The environment is coming along nicely. Over the last 2 weeks I’ve added a lot of props to the endless level components, and it’s starting to work as a whole. All of the pickups in there are functional too, and I’ve added sounds+sound events to all of them, to improve the users overall experience.
Over the last week I’ve worked on a set of different level components.
These parts are short pieces of the level, that can be infinitely tiled behind each other, thereby creating an endless level. The layout for the level was based on a spaced out version of Jens’ his level design, which ended up working quite well given the proper distance in between obstacles. The scripts for this endless run were done by Timothy and in combination with some pickupspawners I added to the level (coded by timothy) the level components were complete. The advantage of having the random pickupspawners is that even if you run across a same level part several times, the pickups in it will be different each time. To ensure the experience I’ve created 14 diferent level pieces that can be randomy combined.
I’ve also revised the pickups, because I was unhappy with the noisy visual look of the magnet and coin collector paints. The shield work nicely as a paint, but the magnet and coinboost did not. This is why i’ve chosen to redo these, in the form of textured models. This also allows for spinning and floating pickups, which add a lot to the overall visibility.
Another advantage of using textured models instead of flat paints is that the overall look highly adheres to our style. This is mostly because of the effect the lighting has on the actual objects, as opposed to a flat plane with a texture on it. The textures themselves are simple enough to warrant 128*128 textures, which compensates for the added mesh.
Overall I feel like this decision to take a step back from our earlier plan has helped me in achieving a better visual result, without compromising performance.
Over the course of the last week, I’ve been working up a variety of different things.
For starters, I’ve created a shader that suits our specific game style and has opacity map support. Also worked on the light setup and lightbakes. Due to some performance related issue the current build does not yet have the completed light bake. It should however be fixed and implemented before next weeks flega cafe meetup, where we will be presenting a version that reflects our game as it should be.
The shader and light bakes are rather technical and are usually not my terrain of expertise, but I feel like I’ve learned quite a bit this week and I can safely say that I’m rather satisfied with the visual results so far.
Also in progress this week are the particle effects. Posted below are two paints I did that are used to showcase certain pickups (particles) the player can pick up while running.
Completed 2 demo scenes to showcase what our game will more or less look like when it’s completed.
Also worked on the shaders, the skybox, and the optimisation of some of the assets this week.
The shader currently does not have an opacity map slot, but we’ll be adding this soon.
Finished working on the tree props set.
Got a tree, a treestump and a fallen log for under 520 polys, compressed within a 512*512 texture.
The textures might be tweaked in the future, to ensure the continuity and coherence of our visual style.
Can’t wait to see what it looks like with the correct shaders and lighting in the level.
Over the last week, I’ve been working on the Art Document.
Boards have been redrawn, paragraphs of explanation have been rewritten.
Overall I feel like we’ve certainly made an improvement on what we had last week.
This week the art team mainly worked on the Art Document for this week, posted below are the boards and explinations I wrote for our Art Bible.
Moodboard:
The feeling we are trying to achieve in ‘Crazy Crusade’ is exciting comical action. Starting with the currently existing game ‘Subway Surfer’ as a basis for the mechanics, we give the story a different twist. In our version you’re not running away from a cop in a train yard, you’re a lunatic who thinks he’s a knight and tries to escape from the asylum.
Style:
The artistic style we are going for is a highly stylized and cartoony version of a real life forest environment. All of the objects commonly seen in a forest will be stripped of unnecessary detail in both texturing and model. Important and characteristic elements of said props will be exaggerated, in both model and texture.
Special Effects:
The particles and effects used in ‘Crazy Crusade’ will be stylized in the same manner the other parts of the artwork and environment are stylized. Important details will be exaggerated in shape, size and colour, while anything not essential to the clear visual message of the object will be stripped.
The particles themselves will consist of a sprite sheet containing parts of handpainted art, that could very well have been used to texture the environment. Seeing as how ‘Crazy Crusade’ doesn’t rely heavily on particles for aesthetic interest and added comical effect, the particle effects themselves will be rather subtle, and only serve to clarify to the player, the consequences of his actions.
An example of this would be a gust of wind each time he changes lane or jumps, or maybe a trail of dust and dirt, thrown upwards by the running of the character. This can be used to clarify certain moments when the player is not simply running, but jumping, or sliding under an obstacle.
A new Week, a new prototype!
We’ve started work on the casual action runner for mobile we like to call ‘Crazy Crusade’. Reason for this is very simple, the player character has had enough of all this institutional hospital mumbo-jumbo, and decides to make a run for it. Up to the player to see how far away from the hospital security staff he can get.
For this prototype I worked on a set of props, which will be replaced by high quality props once our technical and artistic documents are complete, and we can fully enter the production phase.
I’ve completed a control sheet for our build, containing all of the controls needed to play our game.
This features controls both PC, iOS and Android devices.
Over the last few days we’ve made quite some progress on our prototype.
In 3 days we went from not having a functional prototype to having a playable build that supports android and iOS devices.
Quite some work has been done in the past few days, and there’s a lot more stuff bound to happen in the near future.
My reponsabilities in the last few days included implementing a health system for the ships, and a the powerup system for the neutral ships in the battlefield.
A changelog containing all the updates and adds we did over the last few days will be posted in the DEV tag once the current build is finalised.
Crazy Crusade 