3 Day Programming & Plan for Next Semester

Before you start reading, I completely accept the fact I screwed up lol. This talks about my point of view on our group's screw up for our game.

3 Day Programming

So I've been programming our game requirements the three days before the presentation and used the base code that we've worked on in the Engine Design Lab which already had the camera and physics and many other features an engine would have. I know the requirements are pretty easy except the Skeletal animation to get done. I only received code from our business guy in the group for the shaders & Xbox 360 Controller in our game (I forgot to mention that in the presentation when I said I did all the programming in 3 days lol). This affected me significantly because what I thought was done from the other programmers wasn't done, they came to me during the 3 day programming period and said "they don't know how to do it" and they didn't bother to learn how so I had to code their parts. Thus my three day coding period wasn't enough to do both my part and their parts so we didn't 100% of the requirements done.

Personal and Valid Reasons I Was Unable to Program Earlier

- Didn't get the level scene graph to work with until the last few days (I was still getting art from them the day of the presentation) and our game-code is based heavily on the level design and how you encounter with it, I would be happy with place-holder models to work with. It's not like a top-down shooter where I can start programming the AI and way points and etc. without the need for graphics. I later realized the lead artist wasn't doing the work either since he was waiting on the other artists to give him their parts (which he didn't get until very very late, He also got models on the day of the presentation) and he was responsible for the scene graph.
- Wasn't interested in our game, I had a different vision for the game than the designers. No motivation to do it, would only do it for the requirements since that's what's being marked.
- Programmers except me and the business guy didn't know how to do it and aren't willing to learn which annoyed the hell out of me.
-The votes for this type of game outweighed the others and the sadly the majority of the voters that voted for this are the freeloaders.

Everyone in our group was at fault.


Plan for Next Semester

- Since everyone else said they don't mind what the next game type is I'm going to pick something I enjoy programming (just for this group, programmers don't usually pick what they want to make) which is AI, we are going to do a Top-Down shooter next semester.
- Kick out all the freeloaders
- I'm going to do all the programming and I'm going to start early because I love coding Top-Down Shooters. once we kick out all the freeloaders our group wouldn't have any other coders except the business guy but I want him to focus on his parts.
- We are going to keep the group up-to-date with everyone's part, so the graphics people will know how the programmer (me) is doing and vice versa. We will comunicate about our division needs so we become more synchronized.
- Weekly group meetings
- Early place holder models even though this isn't going to be like our last game where it matters significantly.

Conclusion

So everyone in our group (except the deadweights/freeloaders) had the ablility to do it and make a good game but our team coordination was really poor so we paid the hefty price, having a crappy game.

Cram Week Begins! Quick update post

So there's one week left and we don't have much complete. There's a lot of models in our group Dropbox folder but there's a lot that aren't complete. There's not enough for us to code for the game and they aren't placed in the scene yet for our game from our graphics and designer people. I alerted all the programmers to just stop waiting for the graphics and just code all the requirements even though it may be not related to our game. A handful of the requirements are similar if not the same to the previous year's requirements so I have a lot of my previous code for our previous game that I can use. The only requirement that got me thinking, and sounds troublesome is the Animated Characters requirement where we have to perform skeletal animation in the game. I will look into that once I have everything complete.

Wrong about the midterm

So I got my midterm back today and I failed. I didn't explain in detail about a lot of the questions and gave a really brief description so I only got part marks. I blew the last two questions completely which was a total of 20 marks and I only got 3 of the 20 marks.

As for our gdw game I've started programming the base and it's really easy to do things in this engine and I understand how this engine works. I'll be coding everyday now for at least 3-4 hours and when it gets closer to the end it will be much longer and then eventually straight coding. I have already got a lot of the features in such as states for player/game/items/etc, camera types, physics, movement, heart beat indicator (used to determine the monster distance), and some other small base features. I'm currently working on the particle system which shouldn't take long, several hours/no more than a day.

The other guys have added in the xbox360 controller features in and I assigned some one else to do the GUI.

The designers and artists are on a roll, designing is complete and they are working on art. Much of the art is complete but there's still a lot to do.

Such a stressful week

I've finally finished all the midterms and assignments for this week and I've slept in and feel great. I've had 4 assignments and 2 midterms in the span of three days (Monday - Wednesday). I've pulled 3 straight all nighters which is a new record ahead of the Great Canadian Appathon which was two days. I"m gonna celebrate hard haha and do nothing today! Well except this blog post since I must do it.

As for the engine, now that I actually started to use the engine, I've learned how it works (very similar to some engines I've used before so it doesn't take me long to do something). I've already finished the camera movement and function from the homework assignments and I'm going to start coding the core features and structure for our game (which is really late to start, I want to beat my 3 all-nighter record).

For our Engine Design midterm, for once Professor Dr. Hogue gives us an easy midterm. Well actually I don't want to say it's easy because if I didn't do well on it I'll have a bad impression lol (to Dr. Hogue if you're reading this). Though it was easy, I know I didn't do as well as I could of on it since I didn't explain in detail for many questions but I still understood the questions.

Design Completed

Some concept art from our design/art people:

All the design for our game is completed. Now it's my turn to figure out how to use the game engine (which is late) which shouldn't take me that long since I've used many engines before (not saying all engines work the same way) and I've looked at the structure of this engine and it seems to be pretty easy to pick up.

update

I started to setup the genre-specific code in wildmagic for our game. I also played around with wildmagic to see what I could do with it. I'm trying to learn how to use all the features such as shaders.

Our designers have been working a lot on the game and the concept art looks good (I would show some but I don't have any) and the levels are creative and we believe it will truly make the player think about how to beat the level.

Third week update (Late)

Sorry for this late post but I was so busy the previous week and I forgot about the blog temporarily.

Last week I competed in the Great Canadian Appathon 2 so I had no sleep for two days straight and then I had four assignments due in the same week right after the appathon.

I think our team did really well in GDA2 we had me (third year game dev. and previously worked for a game developing company) as a programmer, and three 3rd year networking students (one is also worked at the same game development company), one was also a programmer, another was a artist, and the last person did the game design. Our game was programmed in Flash CS5 since we only had 2 days to build the game and it had the ability to export into a ipa (iphone) app file. Our game came out pretty well, we think we made the top 25 (hoping we hear a response tomorrow) but I don't think we made the top 12 (to get a prize) since there is a lot of talented game developers in the contest and our game wasn't our best and the coding was rushed and messy. We are sure we'll do better next time though. :)

As for the GDW3 game there has only been more late designing going on. I really like the new idea the designers thought about in the game though I question if it's achievable in such a short time.

Major changes to our game and team

New Story/Game

Our game had our game name changed to "The 8th Day" to fit our new game which has 8 levels (one level = one day). Our story is about you and how you are chasing someone/something who you believe would lead you the way out of the haunted factory you are working in yet you are also running away from what you believe is a ghost haunting you from the past.

The first day, everything is really bright and the character is well in shape but throughout the days they vision would get grayer and grayer until it is completely gray-scale on the 8th day. The character's condition and physical shape get's worst and worst through out the day (giving the illusion the character is going crazy).

The player must solve a puzzle for each level on time in-order to survive the level and get out of the room and catch up to the person/thing he's chasing. The puzzles consist of random ordinary objects you find in rooms, you can combine objects to create a new object and use it to do things.

On the 8th day, the player finally catches up with the person he's chasing and the person tries to kill you, in the act of self-defense you kill him. You realize the person you killed was another you who was supposed to make it to the 9th day and then the ghost that's been chasing you was actually you from the 7th day. Because you killed another "you" you ended the repetition.


Team Changes
Our previous Audio-Design/Developer was pulled out of GDW 3 so we had to get a replacement. We got a new sub-programmer. I'll be making him assemble each level with the functions I will create for him to use.

Our New Game!

For our third year game we are planning to do a 3D first-person survival/puzzle game!

Here's a general discription of the game:



John Wriggleston is a mechanic working in a food factory. Last week there was an incident that killed four people at the factory. Little does John know he is the one that got them killed. One night working late at the factory repairing a piece of machinery in the basement John starts to hear spooky noises. The ghosts of the four people who died are coming to get their revenge! John must do everything he can to survive and escape.In order to excape, the player must solve a series of puzzles to delay the ghosts before they find you and get their vengeance.

The REAL Final Update

I wanted to show the final version of Illuminated before I stop posting here.

I fixed a few bugs a couple days ago. All but one bug have been fixed in this version and it runs very smoothly. Well I'm done working on this game, going to make something much better next year. Too bad this version isn't the one that was submitted to get marked.

Illuminated Trailer Version 2:

Thanks to everyone that worked on the game:

 

Well guess this is my last post. Thanks everyone! See ya!

Final Update + First Trailer

The game has been going very well, I have got most of the graphics to program in. I'm very happy with the graphics for the game, though it would be nice to have more graphics and to have gotten them earlier.

I ended up not using any code except for the fmod code from the assistant programmers. It was my mistake not monitor them more thoroughly and also not giving them a detailed expectations document. I ended up redoing some of the sub-programs and I didn't use some other ones.

The audio guy and I ended up doing the in-game HUD since there were some issues with the previous HUD.

There is still more work to do for the game. Only the requirements and a few other goodies have been completed for submission. For the presentation we are going to add a lot more features to it make it look nice. I'm going to be adding in glowing, and other special effects to make the game look more professional. I will also include more elements to the game play, such as more power-ups. There's only two more days to go!! I can do it!!

EARLY TRAILER (2 vs 2)

PS: The trailer is outdated now lol

Success but still not satisfied...

The game is looking very good and apparently, according to other groups, other GDW games don't have proper physics and linear algebra. Knowing that I have spent a lot of time on those parts and getting them done, I'm very proud that our game may be one of the few groups with proper/realistic linear algebra and physics.

I've loaded in some media items and the game looks and feels much better than before. Now we got cool looking graphics and sweet 3D sound. Still there are more media items coming (yes!). They are easy for me to code in and they make the game look ten times better.

I can finally spend time on coding in goodies such as more cool power-ups, special effects, more cut-scenes, etc.

I'm still not satisfied because there is much more I want to add to the game like real glowing, bump mapping and a bunch of cool features but there isn't enough time. The game is below my expectations but I'll still keep adding more to it but judging by the time left we have to submit this project; it wouldn't be enough time to add all the elements I want in the game.

Here's some screenshots of the game so far. I'm still waiting on our group slug to send me the HUD and menu for the game. That's why they are missing from the screenshots.

Weekly Progress Update

There are only two weeks left to complete the game and much left to do. I finally got the models and textures to program in when there are only two weeks left. When I added them in lag became an issue and we are switching over to Devil to take care of the shaders and etc. on the video cards instead of using software mode. We also have to do blurring for the glow effect, powerup effects and time for the powerups, some more AI, Menu, Png images, Sound system (core completed), Tune up shaders, combine partical engine, Tune up Views, Core game modes.

Completeion Scale:

Programming: 7/10
Graphics: 5/10
Audio: 8.5/10

The programming side has been held back from the graphics side significantly.

Progress update

The game has been coming along pretty well, I'm the lead programmer The programmers are way ahead of the graphics and audio people.

Estimated Completion Scale
Scale from 1 to 10, 10 being complete and 1 being nothing done yet.

Programming: 6
shouldn't talk much longer to complete, we already have most of the source code to do the other stuff, just need to combine it them and add a couple more elements to the game.

Graphics: 2
They said they will start working heavily after the midterms. Programmers can't do some stuff because we rely on their parts.

Audio: 4
Audio is going pretty smoothly. Doesn't hurt to have more.

There are only a few weeks left! I've set up a meeting to talk to the group and I'm going to tell them they need to pickup their pace.

Weekly Post

This week, I decided to play singularity for the PC. You play as Captain Nathaniel Renko who is set off to Katorga-12 (an fictional island used by the Russians during the Cold War) with partner Captain James Devlin to investigate the island because of a sudden electromagnetic surge which damaged an American satellite. Near Katorga-12, another electromagnetic discharge causes the helicopter to crash separating Renko and Devlin. On the island you fight for survival from mutants and corrupted Russian soldiers and later fights to change the present time. Renko phases between 1955 and 2010 throughout the game and he learns more about the past and how he changed it when he saved Doctor Nikolai Demichev from the past during his time travel back to 1955 near the beginning of the game.

I personally thought the game was great. The sound and graphics really enhanced the game atmosphere. The gameplay was great, you get to use upgradable weapons and a kick ass time-manipulating device which can do many things, from repairing objects by converting them to the past to mutating a soldier. I wanted to keep playing to learn more about the story.

NOTE: The trailer is off, Renko doesn't arrive in a jet or start off with the time manipulation device, he arrives in a helicopter with Devlin and Renko finds the time manipulation device on the island.

GDW: I've stopped my holiday break mood and begun to work on our group game (wow five weeks in the semester, then again I don't worry much about my part, I have a lot of experience in programming), I'll start working heavily on the programming (been slowly brainstorming and designing in the past weeks, everyone group member's part must fit properly in the final game) and will try to get other group members to start earlier so I will have all the resources from them when I need it (previous year, much stress when I didn't get the other group members parts or when they were done very, VERY poorly. Unfortunately, they aren't in the program anymore).

First Assignment!

--1--

               Our first assignment, we have to talk about our first 10 minute experience with a game we haven’t played before. For this assignment, I chose the game “Milo Physics” on addictinggames.com.

               Just by looking at the game title and image, I could tell the game was a 2d physics-based puzzle game. Sounds exciting! I love many physics-based games and I was eager to try this one. After waiting for the game to load and starting a new game, I immediately noticed a feature that I dislike which was to drop the rigid bodies from a certain height in the 2d game, the player isn’t able to drop them at the exact point (which wouldn’t affect the game-play, just makes it more user friendly). The goal is to place objects down to help a ball collect all the stars in the level by making the ball hitting them. The score for each level is determined by how long it takes the player to collect all the stars. Already from the first level I had to keep clicking the restart key to reset (resets everything including the timer/score) and try to get the rectangle rigid body in the right spot because of having to drop the rectangle at such a high height (maybe they could use this minimum height limitation for later levels only where they don’t want the player to easily get an object somewhere). That was basically it throughout the game but further levels would have more tasks such as covering a hole to allow the ball to pass by or launching the ball by creating a seesaw and dropping something heavy on one end and etc.

               Overall I had a pleasant experience with this game, although at times it could get frustrating because of the height limitation which were unnecessary for many levels (especially for the ones where the player has to build a tower and are forced to restart when they mess up and want to maintain a good score).

Check out the game at: AddictingGames - Milo Physics

--2--

               Summon Night: Swordcraft Story for the Game Boy Advance was a game I loved, I’ve been a fan of their series ever since. The game is a Role-Playing game (RPG) a lot like final fantasy but the fighting system is real-time unlike Final Fantasy’s turned-based battle system. The game doesn’t feel repetitive at all even though they use the same game mechanics throughout the whole game. I’m guessing it is because of the new places I unlock every time and the story is continuously progressing. The player can forge their own weapons by using materials they found in the game (trying different combinations). The graphics and special effects were very cool and detailed. The sound and music matches the game style and isn’t annoying at all. The game is well balanced; the player gains new spells and partners later in the game and become stronger every time they level up. Bosses are challenging and fun to face. The user interface is very simple using mainly the A, B, and arrow buttons to move around and attack and defend. The other buttons are for the less often used functions such as the start button to get to the menu. Levels were easy to follow a long, I can usually tell where to go and only have to guess for the levels they want you to such as some caves (when your character is lost). The story is very well done, and I constantly wanted to keep playing to unlock more of the story. The character can choose what to say every so often and it changes the dialogue for a bit but it will always get to the same ending. The enemy AI is quite simple but it gets the job done. There are still many unique features in this game that I haven’t mentioned such as guardian beasts.

--3--

I found Miniclip's Stress Relief Paintball flash game very boring and not fun. There’s no story, very limited audio, game is repetitive, limited sprites. The goal of the game is to shoot all the smiley faces that appear randomly in the office environment game. You basically just click the smiley faces that come out and reload when you are out of ammo. There are a few levels but they are just different background pictures and different spawning points for the faces. There is a timer for each level that will bring you to a new room when time runs out. For every face hit, it adds to the total score. This game is very simple, there isn’t any AI, and it’s just shooting the face. The User interface is simple. There isn’t any flow to the game.

Check out the game at: Miniclip - Stress Relief Paintball