It's deadline day today, and over the past 3 weeks I've been researching, developing, testing and developing some more.
Here's what I found;
Many people had many different ideas as to how the game should play, little mechanics here and there. One person suggested a slow decline, one person a double jump, another a dash attack. After all these suggestions and more were implemented into the game, I found that although they were all different suggestions they were, in fact, different pieces of the same puzzle.
One thing that varied, however, was the actual control- Which buttons should fire what input and should multiple inputs be mapped to the one controller?
I feel this is something more to research into. Do more buttons with multiple functions give the player more control? Or does it over complicate things and detract from the overall feel of the game? Are there many benefits to either?
All for another time. At the end of this week I have a small playable platformer that according to feedback is floaty yet very fun to control. I added a dynamic camera that would adjust behind the player in air to make landing easier. As well as that I have an enemy hooked up that will chase the player along the water, and drag them below, respawning the player at the last bit of land they traversed.
So what's next? What did this 3 weeks help me to learn about my direction of Masters?
Well, in short, feel. I want to know more about how a players physical input can alter feel overall.
Friday, 28 October 2016
Thursday, 27 October 2016
Week 5 I - Some Unreal Updates
So since my last post, Epic Games have updated the Unreal Engine with a preview of 4.14! I've been working ever since in this engine to hurry up and get an enemy working properly, after 4.13's horrible issues with the AI.
So what have I got that's new?
This is a Lurker, and they inhabit the deep waters of the world.
Anything that skitters across it's home will be dragged down to the face the cold embrace, and join them as another.
Here's how it functions;
The world is constructed of islands, so naturally there is a lot of water to move about on. If the player starts moving on it, the Lurker's are made aware, and begin their approach. When they're close, they burst forth and try to grab the player, resulting in a loss of health and respawning at their last checkpoint.
I've also added in a dash ability in the air, allowing players to combat certain enemies, however the Lurker isn't on that list.
So what have I got that's new?
This is a Lurker, and they inhabit the deep waters of the world.
Anything that skitters across it's home will be dragged down to the face the cold embrace, and join them as another.
Here's how it functions;
The world is constructed of islands, so naturally there is a lot of water to move about on. If the player starts moving on it, the Lurker's are made aware, and begin their approach. When they're close, they burst forth and try to grab the player, resulting in a loss of health and respawning at their last checkpoint.
I've also added in a dash ability in the air, allowing players to combat certain enemies, however the Lurker isn't on that list.
Friday, 21 October 2016
Week 4 II - Float like a Butterfly
So I've had a lot of good feedback so far, and it's helped shape the game with much tighter controls, making the game flow more. Although today someone played and described it as "Too floaty", which is obviously not a great response.
So where do I go from there? It's a difficult call, because if I get more weight on the character then the flow suffers greatly, but if I do nothing does that mean that it's too much?
It's a conflicting result with what I've been told by many others, and while majority rule means what I have is nice and responsive, could balancing weight and flight make the game feel better?
Very brief testing today proved the idea wrong, but I haven't given enough time to it yet to settle on a verdict. I'll go the route of rigging up separate weights and playtest, as I know I'm FAR too biased here.
So where do I go from there? It's a difficult call, because if I get more weight on the character then the flow suffers greatly, but if I do nothing does that mean that it's too much?
It's a conflicting result with what I've been told by many others, and while majority rule means what I have is nice and responsive, could balancing weight and flight make the game feel better?
Very brief testing today proved the idea wrong, but I haven't given enough time to it yet to settle on a verdict. I'll go the route of rigging up separate weights and playtest, as I know I'm FAR too biased here.
Monday, 17 October 2016
Week 4 I - Testing, Results, Testing, Testing, and Sleep
Today last week I make a small level in UE4 using the landscape tool, and began trying out the controls of the project.
The response to the controls were riddled with things to adjust, including:
- Release of the controlling movement should halt mid air velocity
- When charging up for a jump, the player should be in control of when to jump, rather than it firing regardless when fully charged
- Holding gown the jump button in air should allow you to fall at a slower pace
- Double jumping
- Ground movement felt sluggish in comparison
- Short jumps should be effective without the necessity of the double jumps
So here's what I've done; All of that.
I made the character move faster on the ground, which also made the shorter jumps better as there was more of a launch going into them.
I added a double jump that you can fire up to 3 times before landing (A Quad jump).
I removed the auto jump when it became fully charged.
I slowed down the movement to a halt in mid air if the player wasn't putting in any input.
I added in the slower falling while gliding, and to balance added a 3 second usage to the ability, forcibly reverting to the default fall speed if the entire bar is expended.
An interesting term has popped up while I was testing, that has come up in 100% of people I asked to play; Floaty.
Whenever I've heard a game described as 'Floaty' it always felt negative. A game that can't really let it's players feel any weight to the world, seeming as if everything is loose or flimsy. However here, after hearing this term, one of the playtesers (Who is a VERY big fan of 3rd person platformers) found no errors with the jumping/flying mechanics, and said it "Felt really nice". They went on to mention they especially liked the application of the double jump, a mechanic that if anything makes the game MORE floaty.
With this all in mind, it seems I'm beginning to crack more into Game Feel from a real time response perspective, even if it's not what I intended to do for this 3 week project.
In terms of my original goals for the 3 weeks project, only 1 person decided that the running animation was superior, and the rest were very settled on the skiing animation. In fact, going back to the last playtester, when I switched they proclaimed (And I quote) "What the fuck are you doing? Put it back!"
I feel there's little more to explore in the area of a character's aesthetic movements and feel, as from this single project I've discovered that a vast majority of people prefer to have more fluid movements. However, there are plenty of other variables to consider, like if Marcus Fenix from Gears of War began skiing through the levels, would that be preferred to him chugging away with his hunched running animation?
No.
However, from this I've learned a lot more about the feel of a game, and how the project I'm making can reflect the tone just in how it controls, evidence by everyone having varying suggestions, yet agreeing that all of them implemented make a better feeling game.
Something I could look into more?
The door's open.
Friday, 14 October 2016
Week 3 Update I - Change in Format
So today I realized I'm not posting as frequently as I hoped, so I'm changing how I go about blogging. From now on I'll 100% post weekly, and mark down however many updates I post in that week.
Why did I bother with the whole day thing?
God, I'm an idiot.
But today was spent well, because I've finalized the control scheme for a character I've made where I'll be seeing how I can change feel without changing how the game functions.
Here's the video of the movement and a set of animations in action.
Monday, 10 October 2016
Day 12 - Feeling Animated
Today I've finished all the animations I'll need what I have planed in the next 2 weeks left of the brief. What I need to do now is create the animation blueprints and rig up a nice control scheme for the character to work around.
This is Fredic (Named by James), and he's ready to go on an adventure.
This is Fredic (Named by James), and he's ready to go on an adventure.
Saturday, 8 October 2016
Day 10 - Setting up
At this point I planned to have all the animations finished, but error after error with Maya in the studio means that I can't export joint rotation at the University on my profile.
Bummer.
At least yesterday I managed to (With a LOT of help from James (Like, 90% James teaching me new practices)) rig the model and set up proper constraints (Seriously, THANKS YOU James!)
Right now I have a few animations finished and exported into UE4. All the animations I have left to do are:
- 1 jumping animations
- 2 falling animations
- 1 running animation
- 2 jumping build up animations
All of these won't take long, and when they're done I can get to UE4 and start plotting out the characters movements
Bummer.
At least yesterday I managed to (With a LOT of help from James (Like, 90% James teaching me new practices)) rig the model and set up proper constraints (Seriously, THANKS YOU James!)
Right now I have a few animations finished and exported into UE4. All the animations I have left to do are:
- 1 jumping animations
- 2 falling animations
- 1 running animation
- 2 jumping build up animations
All of these won't take long, and when they're done I can get to UE4 and start plotting out the characters movements
Thursday, 6 October 2016
Day 8 - 3 Weeks From now
So we've been given a sort of mini-brief, a little something to help push us in the direction we want to go for Masters.
I have a vague idea; I want to research into flow, and the ability it has on immersion, as mentioned in the book I referenced last time.
I'll be running a few different play test, because I want to see if a characters aesthetic movement (Running, walking, gliding) can have an effect on how flow, and by extension immersion. As a result of me looking exclusively into how the character moves around, I'll only be setting up a project in UE4 that involves nothing more than small platforming.
So far I have created and rigged a character with an idle animation and a running animation, by the end of tomorrow it should have all animations done, and by next week I should have a mock level set up to begin playtesting.
I'll also need to conduct a survey, I'll probably put a link to it at the end of the playable.
I have a vague idea; I want to research into flow, and the ability it has on immersion, as mentioned in the book I referenced last time.
I'll be running a few different play test, because I want to see if a characters aesthetic movement (Running, walking, gliding) can have an effect on how flow, and by extension immersion. As a result of me looking exclusively into how the character moves around, I'll only be setting up a project in UE4 that involves nothing more than small platforming.
So far I have created and rigged a character with an idle animation and a running animation, by the end of tomorrow it should have all animations done, and by next week I should have a mock level set up to begin playtesting.
I'll also need to conduct a survey, I'll probably put a link to it at the end of the playable.
Monday, 3 October 2016
Day 6 - Feel
So today was spent with me researching more into Game Feel, and so far I've found a source that describes it in 7 different categories, not denouncing any of the other types but holding one in particular above all others. One that combines Simulated Space, Real-Time control and Polish.
I'm gonna re-read a lot of it, but it was an interesting read- whether or not it was legal using Wordpress to read it all, but here's the source of the book for any interested: https://gamifique.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/2-game-feel.pdf
I'm gonna re-read a lot of it, but it was an interesting read- whether or not it was legal using Wordpress to read it all, but here's the source of the book for any interested: https://gamifique.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/2-game-feel.pdf
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