Video Progress and a New Idea

It's been a very busy weekend but the video is now at a stage where I'm pretty happy with it. I may do some more editing on it later but it's going good. I have shown it to some of my peers at uni and they are liking it to. My biggest challenge was sorting out the timing of the video but it seems I have got it pretty well down as everyone who has watched has said the pace is really good so that's a huge relief.

Aaaand to other news, a new idea. I have decided to go ahead with the making of a book to go along with the video. So I'll have a physical edited for book version, then the same story but animated as my video. All my art is vectorized so it shouldn't be too hard to do, I will start on that now and hopefully be done by midday tomorrow so that I can go get it printed with plenty of time to spare. See how it goes.

First Poster

A very quick post to show my poster, I think it looks pretty cool and the reception its got from friends on Facebook has been pretty favorable to which is all good news!

Rough Cut, Check!

Today has been crazy intense. I have been working on the rough cut of the video. This has been quite the mission for a number of reasons. Obviously all my cinematic sequences were separate in the game so getting these together into 1 timeline hasn't been easy. The main reason for this is because these sequences were there own movie clips which I was adding to the stage. So by simply copying and pasting these frames into 1 timeline, I don't get what I want because the location on the stage doesn't match. So I've had to work around this which I managed to do for most of it but there are a few areas where I've had to reanimate etc but that's OK, it's all part of the job.

So to sum up the day I am now at the stage of a rough cut which is very good news. Over the weekend I will edit this and start thinking of some ideas for my images and poster, the other requirements for hand in.

Decision

OK so the meet with Doug went pretty good. My project is now a video, so the narrative I created for the game will play out from start to finish in what I am hoping will be about 5 mins max, though I am aiming for about 4-4 1/2. I need this amount of time due to the complexity of the story. There's a lot to get across, especially in the back story of where Franklin has come from. I need to allow some time here so that viewers can get a connection to the character.

The artwork/animation is coming along nicely for this which is good. I have been hard at work updating each of my frames as the line work was a bit shoddy previous. As a game this wouldn't have been noticeable but now that the art is the project, its at the fore front so it has to be as good as I can possibly get it.

Update before Doug

So I thought I would post up a quick update before I see Doug this morning. Basically I've been working really hard at the list I posted earlier, pretty much everything on that list has now been done which is awesome. The butterfly scene was the only one not done as I don't have an editable butterfly and don't want to waste time drawing a new one. I would rather use the time to work on other stuff, animating the butterfly isn't very important in comparison to all the many other things I need to do. Other than that though, its gone quite well. I am particularly happy with the inner monster's demise scene. Looks pretty cool now that it has been animated, well, everything looks better that's been animated but this scene in particular, bit of a favourite I think...My meet with Doug is in just under an hour, I hope to God it goes well or else I am in for a nightmare of a week, though its going to be tough regardless I suppose. But to know I am on the right track will at least give me peace of mind. Stay tuned!

New Artwork

Just a quick post to show some of the new artwork that I have been working on this weekend. Most of it here besides the pic of the inner monster with a hole through are for the new memory sequences which I have been developing. As mentioned in a previous post, I wasn't happy with the way Franklin worked through his anger and the negative energy bit needed work as well. Enjoy!

Upgrade List - What I need

Memory Sequences:

Memory 1

Positive Image - Sheep

Greyed out Franklin

Memory 2

Negative Image

Greyed out Franklin

Positive Image – A young hurt Franklin, skateboard accident

Memory 3

Negative Image – Coloured Lucas, shows he made the team over Franklin

Greyed out Franklin

Positive Image – Shaking hands with Lucas. Franklin should have been happy for him.

Other: Demon (negative emotion), Scale size of Franklin in Final Sequence

Animation: SC - Start Cinematic, FC - Final Cinematic, ES - Ending Sequence

Franklin with Butterfly? – SC (dependent on whether I still have an editable butterfly)

Scenes of Franklin repeatedly bullied – SC

Franklins emotions stir out of control - SC

Inner Monster's Negative Energy - FC

Franklins Hand – FC

Clouds of Inner Monster running away – FC

Inner Monster Lunging – ES

Franklins Positive Strike on Inner Monster / Inner Monster reaction – ES

The Inner Monster's Demise - ES

Goodbye Game, What now?

OK so talking with Doug today its been decided that the game play aspect of my project is to be scrapped. Instead, I will spend the next week focusing on what was selling my game, the artwork. I will upgrade this and turn that into my final project.

With this being quite the drastic shift, I've had a lot of thinking to do today. My plan of attack is somewhat as follows.

With the artwork I currently have:

1) Backstory - This explains Franklin's character, where he's come from to what has happened to him with the release of his inner monster and his current location, being stuck within his own mind having lost control over his physical self to his inner monster. My plan here is just to refine the artwork and perhaps think about animating a few more parts of it. Currently I just have the frame describing his growing up animated, and then some few frames during the scene of him within his mind are stitched together, these are animated in that they fade in and out from each other.

2) Final Cinematic Sequence - This is split up into two parts. It shows Franklin confronting his inner monster. He is filled with confidence and feeling very positive, the inner monster has lost. In part 1 the monster realizes his defeat and makes a run. In part 2 after Franklin catches him in the bonus level, he is defeated by Franklin and Franklin returns to the real world. With this I plan to upgrade the artwork as not all frames are as good as each other, and ill likely animate a few to keep it in line with the style of the backstory.

3) Memory Sequences - These are the sequences that played out after each level was won. They show Franklin identifying the cause of his anger which in turn releases the negative energy which Franklin is to cleanse to move onto the next level.

This was the area I spent a lot of time thinking about today. What was brought up in the talk was that the negative energy part needed work. I myself, was also never really happy with how Franklin went about cleansing the negative energy. This part which is of great importance to the game, played out rather quick and with not much thought. To solve both these things, I came up with this:

After identifying the cause of his anger, Franklin then looks at the bigger picture - This picture being the one highlighting the negative cause of his anger.

For the first memory it is him being teased by the bullies at school for not being allowed to watch the TV show. For the second, his parents denying him a skateboard deeming it too dangerous sport and for the third, him being isolated, feeling resentment towards his friend for being accepted into the school soccer team over him.

Frame zooms in, Franklin breaks down the picture, looking at his negative feelings and then contrasting them with the positive side which he can now see, being older, that much the wiser.

Memory 1:

Positive

- His peers were sheep. People were following other people, liking the show only because they did.

- Stripping away the nostalgia, the show appears quite different. It's not that great. His parents knew this, viewing it from their own experience, objectively and unfiltered. The show was no good for him.

Negative

- He was the only one in the whole school not allowed to watch it. He was teased by his peers.

- It was not too violent! It's awesome, Captain Awesome! His parents were being unfair!

Memory 2:

Positive

- His parents were just being protective as parents do. If anything, it just shows they cared.

- Nowadays it would be fine, but back then being so young, he could have been hurt.

Negative

- "You think you know what's good for me? I know!"

- "It's not too dangerous!"

Memory 3:

Positive

- A true friend would have been happy for the other, at the end of the day the better man won.

- Franklin was at fault, being incredibly unsportsmanlike.

Negative

- He didn't even want the position on the team, not like Franklin did!

- "What a rip off! He always gets everything!"

In terms of artwork for this I would have 3 scenes for each. 1 to show the negative, which is those frames I have already. Then 2 more each to show the positive.

Memory 1 - 1 scene shows his peers turning into sheep, hopping about. 1 scene focussed on the TV show, average show.

Memory 2 - 1 scene about being protective, 1 to show what could have happened. He could have been hurt, being so young.

Memory 3 - 1 scene of him congratulating his friend Lucas, 1 depicting his being unsportsmanlike.

Once Franklin has then looked to the positive side to the situation, a Dark Franklin of the Franklin depicted in the negative picture, i.e Age 5, 7 and 10, will be released from the picture, exposed. Franklin's positivity/confidence will see it cleansed (it will fade out). I decided to use "Negative Emotion" as the fuel that created the inner monster rather than "Negative Energy", I think emotion makes it easier to understand and it allows me to use monster characters to depict it, which is more in style of everything else rather than floating orbs as I've got it currently. An alternative to this is to just have Dark Anger monsters released rather than dark Franklin's. You could consider these "minions" of sorts to the inner monster.

So that's what I'm looking at for artwork. But the problem I still don't know how to get round is showing the gameplay/levels with this no longer being a game. Gameplay was the part where I failed in making the game so I don't know how to move forward with this, if I even look at this part. Or do I concentrate only on the parts above. Then I'm still a bit lost as to how to present this. With the stuff above being sequences, I guess a video would be one way? Or as a series of animatic like sequences? Or then to keep it in the style of how the backstory is now where players or now readers, read it like a book, going through it at their own pace and clicking the button to move to the next frame.

Coding coding coding...

Over the past few days I have been sorting out the bugs in both the code of my game engine and the character art/animation. Art wise I have changed the head on Franklin in his up and down positions so that his face and eyes are in line with the perspective he is facing. This was one of the things highlighted to me by one of the guys in our gaming group in class. He wondered why it looked like Franklin was looking at the player when in these positions which was a good call. Another thing I have changed with the art is the white anger ghosts which I will put the new art into the game tomorrow. Basically the problem with the old is that it wasn't working with how the hit box works in game. To help me explain this I have drawn this quick little diagram:

Basically if you hit the ghost in the area highlighted you would die, yet clearly the space hatched in should allow you to live because that is empty space beneath the ghost and just before the tail. With some intense coding well beyond my capability I could probably fix it so that the hit box was defined around the outline of the ghost character but since this is by no means an option I have simply revised the artwork of the ghost and brought his tail up to go behind him so that he fits better within the hit box.

Game engine wise I have been sorting out the problems to what has shown itself to be a problem after putting the game to rigorous use, mixing different game mechanics together and hitting things in different modes and at different places within each level etc. I have also gone about setting up the new game mechanic with the inner monster. At the moment the trigger points are being represented as Dark Franklin's but these will just be circles later that are transparent so that you have no idea when they are coming. Passing over these trigger points then brings up a green box with an angry face on it, a placeholder for some inner monster character art. Then hitting into this green box then causes Franklin to change states and play out an animation, this will be Franklin being tormented by the inner monster but at the moment its just him in a pink box moving up and down. And to finish, the game controls are swapped as planned so up is down, down is up etc. Obviously I can't have this play out for the remainder of the level as I wish to have about 4 or so of these trigger points in each level so I have it controlled by a timer like I do the ghost mode and pacman mode (now dubbed vulnerability mode for copyright reasons!).

Final Cinematic Artwork

So being at home Wednesday with the house to myself, I figured it would be a good time to start drawing up the imagery for the Final Cinematic. Leave it too late and I won't have an ending to my game! I did a very rough storyboard based off of what I had written the final cinematic out earlier and then got to work on drawing those frames up. Did a few extra touches today and I now have essentially all frames completed, I will just have to do a few variant frames of some of the ones already done here showing different emotions being expressed on the characters faces. That said, this is how they are looking:

Progress Check Response

The biggest concern that came out of the progress check was the apparent disconnect between the cinematic story and actual game play. Within the story you hear about the dark inner monster character that takes over Franklin but after this, he disappears from the game until the end. In order to fix this problem and get the character which essentially is Franklin's anger more involved with the game I have come up with a way to implement him into the game play itself. Franklin is on a mission to cleanse the negative energy within himself so that he may weaken and ultimately defeat the inner monster and take back control of himself. Therefore I see it only fitting that the inner monster becomes an obstacle in game. I am going to remove the Dark Franklin obstacle from the game, already I didn't see this fitting so it makes sense to swap it out in favour for the inner monster character. Then to get the inner monster in game and really affecting Franklin I plan to take the array in my game engine code currently used to place Dark Franklin obstacles, and use it to lay trigger points throughout the levels. When players then guide Franklin over these triggers, the inner monster character will then show himself a certain distance just ahead of Franklin. If players then hit the inner monster, Franklin's avatar will change to him doing battle with the inner monster as it begins to torment him. While this is going on, with Franklin out of it, going crazy and with all the confusion as his mind is overthrown, I then plan to take this through to the players controls by changing them up. Up will become Down, Down will become Up, Left will become Right and Right will become left. Ultimately this should fix my problem as it will most certainly increase the relationship between the inner monster character, Franklin and really highlight and capture the idea of Franklin being at war with his anger.

Final Backgrounds

So background design has turned out to be a real mission for me. After doing a whole bunch of different tests and experiments with different techniques I wound up developing my backgrounds in the style of the latest technique I posted only after going down this route I found myself making backgrounds which ended up being far too detailed and when put in game, they would become too distracting especially because they scroll along so fast and it became hard to keep an eye on Franklin who is the character you are supposed to be controlling. I also found myself getting a bit of motion sickness which is the worst thing I could be doing. So I decided to simplify my backgrounds to a lesser detail and I am much happier with the results of this.

Another change I made was to do with colour. Originally I planned on using different colours throughout but then I found myself wondering how this really represented the anger going on in Franklin's mind as ultimately that is the setting to the levels. So then I went about basing each backgrounds colour to that of the memory Franklin is working towards identifying, it being the cause of his anger. As with the memory artwork, each one sort of had its own colour. The first being a yellowy orange, the second red, and the third green. Only after doing this and testing the game out with some people, confusion became apparent. They couldn't see how green or the yellowy orange colour related to the anger and what not. What they did like though very much was the red. They could relate to this level and could understand what was going on. For this reason I then decided that if it works, don't fix it, implement it! So all three of my final backgrounds are a combination of black and to mix it up just a little, shades of red rather than just the one solid red colour.

Plan for Progress Check

Title Screen Image - A 2D side scroller adventure game.

Title: Acts of Anger

Chosen Topic: Extended Consciousness

Chosen Research: Children and Play. The censorship surrounding this.

Findings: Parents are being too restrictive and this is limiting children's learning, growth, potential.

Narrative:

- Include screens of the art frames of Franklin being taken over, inside his mind talking to his conscience.

Three Acts: Explain. Each deal with a different memory. All of which had a certain impact on Franklin.

Act 1: School -> Memory: "Captain Awesome". Here Franklin was teased by his school peers. He was unable to watch the TV program because his parents found it too violent.

Act 2: Parents -> Memory: "Skateboard". Franklin loved watching people skate and wanted to get in on it himself. His parents wouldn't allow it telling him it is too dangerous.

Act 3: Social -> "Soccer". Franklin tries out for school soccer team, misses out to his mate Lucas.

Each deal with anger resulting from the likes of sadness, isolation, rejection.

Gameplay: Explain and include screenshots.

Progression results in what?

- Speed increase

- More obstacles

- New kind of obstacles

- Special abilities gained

Abilities:

- Speed control: From level 1

- Ghost Mode: Level 2 +

- Vulnerability: Level 2 +

What's Next?

- Obstacle Placement

- Sound

- Tweaks and Bug fixes

2 weeks

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- Documentation

2 weeks