The summer has ended and now we are back together as a full team as we continue to work on Sensory Overload (working title…still). A few of us, myself included, worked on the game a little bit over the summer. I’ve been working with Gregg on getting a tutorial level built. Below are a few pieces that I built for the tutorial.

With the beginning of the semester we are going to have to really start increasing our production and we really need to make levels that we can play test.

We’ve made a lot of progress to Sensory Overload in a short amount of time this semester. The game remains a multiplayer game but in the style of Quake Arena or Unreal. We have gotten rid of wall walking as it was more confusing for the player to orient themselves. We currently have three “white-boxed” levels (one we know will not be made). The other two have received praise for their design and they will probably be polished. We currently have narrowed the narrative to a futuristic sci-fi setting where the players control a robotic type animal. Our only current animal is a Hippo. Each animal has a large head in comparison to its body. We are aiming for a futuristic but light-hearted aesthetic, similar to Nintendo’s Splatoon, or even Insomniacs Ratchet and Clank. Futuristic and sci-fi like and very colorful. The aesthetic is something us artists are constantly working on and trying to nail down.

As for myself, I have been tasked as the main environment artist. Anywhere from environment concept to modeling and texturing I am the lead environment artist. Mostly, I’ve worked with two of our Producers Jackie and Greg. I draw some concept art for a setting and they design a map for it. They then hand me that map and I model out the pieces necessary to build the level. We’re using Unity 5.

I’ve come to realize that modular modeling is going to be key in being able to really accomplish the environments. Sure, I will still need to model out some individual set pieces, but mostly everything will need to be modular in order to put the levels together, similar to Lego’s. It’s an interesting challenge and one I am enjoying.

The following images are some of the things I have worked on this semester for Sensory Overload:

Concept Art:

Factory Concept

Jungle Concept

Waterfall City Concept

Modeling:

Tileable Texture Maps:

Well, it looks as though the 4D game won’t happen and instead I’ve chosen to work on a game we’re calling Sensory Overload (title will probably change). The idea is really cool and other than the 4D game this game was my top choice to work on. The game is simple enough in that it is an FPS (First-Person Shooter). It is a multiplayer only game that gives the player a 360 degree view in front of them. It allows the player to see other players no matter if they are in front, directly on either side of them, or behind them. This creates a fast paced multiplayer that caters to the hardcore FPS fans. Not too mention that wall walking is also a mechanic.

With all the pitches having been pitched I have decided to work on a 4D game. We have no name for it right now (we’re cleverly calling it 4D) but it is a platforming game that utilizes the 4th dimension. I’m not so sure I understand this game or even no how to explain how it works, I just know I like platformers and I think there is some interesting ideas for gameplay here.

With only a few weeks we have built a prototype and put together a presentation to present to a panel of industry professionals. We’re hoping to persuade them that this game should be built. The game remains a platformer and though the camera right now is in the first-person, we will ultimately put it in the third-person so you can see the character on screen. We’ve also chosen a maze-like city within a globe to play around in. The player must solve the maze to win. Placing the city in a globe makes the environment more interesting because, though the playing space is large, the player would be able to look up and see the city above him/her, ala “Inception.”

Here are some images of a rough version of the city that I modeled out, with a little help from our other artist Zum-Zum.

Well, with the start of a new semester comes the beginning of narrowing down which game I will be working on for my thesis game. As of right now, I have chosen to jump on a music game with Will Hunter and Russell Canning. The idea is Russell’s. The player would use some kind of motion control device to play as a Maestro orchestrating an orchestra. The game would play out kind of like Disney’s Fantasia. Or think of Peter and The Wolf and using music to determine what the character does. I’m not particularly interested in the game, though I think there could be something interesting there, but I am not sure which game I would want to pitch from my own ideas. Either way, I’m interested in seeing what everyone comes up with.

December 8 – 12

This week was the final week of our prototype and it was a mad dash finishing up all the textures for the game (I had to create the rock textures, tree textures, and the ground texture) and putting the level all together. I think my team and I have a lot to be proud of. I feel like we created a fun game that is visually appealing. We even made a last minute change to the design of the game this week. As we play tested the game we discovered that the funnest part of the game was playing keep away with the pig, as well as trying to throw the pig at the alter. Because of this, we decided to turn our game into a basket-brawler where each player fights over the pig and then tosses it into anyone of the two alters. First player to five wins. If another player has the pig the other player can punch the pig out forcing the other player to drop the pig. The game is quite fun!

I should also mention that this game is called Skazka (It’s Russian for Fairy Tale).

Skazka Screenshot

Click link to check out gameplay video

Here is our team: Team Icarus

Back Left to Right: Russell, Gregg Front Left to Right: Spencer (myself), Will, Ben, Yash, and Duncan

This week on December 12, EAE night was held. Fox 13 News was there covering the event. Our game got some coverage as the two boys playing a game (one is in a Superman shirt) is playing our game. We found that a lot of kids and teenagers really loved our game. Click to watch Fox 13’s broadcast of the event.

December 1 – 5

This week we started to put together the level layout. I also helped to model a few assets to go in the game so that our environment isn’t so bare. I also created the textures for the alter, hut, and a couple other assets.

Level Layout

Hut Texture

Tileable Well Texture

Also, due to the fact that both Will and I are environment artists and not very good at rigging, we ended up finding a dwarven witch as an asset within Unreal. We are going to use it instead of the characters I was working on.

November 24 – 28

This week was a short one because of Thanksgiving. We did, however, make some drastic changes to the game. Though nothing has really been implemented yet, we changed our game to a Russian folklore theme where players play as a witch out dueling the other. The player must obtain a pig (there is only one pig in the level) and take that pig to their alter in order to power themselves up. Upon doing this the player than can fire off a devastating magical attack (we’re thinking a storm of crows in the form of a tornado) upon the other player. Players can fight each other by punching and kicking but the damage done is only minimal. It is upon sacrificing the pig and obtaining the magic attack that players do massive amounts of damage.

Aesthetically we’re not really changing anything other than the theme. We still want it to be a 2D brawler with 3D assets. We also want to keep the lighthearted feel. Will (the other artist on our team) is going to do the modeling and I am going to hand paint all the textures.

November 17 – 21

This week ushered in the beginning of a new prototype. That means a new team, new parameters for the prototype, and a new game engine to work with. This time around we got to pick our team members and we were given the freedom to make whatever kind of game we wanted. We will be using the Unreal 4 Engine to create the game.

Our team has decided on a two-player brawler game where the player moves vertically on screen to gain a higher advantage so that he/she can do a more devastating attack. Right now we are calling it Icarus and the prototype level will take place in the underworld. The game will have a 2D view but everything will be built in 3D and the visuals will be lighthearted and cartoony. I drew out concept of one of the fighters and his weapon.

November 10 – 14

It’s back to work this week! Our prototype has come a long way and is now completed. We pitched the game to students and faculty, and the game was well received. Unfortunately, there are many improvements that still need to be made, particularly on the design and UI side, but for a prototype it’s not too bad. Impressively though, our programmers were able to crunch big time this week and pump out a game that they basically had to write there own program language for. We weren’t sure we were going to be able to accomplish our idea (we had even discussed going a different route because of the difficulties in getting the game to work) but miraculously we did it.

You can check out video of the prototype here.

Here are the Rockstar sprites I created this week:

Bob, Corrinne, and Roger Caricatures.

Left-right: Leo (Engineer); Spencer (Artist); Paul (Producer); Ahnoop (Tech Artist); “Bug” (Engineer); Shevaz (Engineer).