Happy Mid-Point!
This week I continued working on the prototype. Starting to really feel the pressure now.
This week's rundown
- Pitch doc and budget completed for mid-point check in
- Continued work on the narrative system
- Created stamps
- Added temp music
The narrative system has turned out to be a bit of a beast, so I still
have a ways to go on it. Above you can see an example of what talking
to the NPCs will look like. While taking a break from programming that,
I created the three stamps which the player will be able to collect for
the prototype. Players will be able to find stamps like these in the
world, and receive them as rewards for making deliveries.
have a ways to go on it. Above you can see an example of what talking
to the NPCs will look like. While taking a break from programming that,
I created the three stamps which the player will be able to collect for
the prototype. Players will be able to find stamps like these in the
world, and receive them as rewards for making deliveries.
Goals for next week
- Finish the narrative system
- Start the mail delivery system
- Continue work on character models and animations
That's it for now, I'm off to finalize my mid-point check in submission.
Week 6 / Dev Blog Post
This week I'll start with a joke...
What do you call a
VR project that won't run? You call it a V-aren't 🙂
There has been
considerable time devoted to testing and programming this week. It's particularly exciting to start adding elements to the prototype that have only
been in our imagination. It's definitely fun to finally experience it!
Overall it has been a busy
week for sure, balancing working on the prototype/project and the Midpoint
Check-In document - but overall very rewarding!
Week 6 - Midpoint Check-In
- We continued working on our prototype.
- Developed upon and improved
mechanics. - Continued to build out the
visual design. - Started working
on sound effects. - Got our Midpoint
Check-In document prepared. - Worked with awesome people!
Until next time, remember...
Keith Patterson
"Make Every Day A Beach Day!"
Blog Post # 6
This week I finished texturing the daughter and placed her
in the hospital scene. My partner has been tweaking the animations and working to make them feel more realistic. The scene feels very surreal and takes me back to that
final moment. It’s discomforting watching the two characters breathe in the
scene, as if watching from the outside and intruding on a personal moment.
Additionally, I finalized the mid-point check-in and budget for the
experience. I realized I need to start thinking about sound effects and get
some sound in the experience. I also need to start recording my voice-over
narration. I worked on fleshing out the narrative script more, so the memories
flow better and have a solid foundation.
The past few weeks have had a few learning curves, but now
that we have a stable workflow, I think the last leg of this journey is going
to by fast!
Hello! This is Maria and Gordey with the Bizarre Barber game!
International Game Developers Association together with local community organizers Playcrafting came up with the initiative to sponsor local game dev immigrants to showcase at the game convention Play NYC. We've been the lucky ones along with the other 5 teams and got support and subsidized booth space (regularly costs 500-2000 $).
We decided to use this opportunity to amass the good amount of playtesting data for our game. We struggled with the mid-check in, because didn't see very clearly how to market and position the game and who is the current audience. Also, in our current playtest place, NYU campus, there are ONLY game designers and artists around to test the game. Their help is tremendous, but they are all around the same age and I guess, a little biased. Family-friendly local game convention seemed a good choice for this kind of data - it features a lot of different folks!
We made a simple data script that saves basics from the gameplay: user height, score, time, etc. We also tracked down user's age and gender manually.
We had 262 playtesters over the weekend and TONS of feedback and useful suggestions. We had 4-years old nailing down the high score, Brooklyn senator playing and giggling, and even a bunch of very drunk persons.
It's a lot to digest and change, but we are definitely filled the gaps in understanding the game demographics.
In other updates:
Poster (Gordey recalled his art background):
Current gameplay video with the rad 3rd person camera and some added juicy feedback:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di6huB5uNDY&feature=youtu.be
If you can't explain it to the 5-years old, your idea is probably bad :smiley:
International Game Developers Association together with local community organizers Playcrafting came up with the initiative to sponsor local game dev immigrants to showcase at the game convention Play NYC. We've been the lucky ones along with the other 5 teams and got support and subsidized booth space (regularly costs 500-2000 $).
We decided to use this opportunity to amass the good amount of playtesting data for our game. We struggled with the mid-check in, because didn't see very clearly how to market and position the game and who is the current audience. Also, in our current playtest place, NYU campus, there are ONLY game designers and artists around to test the game. Their help is tremendous, but they are all around the same age and I guess, a little biased. Family-friendly local game convention seemed a good choice for this kind of data - it features a lot of different folks!
We made a simple data script that saves basics from the gameplay: user height, score, time, etc. We also tracked down user's age and gender manually.
We had 262 playtesters over the weekend and TONS of feedback and useful suggestions. We had 4-years old nailing down the high score, Brooklyn senator playing and giggling, and even a bunch of very drunk persons.
It's a lot to digest and change, but we are definitely filled the gaps in understanding the game demographics.
In other updates:
Poster (Gordey recalled his art background):
Current gameplay video with the rad 3rd person camera and some added juicy feedback:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di6huB5uNDY&feature=youtu.be
If you can't explain it to the 5-years old, your idea is probably bad :smiley:
Good evening!
I went on Pro Builder last week, and went completely crazy building the 3D World of Havana 2046.
I'll be adding the textures and shader programming for the watercolor like aesthetic this week. The prototype is moving forward fast -
Next steps:
I do want to make this Rift friendly, but I realize my experience is targeting your non-traditional gaming demographic (i.e. not competitive male gamer). I prefer taking this risk and putting my eggs on this basket, as accessibility is a huge priority for me.
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For Marlon and I, we began 3D modeling the Mexico City subway and it's subway station last week. Testing VRTK for Oculus Go has been hilarious, and I realize the limitation of 3 DOF, as shown by this button pressing scene. I feel like I'm using a hammer to press a nail on the wall, over pressing the button with my hands. It means for Oculus Go, you have to be super creative with its constraints.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2NadgcsUXc&feature=youtu.be
We've connected with an awesome colleague of Marlon, Jennie McGuirk, who's had 2 decades worth of experience on marketing/branding, and we were heavily exploring Mexico City fashion through the lens of Carla Fernandez (mixing traditional / contemporary), alebrijes & tropical modernism architecture. These elements, we felt, would be positive production design elements that would help augment our VR experience that we would be creating. We're focusing this week doing 3d modeling some of these elements - low poly style!
I went on Pro Builder last week, and went completely crazy building the 3D World of Havana 2046.
I'll be adding the textures and shader programming for the watercolor like aesthetic this week. The prototype is moving forward fast -
Next steps:
- Create an internal economy system (i.e. jobs), with increasing consequences / rewards as the user advances in this world.
Narrow down potential sound direction / design for this world | choosing from Electro-Latin music.
I do want to make this Rift friendly, but I realize my experience is targeting your non-traditional gaming demographic (i.e. not competitive male gamer). I prefer taking this risk and putting my eggs on this basket, as accessibility is a huge priority for me.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
For Marlon and I, we began 3D modeling the Mexico City subway and it's subway station last week. Testing VRTK for Oculus Go has been hilarious, and I realize the limitation of 3 DOF, as shown by this button pressing scene. I feel like I'm using a hammer to press a nail on the wall, over pressing the button with my hands. It means for Oculus Go, you have to be super creative with its constraints.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2NadgcsUXc&feature=youtu.be
We've connected with an awesome colleague of Marlon, Jennie McGuirk, who's had 2 decades worth of experience on marketing/branding, and we were heavily exploring Mexico City fashion through the lens of Carla Fernandez (mixing traditional / contemporary), alebrijes & tropical modernism architecture. These elements, we felt, would be positive production design elements that would help augment our VR experience that we would be creating. We're focusing this week doing 3d modeling some of these elements - low poly style!
Still splitting my time between these two passion projects!
It feels precisely like a midpoint in both!
LIVE THEATER IN VR
We completed the last workshop session with actors Carl
Hendrick Louis (Broadway credits: 1984, The Cherry Orchard) and Kareem Lucas
(Black Is Beautiful But It Ain’t Always Pretty). These are two enormously
talented actors, so getting to work with them was a real treat. Louis and Lucas
chose a scene from The Wire. We hadn’t worked with a TV scene yet in VR and I
was curious how this would play out. I suggested to my team that instead of
running the scene in the Theater, we run it instead in a more realistic
environment; an apartment which might feel more intimate.
By the second time we ran the scene we knew the environment
was wrong. We began hopping around the apartment to exterior environments.
First a patio deck off the apartment; next a deck area; and finally a rooftop.
Oddly enough, this last environment we landed in, the rooftop felt the best to
me and the actors agreed. I felt that the actors’ work resonated best in this
fairly bare environment.
Some interesting reflections the actors made regarding how
they felt embodying their avatars. “I didn’t
stop to look at who I was…I only cared about what my scene partner looked like.”
Carl Hendrick Louis. Another highlight of this session was watching Kareem
discover flying. Despite the heavy drama of this scene; there was a lot of
laughter during our session!
METROPOLES
I spent a lot of time with my UX designer this week. We introduced
some new models to the street that we’ve been working on. Feedback is critical
for the player to receive which game designers obviously know; but I am still
discovering how to implement this and to do so in the lyrical way for how I see
it fitting with the entire game. Therefore we tried some different types of
lighting tricks for selection. I’m really excited about how this looks and
feels. We also spent time working on some of the aesthetics and colors in the
game. I really believe color is important to how the player will feel. While
this felt like a tiny task and we have big pieces to accomplish, I’m excited
about every detail getting revisited.
Next up for METROPOLES: Since we’ve started over we eliminated
some elements that are important for any game and we need to reintegrate them.
One of these elements is teleporting. Another element is the mechanic of adding
a property. We are trying to do away with another button on the controller to keep
the learning curve as simple as possible so that the player can focus on the
story.
