Cutie Pie's Post-Mortem: The Final Slice

Recap:

We did it, we made it to next semester! Necromanager has officially become an approved Senior Team game. The Cutie Pies have been successful in our attempt to create a worth game (Too most).

Our game about keeping your graveyard under control and bank account full is preparing for the big polishing and improvement phase. At least that is the current major goal moving forward.

The Good:

The team of Matt T, Matt C, Tim H., and Ian were able to appropriately find a core experience to work toward, providing an understandable vertical slice. All disciplines established their pipelines early and was able to break down individual tasks to work on.

The best choice the team made at the beginning was identifying what would be the core game play and the three phases that would help create the intended player experience.

The Bad:

The hiccups of the journey become apparent during the development of direction. The team had a lot of ideas for the future of the game, but we had little to work off. So we developed the three phase to help direct, but allow for creative design. Allowing the team to produce possible assets, code, and design that could highlight the phases and fit with the feel of the game.

Which was still a little up in the air for some time. Finding the light-hearted theme to sell the mundane routine of zombie keeping. Giving it that unique feel in addition to it idea of limited violence in game.

It took some time to establish all the elements, but once the team was in agreement of these elements. We were able to create the current product, which we are still very excited to be working on.

The Ugly:

Creating character art was the hardest challenge our team encountered this semester. Appreciation (as much as I can give) goes to Matt Therrien for his willingness to accept the task. Producing something that would help to get our theme across for the enemies and player avatar.

While the first few character art pass result in some interesting sprites (the turtle zombie), the visible improvements to the in-game art was huge. Meeting a lot of praise and some critique, but the resulting affect from more art polish was critical to maintaining the game feel.

The Team Moving Forward:

Having worked with the art direction for characters and enemies in a 2D stylized idea. The team found it to be placeholder and moving forward we want to move to 3D. To allow rigging for the animations with have in mind to add to the theme, to allow shadows to be cast by the character and enemies, and to allow the oncoming 3D artist to produce 3D models.

Programming wise taking on a graphics artist is important aspect for polishing and to allow our lead programmer's talents to be put to else where. Additional programmers to help with coding and splitting the workload.

Additional designers to have a more committed producer role and new/fresh ideas for developing the game moving forward.  

While our current team has a strong dynamic and is able to work well with each other, taking on new members is going to require a adjustment phase. Hopefully that will be short and every one is able to work with issue.

The next steps/goals for the team moving forward is going to require so re-working of the current idea to fit the new art style, but the entire team feel the game will benefit from the change in direction. An additionally it will allow our original artist to work in their specialized field, so they can produce strong art for environment and props game.

Alumi Panel

One of our final opportunities to discuss the possible future of our major. The enlisted alumni were interesting, provide a different perspective on the routes that they took. Where they ended up as a result, and additionally how they are doing now.

Some worrying topics were the lack of outside hobbies that the alumni had time to do (which was none). Worried about that part a little bit, I enjoy a break from the constant game. Also having something to take care of is beneficial for one's mental health. 

The featured paths of contract work, indie, or industry jobs all had unique work flows. From the continuous need to work and produce as a small indie team to not lose the focus. Or a triple A studio job where the pod group work dynamic is eerily similar to senior production. To the final just having the stars align, getting the lucky chance to be part of a game that become successful through steam green light.   

Overall the career path has many chances to fail and succeed, but the one thing to take from the panel is to be prepared to change and move around. Job security is a seemingly rare thing in the current Game Career fields. 

The final push/presentation

The vertical slice is coming together nicely, the final presentation to identify why our game is valuable is under way, and we are rapidly preparing for the formal oral presentation.

Necromanager has been an exciting project to work on, the team has at time butted heads (all in efforts to produce the best player experience). The stress of the quickly approaching final presentation was building.

So we put our heads down, practiced again and again, ensuring we would be knowledgeable and prepared to showcase our game to the public. All the way remember to breath, not allowing the stress to boil over. Allowing the team to be confident and ready for the public presentation.

The day of the presentation has come and we as a team and ready. A strong hope that our game will be selected to move forward, and we can begin the heavy polish phase with new members.

Great strides from Blocks to first Art pass

-The first art pass-

We were looking for a refreshing pass of character and enemy art to breath live into the project. The first pass was a nice attempt towards finding the look we want to reach. They needed work and we as a team knew this, so our artists are working with 2D for the basis of character development.

Pulling inspirations for particular games, Don't Strave and Plants v. Zombies. Looking at them for ideas on how to create a light-hearted undead creature and 2D art defined movement.

-The resulting art of the first pass-

Honestly it needs for work. So are plan is all in-coming is currently a WIP for the temporary future. We have solid environmental artist, who are provide the character art. They are making strides for the current game, but we would benefit from the support of a character artist.

-Planning ahead-

The future plans are feature lock, programming new code with crucial pieces, and heavy polish on art implementation and balancing the game feel.

Modifying the room blocks

-The fatal error-

During the previous, meeting which I created the additional room blocks the generation set. I failed to add the prefabs to the repository. Leading to a lost of rooms, but thankfully the learning curve was easy to master. Allowing me to jump back into the program and quickly recreated the missing room blocks.

-The second pass of room blocks-

Having ensured the last set of rooms were added to the repository, I continued to create additional rooms. I set out to define buffer zones without graves. Allowing hallways and empty area to give the player more time and space to build barricades.

During the process to mitigate issue with the spawning of room pieces, I would run the test demo repeatedly. Checking for missing fences, looking at the entire area, and making sure players could have space to move for each graveyard generation.

-The next step-

Review the current set of rooms and addition to room generation assets to develop variety and ensure the space spawn enough graves for zombies to provide a challenge to players.

Learning the new level building

-The Initial Learning Curve-

  Our programmer set up a module room block, to be randomly generated and connected together to build the space the player will explore. There was an initial learning curve to building out the room sets.

 Tim was gracious enough to explain the process as I built out my first room set. Learning how to use the room end connectors (the forward position), the scripting to apply, and the numbers to modify to ensure the proper layout.

 Having quickly picked up the process, I began making additional room pieces to get additional variety within randomized level build. I created six additional room blocks to add to the overall randomization level generation.


-The results of the first pass-

The room sizing had to be oddly numbered to ensure accurate centering of rooms during generation. This would allow the fence pieces to properly draw and contain the player within the defined space.

Overall the first pass was a good introduction to the established system.

Picking Enemies and Making Metrics

Research:

Looking at various lores and mythos of undead creatures, I found some unique and possibly cool enemies for Necromanager. Of course there are the well known zombies, skeletons, and vampires. Then there are the known but reference incorrectly, ghouls, revenant, and lich. And finally to fill out the group (so far) we have the Manananggal.

Pulling the classic creatures helps the audience easily identify enemies in the beginning of the game. Then introducing the new enemies the player will learn more about the ghouls, revenant, lich, and Manananggal. In addition to how the player must combat the new creature, since the old method won't work as well. Providing a different experience and more play ability.

This is the early creature types that we would like to experiment with during play to see how it effects the combat and how the player reacts. So we can work on balance and find what enemies need to be removed, switched, or replaced with new ones. 

Hoping to teach the player and provide interesting interaction for the graveyard with these new creature types. Which are to be implemented at a later date. Additionally more research is planned for new creatures and how the selected creatures may behavior. 

Metrics:

Speed, Strength, & Health. These are the metrics for the enemies so far. How they relate to combat is speed determines movement rate, strength determines damage dealt to the gate, and health determines the number hits before becoming stunned. 

A list is made for all enemies, but is still in early develop and is likely to change. 

Picking the Game

We Don't Need No Heroes! or Necromanager

The winner Necromanager!

Why:

We picked Necromanager as the game to move forward with. We see a lot of potential, many ways that it could go, and opportunities to showcase members skill.

Our first love was Necromanager, everytime we would discuss the game idea and various concepts the group was inspired about various options and cool ways that we could iterate on the game. For the other concept We Don't Need No Heroes! we saw potential but couldn't get as hyped or find the core of the game. We didn't know what was going to hold the audience with the second concept. Additionally the iterations that we did to the second game didn't quite get the game to the point we hoped. We wanted it to turn into something more, but it just never did.

With Necromanager, we knew the core experience, what would make it fun, and how to make it interesting for the audience. We knew where we were going and what the next steps we wanted to make. For us Necromanager is the game we want to work on and want others to enjoy playing. 

Developing the Story

Looking to add depth to the concepts and possible elements, I started to explore potential narrative themes for each concept. Here is what I developed so far.


Concept 1 (Necromanager) Story: 

Pryhill's graveyard has its share of corpses, but few cemeteries would boast about the heroism of their groundskeeper. Anton has protected the people of Pryhill against the abominations that walk the night for decades. The time has come to train a new groundskeeper, an apprentice for Anton to entrust the safety of Pryhill. So the town send him an apprentice.

 

Concept 2 (We Don't Need No Heroes!) Story: 

Having to watch hero after hero attempt to climb the tower, beat the guardian, and whisk her off to a happy ever after…end in failure. Princess Addison Oxworth has witnessed hundreds of wannabe heroes after her hand, but the courage of these men wavers long before reaching Addison’s room.

The appeal of shining white knights is gone, each new hero is an insult to Addison. She wants to change her fate. So she decides to take on the trails of the tower and show the heroes that the princesses of this realm don’t need no heroes! Setting out on a quest to liberate the other princesses and become the heroine of the kingdom. 

Why?
Using the narrative to shape the direction of design and give context to the player. Helping to create a believable world and aspects to explore in later iterations.

We don't need no heroes!

High Concept: The princess is fed up with waiting to rescued by the moronic hero, so she switches it up. Knocks out her captor, takes his armor and descends the tilting tower. She finds the moronic hero in the nearest tavern, she challenges the hero to prove himself in a drinking contest. Drinking the hero under the table, she reveals herself as the princess. Shaming the hero, the princess takes his gold and goes to rescue the other princess and humiliate the other heroes along the way.

Objectives:
-Overcome various physic puzzles
-Shame the heroes
-Liberate the other princesses

It started with the phase "We don't need no hero!" and evolved into the team's second game concept.

Using the physic puzzle with the platforming aspect to give the concept challenge and to separate it from a traditional platformer game. This allowed for a lot of interesting level concepts, which I pull inspiration from old games like Jenga, Tetris, and simple physics ideas like fulcrums.

I wanted the game to feature a heroine, because female protagonists don't get a lot of spotlight or respectful displays of body shape. So I also wanted the heroine to be realistic without a hourglass figure and could hold her own on the same level of the male hero. So I flipped the idea having the men by the moronic fools that are beaten by the princess proving she is capable of doing anything they are suppose to. 

Showing the other princess that they don't need a man to define their existence in this fantasy inspired world of badass princesses and moronic heroes. 

Battle Royale at the First Critique

-The first presentation of concepts-

Having built an initial demo to present our game concept, it was time to show what the team had produced. Displaying the art, design, and in-engine demo to the group we were prepare for critiques. But apparently we weren't ready to present as a cohesive team.

Presenting pieces of the design as if it was individual from the group. The unrehearsed presentation revealed differing ideas on the overall design of the game the team was developing. Taking note of the issues with concept direction, the presentation ended with the critique on the first iterations of the graveyard game idea.

The team still had an open concept which allowed for the forum of free ideas and possible directions for the early game concept. I should have known better to assume that the team still had different visions of the concept at this stage. But good discussion for later about the overall vision of the concept as a team at a later meeting.

Initially concerned and slightly annoyed that the concept wasn't the individual realized vision that I had seen. But coming back to reality the four members of the team would hold different thoughts until later iteration of the game. Recognizing this internal mistake, our team's next step would be to solidify the concept and iterate.

Additionally, the team need to consider an secondary idea as an alternative route if the game turned out to have too many issues. Creating a terrible and unenjoyable game.

Overall the first presentation went well, but our team need to reconvene and review the first concept and brainstorm an additional idea. While additionally iterating of the first concept until that second game concept had been agreed upon.

What would become the next idea was something completely unexpected.

Digital Prototype Was A Bad Choice This Early

Trying to do a digital prototype this early, didn't work for two reasons:

First, I lacked a direction that I wanted to go for presentation other then the basic movement. Which is nothing worth presenting to get the concept across to an audience.

Second, As I was building the digital concept the overall vision of the game was immature. I didn't know where it was going. How is that going to play?... Where are the enemies going to spawn from?... What is the AIs goal?... I was at a lost.

So, the paper prototype would be created.

Finding the answers to the questions one by one.

Gameplay- Constant zombie swarms spawn form Midnight to 6am, as the gravedigger it is your job to keep the zombies in the graveyard. Preventing chaos in town and insuring that your paychecks keep coming.

Player Goal- Keep the zombies from going into town, by putting them back in the graves and continuing to do so until your shift is over and they go back to sleep.

Enemy Spawn Rates- Constant time interval for spawning with a random number of spawned enemies at the set interval.

AI goal (zombies)-Reach the gate, break it, and cause mischief in town.

Simple and easy to put in game for the first iteration of the prototype.

Go for the Graveyard Game

-Brainstorming Session 1-

Attempting to start strong the team looked for inspiration in a recent Indie Game "Shovel Knight." Appreciating the art, style, and feel of the game the team started bouncing ideas. This is the dialog that followed:

What if, we...No.
Do a pixel art style, with...No.
Wait what if, you were a...No.

Finding nothing to agree upon the team was at a loss for a game idea. So the team said "Stop, separate and lets all bring fresh ideas later." Re-adjourning the following day for the second brainstorming idea.

-Brainstorming Session 2-

After trying to come up with an idea early, the team couldn't connect with any idea that was presented. The team had yet to be inspired by the concepts, until the graveyard game vision.

Quickly, the team's spirit rose attaching their interest and inspirations for the concept adding their imagination and perspective. Creating the team dynamic that would prove to be a valuable resource of energy and ideas to improve the overall design.

The team was mindful of scope, focused on core gameplay insuring the prototype would prove if the concept was sound and enjoyable for the player.

The Conception of the Graveyard

-Brainstorming the Initial Idea-

Take "Legend of the Dungeon" visual feeling, "Shovel Knights" retro art style, and "Papers, Please" economic inspiration then throw in a graveyard. And we have the basis of our team's initial game idea that stuck.

A not too serious game where the zombies need to be put back in their graves. This restless zombies are mischievous fiends, breaking windows, scaring kids, and biting your neighbors. It is your job as the gravedigger to police these zombies, making sure they don't cause a ruckus in town. If the zombies cause any damages in town, the costs are deducted from your paycheck.

-In-game mechanics & systems-

The General List: The Early Stage
Picking up zombies and putting them in holes.
Random spawning zombies in graves.
Camera view and feel is important. (isometric)

Updated List: Currently Known
Attack (Shovel Stun)
Carrying Zombies
Level population w/ assets using randomization
Isometric Camera Viewpoint
Economic (Paycheck) system
Enemy spawning (constant stream) (Varying #)

-Prototyping-

I started with an attempt to produce a digital prototype, but quickly knew that the gameplay still hadn't been solidified. So onward with a paper prototype, rough and quick. Finding the mechanics, scraping the bad ideas, and modifying on the fly to get the core system. Identifying that the "combat" was the core of the gameplay, the team could push forward and ensure that this element was fun.