The final layout for the main area, when it has all the decorations.Testing the UI – The flowers are definitely too difficult to see like thisI have added an area in for the beefly and would like to add more if I have time, but will prioritize finishing what I have first. I think that polishing the levels will be better experience than adding more, as mentioned in the webinar.
Moving ants: I have spent many hours trying to get the ants to move. My original plan was to have them walk along branches etc, and then use the same sort of script to make water drop hazards. However, I haven’t managed to get this working yet and may not have time.
(Unity3d Tips 2017)Trying to get the ants to move left and right. I think I may need to look into loops.
Playtesting (With family) They really wanted the insects to say thank you when you deliver the flower. They thought the the hoverfly in the main area was the one they needed to deliver to. They thought the ladybird actually wanted an aphid, not a flower. The music stops for a while after finishing a loop. They weren’t aware of the health. Friendly ant was good. Better direction needed on grass area. Something specific so they can tell which insect needs the item delivering? Enjoyed going behind the moss layer.
For this week’s challenge, create a plan for how to finish and publish your game.
Prioritise all remaining features, content and bugs – ruthlessly cut all but the most important. My priorities are: Make speech bubbles for all of the insects. Make a menu. Make a logo. Make a title screen. Ensure the visibility of the platforms is improved. Finish attaching sounds. Finish drawing the effects that will be layered.
Add a final layer of polish and balancing. If there is time, I would like to use some lighting in the different areas. I would also like to add more places to explore, and use playtesting to see if people can find all the insects without too much difficulty.
Get your game to a shippable state. This should be complete once the priority tasks are done
Practise making a build. This one I have done before, as I have been uploading to Itch.io in order to receive feedback.
Playtesting
Player 1 comments: They thought the bee was cute, and liked the real footage for backgrounds. They had some problems jumping from certain surfaces. They didn’t understand the goal. They didn’t know which one was the hoverfly. They couldn’t tell well which were platforms they could traverse and which were the background in the level layout.
The level platforms are maybe too difficult for players to distinguish easily as they are.
Do I want the bee to look very separate/overlaid from the video, or try to merge them together (perhaps using lighting) more?
My second player recorded a video for me, which was a fantastic idea that I will definitely use in the future. It can be found here: https://vimeo.com/695036276 (Masters 2022) Player 2 comments: They liked the unique aesthetic. They wanted to fly. They were happy they managed to give the ladybird a cube. They also didn’t know which was the hoverfly. I asked if they thought it was clear where the platforms are as the other feedback said it could be more defined, but they thought it was alright. This may have been because they were playing on a large screen.
My observations from watching their video: Not sure if they understood the health, since it went down so fast when they hit the test bee at the start. Platforms that were small and round seemed to be more likely to be jumped on than longer ones. The path down wasn’t noticed until the end. They got the ladybird easily, maybe that is a good place to put an ‘introductory insect’? They couldn’t get back up the moss area, and jumped over the rocks in waterfall area.
I should have prepared a questionnaire beforehand but I got exited that I had something to show people. When the insects all have their speech bubbles ready I will send it out again and use the Schell Guide (Patton 2017) to create a Google form for feedback.
Through recording the videos for the backgrounds I have audio of my own for the Stream area, river, and general forest sounds.
Sound Editing
Editing a track by trimming all the quiet parts out of the recording to make it sound more like noisy little ant feet.
For trimming and other adjustments I have been using AudioMass (AudioMass 2019). This is a quick way to cut clips to size and change their speed. Although I don’t understand many of the other editing options available yet, through experimenting I have discovered that reducing noise takes away some of the harshness from the bee buzzing sounds.
(Takano 2022)Got the sound to fall off, so that I can now have it fade the further from the source the player moves. Managed to connect the sounds up to the separate rooms. Had to enable/disable them as they would play on awake otherwise, or not play at all.
Sounds can be “diegetic”, meaning they emanate from within the game world, or non- diegetic, meaning they are a part of the storytelling process. For example, diegetic sounds include the avatar’s footsteps on floorboards as they walk down a corridor and dialogue between non-player characters in a tavern. Non-diegetic sounds include the game’s musical score and any voice-over from an unseen narrator. The player can hear these sounds, but the characters in the game cannot. Musicality can be used throughout the sound design process. For example, to make a successful combo of actions feel rewarding, completing each part of the combo can trigger the next note in a rising musical scale. Conversely, negative actions often go down in pitch or use a sad, minor scale. (Lobb 2022)
TAKANO, Masanori. 2022. ‘How to Change the Sound Volume according to Distance in Unity – STYLY’. styly.cc [online]. Available at: https://styly.cc/tips/unity_3dsound/ [accessed 7 Apr 2022].
Success at last, a win screen connected to the win condition!
Went through lots of documentation on the different types of nodes, and how lists work (Unity Technologies 2020b). I managed to pin down the get active self (Elias 2021), but couldn’t work out how to have more than one variable for the trigger. Although I tried tags, lists and adding, eventually realised I was doing the lists wrong. This version works, with the win screen only appearing after all three flowers have been delivered.
Playtesting When facilitating an in-person playtest (for example at a games expo), try not to tell users how to play the game, or help them as soon as they get stuck; see if they can figure it out for themselves first. Remember you won’t be there to help players when your game launches for real. Make a note of what players find confusing, and places they get stuck or get bored. What triggers them to finally put the controller down and wander off? Ideally players will be so gripped they won’t want to let anyone else have a go! There are many methods you can use for gathering user responses. Rather than just asking players “what did you think?” you can provide a detailed questionnaire asking more detailed questions about the game’s controls, difficulty, instructions or tutorial, for example. You can ask questions like “Did you find the game hard, easy or just right? What was the most fun? What didn’t you like? Did you know what you were supposed to do? Where did you get stuck?” For more empirical evidence, you can add analytics to your game, letting you know how many players reached each part of the game, what actions they performed, and so on. (Lobb 2022)
User Interfaces Following the advice from a user interface design article “Look at your references, look at other games that have done something you’re trying to do” (Nelson 2021), I looked at other games to see how they create dialogue boxes.
Post processing I got post processing set up and attached to the cameras with this tutorial (C. James 2020). Now I should be able to alter the overall colours, which will hopefully make the backgrounds more readable.
Adjusting the colours and testing lighter lines so the player will know where to walk. Also got parts of the moss to be on different layers so the player can walk behind.
Discovered that I can edit the film colour within Unity using the post processing, which is much easier than me trying to find programs/edit in other software as I can see how it works while the game is running, and easily change each area.
I considered greying out the buttercups when the player loses health, but it doesn’t work well. The grey is difficult to see. As for positioning, “You get an idea of what to do by looking at games in the same genre,” Coates says. “If you have something like a first-person shooter for example, it’s established that health will be on the bottom of the screen. The reason for that is that loads of other games have done it. That’s literally it — that’s what people expect” (Nelson 2021). In adventure games the health is often in the top left corner, I could have the buttercups creep round top left of screen as the health bar, and make it look like the petals have dropped off each time the player hits a hazard?
Got a timer to work, so I now have a fake loading screen for when the player moves to another area.Green based colour palettes from Cooler (Cooler.co n.d.)
I been hesitating with the flowers, so I think more research will help me decide which I should include, and which insects they will be for. Once this is done, I should be able to progress better.
FLOWERS Wood anemone – “Hoverflies are thought to favour this plant and to be significant in pollinating the species” (Woodland Trust 2022).
Greater Stitchwort – “Greater stitchwort is beneficial to many flying insects, including bees and butterflies (like this orange-tip), which are in search of nectar during the spring. It is also the food plant of several moths” (Woodland Trust 2021).
Primrose – “The flowers provide a nectar source for pollinators like brimstone and small tortoiseshell butterflies” (Woodland Trust 2022). Primrose – “The dark-edged bee-fly’s long, straw-like tongue (called a proboscis) is the perfect length to reach the base of certain flowers, such as primroses. It can also extend its mouthparts to reach into flowers” (Askham and Hendry 2022).
Zebra Spider – “The Zebra spider is a common jumping spider that stalks and leaps on its prey – it can jump up to 10cm, over 14 times its own body length!” (The Wildlife Trusts 2022). Would this possibly be a good hazard?
Creeping Buttercup – “Creeping buttercup is pollinated by short-tongued bees attracted by the nectar and pollen. They are able to reach the food with their tongue because the flower is open with a flat shape” (The Wildlife Trusts 2022).
Aphids – Aphids like any flower buds, so could be a hint on the one to give the ladybird (The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds 2022).
Paths
To make the paths stand out, I have tried blending extra green.New lines to overlay the video.
Win Condition I realized it was setting off the win condition as soon as the blue flower was submitted, which I had missed before, so the win screen wasn’t actually working. After some experimenting with nodes and searching around I found a comment about counting tagged objects (Tyler 2 2010). I figured maybe tallying up the icons would work better than checking if they are active. For this to work I had to set a ‘once’ node so the player couldn’t constantly keep submitting the same flower.
To-do Fix health mechanic Make icon for health Fix loading screen/area transitions Update video colours Attach hazards to health Make bugs move over area/spawn Make game win condition Start looking for sounds Design UI
Health set-up I have been following the Health and UI tutorials from the Udemy course (Code Monkey 2021) to make the health show up in the UI. It will need adjusting to be more appropriate for my level if possible. It took 3-4 hours, but I finally discovered that the assembly is actually under project settings – visual scripting, and by adding the sprite type here this added the options I needed to swap the sprites on the UI.
I have connected the damage to the collision on hazards from the platformer tutorial, and now need to make it so that when the player runs out of health they teleport back to the middle/start of the level. This should connect to ‘onplayerhit’.
Feedback
To solve the issue of players not being able to get back once they jump down the waterfall, I added a bug that will make something appear to help the player cross.
Got help on the server about making my unity build smaller. It’s best to send an updated build to make sure the file size is good.
Prefab – make object into prefab so that when edited it edits all instances of that object at the same time
Feedback from Matty – Like a weird art instillation! Put sounds on the insects that fade depending on distance, and flip the sprites occasionally, as well as improving the collision. Make the bee double jump? Sort out the background moving, and the difference between the background and the cartoon like characters. How will the player know what to do – for example, in Tunic, there is a little guide book/ a screen at the start – for me this could be pointers from bugs (which is what I was intending), or something the player can see through exploring. Mind the small gaps/collision on the level!
Please choose a game you felt had interesting level design, and analyse it in relation to the following criteria:
Xenoblade Chronicles
Are levels open and nonlinear, or tightly controlled and scripted? The levels are controlled in that certain things will happen in certain places, but they are very open and allow for plenty of exploring.
How often do levels require back-tracking or revisiting areas?
How is the game narrative communicated through the level design and environment art? The two main areas are often visible to the player, to show the contrast and differences.
How does the level design control the player’s line of sight and guide them through the environment?
Are there good examples of well-placed hazards, enemies and obstacles?
Are there examples of well placed collectables, rewards or secrets? The are many hidden areas and treasures to find. Some are literal, such as chests with new items in, others might be an interesting piece of scenery.
Are there any examples of interesting missions, quests, puzzles or tasks the player is asked to perform? There are typical gathering quests requiring the player to fight monsters or pick up items. Navigating theough the environemtn is a bit like a puzzle itself.
How is difficulty progression handled, for example does the game get harder as it goes? The areas feature enemies of all levels right from the start, so it is up to the player to work out who they want to take on in a fight!
Do players lose progress for failure, and are there checkpoints within levels?
(Lobb 2022)
You can take away the player’s items and abilities, change the size, shape or movement of the player, force the player or camera to move automatically, or apply a time limit, for example.
It may be best to avoid quizzes, and other challenges that rely on information that is not contained within the game itself (Lobb 2022).
Thoughts: It would be good to have the bee be able to fly in sunny areas. This would provide another mechanic, although I would have to explain this through the gameplay somehow and ensure the areas would be very well defined, to prevent players reaching places they shouldn’t.
I have been working on the video files, which seem to lose all their quality when converted online. I have downloaded a converter app to combat this, but it is unable to remove the audio. Although I can disable this in Unity, I think it may be causing an error to appear.
I have also been adjusting the body functions on the cinemachine to adjust the speed and soft areas of the camera. It can pan over very fast, but the player will still see the gaps between the areas while it does so.
My plan was to make a teleport to go between the areas so that the camera won’t pan over the corners. This still didn’t work, so I am testing a UI to make the screen black during the movement.
While looking for a method to teleport the player, I found a post explaining ways to move objects that should be useful. I am finding now that I can understand how parts of written scripts are put together, to help me create visual ones (Alex 2019).
While working out how quickly move the bee between areas, I found a thread on loading into a specific position (Unity Technologies 2018). This gave me the idea to teleport the bee to a game object so that I can easily control where it will go to in each area.
Make sure that player can see the insect on the left who helps you get out from the bottom of the waterfall.
I decided to go through the making health tutorial on Udemy, as if players hit a hazard and have to backtrack every time to far corners of the level it might get annoying. If they have a certain amount of health and then respawn when it hits zero, they get more chances to explore before the penalty (returning to the centre).
The health tutorial worked, so I now have to work out how to connect this to the canvas and my previous system from the 2D platformer tutorial for when you hit a hazard.
I have drawn a hoverfly, ladybird and ant – I will need to look up how sprite sheets are made and spliced to implement them.
In order to keep track of everything, I am breaking up each piece of work I need into smaller tasks. When I record how many hours I have been working, I note down what I spent that time on so that in future I will be able to estimate better. This is also helping everything feel a bit more manageable, as it can seem a bit overwhelming having a list of huge tasks! I was also saved by my weekly backup when I accidentally deleted the entire character folder.
I had to research into how creatures with 6 legs walk. I found “The ants (Formica polyctena) walk using an “alternating tripod” system: the front and back legs of one side and the middle leg of the other side move together during one step (Society for Experimental Biology 2014). This helped me sort the layers and movements that are needed for the ants legs to animate, and can be applied to other 6 legged insects too.
Following the sprite tutorial (Unity Technologies 2020), I have a small selection of insects in engine that can either walk or fly.
For this week’s warm-up activity, we analyse how animation is used in our favourite games. Please choose a game you feel has impactful animation, and analyse it in relation to the following criteria: Journey
Methods of animation used (2D bones, 3D motion capture etc). 3D animation – Character with rig.
How character animation responds to gameplay. The characters clothes flow in the wind, and the scarf trails behind the player, following their movement. At certain points, the character walk animation will change to add impact.
How animations transition between different states. The character can walk, slightly climb ledges, jump and make a symbol appear. There are smooth transitions between the different states, for example landing with your knees bent and staggering forward slightly after climbing over a ledge.
How the environment is brought to life. There are sometimes big beasts floating, sand and snow particles in the air, little twirling glowing pieces of scarf. Although the game mostly features static buildings, the effects bring movement to the areas.
Animation within the user interface. The isn’t much of a user interface, but there are 2D sections of animated story throughout the game.
Examples of linear animation within the game.
Examples of dynamic animation and particle fx within the game. The sand and snow in the environment. Glowing particles that represent a refill of energy, or something to be interacted with.
Continuing to use the CodeMonkey Udemy course as reference (Code Monkey 2021). I got the UI to work so that it appears when you give the item. This was changed by linking up the give to the flower UI part, instead of having a game over screen as in the tutorial. Now I need to make a list of some sort so that when you give a certain amount, the win condition is triggered.
Active self get appears to be the node for discovering whether any objects are active, I may be using a lot of this.
The tutorial has a screen show upon the player being defeated, which can then be dispelled to a new game through the player pressing the jump button. I don’t want my player to ever be dead, just to have their progress reset slightly, so I will need to adapt this (Code Monkey 2021).Got the flowers to be individual pick ups, but the bee will still reset the entire level if you hit it, so this is next task to fix – 05/03
I need to find out how lists or loops work, so that I can make it so not every flower will activate. I have found the NotSlot site good for these explanations (NotSlot 2021).
After hours looking at lists, colections and how to add multiple nodes, I decided to try just continuing them individually and it worked!
As I now have enough working to possibly see what other people think, I would like to upload it to Itch.io, which I have never done before (Unity Technologies 2021e).
In doing this I discovered that the video won’t work on web builds, but found a potential solution – the video itself needs to be a Webm file, and made into vp8 in Unity. However doing this through an online converter makes it lose a lot of the quality, so I need to look into better way of converting (Unity Technologies 2021f).
The video files in the level also come up with this error:
(Unity Technologies 2021g)(Lobb 2022)Rigged the bee, tried to test the layers out and work out where the bones should go. The legs do work all as one bone/layer, which should simplify it a bit. The body needs to be separated into segments though, and I have to work out how to move the back wing, possibly by also detaching it.The improved rig, with a separate bone for each leg and wing.
Hollow knight animation – It’s simple, but I had never considered how it merges hand drawn and particle effects (Video Game Animation Study 2019). The way the character reacts to different surfaces being animated with particles in particular was something that stood out, and made the character work within the environment.
A great tutorial to learn how to use photoshops layers to create animations (Kaniuga 2018).
I decided to re-do the bee jump, as after watching the video I realised I had no squash at the start. I should also make the antenna drag behind more, to give a better sense of the direction moved. Another problem to solve is: how do I get the jump to only play once? (Becker 2017)
There is much more to animate than just the characters. Although their movement is currently my priority, I must bear in mind time needed to create vfx to make the environment/interactions (Riot Games 2018).
Week 7 challenge (WordPress won’t let me upload video so just the text) I regret picking something with so many legs, haha! However, here is my bee. I think the first recording, the idle animation, is alright-ish, but I’m still working on the walk and need to make the jump not replay while you’re in the air. This is all done with Unity’s built in rigging and animation. I’m also trying to work out how to flip the image, which isn’t a sprite so it’s proving a bit more difficult than expected.
I found a tutorial that helped me to get the sprite to flip depending on the direction faced (Fauzi 2020), but it also scales the bee up. I think this is due to the transform node, so I will check how this relates to the scale of the bee.
Managed to make a trigger for the player to enter and exit to have the text pop up
After mentioning it on canvas, Anouk responded and helped me to stop the bee repeating the jump by explaining the tick boxes in the inspector. I must remember to keep updating there, as it’s easy to forget many people are willing to help, as well as offering any assistance I can in return!
I really wanted to get Github source control set up, as in case I mess up any of the scripting I will need a back up. It was telling me file sizes were too large, when I realized I could upload them bit by bit. This still didn’t work as some individual files were too large, meaning I had to start again. (Philipp 2015)
I am struggling with the 2.5D. The tutorials are all for 2D or 3D, and I’m not good enough to adapt them. Perhaps I just don’t understand enough, yet?
It was a tough decision, but after a lot of thought I decided to go with 2D so that I can follow the tutorials better. This should also help me work out how I want to film the backgrounds for the Ievels, instead of taking lots of shots from different angles. I used this as an opportunity to completely restart my game, and set up Github from the very beginning too. I followed a tutorial (Philipp 2015), however it was still coming up with errors and not letting me publish to the main branch even with a brand new, empty file. I have opted to create weekly backups instead, as it is taking too much of my time trying to sort Github out.
I should write a list of definite things I need to learn so I can be more focused as I go forward.
Side view shots will work better?
Sunken cost fallacy – If I start the level over anew, it feels like I will have wasted all this time and the scripting that I have. Saw this mentioned by the developer of A Short Hike (Robinson-Yu 2020).
My new plan: Make it one huge square level and use a celeste style camera system, with triggers for separate areas. Choose which flower to take to which bug right from the start. Talk to inhabitants for hints about the flowers. Make a counter of some sort for bugs invited?
This took me a very long time to work out, but eventually I realised the cinemachine nodes weren’t installed properly and discovered they had to be added in the project settings – This took about 3 hours (Megahertzs 2020).The menu to add nodes within the visual scripting.
If I have time, I would like to make the bee have fuzz move on its body, but to do this I believe I would have to make two drawings. (Make two bodies, and swap them in/out on different frames.) This could be looked at later on in the project for polish if I have time.
Bee testing 01/03 I went through these tutorials, and intend to alter them to respawn bee at beginning of segments of the levels if possible (Code Monkey 2021).
(Buff-Tailed Bumblebee (Bombus Terrestris) — ID Guide – n.d.)(Unity Technologies 2021d)Trying to make it so the sprite will appear on the player when they walk in the trigger for the box, following the idea from the comments above.
(Unity Technologies 2012) – for having writing come up before picking up item
Canvas size = 1280 x 720
These videos are reference for how a bumblebee walks/flies. Animating this should be an interesting challenge! (The RubieVerse 2021).
(BBC Earth 2012)
My observations: The legs move alternately – so will need a front and back sprite set. 1 and 3 could be same layer, unless I could distort a whole row? Wings – When flying, they go around in a loop. As this may be difficult to animate, I could ‘cheat’ and just have the wings vibrate to mimic flying?
48 minutes in – stylistics dissolve, merging the two different areas together – spaced out but experienced over time. Could I apply this to the areas in my game? I really really enjoy discovering how people see/use a space, so this was a great watch! (Bellard 2019)Using a debug log tells you what you’ve collided with. Useful to check what is/isn’t working.Would it be better if this was attached to the player? (Code Monkey 2021) I may need to look into lists so I can make some flowers work and others not.
Firstly, what is the most visually interesting game you have seen or played?
I’ve picked two games, since they are both interesting in different ways. Firstly, The Last Guardian, because of how the environment is often used to frame the big animal that you explore with. The colour palette is mostly greens and greys, so the bright orange on the main characters robe stands out. There are many areas where the light falls onto the feathers of the creature and they flutter in the breeze, or the light hits its eyes in a dark corridor and they reflect back. Secondly, Child of Light. The watercolour backgrounds make the game look like a storybook, and the character models are a similar style. The majority of the characters are in 3D, with the main one having an effect on her hair so that it floats around.
Secondly, please find a game that makes a big impact while using a simple or minimalist art style.
Baba is You The incredibly simple and quite cute style really helps emphasize the puzzles. Having slight movement on the sprites puts some energy into the scenes, and the colours help players to easily distinguish the different objects/words that can be interacted with (Not sure if this still applies to those with impaired vision though?)
My mood board for the artstyle so far. This will be expanded upon as I go along.
For character design ‘It is recommended to have between two to five colours per character design; many more aim to have between five to nine colours per character. That usually happens when the character is recognisable by shape and prolonged exposure, normally indicated in the clothes, or the entire character skin is swappable’ (Dlapa 2022).
If the feel of the game as mentioned in narrative is relaxed and floaty, I should try to make all the movement fit this criteria too?
Could use this so the player can play as a variety of different bugs? (Megahertzs 2020)
Thinking about the design – would I just be drawing bugs, in a similar way to my illustrations? Should it be more fantasy, should they have clothes/use items? I began researching what emerges in spring, and if there are any myths about spring, in order to start thinking about the main character. I was thinking about something along the same lines as flower, perhaps a butterfly that can drift around but disperses into a breeze if it touches anything. There are myths about hares – but a hare character would be too big to fit into my insect world.
My current character concepts:
“It is also around the time of lunar new year Red envelopes, known as “hong bao” in Mandarin, are stuffed with crisp bank notes and given by elders to young children as gifts. Many people wear red or hang up red and gold decorations — these are colours that traditionally signify good fortune” (Suliman 2022). Maybe the main character is giving nectar as gifts? What is their motivation for this. Has someone asked them to?
So far I can’t get this to work, but I do now have a cinemachine camera following the player (Megahertzs 2020).
(Smart Penguins 2020)
I tried this but it didn’t work – look up other methods for picking up items (Smart Penguins 2020b).Tried adapting the tutorial from Udemy to make the character not be able to double jump in 3d, but couldn’t get it to work.
Instead of using rigidbody 2D I swapped to 3D, but this meant several connections didn’t work. I couldn’t use 2D as then the z axis wouldn’t be accounted for (and I wanted the player to be able to move back). Eventually I realized that since the cube was working in 3D, I could parent the plane to it.
Attempting to create a Github for the project results in this message. I will note down to look into LFS in the future.My prototype so far.
Although I am till working on the prototype, I sort of sorted jumping and I’ve been attempting Cinemachine to move the camera around between the different areas.
Mechanics should match the theme, and theme should play into the mechanics – is sokoban really the right format to portray exploring the undergrowth and finding insects? What is the player fantasy? – world fantasy or person fantasy? (Extra Credits 2016).
Week 4: Spark Forum
Share your thoughts on a game that tells a story well – what makes it work?
Think about whether the story (not the gameplay) belongs to a particular genre. Perhaps it is obviously inspired by another piece of media, such as a movie or book. Nier – Clearly a fantasy story.
Explain how much influence the player has over the story, and whether their decisions can change the narrative. At a few points in the story the player is given a choice. This changes which ending you receive, but the game makes sure to let you know you should play through again, as not everything is as it seems.
Can you detail what storytelling methods the game uses, such as cut-scenes, dialogue, gameplay or level design? No need to spoil the endings though! We’re more interested in the techniques used, and how they make the player feel, than the plot itself. The game makes it seem like it has finished about halfway through. After ‘fully’ finishing it, you then restart from that halfway point and are encouraged to play through again, but this time with a new perspective. Most of the story is told through cutscenes or snippets said by characters/shown in the loading screens.
Challenge Brief
Use the following eight criteria to formulate a narrative design document for your indie game prototype. If your game idea is more abstract, perhaps not all categories will apply. However, remember how powerful a force a story can be in engaging players.
1. Setting
What kind of world does the game take place in? Consider the time and place, what kind of society this is, and what different cultures reside there.Also think about the geography and geology, as well as what plants and animal life exist. What are the rules of this universe? For example, is this a place close to mundane reality, or somewhere more magical and fantastic? The game takes place in the real world. As photographs/film will be used for the backgrounds, parts of the environment will be very realistic! The insects will also be based off British species, however, the main character needs to change form for the puzzles to work (and to let the player experiment with different insects), so this will probably be some kind of fantasy creature or abstract idea, such as the wind in Flower.
2. Characters
Who are the main protagonists and antagonists in this world? Do they follow or contradict established archetypes, such as the hero, the mentor, the villain, the monster or the princess? What do the characters want that motivates them to take actions within the story? Who or what is the ‘mascot’ that features prominently in the game’s marketing?(We explore the visual design of these characters next week.) The main character is to be decided, but may be more of an abstract concept. The characters in the world are all preparing for spring, and as such are interested in securing their habitat and emerging from hibernation/finding food.
3. Plot
What happens in the story? Does the plot follow an established structure such as the hero’s journey, or murder mystery? If so, how do the different elements of those structures translate to gameplay? What conflicts drive events forward? How can the overarching plot be broken down into smaller gameplay segments? How does the plot resolve – does the hero save the day, or is life never that simple? The plot entails spring arriving. To break this down and show progression through the game, the character will progress through different screens. The ‘plot’ will be resolved when every screen has all of it’s inhabitants awake.
4. Mood
How should the player be feeling while they play through the game and experience the story? Perhaps they should be scared, excited, awed, relaxed or amused at different points. How do you establish these moods? Is the gameplay in harmony with the story: how can you avoid ‘ludonarrative dissonance’? I should look this up! For the majority of the game the player should be relaxed. The game is supposed to encourage people to slow down and appreciate the arrival of spring through the insects emerging, and discover what tiny creatures there are to find. However, insects are often found in dark, tiny spaces, and are the main food source for each other as well as many other animals. Some trepidation as the player must go into dark areas without knowing who they might meet will hopefully contrast well with the light and airy sections.
5. Narrative Structure
At what point do we enter the story? For example, do we start from a position of stability, which is later disrupted, or do we jump straight into the action, and fill in the backstory later?Remember the power of mystery to keep the audience engaged. Does the game take place in one continuous flow of time, or does it jump around? Are there multiple protagonists or narrators? We start while it is very very quiet. The player gets to watch the world slowly and quietly unfold. The mystery could come from the main character – how they quietly flit around checking the insects. Who are they, and what will they do when their job is done? (Is there more than one of them?)
6. Storytelling Techniques
What methods are used to tell the story? For example, narration, illustrations, comic strips, cut-scenes, FMV (full motion video), dialogue, quests, audiologs, environmental storytelling and level design.Does the player have to do a lot of passive reading, watching or listening? What is the balance between story exposition and gameplay? The main storytelling will come from the environment and level design. Some of the characters may have dialogue, but it might also be interesting to see if the game could work with no words at all. Would this make it a more relaxing experience? Would the player understand what was going on?
7. Interactivity
How much agency does the player have in how the story unfolds? Are they just going along for the ride, or can their decisions change the course of events? What is the relationship between the main protagonist or avatar, and the player? Is the protagonist a silent blank-slate for the player to project themselves onto, or are they a well-defined character with desires and motivations? The protagonist is currently a silent blank slate. The focus is on the world changing and the other insects. I would like to ,make it so that depending on who the player decides to talk to, the sounds and other insects will change too, but I’m not sure I have the scope for this. (So if the player found the ants, as well as the caterpillars, at the end they might get purple hairstreaks flying around? Or if they wake up the spider, there are less flies/something else emerges.
8. Theme
Is there an overall theme or meaning to the game’s narrative? What is the player supposed to have learned by the end of it? The player is supposed to have learnt about some of the insects that emerge in spring. Maybe gain an appreciation for them?
From the Clive the Cat tutorial (Unity Technologies 2021c)
This is the kind of perspective I would like to aim for (UYNiko 2022). The real life miniature dioramas are also really interesting, and something I would like to try in the future.
Used for the simpler input commands for movement Has a good part about following the mouse cursor, could be good for things in the level to look like they’re watching you (NotSlot 2022).
Getting the 2.5d to work is proving difficult – although I have a sphere that can move having everything at an angle – as from this tutorial (NotSlot 2019) the angle of the floor isn’t quite how I wanted it to be. Perhaps I am better working in 2D? More like Chicory, with screens?
It took about 5 1/2 hours, but I have a scene set up with video. Collision is still not working, but I have figured out the set up slightly better. I need to experiment with the angles – vid said 45.
Changed to front/back instead of up/down, so that the sprite will get smaller going into the distance the grey blocks can be not renered so they are transparent, which will hopefully let it look like you are walking on the photo
My priority should be getting the footage for the levels, so that i can plan the moves the player will need. I think I will need a jump/climb. Make a list of all the features I would like to implement.
(Stewart 2021)
For falling off edges and restarting the scene and collisions (Smart Penguins 2021).
Week 3 Challenge Activity I don’t have much of a prototype yet, but I do have a player controlled cube and a (very shakily filmed by me) video material. There’s also some invisible collision near the end. I’m using Unity’s built in visual scripting tutorial (Unity Technologies 2021b) and hopefully beginning to get the hang of it so might be able to make better progress soon! Next up is creating triggers and swapping cubes(characters) so I can get started creating some puzzles. I have also had a look at the Clive the cat tutorial (Unity Technologies 2021c).
Screenshot to remind myself of the different types.
Object variable – only affects the object Graph variable – affects all using the graph Scene variable – affects all in the scene
Screenshot to remind myself.
Kim states that puzzles have three elements of fun: Novelty: Many puzzles rely on a certain specific insight to solve them, and after the player has gained that insight, finding the puzzle’s solution is rather simple. A large part of the fun of solving a puzzle is that flash of insight, the joy of creating a new solution. If a puzzle lacks novelty, the player will often already have the insight required to solve it before even starting the puzzle, and thus that element of the puzzle’s fun is lost. Appropriate difficulty: Just as games must seek to give the player an adequate challenge, puzzles must also be matched to the player’s skill, experience, and type of creativity. Each player approaching a puzzle has a unique level of experience with puzzles of that type and a certain level of frustration that she is willing to experience before giving up. Some of the best puzzles in this regard have both an adequate solution that is of medium difficulty and an expert solution that requires advanced skill to discover. Another great strategy for puzzle design is to create a puzzle that appears to be simple although it is actually quite difficult. If the player perceives the puzzle to be simple, she’ll be less likely to give up. Trickiness: Many great puzzles cause the player to shift her perspective or thinking to solve them. However, even after having that perspective shift, the player should still feel that executing her plan to solve the puzzle requires skill and cunning. The puzzle-based stealth combat of Klei Entertainment’s Mark of the Ninja, in which the player must use insight to solve the puzzle of how to approach a room full of enemies and then, after she has a plan, must physically execute that plan with precision,3 exemplifies this characteristic. …and It Has a Right Answer Every puzzle needs to have a right answer, although many puzzles have several right answers. One of the key elements of a great puzzle is that after the player has found the right answer, it is clearly obvious to her that she is right. If the correctness of the answer isn’t easily evident, the puzzle can seem muddled and unsatisfying (Jeremy Gibson Bond 2020:160-161).
(Jeremy Gibson Bond 2020:161)(Jeremy Gibson Bond 2020:163)(Jeremy Gibson Bond 2020)
This one interested me because I often find boss fights to be very boring. This gives me a problem to work on – how can I create a boss puzzle that is interesting? That doesn’t require the player to wait then hit a certain spot or use combat, for example. If I was using insects, and coming out of hibernation, could it be about waking them up without attracting the attention of ‘boss’ insects?
A ‘boss’ for each area?
Things to look up – Wayfinding. Make a sprint timetable for weeks 3-4.
Scripting the player movement:
From following the tutorial. Could I remake this myself?
This worked perfectly, so now I can experiment with moving backgrounds once I get the character walking (Kunz n.d.).
I need to work out the mechanics – although its great to make the controller for a character which I will need either way, I think my scope is too big. Do I want to make a really tiny game/level, or do I want to make part of something I might be able to continue later? how different would the mechanics be if I did that?
Working through this tutorial to get a better idea of how visual scripting works (Unity Technologies 2021a)
Good for when i get to the narrative part (GDC 2017)(GDC 2017)(GDC 2017)
Sokoban games – pushing the block. Simple enough for me to do something similar, but add a twist to? I should write an list of all the things I will need to learn – swapping scene/player start location/menu/picking up item/respawning item/vfx/particles/etc.
I really like the effect of drawing over a video, as is often found on youtube songs, and thought this would be interesting as a visual for my game (As well as requiring less time to be spent drawing backgrounds, so I can focus more on the programming (Reol Official 2016).
Examine videos – camera shake, vignette? particle effects and coloured slides
Test sketches/ ideas on some of my photographs.
References:
GDC. 2017. “Storytelling Tools to Boost Your Indie Game’s Narrative and Gameplay.” YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fXE-E1hjKk [accessed 23 Feb 2022].
JEREMY GIBSON BOND. 2020. Introduction to Game Design, Prototyping, and Development. S.L.: Addison-Wesley.
Miranda 