Where do I even begin!?
Things have started to be put in motion. I have been added to the production studio class and have started to attend the animation production workshop class. Already I'm feeling the anxiety of every day passing and how much needs to be done in 13 weeks. Last semester crept up on me, but it meant I could live in blissful ignorance for a few weeks before the panic really set in. Now I'm painfully aware of the project I'm undertaking and how much discipline I need to get so much work done. I don't have time to be scared of new programs (namely Unity and Substance Painter), nor do I have much time to teach myself the changes in the pipeline from last year. With the number of classes I'm taking, their difficulty and involvement, and my ever present outsourcing job and 3 TA sections, I'm already exhausted. I set hard goals and expectations for myself, I just hope I can reach them.
I'm really happy with my teammates and the vision we're creating for the project. It's no longer a game, but more of an interactive experience. With that comes a change in direction, but one that I think will be good to play to all of our strengths. Our project lead really stepped up and got us organized and on track. I thought I knew about working with others and how a game project is done, but this is a whole new level of professionalism. I think I had the most productive team meeting over discord ever; we were able to establish roles, vision, and goals, as well as specifically how we were going to do that. My requirements are still up in the air for what needs to be done to consider it a junior film replacement, but I was given tasks that I could complete while we nailed that down.
I have to have a narrative in the game. Like a traditional narrative you would see in a short film or animated movie. It feels limiting, not just to me but to other students as well. It would make more sense if you're making a film, but even then a lot of us want to go into specific fields (one's that don't ever stray even close to narrative and story telling.) I'm frustrated hearing that because we're supposed to be working towards real careers; making sure I have all the traditional "narrative elements" is a waste of time and keeping me away from completing my goal for this semester. It's placing our game into a box that we can't break out of, and if we're on the cutting edge of new media then focuses need to shift to reflect that. Limiting all SOFA students into a fill in the blank sentence is (frankly) bullshit.
That's not to say my game doesn't have a narrative - it came from a short film idea. But if that short film idea doesn't fit traditional story telling standards then I have to change it for the worse. What's the point in that? Why am I even in a college that promotes new ideas and innovation when I can't even tell a story the way viewers/players can connect to it in a new, refreshing way? At this point, passing doesn't feel as important anymore. It's stubborn to say it, but I want to follow the path that will get me into the game art industry, and that's not with ANOTHER student project that fits that outdated, cookie-cutter mold. It's a very competitive field and employers will be bored out of their minds if they have to continually sit through the same thing a thousand times; I need to bring something new to the table.
I do enough complaining on here. Let's move on to the story treatment I've written up for my workshop class:
A lone spaceman traveling the galaxy is alerted to a ship malfunction from a meteor strike. He tries and fails to fix anything after typing into the computer and sees out the window that he is falling into the closest planet’s gravitational pull. He straps himself in and braces for impact as he shakes violently in his chair.
Meanwhile, an aquatic alien, (closely resembling an earth otter,) is collecting an alien sea creature (closely resembling an earth sea urchin,) and surfaces on his back to start breaking it open. A noise grows louder in the distance while the spaceship gains speed as it plummets, and the otter watches as the ship crashes into the water with an explosion from the impact. The waves reach the otter even from such a long distance.
The otter goes to investigate, swimming deeper as he observes all the wrecked parts slowly sinking to the bottom. He continues his investigation, spotting an astronaut laying still on the sea floor. Approaching, he swims around the foreign creature, floating closer to him just as the spaceman jerks awake and makes the otter spin away in fright. The spaceman doesn’t notice him at first, sitting up to regain his bearings and waving his arms around to realize he is, in fact, underwater. The otter swims over to him in excitement, startling the astronaut and making him crawl backwards in fear.
The otter backs away and looks around before digging into the sand and pulling out some kind of tubing from the wreck. Having been offered the part, the spaceman looks between the tube in his hand and back up to the otter before standing up to face the alien creature. They both look at each other for a minute before the astronaut nods his head and points to the part in his hand. The otter spins around and gives a series of high-pitched squeaks before swimming away and then pausing to look back. The spaceman starts following him.
The cinematic ends and the player gains control of the astronaut and otter. Through interaction with the environment around them, the player is dropped into a hub world and has four paths to follow to find four ship parts. The otter is an integral part of their journey, biting wires, swimming through tunnels, and grabbing key items. After the first puzzle is completed, a small cutscene shows the otter digging around and placing a blue shell into the astronaut’s hands. The last cutscene begins when they bring all four parts back to the center hub.
The spaceman gives a few last twists with a wrench before stepping back and looking at the ship with his hands on his hips, observing his work. He looks over to realize the otter is placing starfish on the side of the ship as decoration. The astronaut steps over to the otter and the alien turns in surprise. The otter dashes over to the spaceman and he pauses before wrapping his arms around the otter. He pulls back, patting the otter on the head who slumps down in the dirt. The spaceman approaches the ship, but just as he is about to enter, he looks down at the blue shell in his hand. Turning, he looks back at the otter, who swims up of the ground with an excited squeak.
The game is a 3D interactive experience using Maya for animations and modeling, zbrush for sculpting, and Unity for implementation. Sound design will be done with a Unity plug-in, (unknown.) Team members plan to create their own sound engine and shaders. Sound is planning to be used as a partial game play mechanic. There will be muffled sound effects, otter clicks, and musical ocean ambiance when controlling the spaceman, and the sound will be clear when controlling the otter.
There's a lot here I wish I could add, but we were limited to one page. I'm also going to post the design doc that we created during our discord meeting that we need to hand in for the other production class. I'm auditing it so I'm pretty free to do whatever I want, but because it's so close to what I would be doing in the industry, I really want to work with my team to meet those deadlines and assignments. (Also, they're still being graded, so I don't want to blow them off.)
Group Name
Astro Zoodios
List of all Team Members and Roles
Amanda DelloStritto - Environment Artist, Animator, Director of Art, Writer
Ian Effendi - Project Manager, Technical Artist, Audio Engineer, UI/UX Engineer, Video Recording
Davis Smith - Audio Engineer, Composer, Director of Sound
Matthew Paseltiner - Level Designer, Gameplay Developer, Writing Assistant, QA and Testing, Video Recording
TJ Wolschon - Unity Developer, Gameplay Developer, QA and Testing
Project Title
Return to Otter Space
Project Description
Resources Needed
Wwise (Audio Middleware)
Unity
Maya
Zbrush
Substance Painter
(Time needed per task)
Formal Goals
Game Inspirations (?)
This is obviously not finished, but one more thing I wanted to talk about from our meeting was the proposal document we had to fill out. It was laid out really well and the questions were helpful as we solidified our plan for this semester. I don't think I'll be able to be on a game design team without using this now. It even feels like it can be tailored to an animated group film. Already I'm learning so many valuable lessons that I would have never gotten had I stuck strictly to film for my five years at college. Getting to do both gives me a really good feeling of aesthetics, audience appeal, and game design. I love it!! Not to give myself a superiority complex, but I think I'm really getting an edge to distinguish myself from other job applicants.
Overview
In order to create a solid shared vision, it's important we all end up on the same page. This card has several questions that attempt to get us onto the same page.
Shared Knowledge
- What is our team's shared knowledge?
- Ian: Unity, UI/UX, shaders, audio engineering, sfx, foley recording, particle physics, puzzle design
- Amanda: Maya rigging, Maya animation, Maya modeling, Zbrush sculpting, Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, Texturing and skinning, creative writing, Unity?
TJ: Unity, UI backend (canvas), mechanics programming, terrain sculpting, AI, templating/prefab systems, asset implementation (3d/2d),
Davis: Audio/music Design, Middleware implementation, Audio tools engineering/programming, narrative/creative design, musical composition/performance
Matthew: Unity, level design, gameplay programming, game design
- What are the things we know how to do well?
- Ian: SFX production, puzzle design, UI
- Davis: audio stuff, creative collaboration
- Amanda: Environment art, hard surface modeling, texturing, animation
- TJ: Mechanics/gameplay programming,
- Matthew: level design, gameplay programming
- What are the things we can probably do? (given schedules and time constraints)
- Ian: UX, gameplay mechanics, level/environment design
- Davis: Creative/narrative direction
- Amanda: All of the SOFA requirements
- TJ: UI backend, better feeling AI, Lighting
- Matthew: UI/UX, environment design
- What are the things we want to learn / aren't yet sure we can do?
- Ian: Project management,
- Davis: Shader implementation,
- Amanda: Unity lol, shaders, animation blending
- TJ: shaders, unity animation system,
- Matthew: audio pipeline
- What are our limitations? As a team? As an individual?
- Ian: other projects? (i’m a sound designer for two other games atm). mental health, insomnia, work
- Davis: Last semester schedule/errands (job applications, portfolio development)
- Amanda: I’ll kill myself for this project, narcolepsy, 3 TA sections, assest creation outsourcing for magic, project snow (?), total work hours (9-15)
- TJ: project snow(?), I work late
- Matthew: overfilled schedule, migraines, part time tutoring(5 hrs/week)
- Hours per week that can be dedicated to this:
- Ian: 10-20 hours
- Amanda: 10-25 hours
- Davis: 5-12 hours?
- TJ: 3 - 12
- Matthew: 5-10
Shared Ambition
- What are our shared goals for this project?
- Ian: passing, portfolio piece
- Davis: lit composition, fire audio mixing, audiovisual cohesion
- Amanda: passing, portfolio piece, having fun :)
- TJ: start-finish experience, portfolio piece
- Matthew: portfolio piece, relaxing user experience
- What are our individual goals for this project?
- Ian:
- Davis: sample an IRL otter, 15-20minute composition
- Amanda: work harder than I did last semester, Honors film festival
- TJ:
- Matthew:
- What is our definition of success? As a team? As an individual?
- Ian: a solid portfolio piece that i can show others
- Davis: Wwise sequencing works, full composition mix complete
- Amanda: portfolio
- TJ: producing something that I feel comfortable showing to others
- Matthew: Polished portfolio piece
- What is our definition of failure? As a team? As an individual?
- Ian: unfinished environment. janky animations. OOB speedrunning strats
- Davis: getting hit by a bus, incomplete or poor audio quality
- Amanda: Not finishing in time, not having cinematics, upsetti team mates
- TJ: bad game feel, excessive bugs, not having speedrun bugs
- Matthew: unpolished gameplay experience
I know I'm adding a lot of project planning stuff into this, but I feel like it's an integral part if I'm going to be blogging my work and experience during this project. Here is the document I wrote up as a proposal to my own teammates to give them a better idea of what we were going to work on. It wasn't perfect, but I think it gives a good glimpse into my personal vision of the game.
Elevator pitch: An astronaut crashes onto a water planet where he meets an otter-like alien who offers to help him rebuild his ship to go home. Player must solve puzzles with his otter companion to collect ship parts and rebuild the rocket.
Vision: A game demo that demonstrates the skills of the designers, artists, and developers in the specific topics they want to focus on and a possible portfolio piece for all team members involved. A game that demonstrates an understanding of the art asset pipeline for video games in partial fulfillment for the BFA in Film and Animation. A project that fulfills class requirements for Production Studio. A viable product to present at conventions/gaming events.
Target audience and audience appeal: Accessible for older children and adults who are looking for a charming story, good visual aesthetic, and involved puzzle solving without the stress of time limits and threats from enemies. A player would be able to pick up this game after work or school as a medium to unwind and relax with. With the ability to go through the game as slow or fast as they can, a player can decide what elements of the game to focus on and enjoy.
Platform: Built in Unity for PC. Playable with controller (and possible keyboard integration). Game will be in 3D.
Genre: 3rd person hub world, story driven, puzzle-based progression.
Theme: Cute, charming characters explore an aesthetically pleasing underwater environment with music to enhance the experience. Possible cut scene will establish the characters’ personalities.
Gameplay:
Currently Implemented Mechanics:
Grappling hook that attaches to 2 separate wall/object to move large objects
Bubble streams carry players over ravines
Controllable otter, can make him enter holes to reach other areas
Otter can carry key objects
Power cell/power dock mechanic to progress forward
Otter follows character around in a set radius, if commanded to leave area, will return when you release control
Goal/win condition: Player completes all puzzles to obtain tokens and returns them to the ship.
Player mechanics: Player can walk and jump. Player can use grappling hook to interact with large objects. Player can use a secondary control system to control the otter swimming and the otter entering and exiting holes the player cannot fit through. Otter can pick up key items/tokens. Player can enter water streams as a means of crossing large ravines and accessing new areas.
This is the current design of the game from where we left off in the game jam. Mechanics and puzzles are subject to change to better fit the narrative or the interests of the developers/game designers. The base code for a lot of this game is already there, though unpolished and janky. The team will have to decide what elements to keep and what to get rid of, and if the mechanics and code should be thrown out altogether. The theme and story should stay the same, but if we are looking to go about this from a completely different angle of gameplay then we must decide as a group what that gameplay will be like. I am not a game designer, programmer, sound technician, or producer, and therefore I am not capable of making final decisions on those matters. I can give input from my experience and knowledge of games, but my expertise is in art and aesthetics.
Okay, okay, just one more thing before I keep going about the project. Here are the trello boards I made for myself. Trello has been super helpful in my summer jobs and the work on my film last semester, so hopefully I'll continue to utilize this tool to help me stay organized and on task.
The project has evolved way past just a short film idea or game jam project and I'm so excited to start really digging in to the process. My teammates are also very excited to work on this, especially our sound technician who really wants to be able to have a comprehensive concerto that plays seamlessly throughout the game. Abzu by Giant Squid had a similar technique and I remember reading about the first decisions the sound team made; it wouldn't be the same game if it didn't have such an amazing sound track, and I think having someone so excited and dedicated to sound will push this beyond just a student project into something really well polished.
Wooh boy I could go on. I'm going to end this here because I've been writing for an hour and need to do actual work today, but I still have so much to jot down as a way to organize my thoughts and document the process I went through for this game!
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