Homework 12: Task Assignment (UPDATED!)

For this week I will/have accomplish/ed the following tasks by Thursday (10/24).  I will update this post as I complete tasks.

1. Fix the "character" files so that its in true first person perspective.

10/20- Was able to get the camera working in 1st Person perspective.  You can use the mouse to move the "HEAD" object (up/down) and the rotate the "BODY" (left/right).  Movement forward and backwards is made using the 'W' and 'S' keys.

   2. Add python logic to sphere to scale as a function of property "ward level".

10/21- created a python script that is called by module (external python script, not the script you see in the upper right window).  The script accesses the "size" property of the sphere and sets the scale of the sphere to be a percentage of the original size  equal to the percentage 'currentSize'/'originalSize'.  I added a sensor, controller, and actuator to increase/decrease the 'size' property using the up arrow/down arrow.  This was just to test that the size of the sphere increased/decreased with this property value.  This will be used to adjust the level of fog approaching our character.

   3. Find quick smoke alternative that will work in game engine.

10/23-  Found a youtube video with a good tutorial on how to create volumetric mist in game engine (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2DgiTz2RDI).  I adapted this method, applying it to my character's fog sphere instead.  I feel like it effect is good enough to give the idea of smoke, especially after I made the sphere begin to rotate (creating the effect of flow) however, as you can tell from teh screenshot, you can see the seem of the smoke at a certain point in the texture.  I can fix this by paying closer attention to borders while creating the image so that the edges blend together better.  I can make the smoke darker to the desired level also.

Homework 10: Group Presentation

In the link below is a link to our group's presentation/progress report.

Group Presentation Link

Homework 9: Balance

The first type of balance that the author described is fairness.  Is the game fair?  Does the computer have an unfair advantage against the player and if so, is this the intention of the game designer.  In symmetrical games, all players (and computers) in the game are given the same skills and tools to work with.  Our game is an asymmetric game.  While the mysterious fog seemingly has no health meter like our character, the creatures that attack our character will be “endlessly” coming from the smoke, and the  characters visibility will be shoddy.  This is intentional so as to promote the genre of the game (horror) but will need to be balanced appropriately so that the game isn’t too difficult.

The next type of balance is “Challenge vs. Success”.  the author provides an interesting chart (Fig. 11.2) which essentially describes that if a player’s skill is too low and the difficulty of a game is too high, then anxiety results.  However, if a player’s skill is too high compared to a game’s low difficulty, then boredom results.  In our game, as is one of the suggestions by the author, we may have an option for the player to change the difficulty.  A higher difficulty may result in more frequent enemies, faster health meter deterioration, and/or fewer items to restore health.

The third type of balance is “meaningful choices”.  This is the process of designing your game so that the player feels that the choices they make produce significant changes in the game.  Doing so makes your game feel less like a  single track story and more like a customizable experience.  In our game, the character can pick up new weapons.  Some weapons may have greater reach than others (and thus can defend our character more easily) but will be heavier and thus slower to swing.  The player must choose between fast-moving close-range weapons and slow-moving longer-range weapons.   Other choices that player may be able to make could include choosing which direction to explore, whether to head towards goals or explore the map to find items and story elements.

Balance element #4 is “skill vs. chance”.    Some players prefer to play games games based on skill (especially if they possess the particular skills necessary in the game) because it gives them a greater feeling of control over whether to not they win.  Games based on chance tend to be more relaxed since the odds of winning are generally predefined.  Out game will likely combine the two.  The player will have to execute time-management skills but the layout of the map will have some function of chance.

In the “Head vs. Hand” element, a game is examined to determine a balance of required dexterity and mental work (problem solving, puzzles, etc…).  Our game will be a mix of both.  The player will have to navigate the map. find items and defend against enemies (hand) but will also have to keep track of time, solve simple puzzles and find story elements (head).

The sixth balance type is “Competition vs. Cooperation”.  This is seemingly self explanatory.  However, the book does not delve into the possibility of its implication in single player games like ours.  Since there is no second player option, our games does not include the cooperativity element (unless, of course, you’re playing with a friend and switching off).  IN terms of competitions, you might compete with a friend by trying to complete the game in the fastest time, or by finding all the story elements.

Balance type #7 deals with how long the game is.  If the game is too short, the player doesn’t feel satisfied with the experience of the game but if the game is too long, the player can get bored or frustrated by the time commitment.  I feel that this will be the biggest challenge in creating our game.  Since class only lasts 1 semester, we can only reasonably make the game so long but we must try to make the game feel like it is complete.  The player should feel like they completed something and any feelings of wanting more should come from the desire for a sequel.

Balance elements #8 and #9 “Reward” and “Punishment” are interesting in the way that they bring a good deal of player psychology into the game balancing process.  It is generally seen that the potential for rewards are more motivating than the threat of punishment.  Rewards for our game can be new weapons, story elements, an increased “health bar” or even simply the satisfaction of seeing the town being a little more rebuilt after each level.  Punishments can include losing weapons and “health”, less visibility of surroundings, creepy music and sound effects, and “dying”.  Measure will have to be put in place to ensure that the weight of the punishments do not deter the player too much as to make the gameplay not fun.

The next balance element, “Freedom vs. Controlled Experience” is the balance between allowing the player complete interactivity and providing a desired experience directly to the player regardless of what they would choose to do personally.  Complete interactivity in a video game would seem impossible and I feel that our game follows the path of most video games in giving the player a particular degree of interactivity, allowing them to move around predefined boundaries of a scene or map and giving the character a small set of actions which they can perform.  The player must act with the same motivation as the character of the game (the player can’t decide that it likes the chaos and start throwing the townspeople back into the fog).  

The penultimate balance item is “Simple vs. Complex”.  Simple games are viewed as boring and, certainly, if you make a game where you hold the right arrow to move a square from the left side of the screen to the right, with no obstacles or other actions then ‘simple’ probably equates to boring.  However a simple design need not necessarily lead to a simple game. If in the same game you add the ability to move left and jump, and added some enemies that would end the game if they run into the square then you still have simple design but now your game is a little complex.  A game that is innately complex has a set of complex rules.  Dungeons and Dragons is an example of such a games where the rules are very complex.  Emergent complexity occurs when games have simple rules that can result in situations of great complexity.  In our game, some innate complexity may be observed in cost/benefit decisions made by the player while managing the time until the fog consumes the player.  The player may decide to head directly towards the next level or explore the map.  If the player heads straight to the next level, the miss out on finding new weapons that might help them in the future or story elements but if the player decides to explore they risk losing too much “health” and not being able to find “health” restoring items in time to prevent losing the game.
Finally, the last balance type is “Detail vs. Imagination”.  The author explains that in order to decrease the amount of work you have to do and to make your game less computationally heavy, you must strike a balance between the things you choose to create in detail for the player and the things you choose to leave to the imagination of the player.   Leaving details to the imagination of the player can create a better game because the player can often achieve a greater level of detail in their imagination than you would be able to create in a reasonable amount of time.  One thing we are going to do in this respect is to only create a “shell” of dense fog around our character with the assumption that the player will imagine that this fog actually extends far beyond the character in all directions, thus saving us the pain of having to render fog on a large map.

Homework 8: Chapter 10

1. Is the space in your game discrete or continuous?
     The space in our game is most certainly continuous.  Our player can move around freely in her local environment.  There might be discrete subspaces in our game where our character must solve puzzles or perform tasks in a discrete space.

2. How many dimensions does your space have?
    Our game has 3 dimensions.

3. What are the boundaries of your space?
    In the city, our character is bounded by the buildings and other obstacles that confine her to an area of interest.  In the world map, our character is confined to the city space by chasms that define the area where the disaster occurred.  In 'levels' the character is bounded by walls, foliage, and building which define the level.

4. How many verbs do your players (characters) have? What are they?
    As of now, I believe our character will have 5 verbs. Our character can 'move', 'swing' (an object), 'jump', 'pick up', and 'throw'.

5. How many objects can each verb act on? What are these objects?

• move- can act on our character and on any movable item that interacts with our character
• swing- any stick-like object (stick, hammer, crowbar, etc...) that our character finds and picks up.
•  jump- acts on our character and anything she jumps on
• pick up- ward pieces (health), weapons, throwable objects.
• throw- throwable objects (rocks, weapons, etc...)

6. How many ways can players achieve their goals

     The player will be able to navigate the map and choose the order of the levels they go to so the number of ways they can do this will be at least a permutation of the number of levels we are able to create.

7. How many subjects do the players control? What are these subjects?

     The player only controls 1 subject, our character.

8. How do side effects change constraints.

     If the character is hit by an enemy, her ward meter goes down and the fog is able to encroach closer to her making it harder to see.  If the character picks up a piece of ward, the ward meter goes up and the fog recedes making it easier for her to see.

9. What are the operative actions in your game?

• Move around the map and levels
• Swing your weapon 
• Jump
• Pick up objects
• Throw objects

10. What are the resultant actions in your game?

• Discover new areas of the game, items, and storylines.
• Avoid the fog
• Knock back enemies
• Break into buildings
• Prevent your ward meter from reaching critical values
• Navigate rough terrain to find levels and complete tasks.
• Find new weapons which have larger ranges.
• Find ward peices to replenish your ward meter
• Complete distant tasks that are out of reach.

11. What actions would you like your players to do that they cannot presently do? (based on your current knowledge of Blender)
     None of above actions are currently implemented, however, an additional action I would like to see would be "look at map" and "look at ward" so that the player can keep track of location and ward meter without the necessity of a HUD.

12. What is the ultimate goal of your game?
     To find the characters son who is lost in the post disaster mysterious fog.

13. Are there short and long term goals? What are they?
     Short term goals include finding the next location of survivors, navigating the map, preventing the fog from consuming you by keeping your ward meter up, completing tasks/puzzle at each level.

     Long term goals include rebuilding the city, finding out the back story of this town and fog, and finding your son.

14. How do you plan to make the game goals known and understood by the player?
     Through dialog with other characters, notes and newspaper clipping, and possibly a short tutorial at the beginning of the game.

15. What are the foundational rules of your game?
     The player prevents the end of the game (captured by the fog), ensuring that a countdown (the amount of ward remaining) does not reach 0 by increasing the current countdown value (by finding more pieces of ward).

   The more survivors that the player finds, the more the city rebuilds itself.

16. How are these rules enforced?
     If the character runs out of ward, the fog captures her and the game ends.


     Once the player completes a level, they will have "saved more people" and will notice that the town is getting bigger and more developed.

17. Does your game develop real skills? What are they?
     The games develops time managements skills as the player must watch their ward meter and respond appropriately to ensure it does not reach 0.  The game also requires timing motor skills since you must swing at enemies to prevent them from stealing your ward.

18. Does your game develop virtual skills? What are they?
     Not really.  The character is just a mom trying to find her son.  She is not a warrior honing her skills and therefore does not improve over the course of the game.