Playtesting Feedback Form!

Here's the feedback form to our game!

Coolio

kewl beanz

Playtesting Feedback Form

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1bsit2JhQv6CSMfSPi76kL-t94j8vu5GbV6CUWnN-quY&authuser=0

Playable demo day!

All the teams are presenting their playable demos today. We are looking forward to feedback and hear what people think about our game so far.  We'll keep you posted!

Sprint 3

Sprint 3

Team B.A.M.S.

Artists

Write Script

Get Narration

Boss Fight Ideas

Boss Characters

Finish Props

Chapter Bases Props

Animations

Main Character

4 Main Characters

Coders

Narration implementation

Create 3 remaining levels

Character and Boss animation implementation

Create 3 boss fights

more character dribbles!

mulling on some "boss" ideas, here's a few!

I'll finalize the four we need as I figure out what I'm doing ahahaaaa...

protagonist draws?

cute? or not cute? or too cute??

Tech Demo:

New additions to our demo include: Additional silhouettes, character barrier and fireball projectiles. We took the feedback from our paper prototype and sped up the wait time during the boss prelude animations by adding a defense stage where players type numbers to defend against flying fireballs. This is intended to help the players get used to the number row on the keyboard as well as keep them entertained during the wait time. Failing to type the number correctly at the right time will damage the character.

Feedback:

• The story script caters to the intermediate typers where the scrolling objects could help beginner level typers
• The main story progression speed opposed to the second half boss prelude animation game speed is drastically different and thus feels like two completely different levels.
• The music is awesome for the second part
• Font was hard to read except the stuff on the top

Game Pitch

I never uploaded this so I felt like I should

Audio Design

Right now Blackout is using free sounds that have been mostly modified through audacity by adding fades ins/fade outs and infinite looping.

The mood the music is trying to capture depends on the situation

Level Design

Blackout is a 2.5D (isometric camera with mix of 2d/3d objects) game.

Levels consist of generating objects which have associative moods to them. Accumulating certain moods will raise that mood and give certain perks. I.E. raising happiness will do something that makes the players life easier...

character dribbles

Let's take a look at character design! ...er, well, what I've tried to design.

Sticking with the European medieval/illuminated manuscript theme, I've taken inspiration from this:

...I wouldn't be able to tell you what exactly is happening here...

I'm particularly intrigued by the faces. For me, the geometric simplicity defines European medieval characterization: The long noses, half moon eyes, small mouth, either very square or very rounded jaws (depending on gender, I believe)-- y'know, the works!

Our main character is depicted as a child, and let's be very clear about how terrible medieval artists were at depicting children:

They don't really look like children, do they? More like... a shrunken man. Or a baby with a shrunken grown-man's head. It's hilarious, and I love it.

So, the for the first design I did, I drew from these visual inspirations and made this little dude:

Man baby, man child, boy man, he's kind of cute? The problem is, when I tried to puppet-pin animate his limbs to get him to walk, I couldn't really get it to function the way I'd like; the motion was just not right. I could attribute it to being terrible at puppet-pin animation, or perhaps my inability to create functional characters, but I decided to go back to the drawing board to brainstorm more visual ideas!
The first idea couldn't be the best, right?

Ah, well, let's look...

...things got weirder, like, Tomodachi Life weirder...

...I had an identity crisis and accidentally drew Astro Boy...

...then I drew egg-heads...

Then instead of scribbling more gross things, I stopped and searched the Google for some more direct inspiration. I thought of a few games with interesting characters that could fit the style we're going for-- Fantasy Life, LoZ: Wind Waker, Clash of Clans, and doodled up a couple dribbles!

...still pretty weird, but I feel a little more focused now!

Circular Mood Bar - Ngan

You guys know those circular progress bars they have in video games? Well I decided to make one in Maya and capture a 2d image of it since we need one for the "mood" indicator of the player

Here is my progress:
1. Make some simple Geometry

 

2. Add a bumpy rim to the outer edge  

3.Add some detailed shapes to the rim

 

4. More detail

5. More detail

6. Add a medallion thingy in the middle

I wish I knew how to texture ^_^

Narration Voice Samples!

Our game needs a narrator! Here are some voice samples by Gage Love (reading from The Hobbit)

What do you think??

Low Voice:
High Voice:

Fairy Tale Level Choices

Just post your Fairy Tale Choice HERE

Ngan:
1. I like the alien one someone mentioned because it allows imaginative freedom
2. Something about a curious girl/boy stuck in a dream world. (take the game child of light or something similar) This concept is powerful because it also allows you to put anything you want in the game. Dinosaurs, broccoli etc. Would also make sense with the mood-idea where typing too many bad objects leads to scarier things happening/typing too many good objects leads to happier things. A child's mind is quite volatile!

Jon: Combining my idea with the others ends up making for an interesting concept.  An alien reads through different stories and guesses which words represent different objects and ideas that are native to humanity.  My fairy tale choice is Hansel and Gretel.

Game Ideas

Game Ideas

Fairy Tales According to an Aliens!!!

Angel and Devil on your shoulders

Alien reading a human fair tale stores
 - the alien fills in the unknowns with his own words
 - each level could be a different story
 - alien misinterprets the stories

Secret mini game areas
 - like of donkey kong country

Sprint 2

Sprint 2

Programmers

1. Code to generate objects instead of them blowing up
2. Create at least 3 more levels
3. Work on having the sky color change as the day goes on
4. Help smooth out some of the mechanics of the game
       -Make the girl stay on track after multiply hits

Artists

1. Develop a set of colors
2. Continue to create more Objects
   Bryan - Props and Buildings
   Cristina - Props and Organic
   Ashley - Characters
   Jonathan - Backgrounds
3. Each artist needs to create at least one logo for the game

Animations

1. Work on using Sprinter
2. Try to get a multiply animations together
   - walk
   - run
   - jump

Audio

1. Look for a narrator

Story (Artists)

1. Everybody comes up with a fairy tale level from the point of view of an alien
   - based off the real, darker stories (not disney version)
2. We each choose a Story Tale to expand on.
   - plan the level and the story for your fairy tale
   - maybe make props for your specific tale

Ngan's El Blog

So I made this UI junk with Oliver Scholle

There are some animations on the panel on the right





Here is some game-play
Note the awesome sparkling on unity CHAN

Research Information

Research Info

Typing Game
Lets face it, to be professional in any career today, proficient computer skills are required. Proficient computer skills means being able to use a keyboard proficiently. What this means is that keyboarding is one of the if not most important skill to learn during primary education.

Reasons Why we Need Typing

- Typing is an automotive skill that is reinforced heavily with very little practice per day. (10 minutes)

- Bad typing skills are hard to break

- Eye to hand motor coordination

-More and more curriculums are integrating computers heavily. Teaching kids to type at a young age   ensures they remain efficient operating these devices for the rest of their lives.

http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/tech/tech072.shtml

Pattern Recognition 

Pattern Recognition is extremely important for the development of children

http://www.mathrise.com/How-Learning-Patterns-Leads-to-Brighter-Children/

http://emergentbydesign.com/2010/04/05/essential-skills-for-21st-century-survival-part-i-pattern-recognition/

Everyday Users

• Children that need to learn to type
• Adults that cant type, or two finger typists
• Everyone

Typing is required more and more to be able to communicate and participate in a every growing tech heavy world. Therefor the basic mechanics of typing and the improvement of typing skills is beneficial to everyone. 

Problems with Current Typing Games

We played many different typing games in order to see what makes or breaks a good typing game. There are many different approaches to the typing style games, but all of them had a few common problems that plagued every game that we played. Here are the problems that we ran into.

Typing Game Problems

• To slow
• No entertaining feedback
• No purpose
• Bad design
• No breaks

Solutions for Current Typing Game Problems

Though typing games have there problems, there where many mechanics to typing games that made them interesting and fun to play.  These mechanics come from many different typing games, and we hope in incorporate them into our game. 

Typing Game Solutions
• Sounds for every letter/word
• Urgency
• Competition
• Instant effect
• Exciting material/effects
• Feedback
• Reward

Blurb - Bryan

A young man is through into a war between his kingdom and another. As war rages across the country side, the young man, accompanied by his shoulder angel and should devil (emperors new groove) must choose his own path and decide the type of man he wants to be.

First set of Props

Here is a few Props that I made, i'm planning on turning a bunch more out. So here is the first wave:

Artist: Bryan Sorensen

Blurb - Ashley

Story ideas, anyone?? Here's mine:

An alien descends from space and lands on Earth, taking the form of a human-- they try to understand human perception, identifying the silhouettes of different objects and experiencing different human emotions! As the story takes place from an alien’s perspective, the world may seem exaggerated, fantastic, and bizarre!

If we stuck with the illuminated manuscript visual style, everything would have a medieval-ish theme; however, it could be fun to trace through different histories/world settings in the same style I think!

Blurb - Jonathan

Story Idea: A young boy/girl falls asleep (or a drunk community college student passes out) while reading a storybook. The child wakes up in the world of the storybook, and he must get to the end of the book in order to wake up.

Some short stories could be from the following themes/times: 

     -Medieval, where the character must recover an object/save the prince(ss)/defeat the troll.

     -Space, where the character must find moon rocks while fighting aliens.

     -Underwater, where the player must find an ancient shipwreck and explore it to find treasure.

First Background Layer Art!

I've just finished the background cloud layer! We decided to do a parallax scrolling background for our typing game, so this is the first layer. Every piece of the background art can be placed and scaled when we start putting these things together in Unity! We'll need to talk about colors soon so that our images match.

Blurb - Cristina

   Walking through the starry night, "Player" tripped over a piece of (option 1: tripe, option 2: money from jackpot).

--If OPTION 1 is selected:
             ---Scenery turns medium grey. Player keeps walking and encounters a crow squawking so loud as if it were in attack mode. Player lifts a rock and finds a(n) ( option 1: glitter, option 2: poison gas).
                                   -- if OPTION 1 selected:
                                                   Scenery turns multicolor and brighter. Throws it at crow and crow fly away into a rainbow.
                                   -- if OPTION 2 selected:
                                                   Scenery turns even darker and gaseous. Player throws poison gas at crow and crow turns into a bird corpse with flies around it.

--if OPTION 2 is selected:
              ---Scenery turn light green with neon accents. Player stops at the edge of a swamp/lake. He sees (option 1: raft, option 2: waffle).
       
                                    -- if OPTION 1 is selected:
                                                   Scenery turns blue skies and butterflies like in spring season.  Player gets on raft and sails away across the swamp/lake.
                                    -- if OPTION 2 is selected:
                                                   Scenery turns dark blue and foggy. Player gets on waffle and the waffle gets too wet and soggy, and sinks into the swamp/lake. Player loses life.
                           

My concepts went in the cartoony direction.

Concept Art

A couple of quick concepts! Textures are ran through a filter to produce a construction paper look.

Conceptual Dribbles

Our artists are working on some conceptual ideas for the visual style of the game, what do you think?


From Ashley Love:

From Bryan Sorensen:

Notes from the Artist:

I originally made some drawings in Photoshop and then just colored them in using different brushes, The knight is done using an airbrush brush. The three asparagus on the far right are all the original drawings but colored with different brushes. I used colored pencils, chalk and airbrush brushes to create the different looks.

I then decided to use filters and try and see what I could come up with, so the rest of the images are filtered images of my original drawings. I just played around a lot to see how it would turn out, and then choose my favorites to add to the layouts.

I ended up really liking one design on the Knight layout and made a section just for different ideas using that design.

All in all I really like some of the ideas, so we will have to see what the team thinks!

Pitch'd!

Yesterday we pitched two game ideas-- one tentatively named Assemble, an endless memory builder game about working in a sweatshop, and Blackout, a side-scrolling typing game full of silhouettes that illuminate as players type their way through an emotionally driven narrative.

After a little feedback and deliberation, we decided to work on Blackout! With a plethora of visual and conceptual ideas, our biggest challenge will be dealing with the overall scope and scaling back to reasonable means, while also trying to maintain a fair amount of interesting gameplay.

Plans for Sprint 1 are also currently underway. We've decided production roles; we're preparing ourselves for prototypes; and all of our artists are working on conceptual designs of game elements!

Onward to development!

-Team BAMS-

The Glorious BAMS

This post is for collecting drawings of our team's namesake, the BAMS! I won't tell you what it is exactly, but feel free to take a guess! It is definitely a sausage.

Also, I am not responsible for any related nightmares.

Butt? Or no butt?

Sausage Butt. Butt sausage? Ah... no...

Introduction

Hello, and welcome to our Developer Diary!

We're Team BAMS, a group of programmers and artists from the University of Utah focused on Alternative and Serious game development. Our team includes the work of Ngan Nguyen, Spenser Dubois, Oliver Scholle, David Buist, Cristina Dobson, Bryan Sorensen, Jonathan Kamerath, and Ashley Love.

We'll be tracking and posting our game ideas, interesting bits of the development process, progress, and reflecting on our successes and failures!

Be sure to check back for updates!

-Team BAMS-