as an evil necessity & as penance for this he practices Mortification of the Flesh. 

Now we have a overview of the Templar's personality & how he balances the good with the evil I shall tell you about some of his history.

The Templar looked out across the land he could see town after town, Infected with heresy a growing hatred rose inside him as he headed towards the first town. He always got angrier the closer he got to heretics & non believers . He ordered the army to head on past the first two villages & set up camp there, they would need to start to interrogate & cleanse those who would not convert to the ways of the faith. This was not their main objective though it was a pleasant distraction for the battle that would be raging as soon as the heretic army found the courage from whatever pagan idol they worshipped & attacked. The questioning began there & then, they did not wait for sunrise to begin. By the time the sun was up there had already been over 30 executions of those who would not submit to the faith. The Templar looked up into the face of the young woman as he gently slid his knife from out of her gullet. He watched the life drain from her face & heard only her gargling blood as she choked & bled to death at the same time. Just as this happened a trumpet sounded in the distance. This was the scout's signal that the enemy approached from the south beyond the river which gave the Templar's army the upper hand  in the terrain as they had to traverse the river & come up the hill to get to the Templar's Army. As he positioned himself at the brow of the hill, he could see the heretic filth in all it's abysmal glory. These men were nothing more than farmers & hired mercenaries united under the banner of the heretic Arch-Bishop.

"I can smell the poison within them, I can sense the false promises of their pagan idol, I can feel the empty prayers that these filth spew out in venomous fashion to the false god the worship, though I am a fair man I shall give them the chance to repent as our holy father decrees, the chance to become pure & rid themselves of that poison" The Templar 1126

The Templar's world is going to be like it was in the middle ages with the same types of people & social structure that existed back then. There will be lots of small villages & settlements that need "cleansed" in the Templar's eyes as they will be places of heresy, this will be detailed in the architecture of the buildings & the darker colours that will be used to indicate that the Templar deems this place to be unholy. In contrast to these places will be the "cleansed" towns or the Christian towns that will be bright & colourful full of life & happiness. As it is still the middle ages there will be a varied mix of people from the peasants right up to nobility with everything in between. This should give a excellent & varied NPC cast that you can interact with. The layout of the land will be the same as it is within the other three era's except that there will be more small settlements & farm holding type areas.

I will be writing more up about the Templar & also the Mercenary shall fill my next blog .

CGD Week 2

Today was the second time our group met up to discuss ideas for our game & expand on the ideas that we had last week. We decided to thrash out the details of who was to do what in regards to the Game Design Document & it was decided that I would be doing the back story & general outline of the game.Our original idea of the back story was to have the four worlds collide in some sort of dream world due to a universal event that ripped up time, space & reality as we know it. But today I came up with what the group feel is a much better back story which I shall lay down the basis of here.


The year is 8891 & Somnium is the vice of choice these days. Dreamscape Ltd are the biggest providers of Somnium in the world today. They have centres in all 5 continents & have the best trained staff with the greatest safety records there is. For those who don't know Somnium is the process of taking someone or something dead reanimating it & creating a world from their memories for the user who is hooked up to them through the Pro-memory Output Display or the POD for short. Today is to be my first time in the POD I know a lot of people frown upon it but I don't drink, smoke, do drugs. Now don't get me wrong I am partial to the odd fast woman but apart from that I have no other vice, No entertainment in this drab being that we call life. The utopian future that was planned for us has gone tits up & all that is left is a class divide so wide that there are maybe 10% of the population that are able to afford Somnium but as I am one of them I could less about the scum under current that make up the working classes & the criminals. I enter the Dreamscape centre & I'm greeted by the cheeriest & perkiest (In the right places I might add) lab assistant I have ever laid eyes on. I make a mental note to have her later. She leads me into the chamber to meet the doctor & show me to my POD as I have already selected my memory world that I will use as my personal play ground.

At this point you will be given the choice to choose one of four playable characters which are the Merc, the Witch, the Templar & the Onierologist (dream scientist) each of which will have their own traits & special abilities.


Today also seen us pick out & develop 3 action scenes that we can create story boards & flowcharts for to show how the scene will progress the three scenes. I also wrote up a quick summary of each of the playable characters of which they will need to be expanded on & changed in some places I will write up what they are now & detail any changes in them in future blogs.

Mercenary - Was a high highly decorated member of the British army but left to become a Merc during the Pax Britanica. Where the relative peace of Europe had left him bored & craving action.

Witch - A practitioner of magic her whole family has been practising magic since the beginning of time. They are highly skilled in all aspect of magic ever those classed as dark magic by her kind.

Templar - A member of the order of the Knights of Templar with a fanatical love for the order & it's code. He will stop at nothing to enforce the code even if it means breaking it himself.

Oneirologist - The scientist who studies dreams. He is a learned man with the ability to pick up skills very quickly but as such he never truly masters a skill as he tries to learn four or five skills at once.

That is a brief outline of the characters in my next blog I shall expand on all the concepts outlined above & provide some concept art to go along with each of the descriptions.

Computer Game Design: The Beginning

Coming up with an idea for a fun game is hard enough but to come up with an original idea is even harder. This is exactly what I plan to do, today was my first day back at university & we have been giving the task of designing a game. No not developing it as most people will think that is what I mean but to design it. Come up with the idea then create a Game Design Document, pitch said idea with the GDD & create a personal blog of my experiences while doing so. We have to do this in groups which is fine as long as you get good group members. It just so happens that I have such group members in the form of Thomas Beattie & Scott Docherty both of which I have worked with in the past so I know that they will get the job done.

So after we got our task we assembled in the Qwerty's cafe & set to work. We came up with a few ideas none of which were original enough for us to like. So I proposed an idea that we use an already proven format & change it up so that we had a Unique Selling point for our pitch. once we got started it was hard to stop & by the end of the three hours we spent there we had a pretty solid base to develop our ideas on. We had decided what our core concept was going to be, what our unique selling point was going to be, what our characters were & how they would develop as the game progressed & where our game would be set.

All in all it was a very productive first day & I think that if we continue with the same amount of gusto & commitment that we will have an excellent chance of not only passing the class but getting a great mark.