Update Pending!

Good Day All,

With my recent graduation and getting Visions of Zosimos to GenCon officially complete, I am going to be taking some time to compile all of my works and compile them into my blog so that I can easily use it for submissions.

Though I was that I put all my effort into finishing my school and to getting VoZ to where it is now this blog  has gone to the wayside for long enough and it is time to update it and maybe get some new pieces on it.

I hope you all will enjoy when I am done.

2014 Begins

A lot has happened since the last I posted, I have become the Product Owner for VoZ, I ended up starting my own project (Notorious: Star Corsair Saga), then shelved said project and decided to change out what I wanted to do with that project. With the beginning of the new year I told myself I was going to get back into my blog. Hopefully I can keep up with the weekly grind of running VoZ and the tabletop version of Notorious 

So one of the things I am doing this year is changing how we are creating content in VoZ. Before, we had made content using a meta based system. In the system we had teams setup to create parts of the cards. Programmers would program the cards in large batches, 2D artist would create only the card art or character concept, and 3D modelers would create the character in batches as well and no one is talking when changes are made and things need to go back and fix stuff. 

To change this I am breaking up with meta teams or like-discipline members and putting them into feature based teams. These teams are created around features where x amount of each discipline to get a feature to completion. This should help alleviate the need to bug fix, to make it so that changes are done quicker and the asset is completed and doesn't need to be touched again, unless we are making huge sweeping changes.

Here is the diagrams I used to show the new teams how exactly things are going to work. 

This is basically outlining the card teams responsibility for both minion cards and spell/astral cards. And I am doing the same with a framework team and environment team. Hopefully things work out like I planned and we can release cards regularly. 

Its sparks to life

Here is the video of me making sparks that fly out of exposed wires. I think it turned out pretty good.

Sorry for the choppy video and length..google hangout is a bad video recorder when it comes to animations or at least at school

Here is the texture I used for it

FIRE!!!

Here is the fire I made for rubble pile within the ship

Sorry for the choppy video and length..google hangout is a bad video recorder when it comes to animations or at least at school

And here is the texture I used for the fire

Weapon Trail

I was working on the weapon trail for the engine but now I get why its hard to get the combat code working. It's hard to find. I will keep looking. For now here is my texture I am going to use it.

Nothing special but its a start.

Plan for the Spring Break

Since our Next Retrospectives lands on spring break we are going to have a hard time to get things done. So what we are going to is have this plan, over the break people are required to send in two email stand ups about what they did. This should make the case for everyone to put in some work over the break. Here's hopping.

Retrospectives 4

I think the pressure is starting to build, we still don't combat in the engine and it seems to come down to use not being able to find the files or commands needed to call animations. But without this we can't run numbers or set up the attack and defense system. Pretty much I have put all but 1 member onto the combat feature team to figure it out. Hopefully we can get it in time to get AI in.

Sprint 4

3/26/2013

Bad

• Combat Feature team
• Standups take too long
• People aren’t responding timely to friday standup
• Morale
• Tempers are high
• Art team’s work is getting in late

Good

• Effort
• For the most part, Improve section from last sprint was done
• Inside meta and feature communication
• People have appreciated the little victories more
• Attendance
• Information disseminated in friday emails

How to Improve

• All hands on deck for combat
• Appreciate small victories more
• If you have something to show, show it
• Dedicate a bit of time in the first hour of class to show work
• Meta team google hangout for screen sharing in class
• Start standups immediately
• Make sure to send friday standups ON FRIDAY
• Learn from your mistakes and success
• People need to use Trello as they work, rather than just before the end of the sprint
• Art Team needs strict deadlines

We are on the right track

I feel we are on the right track here, check out this picture I found on reddit about the type of game they want

All I can say is working on it

Retrospectives Sprint 3

Its not a great start to the new semester. I feel somehow I need to improve moral which will become my biggest priorty

Sprint 3

2/26/2013

Bad

• Getting to class on time!!!!
• Transparency
• Wayne needs to be included on all late or absence emails
• Morale is Bad
• Tech is very negative
• Slow Progression
• Focus
• Meta Communication
• Art voice meetings still not happening
• Missed Milestone - No Game Day :(
• Keep blogs updated and turn them in when asked
• Did not show build enough
• Team needs Deadlines

Good

• Feature team communication
• Environment team did well
• Quality of work
• Character team did well
• AI Team has a direction finally
• Build to show
• Feature Team Teamwork
• Character team spends good amount of time outside of class working

How to Improve

• 20 mins late without communication, marked absent
• If you are communicated to about lateness or absence, make sure you tell Wayne right away
• If at all possible, contact Wayne directly that you will be late
• Everyone should use Trello
• When back in class, give SoS recap, at least about the standup
• Meet before and after SoS
• Show build more
• Use more of class time towards work, less Youtube, less Reddit, less Facebook
• Declare Impediments Immediately
• Do good things together, but after class
• Scrum Master, Product Owner, and/or Leads should be checking on teams and making sure they are working and no impediments
• Art meta team needs to have a voice meeting
• Team needs to take meeting notes and put them on the forums in Team News
• Update blogs weekly

Sword Party!!

Victory is mine, 6 hrs of work. Awesome Pirates Blade made in Cryengine. Getting the flames to come off the blade right was the hardest part. Crytek never really explains what is going on there but I got it :D

New Semester New Plan

With the new semester starting one of the 1st things we did was re-plan out this project in order to get something ready for our portfolio night. So far our road map is built around the idea of getting our swashbuckling combat done with a level done and a small tutorial to get the player off the ground

We ended up rebuilding our User Stories and Roadmap.

Finally we built up a milestone system to incentivise our people to preform above and beyond. Of course how do you get gamers to work, Pizza and Games. Yep if we hit one of our milestones we get pizza in class, if we hit all our milestones we will have a game day in class at the end of the semester. 

Milestones

1st Milestone: week 4

main character in w/ animation/textured

Attacking and Defending

2nd Milestone: Week 7

textured level

all npcs in engine

basic Ai pathing

3rd Milestone: Week 12

(NOTE: This includes spring break)

Combat completed

Scripted Events layout

All AI implemented

All props implemented

4th Milestone: Week 14

UI implemented and textured

Level Completed

Polish

Release

Meeting a milestone reward = pizza in class

Meeting all 4 Milestones = Game Day in class

So Yeah BRING IT Semester!!

Creating an Intro Game Design Course
Posted on January 18, 2013


Over the course of this break from classes, I’ve managed to accomplish a fair bit, and not just recuperating from the end-of-semester burnout. In this case, Dave Brown and I sat down and put together what we feel is a good start for an Introductory Game Design course for MATC. There is an Intermediate and an Advanced Game Design course already in place, but there is no Intro class. One of the conclusions that both Dave and I reached after having been through the early versions of those classes is that while they are great for practicing design skills, they never build a good foundation to work from, hence this idea.

Each semester consists of 16 weeks, so that’s how many we planned around. First we figured out the topics we wanted to make sure we covered, then planned out how many weeks we’d spend on each topic. Please note that students will be required to keep a blog of their activities, as with most MATC Computer Simulation & Gaming classes. Below is the breakdown we came up with:

1) Welcome to Game Design – Weeks 1-2

This first section is for two things: one, the obligatory explanation of how this class is going to work, and two, to ascertain where different class members are in terms of their familiarity with Game Design. Given that this is an Intro class, it’s doubtful there will be much, but it’s important to tailor the material to the class’ mastery level. To start them off, we’ll be playing some games. Students will be asked to take turns and analyze as best they can while either playing or watching one of their classmates play. Everyone will get cycled through at least once. While we have not set in stone what games we will bring in for use, we have come to the conclusion that one should be obscure, so they are less likely to have seen it before.

2) Mechanics, Dynamics, Aesthetics – Weeks 3-5 weeks

Once we have a sense for where the students are, we launch into one of the most important aspects of Game Design: how to start to think about it. This will be based heavily on a paper by Robin Hunicke, Marc LeBlanc, and Robert Zubek, but this Extra Credits episode gives a great overview of the aesthetic part of what I’m talking about.

One of the biggest issues I see with some of the newer designers I work with is that it is hard for them to articulate the underlying reasons why we play games, what draws us to them, and so on. Naturally, this makes it rather difficult to use that underlying appeal to guide your choices when designing a game. So, some of these three weeks is going to be a little bit of lecture, but the rest of the time will be spent pulling examples and having people practice discerning the aesthetics, dynamics, and mechanics of various games out there. This includes homework along these lines.

3) How to Playtest – Weeks 6-7

Related to how to analyze different aspects of a game, is learning how to do effective playtesting. This includes both playtesting with specific objectives, and paper prototyping a system before it’s even coded. Both are invaluable techniques during game development, as the earlier you find the problems in your ideas, the less work is required to correct them (usually). As you might expect, they’ll get some hands-on instruction for each, and be given an assignment to have them practice it on their own.

4) Articulation Workshop – Weeks 8-9

One of the key aspects that a Game Designer has to be able to do is communicate, specifically describing things in sufficient detail that anyone on the team can read their documentation and understand what the need from it. Students will be randomly assigned an object to be put into a fictional game, and told to describe it such that an artist, programmer or another designer can understand everything they need to know about it. When these are turned in, they will be redistributed (with no names) and with the new object, the student will be asked, after reading the description, to explain the object as best they can.

5) Game Analysis – Weeks 10-12

Now that the class will have spent a large portion of our time working on how to understand games, it is time to bring them back to what we did at the beginning, and take it further. We would like to spend one week on a game from one genre, the second week on a game from another, and the third on a game that blends the two. As an example, one of the things we were considering was playing a modern First-Person Shooter, then a JRPG, then Bioshock, as the latter combines elements of the gameplay seen in the FPS, and the grand narrative seen in most JRPGs. Doing it this way will allow us to not only review what we’ve shown them thusfar, but help tie together some of the other concepts, in particular the Aesthetics of a game.

6) Final Project – Week 13-14

The final project for this class is a big enough deal that I would like to give them in-class time to work on it and get feedback. The idea is simple: randomly assign an aesthetic and a set piece (e.g. “Competition” and “whales”), and tell them to come up with a rough game design based on it. Obviously they don’t need to get the mechanics part hammered out down to specific numbers, but any stats that are present should at least give an indication of how they interact.

7) Final Project Review – Week 15

The second to last class period is going to be an in-class review of the finals by the entire class (with names removed, of course). This gives the students a chance for actual feedback concerning their game concepts, rather than the simple “here’s your grade” found in many finals.

8) Peer Reviews and Retrospectives – Week 16

The last class period is going to be for taking a look back on what you and others in your class have done, finding ways to improve next time, and providing feedback for others to do the same. Whereas the review from the previous week is about a specific piece of work, this is aimed more in general, towards a person’s work over the course of the whole class. It will also be where we evaluate each student’s blog, how well they can represent their own work.

Admittedly, this is just our first draft of how to run this class. We think it’s a good start, but some adjustments will be necessary as we get feedback from students and others. We’d like to run a free prototype of it this summer and then begin offering it in Fall 2013. At this moment, it seems likely that either Dave and I will be teaching it, but it has not been finalized, as we both have a definite interest in doing so.

Space Pirates Music

Alright so I have been trying to figure out what to go with for the music of our game. So my choices are to go with a more Rock feel to the sound for a more badass sound or a more techno feel since we are in space.

So here is my rock reference it is a small band called Alestorm, literally a Pirate Metal Rock band, with their single "Captain Morgan's Revenge".

And here is the techno version of the Pirates of the Caribbean theme song, which I will add is an awesome twist.

 

ARGGhhh Choices!

Sprint 1 begins!

Here is the class on the 1st day of real production.

Warhammer 40k Mod Design Team

Hey everyone here are some pictures from this Thursday Morning where me and the team are testing, discussing and writing our content for the Commonwealth of One (or Boundless not sure) faction for Warhammer 40k.

Design Pow Wow go!!!

Had a great Saturday, I feel the my design team is stronger, has a way better grasp on what we are making and where we are going. Between the explanation from David Staats and Ed Kaczynski and the 4 hr talk of cards and abilities we know have a way better plan to move forward with our design and seal the fate of anyone with extra cash in their pocket

Paper protoryping

Here we are developing our game play and ai design..sorta.

Today I Learned 1

That I need to do some more research on feature driven projects. I keep going back to a Meta based theme in terms of how I run things. I thought I was getting it right but I guess not. What I finding out I am trying to build a house without the blueprints and I don't have enough people who are suppose to be giving input present at the design aspect of things. This again is my doing because I am noticing I have this tendency to think in terms of meta. So in order to fix that I am going to have to make sure as we are designing things to include those involved in their production in order to get the right input, give people the sense of what is happening, and make sure they all know the project. I thought I was doing it, thanks Teach for correcting me.

This is either going to work or....boom!!

So after much blood spilled and sweat excreted I outlined the design for the prototype. Why would I need to do this...SCOPE!!!! The original design is way to big and an impossible thing to make under a year. To give us a more manageable goal to shoot for so that we have something to show at the end of two semesters. Enjoy!!


Prototype Build:
https://docs.google.com/a/gmatc.matc.edu/file/d/0BxVG_6W6T4_DVUF6Sm4xNXE5ZGs/edit

Prototype Design notes:
Designs should be geared what the combat will be like as if the player was 50% done with the game.

We are building this prototype to test the Combat elements in the game

• Not including Story
• Not Including the Larger Universe (Including factions, economy or an exploratory elements)
• Only including the Scoundrel Archetype
• Leaving Unnecessary Combat Elements out

Prototype Objective: Provide a combat oriented proof of concept.

Prototype Structure:
Disable a Cargo Ship
Board Said Cargo Ship and find the Target Cargo (+ extra goods for bonus)
Leave Cargo Ship to engage a Military Ship in Space Combat to the Death
Thank Player for Playing

Ship Comparison

I put this on here to help determine the size of space craft that we may want to go with. Some of these ships are just HUGE!! so I don't think  I want to go with them.