Homework 11

Chapter 15

1. True, a goal with no obstacles feels obsolete and unrewarding.
2. The relationship between the main character and the goal is the story. The story guides the character to the goal, and gives him incentives and reasons to pursue it.
3. The puzzles are the main obstacle between the main character and the goal. Some are simpler puzzles, intended to guide the character or to provide story, other are harder intended to challenge the character.
4. The obstacles will overall increase in difficulty, however since we often use easier puzzles to further the story, not every puzzle will be harder than the previous, but overall they get harder.
5. We have not fully decided the details of the characters transformation, but we intend on the character realizing that they are part of the story and of the town, and may even use this to solve later puzzles.
6. The real world is infinite, the game world is limited to only what the player needs to see, so there isn't a full town, just different scenes of one.
7. The camera is the transcendent power we give the player, it allows them to alter the present and see the past.
8. Our story isn't heavy science fiction, so the weirdest elements are the magical camera, and the realization that you saw your past self in photos that you took.
9. The magical camera is explained early on in the game, and the seeing oneself in the past becomes normal once the player understands the camera sees into the past.
10. We believe they will because the story will be suspenseful, interesting, and will lead to very impressive realizations.

Chapter 16

1. The player is free to move around in the scene, so the player should feel very free, as they are only limited by the limits of the scene, and the puzzles they need to solve. 
2. Other than the terrain constrains we have not yet designed any other constraints, so the player shouldn't feel constrained. We may later implement some constraints such as a limit in the number of photos that can be taken, this will constrain the player but also add to the challenge.  
3. We would like the player to explore the environment they are in, to begin photographing different elements until they realize what the puzzles are, and to solve them to continue on in the story.
4. Yes, we have physical and puzzle constraints, such as a bridge that needs to be photographed before the player can continue.
5. We are able to force the player to do what we want via the game-play and game world.

Homework 8

1. The space in our game is continuous. The player can move around in three dimensions and can exist anywhere within the space.
2. Our space is three dimensional.
3. Our space is bounded by the different scenes the player will be in. The player cannot leave a scene, only transition to another scene.
4. Our player character has five verbs. Walk, look, jump, raise camera, take picture.
5. Raise camera interacts on a camera object he is holding. Take picture interacts on every object in the view. The other actions only interact with the player.
6. This has not been fully determined yet. We might take the approach of a few seemingly different ways to reach a goal, which end up being the same process.
7. The player only controls the player character.
8. Our general idea for side effects that change constraints is along the lines of taking a picture of certain key objects will alter them in such a way that the player can use those objects to achieve his goal. For example, taking a picture of a broken bridge might reveal the bridges state before it collapsed, allowing the player to walk over the bridge to continue.
9. Walk, look, jump, raise camera, take picture.
10. The resultant actions are not all fully defined yet, but may involve situations similar to the bridge example.
11. We would like the taking of pictures to also project the ghost/illusion of the previous residents living their normal lives. (This can be done in blender, but is an incredibly huge amount of work animating)
12. The ultimate goal of the game is to learn about the city and uncover the secrets about what happened during the destruction and what happened to its residents.
13. The players short term goal is to explore each scene and move on to the next scene. The only long term goal is the ultimate goal.
14. The goals will mostly be presented to the player through the story. The player will be told that their purpose is to explore.
15. The foundational rules of the game for the most part are only that objects remain in a destroyed state until photographed. Photographed objects will temporarily return to a healthy state.
16. The first rule is the basic state of the game. The second rule is enforced by changing the state of objects based on the players actions.
17. No.
18. Our game should ideally develop puzzle solving skills.

Homework 7

For this homework, I decided to make some clouds by putting together many spheres, and giving them a blue material. I made two clouds, and made the larger one the parent of the smaller one, to simulate how clouds often all move together in the sky. I then animated them moving across the sky by making an animation on the large cloud, which causes the child cloud to follow.

This fits in to my group project because we will have clouds moving along in the sky.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h0EJ9lLN1U&edit=vd

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4_3eQMuV0A4ZHlVZUxlWjhyMmM/edit?usp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4_3eQMuV0A4eWJEVF8zd0JmRnc/edit?usp=sharing

Homework 6

1. Mechanics is addressed in our game by the way in which the game is played, that being a first person view through a camera lens, the taking of pictures which reveals different things about the game, as well as potentially a score system based on the accuracy of the picture taken by the player, or puzzle elements solved by taking pictures of certain key objects.
Story is an important part of our game. It tells the story of a photographer uncovering the misterious destruction and depopulation of a city.
Aesthetics in our game will be made to feel a little eerie, without being dark, with a little of a cubist art style rather than a realistic art style.
Technology in our game is of course limited by our production software, Blender, as well as the processing power of our computers, and our ability to create environments and objects that arent computer intensive. For the most part, we wont have any new or different technologies that will set the game appart.

2. Yes, all four elements work towards our themes of mystery and exploration

3. Simply, theme and experience are like input and output. Theme is what feelings and behaviours are projected by the game unto the player. And experience is that players reactions and interpretations of those feelings. So for example a theme could be of terror and darkness, which could lead a player to experience fear and exitement, and could have another player be unmoved.

4. Our games themes are primarily mystery and exploration. It may at times be more eerie and at times more bright. It also covers themes of destruction and recreation, and of societal and family elements and values.

5. Our mechanics reinforces this theme because it puts the player physically in charge of exploration, and by not revealing everything to the player and making them uncover elements of the story through exploration they uncover the mysteries of the environment. Likewise story reinforces our themes because at first the story of the town is unclear and the player must uncovere the details.

6. In my opinion what makes our game special is the mechanic of "peering into the past" by taking pictures, and how it helps build the story and aesthetics.

Homework 5

NOTE: Because of technicality constraints, I could not use the game engine with my object in ways that "made sense". My object is a swing, but since we have not yet learned how to create pivots, i did not attempt to make my swing swing back and forth. I simply made the object do other motions as an example. Note that I talked to Professor Erlebacher about this before doing it. Furthermore, because of how I made the chains in the swing via the add chain addon, I could not "join" them with the rest of the object, so they will not move in the demo. In our game, my object isn't actually supposed to move in any way. The object will undergo change during the game but it is not motion, and it is not something that I can do until we learn how to use pivots, and I learn how to make the chain work with the rest of the object. In the final game, this object is supposed to change from a "broken down" version, to a "healthy" version. This will probably be accomplished by modeling both versions, and hiding one and making the other appear based on user action.



For this assignment, I made my object rotate along different axis based on which keys were pressed, and I made the object disappear if a combination of keys was pressed.



The use of the game engine will relate to my team game in that, we will have the user be a first person camera that when he "snaps a picture" will temporarily show the city as it was before a disaster. We will use the game engine to alternate between "broken down" versions of objects and "healthy" versions of objects to simulate this "photo into the past". We will also in some cases perhaps permanently return objects to their "healthy" version, to rebuild the city.

Video Link:

http://youtu.be/6T3PeJx2KS8

Homework 4

Do you love your project/game. If not, how can that be changed? 

Yes I love this project, its a great idea, and its a good size for a school project.

Does the team as a whole love the project? If not, what can be done? 

It looks like we all really like the project and the idea. We have some conflicting opinions on smaller details, but we all love the idea.

Are the team members communicating with each other?

Yes, often. We communicate our ideas and messages via email to the group.

Does the team have a regular meeting schedule? What is that schedule? 

Yes, we meet Mondays, and sometimes Wednesdays around 1 or 2 pm at Strozier.

Describe the modes of communication between the team members. 

During meetings we communicate by taking turns sharing our ideas, and waiting for someone to finish speaking before we offer a reply or a countering opinion. Over email, we express the full extent of our ideas, and offer solutions.

Regarding game documents, what must be remembered while designing your game? 

We must remember the complexity and time restraints that come with an art based game in a team full of members with no modeling and animation experience.

Homework 3

PART 1:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4_3eQMuV0A4eFlGTFdVbmNrNjA/edit?usp=sharing


PART 2:

To construct this object, I started by adding a cylinder and scaling it to look like a rod. I then copied this rod and tilted them both such that they intersected at the top. I then copied this structure to create the four legs of the swing. I then made another rod to connect the tips of both pairs of legs, and then added a sphere to this intersection to make it look neater. Then to create the seat I flattened out and elongated a cube to create the main section, and then extruded the outermost sides outwards and upwards, making the seat curve a little. Finally to add the chain I used the "Add Chain" addon that comes preinstalled with blender to create the chains that hold the seat, and then just put all the pieces together as neatly as I could.



PART 3:

This object fits into the game because one of our scenes will be a playground, and this is an element of it. In the real world of the game the object will be somewhat destroyed, perhaps by disjoining one of the chains and having the seat fall over. In the past world the swing would be intact as it is here.