Building up my level

Environment art and level design 


Before I started working on my prototype I knew it would be important that I planned out my game level roughly so I could understand the layout and style would work together. I started off by roughly sketching out a few levels so I could get a idea of the size, landscape layout and where I was going to place sprites and objects throughout the level. I preferred to do this traditionally instead of doing it digitally or blocking it out in unity as I feel my ideas are stronger when it draw in a style I am used to doing. Two of the examples I came up with can be seen below in the first image.

Once I had planned out a simple level layout I could base my final design on, I did some image research into the environment I had envisioned for my design and created a mood board for inspiration. After looking over the images I had found, I began to sketch out dangerous objects that Light could come across and need to avoid in the environment. The story behind the planet is that as all of the plants in the forest are dying due to the lack of light they are receiving and this has caused them to become poisoned, rotten, or widely out of control. Examples of these can be seen in the second image below. If Light touches one of these objects, it acts a as instant kill. As well as this, the landscape has warped and changed due to Light and Dark being out of balance which can be seen with the floating platforms of earth scattered around the level.

After sketching out my level and environment designs I felt motivated to continue my work as I started drawing out a rough but complete level design which would allow me to work out the different shades of grey I wanted to use for each object. To be honest I was really struggling to get down my design ideas and concepts that I had been thinking about for this level and I knew I had to get them done before I started doing my prototype so I knuckled down now that I felt motivated and got down a design. The finished image can be seen below. I decided to stick with basic colours for my level design and didn't include any shading as I wanted to keep it simple to match the character concepts I had come up with and to be honest I think it gives it a nice effect. I also made sure that I included a few different elements that Light would encounter during exploring the level, for example the small orbs and a example of the wild throned vines. Below the first image, Is a image and a video example of what the level will look like once the player has had their 10 seconds of memory time and the environment fades to black.

After completing my level design I thought it would be a good idea the analyse each part of it to convey clearly what the player is supposed to do in each section and what will happen if they do something wrong. This visual guide is something that I could include in my GDD is needed and is also something to help me plan out other level designs if I get to that stage. 

A piece of contextual studies

Creating signifiers in our game 

In one of our more recent contextual studies classes we learnt about the significance of signifiers in games and what they represent to the player which is a concept I wrote about in one of my earlier blog posts. We were then set a task to draw or create a sign that will exist in our game and then present our design to the rest of the class. This task got my thinking about the different objects and creatures that would be appearing in my game, how exactly were they going to make themselves apparent and show the player that they could be interacted with.

I decided to design the objects that my character was going to interact with the most throughout the game, the orbs of glowing light. They would be able to stand out to the player and show clearly that they are important to investigate as they are one of the few parts of the level that will be clearly visible in the darkness the entire time, due to their pale white glow. They will essentially help guide the player throughout the game as, if you follow the orbs, you are going to find the end of the level far more easily. Scattered throughout the level will be different types of orb and each type does a different thing. Small orbs act as a point system, large orbs are a power boost and cluster orbs are a checkpoint and rest point. The image below is a example of what the objects will look like in game and how large they are in comparison to Light.

Creating concept art for my game

Focusing on the main characters and objects


After creating a traditionally drawn Character development sheet for Light I decided it was time to move onto creating my final design digitally as concept art is important to include in the GDD that we will need to create and thus far I didn't really have anything to add into it so I knew it was time to get working on some character and environment designs.

I knew I wanted my sprite, when in game, to be idle, which means that they will have a quarter turn to them instead of facing dead on or completely to the side. Baring this in mind I started to draw out the character design that I liked the most for Light using Photoshop. I made sure that I stuck to the sketch I completed on the character sheet and only tweaked it a little to neaten up the design. Colour wise I knew that I wouldn't Light to be a pure white colour that I wanted it to remain simple so It could be changed in the future If necessary. I was thinking about adding shading in certain areas of the design to show emphases on the glow given off but I am not too sure about this element at the moment as I want the game to remain simplistic. The first image below is the finished result.

After completing this piece I knew it was important for me to design the main 'enemy' or antagonist of the game, Dark. As I was already on Photoshop I decided to stick with working digitally and started drawing out the new design. I really wanted to keep Dark and Light looking fairly similar as they were once a balanced team and are the same sort of entity so they wouldn't look too different appearance wise. I also wanted Dark to look fairly 'cute' as well, just with a angry personality as Dark is meant to represent someone who is frustrated, annoyed and lonely and not born malicious so I didn't want a 'evil' looking design. The finished design can be seen below.

 Below is the completed designs of the different glowing orbs that Light will come across in each level of my game. As there are different types of orb for Light to interact with, I needed to make sure I drew them out for sizing purposes and to make sure they did look vaguely different from each other. I made sure that they stuck to the simplistic colour scheme and design I am aiming for the overall game, shading is still a option but I am a little but dubious about adding that in. 

Looking at the beginning of scripting

Finding pieces of code or useful websites 


In this post I am simply listing websites that I will be using to hopefully help me understand coding and scripting in general before I look into more specific pieces of code.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/dn759441.aspx

http://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/modules/beginner/scripting


http://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/modules/beginner/2d

Thinking about gameplay and scripting

The mechanics of my game


As I start to begin my concept art and begin to work on producing my games prototype, I started to think about the part of the project that I am struggling with the most which is core mechanics that would be included in the game. These included, the type of game I am creating, what the core actions my main protagonist would complete and what scripting these would included.
Overall I am not too strong on the digital modelling as a whole and scripting, plus unity, are both completely new to me so they are brand new things that I have to learn.


After thinking my game concept through completely I decided that it is a Exploration and discovery game as Light has to wander through the dark and uncover the land in front of them, as well as collecting scattered orbs and saving lost creatures. I then thought it would be a good idea to break down my game bit by bit so I can focus on what I need to design for my GDD and script for my prototype.



Game breakdown


Levels - The levels will start off as fairly basically with only a few objects to avoid and collect, allowing the player to get comfortable with the gameplay and will progressively become more difficult, adding enemies for the player to fight and the levels getting longer, thus having more to try and remember.


Points - Points come in the from of orbs and are scattered around the darkened levels, softly giving out a warm glow. There will be a certain amount of points in the level, for example 10, and you will have to get more than 5 to be able to progress to the next level.


Bonus - There is one hidden bonus in each of the level as this is a cowering creature. When Light travels around the level, their will be an optional goal and that is to try and find the forest creature hidden in the darkness. Saving them isn't necessary but if you do choose to it will help bring the feel of hope across in the game.


After thinking about the key core parts of my game, mechanics wise and before I starting any scripting and coding, I roughly broke down my main actions throughout the game so I knew what I would be able to search for code wise.  


1. Walking - Light walks around the level via walking. I decided on this as I wanted Light's character to be portrayed as calming and I think having them running around would completely defeat the purpose of this. I believe that by adding in a pre set 2D character camera that this function should be included already but will just slide the image along the level. To make Light LOOK like they are walking, I would have to create a sprite and then add in new frames and scrip a walking sequence.


2. Jumping - To help Light discover their terrain and journey through the level they will have to be able to jump. Jumping will help the player get to higher levels and progress through the mystical forest. Light will also come across certain plants or objects that have to be avoided which can also be done by jumping. This is action is also something that I believe is available using the 2D character camera but would have to have more frames added to a sprite to make it look like they are jumping.


3. Absorbing - Light will come across different types of glowing orbs throughout the darkened level that they will have to either collect or interact with. They will be absorbed into the character and disappear, leaving whatever their effect is behind. This should be simple enough to do and shouldn't need a lot of coding.


4. Enemy interaction - When Light comes across an enemy in the level there will be different interactions that take place. For example, Light will only attack an enemy out of self defence so, when an enemy attacks Light by swiping at them, Light will be able to shoot out small beams of glow that, after 3 hits, will kill the enemy. But if the enemy hits YOU three times then Light will die and re spawn at the latest check point. Scripting this is going to be a little difficult but I should be able to work it out by looking at the level that my classes tutor, George, created.

Thinking about gameplay

Looking into 2D sprites 

After completing my design sheet of what my character, Light, was going to look like, I thought it would be a sensible idea to do a little image research into the type of design that two side scrollers usually go for in their characters. For a long time, 2D side scrollers were usually done in a '8 Bit' style, where everything is done via pixels and has a certain square and bold looks to it but this is something I am strongly trying to steer clear of as I want to do something far more fluid and soft to look at, not so blocky in art style.

I knew that if I wanted to do a 2D side scroller I would have to work with sprites which is the name given to in game objects such as your character, or enemies, or a item you may have to pick up, or even the background, they are all named as sprites. I also knew that with a 2D side scroller, the character sprites have different 'animations' to make them work, so for example they will have a few frames dedicated to the running animation and a few for the jump animation, all of these put together will build up the character mechanic and make them work properly. I then took some time to do a little image research to find different sprite sheets that show each 'picture frame' used in the animation process, the best example I found are the images below.

I was having a little trouble when it came to thinking about how I would have to position my character to make it look like they were different movements but after looking at these sprite sheets above, it has helped me see the certain frames that would be needed to complete different animated movements, Using these as a reference it will then be my job to start drawing out Light in different positions for what actions I want the character to complete, this will be the same with any enemies I add too. 

The design process

Concepts for Light

After completing my original rough sketches for my character Light, I started to get to work on a small character sheet that includes different elements I went through in my character design process. I started off by sketching out a new improved drawing of the original image I made using alchemy to make the design a lot crispier as I feel far more confident drawing on paper and also so I could try and add new elements to the design. 

Overall I have to say that this is my favourite design for light but I felt like it was important for me to explore other design options so I completed a few sketches below to show various examples of other possible designs that Light could have, these include the shape of the head and facial expressions.