Reflection

All in all I had no major problems during the design process for the level. Unity was extremely easy to use and very straight forward and any problems i had were easily resolved due to the countless resources on the Internet.

Things i would change:

first i would make the level a little smaller because it was a lot of work to try and texture all of my map and sadly i think this showed in the finished project.

I would also change the water effect that i used, i originally wanted the level to be deep sea so basically no light at all apart from the diving helmet. the more i worked on the level i realised this just did not give the effect i was after so i started to play with the lighting and fog to get closer to what i wanted. thought this made it look close to what i wanted i feel i didn't get to show what i was actually after by the end of production. to fix this i wold make the level closer to the surface of the water therefore the would be more lighting effects i could use to get exactly what i was after.


Apart from these few things the map turned out great in my opinion and i cant wait to start using unity again next term of my final project.

start screen

this is my start screen, pretty self explanatory.

game details

the target audience for my game would be 15 to 25 because of the violence and themes used in the game.

The genre of the game would be, first person shooter/action adventure.

The delivery platform is the Xbox 360.

The title i have chosen for the game is "I".

hud

the Hud design i went for is one that is simplistic, but still give the player enough information to not comfuse. i put the core elements such as life, mana and weapon up the top of the screen, i personally find this to be the best place fo the important hud elements, its out of the way but easy for the player to see.

this is my HUD

this is my controller, it is based around the usual first person shooter controls used in such games as halo and bioshock. i have added the Dpad for the players map and inventory and other such screens.

these are some plants i have made for my map

these are some man made models i have built for my map

Some thoughts on interface design
I have discussed accessibility issues with my peers and will address tried and tested practices to make games accessible to all users through audio, visuals and peripherals. The output from a game is one of the most important goals for accessibility, this is covered by visuals and audio. The basic idea for making a game accessible to all that i have found is to have both visuals and audio for important things in a game, therefore all fields are covered, for example if an object in a game can be interacted with have it light up and make a sound when a player hovers the courser over it.

As I have always believed audio is 50 percent of a game as far as immersing a player in a game. Play just about any game without the sound and it is boring non immersive and sometimes dose not even make sense. Audio is used everywhere in games everywhere from general sounds to music being player to enhance the scene.
A useable interface is one which gives the player enough information to enjoy the game but one which also trusts the player to understand how it works. I played borderlands on the weekend and found it to have a excellent interface the player is given all the feedback they need and the controls are suited to the game play.
Playing borderlands I realised it met all of the goals apart from story which was a bit of a hit and miss. So the game at some stages wasn’t very immersive but the feedback and functionality was good.
The basic balance between functionality and aesthetics is spending the time to write a good story and have great audio and visuals. Most games get let down by their graphics, physics and animations so developers need to spend the time on these, because people always critique these over game play.

have just been working on the tunnel section of my map and its coming along very well i just have to now add the organic parts like plants and animals. this will take some time I've realised because doing so tastefully is harder then it sounds. having looked at my asset list and i seem to be on track, i have completed all my high priority assets and nearly all my medium assets so in a week or two i should only be left with making it a living and breathing environment.

map

this is my map blocked out

this is an in game shot of the base this is close to how i want it to look.

Blueprint

The objectives:

1) Find the ship

2) Find the weapon stash

3) Find the base

4) Get past the diving team

5) Get through the airlock

asset list

plants and shit

These are the types of plants needed in my level, I want some of the to be bioluminescent.

playing with unity

as the title suggests I've been playing with unity over the last couple of days and have figured out how to get my map to look as though it is actually underwater. First i used a mat blue skybox for two reasons; it is damn near impossible to find a underwater image that will work as a skybox and because it looks really good how i have it. Next i used basically the same colour fog as the skybox and put it on pretty thick, this dose wonders for the visibility and with the right tinge it works really well.

The next part was a little tricky but i did it and it really makes the map so far. I used a particle emitter on the main camera and set it so the particles just float and i made the ellipsoid longer along the X so that the particles are spawn far in front of the player.I then put a spot light on the main camera to give the added feel of being inside a diving suit. Next I made my own dust spec in photoshop and made a alpha channel so it would appear round in unity and i made the texture for the particles self illuminating so that they are dark when far away but when you get closer they react to the light and light up as they would in real life.

I'm very happy with the result and cant wait to now make the map and model the base and ship and various plants.

more ideas

hey all I've been thinking more about some mission objectives and game mechanics for my map.

here are some new ideas;

ive decided that the player will start off with no weapon.

im thinking of having a sunken ship that is close to the location of the base, it was a military ship that is bound to have weapons sealed inside. therefore the first two mission objectives would be;

To find the ship which will show the player the direction of the base.

find the weapon stash in the ship.

The nest objective would be to find the base.

Next the player will have to either sneak past a group of navy divers, or kill them quietly as to not get caught.

the last objective is to find the key to activate the airlock, and then its on to the nest mission.

The game mechanics i have used are;

stealth

action

discovery

i have been thinking about the objectives for my level. some ideas i have are:
finding the base; i see this a lot in games and it gives the player a sense of discovery.
infultrating the base without being noticed

these are some sketches for my map. the basic idea is the player is finding his way through the underwater passage to the underwater base.

At the moment I'm leaning heavily towards having the player on the outside of the underwater base i just think its a stronger feeling then being inside the structure. here are some more pictures to explain what i want to get across.

some reference pics.

My level

for my level I'm going to design a level that is probably my favourite out of the ones i have conceived. The level is the first time the player gets to the underwater base and must infiltrate it. I think this level will best portray the emotions i want the player to get out of the game.

I'm still sticking with my original idea of the spirit that can take hold of any person and my crazy idea of trying to tie it in with an underwater theme but... with this next passage of writing it will no longer be insane but hopefully a clear and concise game idea.

Back story

Matt the main character wakes up on a beach he finds his way back to civilisation but soon finds out he is not quite himself. He then tries to find out what happened to him using a new found ability; body possessing. The long and action packed search leads him to an underwater test facility where my level will be based.

character profiles

Matt's story is told throughout the game, due to his both loss of memory and conscious fusion with the memories of a man called Henisey. once the thoughts are untangle throughout the game, Matt is revealed to be a test patient for a teleportation experiment in-which his conscious being was separated from his physical body.

Henisey's part in the plot is somewhat of a storyteller in the game, he is the body that the player starts out in. the story telling is done through flashbacks from Henisey's memories.

Henisey was one of the chief scientists on the project who was not confident with testing the project. after an argument with colonel Hopps he is shot just before the test. he survives the shot but lies on the verge of death in the ocean where matt enters his body in his weakened state when the test malfunctions separates his body and mind.

Colonel Hopps is the basic villian so far. He is only interested in getting results and will kill to hide his mistakes. i will further his profile in the next few posts.

I wont go on about three new games to compare for the different genre question. So pac man is a big maze where you go around eating things but you don't want to get eaten by something else. Very simple the reward is points and the next level and the risk is death and the level is design the way it is so that the player can trap themselves if they are not careful. sonic i have already told how the levels are very linear for speed sake and like pac man the reward is the next level and the risk is death. halo is much the same like most games are much the same the reward is the next level and the risk is death and there are just little variations on that in general. The games genre changes the level design in the sense of what it is a shooter needs cover a side scroller needs platforms and so on.

OK three games i looked at were pac man, sonic and halo, they were quite different i can tell you that much. Pac man every one has at least seen it very simple your in a maze of sorts, so the level design is simple in that sense. You can see the whole stage area and you just roam it doing what needs to be done. Sonic compared to pac man is quite advanced, it a very fast side scrolling game. The stage is designed very linear to take advantage of the speed the game could move at, this such as gravity and speed meant the levels had more obstacles for the designers to play with such as holes, jumps and loops. Halo is obviously a FPS so the level is designed like most shooters to have cover and places to hide from fire and also has big open spaces for where vehicles are used.

ok lets back track to the first questions my bad. So if i was a level designer in the 80s i would have to say i would do 2d side scroller because they were the big thing then and you would have been stupid not to.

Game concepts

I'm brainstorming the idea of a third person action-adventure game, where you play as a spirit that can reside in any person in the game world. The idea comes from the movie Fallen, where the spirit of a murderer is continuing to kill by possessing people. Though this game would work perfect in a city I am wanting to give the game more emotions and more imagery. Such ideas i have are; set in the deep jungle where the character was part of a tribe, or due to my fascination with anything underwater, maybe an underwater city, whether it be sealed from that water an inhabited by humans, or be inhabited by creatures that live in the environment.

Welcome

welcome all