Robbed Game Snapshots

Snapshot #1: Updated Start splash screen

Snapshot #2: Fully functional version II of "Robbed!"

Robbed Final Game Design Docuementation and Update

http://word.office.live.com/wv/WordView.aspx?FBsrc=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fattachments%2Fdoc_preview.php%3Fmid%3Did.294989723879281%26id%3D66672ca025b3d3ff726e512b58b62802%26metadata&access_token=1588790053%3AAQAbMEzMVZ83EtoW&title=Robbed_Game_Document

Thanks to Tim Heverin for completing and editing the final game design docuementation, our second Small Team project "Robbed!" is functional and playable.  Evan Bremer conducted several play test sessions, discovered a few small glitches; I got them resolved afterwards without any problems.  I'm planning to work on this project alot more over Winter Break and Studio class in Spring.

"Robbed!" Update

Here's a small update towards our second Small Team project:

- Changed name of the game to "Robbed!"
- Changed the Start and Instructions splash screens
- Implemented a simple countdown GUI timer
- Implemented a simple Lose splash screen (when the cops come before robbers haven't completed their main objective)
- Fixed sound volume issue with each player piece

Small Team - Postmortem II

Three questions were asked by the professor for our second Postmortem in Small Team Project:

1.) What one thing from this class would you use to make your game successful?

- The one thing from this class I would use to make my game successful is time management with my team mates.  I happen to have some faults scheduling enough time for each of the team members to do their tasks during each week.  I plan to improve that for next semester and future months ahead.

2.) What is the one thing you have learned from this class?

- The one thing I have learned from this class was the best feedback from the professor, Janell, herself stating that I improved throughout this semester with leadership skills as a team leader.  That made my best moment and by following an old high school motto, "Whatever It Takes."  I got real far in this course and learned alot about myself as well.

3.) What is the one thing you will remember for next semester (Small Team Studio)?

- The one thing I will remember for next semester (Small Team Studio) is continuing to improve all of my skills as a designer in the video game industry.  After learning alot from the first semester in Small Team, I am planning to continue that alot further in Small Team Studio.  Overall, this has become a great learning experience for myself and will remember this for a very long time.

Economic Hit Men Final Description

Thanks to Evan Bremer, here's the finalized description of our second Small Team project "Economic Hit Men":

Economic Hitmen a multi-player tablet game that my team and I designed. It's a simple board game set up that is appropriate for all ages. here is the description; four different play as bank robbers and they must navigate through a 4 roomed bank and steal all of the money, which is scatted in the rooms at various loot spots. Since this is a purely competitive game, whoever has the most points at the end of the game is declared the winner. The game ends when the last loot has been taken. However, throughout this bank, there are various security panels that lie invisible on the floor and they only activate when someone has stepped on them. There are spaces that will force you to move in a certain direction and there are spaces that will strip you of some of your loot. Some will only take some of your loot, but others will completely bankrupt you. You want to completely avoid all of these spaces, but seeing as how they are invisible, this is also a game of luck.

From a game play standpoint, the game is structured much like an board game. 4 players move their pieces one at a time taken turns starting with whoever plays the red robber. Each player can only move 3 spaces at a time, but they can move in any direction they want, just not diagonally. More specifically, they cannot move directly from one space to a space on the upper right in one move, they must move right first, and then up second. Player cannot also occupy the same space as another player. That's pretty much the set up on how to move. Then come the special spaces. There are spaces that, when stepped on, have blue arrows on them. These are the spaces that force you to move 3 more spaces in the direction of the arrow. Then there are the spaces that take loot away. Space that have the picture of an open hand dropping money only take away some loot. Not all depending on how much you have. However, there are spaces that have a dollar sign with a red NO symbol. It's these spaces that will completely bankrupt you. One thing that needs to be known is that the moment you land on a space, your turn is over, so if you land on a space that takes loot, you must end your turn on that space. If you land on an arrow, your turn ends when you've landed on the third space the arrow made you go to.

My part in this was code everything and implement what was needed and what was taken out completely.  During the process, there were several points that required lots of communication.  It worked great between myself and Evan; there were a few good moments with Tim as well.  I also had some help outside of class and learned alot from their projects as reference ideas.  As a developer, on the programming side, I feel I'm still "new" to a certain standard.  Other than that, I managed to create something with help from my team mates, Evan Bremer and Tim Heverin.  I give them equal amounts of credits to make this one fully functional and complete as an educational learning experience.

EHM Video

The three things I would improve from watching our video are:

- Practice several times before presenting in front of the class or meeting with industry staff in person

- Have everything more organized with a plan, instead of "winging it"

- Don't say anything negative as you're presenting the product

Courtroom Cahoots Game Docuementation

Here's the link for final version of Game Docuementation in Courtroom Cahoots:

http://word.office.live.com/wv/WordView.aspx?FBsrc=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fattachments%2Fdoc_preview.php%3Fmid%3Did.246762555383497%26id%3D4796845b9e3693a4478bd35217661f92%26metadata&access_token=1588790053%3AAQCpQhnv-Q1sp4Z7&title=STP_Game_Design_Document_Template1

Thanks to Tim Heverin and Evan Bremer for creating that version.  Great job, guys!

Economic Hit Men Progression

My team and myself added some progression to our second Small Team project: Economic Hit Men.  Here's the updated task list of completetion:

- Updated Start Menu screen
- Updated Credits screen
- Updated Tutorial/Instructions screen
- Updated Player GUI Scores
- Implemented "Add Money" and "Lose Money" GUI buttons; used for special spaces "LoseLoot"
- Implemented background music

Economic Hit Men Digital Version II

After lots of trimming and compromising, myself and rest of the team came up to a few solutions:

- Using DragObject script (found from the Unify Wiki site), got rid of key/button movement
- Got rid of the turn based system (waste of time and no point)
- Kept individual player scoring system (Player name and score GUI text)
- Kept the gameplay real freakin' simple (each Player moves three spaces, no diagonals)

All there's left to add are:

- Audio sounds (thanks to the Audio Mercs crew)

Extra Credits

From yesterday's feedback in class, there was a tad bit of drama without any notice.  I became accused as the victim of soicumstance for the player turn system code WITHOUT any permission from another team's project.  I did NOT realize that at all until AFTER one of the members noticed and got pissed off at me.  Therefore, for those who have created that system code I give you ALL 300% credit and my own sincere apology.

Matt
John
Phil
Shimika
Ryan
Jacob

Updated Screenshots

Screenshot # 1: Updated start screen with "Start Game", "Tutorial" and "Credits" buttons

Screenshot # 2: Updated game space with "Reset" and "Main Menu" buttons

Screenshot # 3: Updated "Credits" screen

Screenshot # 4: Updated "Tutorial" page

Screenshot # 5: Updated and fully functional Player Turn System (thanks to Ryan Czaja)

Economic Hit Men digital version Update

Here's the most recent and playable version of Economic Hit Men:

Economic Hit Men digital version

Developers: Andrew Forster, Evan Bremer and Timothy Heverin

Audio: the Audiomercs crew (sounds added soon)

Economic Hit Men Progression

From a failed first digital prototype demo presented in class yesterday, with way too much negative feedback in line.  The amount of time given in these next three weeks are pretty harsh.  Myself, as leader of this team, will NOT give up.  As of this morning, within the past two and half hours, I have accomplished a major progression stone:

- Implemented basic grid movement for each character
- Added a four wall barrier outside of the level area
- Implemented the redesigned robber/hitmen player pieces instead of colored cubes
- Extended the game level itself to an even 30 x 30 grid square
- Synced each of the game object pieces to whole number positions
- Added simple vault walls for both vaults

Our main goal is to prove EVERYONE wrong that we WILL have the bestest best playable game through Small Team in the very end!

Digital Play Test Feedback: Economic Hit Men

It became a mixture of good and bad feedback from in class participation: 3 good and 1 bad.  The only bad feedback we got was no objectives given, no tutorial section implemented, no explanation of pickup certain game objects as shown (green spheres for money loot, red cylinders for kill/rob action).  On the positive side, many others loved the flashlight mechanic (inspired from Luigi's Mansion, GameCube), very simplistic gameplay, straight forward score system.  Our professor, Janell, was impressed that we have something as a functional prototype.  However, due to the fact that I've been hard coding most of the work myself (including help from Morgan), she indicates we're more behind than before.

Additional tasks to do in the meantime:

- Implementing turn based system
- Implementing grid movement system
- Adding additional players
- Adding a wall barrier around the level itself
- Implementing a tutorial intro level/instructions
- Adding a win/lose screen
- Retweaking the kill/rob functionality

Economic Hit Men Digital Prototype

Here's our first functional digital prototype of Economic Hit Men with the following:

Picking up money loots
Movable player with flashlight
kill/rob locations (red grid square sectors)

Game Build: http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Ftimothyheverin.com%2FEHMV1.zip&h=vAQHbwijJ <--- Came from Tim's dev blog

Ecnomic Hit Men Play Test update

Here are some in class snapshots of our paper prototype Economic Hit Men:

Snapshot #1: Four players experimenting our newest version of Economic Hit Men

Snapshot # 2: In class gameplay in action

Snapshot # 3: Our newest version of Economic Hit Men in paper prototype mode (version II with updated rules and augmented game board)

 

In retrospect, everyone who tested out this new version really enjoyed the progress.  That made each of us very happy and gave myself a more clearer perspective for both digital versions of functionality.

Economic Hit Men Game Rules

Here's the information about our gameplay rules in Economic Hit Men, all thanks to Evan Bremer:

http://word.office.live.com/wv/WordView.aspx?FBsrc=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fattachments%2Fdoc_preview.php%3Fmid%3Did.145597105540653%26id%3Dd149578260f922b47cb395b79a45369d%26metadata&access_token=1588790053%3AAQCAjmdlBky83uRP&title=Economic+Hitmen+Rule+Book

*Additional information will be added from future play testing sessions

1st Digital version Functional!

The first digital version of Economic Hit Men has become fully functional at basic standards.  Here are some snapshots of progress:

Snapshot #1: Functional 1st digital version from Unity3D editor; objects placed: money loots, kill spots and flashlight (for each player)

Snapshot #2: Script information of the "kill" script

Snapshot #3: In game perspective of gameplay in Unity3D

Economic Hit Men Flow Chart

Here's the updated flow chart for our project: Economic Hit Men

*Note: changes will happen, upon other team members request.

Economic Hit Men Time Line

Here's the time line for Economic Hit Men:

10/26/2011: Project Dark Knight development process began.
10/26/2011: Engine of choice was Unity 3D, two to one vote, over Flash.  I'll look into Flash at a later time, once we've completed this second project 100%.

10/27/2011: Official game title has been selected as Economic Hit Men, inspired from the bank heist scene in the movie Dark Knight; assigned by the special guest Thomas Seager.

10/27/2011: Implementing possible gameplay techniques in first "possible" digital version began; while the official paper prototype began as well at the sametime.

10/30/2011: First versions of the concept and full length documentation were complete, but needed more work.

10/31/2011: First few sessions of our paper prototype turned out successful based on the feedback given; included some snapshots in action courtesy of Evan Bremer and his friends from Anime club.

11/7/2011: Kept on updating any additional progress for the experimental digital version; implemented functional money loot pickups, draggable player pieces, spotlights highlighting certain locations that lead to extra gameplay effects.

11/8/2011: Tim has updated the original game concept documentation and posted the link for each us to gain access anytime.

11/8/2011: I have updated a more modified/organized task list for each of us, as a team, to do what needs to be done.

Additional time line dates added when posted

EHM Task List

Here's the task list what each of us were assigned to do:

Andrew:
- development of digital versions, one and two
- implement functionality into both digital versions, including feedback from paper prototype tests
- program sequence of events while giving any player a better gameplay feel in feedback
- get additional research from Evan and Tim for digital versions

Evan:
- assign up to four players per paper prototype session
- taking several photos of successful paper prototype sessions as records of progression
- sending updates to Andrew daily everyday
- learning the same engine; including programming, development, implementing, etc. (team effort with Tim)
- working on rules/rule book
- package the final product (at the end)

Tim:
- revising/updating game concept documentation
- assist Evan to take notes from each paper prototype play testing session
- learning the same engine; including programming, development, implementing, etc. (team effort with Evan)
- assist Evan with rules/rule book
- assist Evan for packaging the final product (at the end)

Economic Hit Men Documentation update

Here's the updated concept documentation through Tim Heverin's blog post:

http://timothyheverin.com/GameDev/?p=30

Tim took the time to update the game concept documentation in the last three sections that needed attention, including the Backstory.

Economic Hit Men Update

My two teammates, Evan and Tim, have been updating me how paper prototype project: Economic Hit Men, has been turning out.  As of right now, many who have tested it more than once said positive things in game play feel.  I've been modding the first digital version ahead of time with some experimental tests, going to implement updated level board later today for better outcomes.  Other than that, for our team, we're definitely communicating better and ahead of schedule at the moment.

Economic Hit Men Paper Prototype

Progress has reached a higher level for our second Small Team project: Economic Hit Men.  Here are some snapshots (in action, thanks to Evan Bremer):

Action #1: Players testing out version 1 with some forceful team work

Action #2: Close up view of game pieces (player pieces)

Action #3: God view of version 1 with players in gameplay mode

Economic Hit Men Docuementation

After some hard thinking and planning, we've come to a straight point concept of our second Small Team project: Economic Hit Men.

Here it is: Economic Hit Men Game Concept Docuementation (updates will be added, if needed)

Here's the extensive Design Docuementation version: Economic Hit Men Design Docuement

EHM Goals/Task List

For our second Small Team project: Economic Hit Men, I've worked on an experimental digital version this evening and reached a HUGE step in progress:

- Fixed scoring system
- Implemented money loot objects; set price for each to 100
- Player collides with each money object, adds 100 each time


Additional tasks to work on:

- Kill other players; red squares triggered; giving option to kill other surrounding players
- Implementing a random number counter for each player movement (1 to 6 spaces)
- Implementing a vault loot object; two for version one

Project: Economic Hit Men

Based from the movie Dark Knight, Project: Economic Hit Men portrays the same bank heist scene.

Snaphot #1: In game progress how Project: EHM would look like

Snapshot #2: Level layout in the Unity 3D editor for Project: EHM.

Additonal information will be added ASAP.



Dark Knight Update

Here's a simple sketch how the paper prototype will look:  green squares represent money loot, brown squares represent bank vaults with extra loot, red squares give the option to kill other players, black squares represent regular grid movement.  One 6-sided die will be used for movement and for determining who gets killed (if it's set for six players).

Small Team Project #2: Dark Knight

Since Pickin' Pieces became a laughing stock and a complete failure on description, we're going with a back up plan: making an actual game from the first six minutes of the film "Dark Knight."  Our goal in this one, hopefully, is recreating the bank robbery scene more like a game.  Engine of choice is undecided right now, however we're leaning between Unity 3D and/or Flash.

Here's the lowdown:  Dark Knight, a 2.5D board-like game; consiting 3 to 6 players.  Each player has their own objectives being part of the bank heist, including collecting additional money loots in their paths.  The killing off another player option will be thought of, but not highly recommended at this point.  One really huge level is the concept, locations of money loot placed in throughout the level, camera placed in a bird's eye view.  Additional information will be added later.

Small Team Project # 2: Pickin' Pieces

It came down to a vote and look's like our second Small Team project will be "Pickin' Pieces."  That was the final project from the Small Team Game Doc course in Spring 2011 with Matt Board.  Here's the simple lowdown:

Pickin' Pieces, a Tetris style drag-n-drop style game involving colored cubes dragged into a game space; designed in Unity3D.

Our goal in Small Team for this semester is modifying Pickin' Pieces from single player to multiple player gameplay action.  The version Evan and myself made in Spring 2011 is fully functional.  Snapshots will be posted on this blog ASAP.

Courtroom Cahoots Completed!

Tuesday, 10/18/2011: Small Team project #1 Courtroom Cahoots is finally COMPLETE!!!!!  After a month of failed attempts, including several time constraints per week, our team made a huge success in this course.

Overall status progression: I did most of the hardwork (hard coding, object placement, sound placement, sequencial ordering, etc.).  Evan took care of design simple digital sketches, modding the paper prototype beforehand, assistant researcher helping me finding correct information with hard programming coding.  Tim became our official docuementation guy, will all of the paperwork.

Thanks to the Sound team, Flickr (for start image, photographer J. Stephen Conn) and additional help from the other Small Teams and members from Large Team.

Courtroom Cahoots Final Version

Updated Start Menu Screen

Updated Robbery Round Screen

Updated Robbery Round Results Screen

Updated Theft Round Screen

Updated Theft Round Result Screen

Updated Murder Round Screen

Updated Murder Round Result Screen

Updated Final Result Screen (Murder)

Updated Final Result Screen (Robbery)

Updated Final Result Screen (Theft)

*Additional updates: Implementing sound progression increased.  Implementing logic code is becoming a major time constraint and hassle.  Other than that, the game itself IS fully functional.

Courtroom Cahoots progression

Courtroom Cahoots digital version #1: God view of game setup in Unity3D

Courtroom Cahoots digital version #1: Close view of results and game start screens

Courtroom Cahoots digital version #1: Close view of round and lore screens

Paper prototype of Courtroom Cahoots: Cards as shown: Rat, Don't Rat, Guilty, Innocent

Paper prototype of Courtroom Cahoots: Gameplay in action/Ready for battle!

Courtroom Cahoots digital ver. II: Updated start screen in game (free royalty placement image)

Courtroom Cahoots digital ver. II: Updated round lore screen in game; implemented choice of Innocent/Guilty, Rat/Don't Rat

Courtroom Cahoots digital ver. II: Updated round result screen in game

Courtroom Cahoots digital ver. II: Round nine Innocent results screen

Courtroom Cahoots digital ver. II: Round three Guilty results screen

Courtroom Cahoots code for digital version in Unity3D

Courtroom Cahoots ver. II is officially functional!

Monday night, 10/10/2011:  With time spared and hard hours put in, version II is now officially fully functional.  Haven't added the scoring system, sounds and additional backgrounds (those will be worked on for packaged version, due next week).  Other than that, we've reached a high stepping stone.  Build is up and running!

Cahoots Version II Update (continued...)

Monday, 10/10/2011: Successfully have placed each screen as their own separate scenes in this particular linear order:

CCStart > ROneLore > ROneResult > RTwoLore > RTwoResult...continues through Ten rounds > FinalResult = game ends

Programming portion will take some time, but I have some kind of plan for that (including extra help, if needed).

Cahoots Version II Update/Progress

Friday, October 7:  Major progress has been resolved from the FLOW chart I developed yesterday.  The linear sequence based upon the Application.LevelLoad() method has improved better gameplay feel from a few experimental setups.  Here's the sequence so far:

Start Game (When both players became linked) > Round One screen (Continue Button clicked) > Round One Lor screen (Press Innocent or Guilty) > Round One Result screen (Displays Innocent/Guilty titles for both players; includes scores for both players)...process repeats itself up to 10 rounds > Final Result screen (Displays points earned from all rounds for both players, determines who wins/loses)


Will continue more experimental procedures tomorrow morning at 9am sharp.  Hoping things will improve alot quicker before Tuesday's presentation.

Courtroom Cahoots Version 1 ready for action!

Monday, 10/3/2011, 8:30am:  After a frustrating weekend of experiemental procedures understanding how switching cameras work in Unity 3D, finally found the issue and fixed it real quick.  Thanks to Douglas Barcelos providing the extra help and support from Unity Wiki; he created a useful script that worked out the best called "Multiple Cameras" script.  The procedure turned out to be the quickest with great results.  After applying that script into the main intro cam hovering over the start frame, I quickly dragged each camera object into its own object slot one by one.  After a few quick test runs, we have our team's version 1 project ready for action tomorrow afternoon for Small Team!  After tomorrow's demonstration of version 1, we'll work much harder for refurnishing version 2.  In no time, we'll have everything finalized by the 18th for sure!

Cahoots Camera Experiment Successful!

I experimented a simplier example related to our team project "Courtroom Cahoots" with switching/swapping multiple cameras.  Here's the script I used:

function Update () {
 if(Input.GetMouseButton(0)){
  Debug.Log("Using Camera One");
  camSwap(1);
 }
 if(Input.GetMouseButton(1)){
  Debug.Log("Using Camera Two");
  camSwap(2);
 }
 if(Input.GetMouseButton(2)){
  Debug.Log("Using Camera Three");
  camSwap(3);
 }
}

function camSwap(currentCam : int){
 var cameras = GameObject.FindGameObjectsWithTag("cam");

 for (var cams : GameObject in cameras){
  cams.GetComponent(Camera).enabled = false;
 }  

 var oneToUse : String = "Camera"+currentCam;
 gameObject.Find(oneToUse).GetComponent(Camera).enabled = true;
}

Only problem with this script, it can switch up to a max of three cameras assigned to separate keys or mouse buttons.  Can't go beyond three at a time.  In our project, we're using more than 20 cameras and having major issues accessing all of them to make our game "work."  Wish there was a simplier way to do.  I know I'm on the right track, but this is where everything's on a complete hault as of right now.

Cahoots BrokenDown

Friday morning, 11am: Courtroom Cahoots have now become officially "broken" due to lack of scripting usage.  We're back to square One, again.  Hopes are NOT lost, therefore, we're NOT giving up.  We're only at a standstill and uncertain on which available paths are left.

Cahoots Under Development and On Track!

Tuesday night, 6:30pm:  Morgan informed me that our project, "Courtroom Cahoots" is still underscoped and needs lots of work in design, balanced gameplay and programming.  He also mentioned that his portion of programming for our project needed to be ready by this Friday, 9/30/2011.


Tuesday night, 7pm: I texted Evan and informed him the news what Morgan told me.  I suggested instead of waiting until Thursday afternoon as planned, to come by in the lab tomorrow morning at 10am sharp.  He acknowledged and agreed.


Wednesday morning, 10am: Evan arrived with his laptop opened and I explained more thoroughly what Morgan said to me last night after Small Team class ended.  He acknowledged and was a bit confused why we were "screwed."  In the meantime, he and I worked on the design portion throughout the morning and all afternoon.  Within luck, we both made lots of progress and finished the design portion by 4:30pm.  However, scripting-wise, we were having a few technical issues by the button layout/setup.  We showed Morgan what we've finished and he suggested try making GUI buttons instead of object primmed buttons.  Evan made note of that as a reference.


Thursday afternoon, 1:30pm: Evan and Tim arrived.  Evan started to work on the GUI buttons and reached some success.  Tim started to research additional information about other scripts that may come useful for switching multiple cameras, instead of changing scenes.  Myself, I've been kept informed by both of them and experimenting other possible techniques for our first digital copy version by this Tuesday.

Courtroom Cahoots Update: Scripting Practice

Since Tuesday, September 20 2011, I've been researching some scripting codes that will become great use for our Small Team project: Courtroom Cahoots.  I'm learning as we speak how to count numbers, including creating some kind of scoring system after each round or set of rounds is complete.  I'll talk with Morgan, in person, for additional scripting help.

Project #1 Concept: Courtroom Cahoots

Myself, Evan Bremer and Tim Heverin came to the final conclusion for our first Small Team project concept called "Courtroom Cahoots." (Based from the Prisoner's Dilemma example shown in class last week.

All three of us worked on the game concept docuementation and here is what we have as a first draft:

http://word.office.live.com/wv/WordView.aspx?FBsrc=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fattachments%2Fdoc_preview.php%3Fmid%3Did.124730037628486%26id%3Df93623284f4b0bf2c8a813b5dd47d905%26metadata&access_token=1588790053%3AAQB5QeQxWWiNXAkM&title=Game_Concept_Document

Further changes will be added from the professor's approval.

Assignment #1: Mini Project - Polu-ggers

Each of our team mates from group Leftovers created a mini game within 30 minutes.  The name of our game is called Polu-ggers; a Frogger arcade style card/board game where the goal is keeping the frogs alive by jumping over certain lilipads over a polluted bog/swamp.

Three different colored cards were used: red, blue and yellow.

Red Cards = Instant Death; causes player or players to start over from the beginning

Blue Cards = Instant Jump/Warp; depending on the arrow direction allows players head towards the next available blue card.

Yellow Cards = Safezone; prevents players from instant death of polluted water


Overall, our game concept was there and had some inventive progress.  But, we needed to readjust the gameplay rules that focus more with the main objectives.  Other than that, as a member of Team Leftovers, I enjoyed every moment of it as the Producer/Leader.

Evan Bremer, Game Writer/Developer, wrote a bit more about our mini project as well:

http://evanbremer.com/uncategorized/9-6-2011-first-day-of-class/

(including photos)