Final Game Trailer

A sinister silent movie for my sinister game!

Final board game

Pretty happy with how this came out, I feel I did a pretty nice job.

Progress on Level for 3d

I have started set dressing, but before I started, I took some wicked pictures of my level, take a look.

Blackwood Manor: Final Print and Play!

After quite a few weeks I have finished my print and play. The following link is a pdf including everything you need minus a d6 die

Click here to view and download

Blackwood Manor-A Creepy Exploration of the Macabre

I decided I would just decide on the game theme I would do ahead of time cause I already knew it was the idea I wanted to do no matter what.

1. It would be 3-4 players, each playing as young goth/macabre/witch girls similar to Wednesday Addams or Ashley from the Warioware series.

2. The object of the game is to collect things such as spiders, raven skulls, spell books, torture devices or even a cursed teddy bear. Each will give you points for discovering them when you land on a plaything tile. 

3. The goal of the game is to find the Phantom lover's Tome. There are also trap tiles on the board that will take away a random treasure or send you back a few spaces. To get into the Library to find the Tome, you must first find the Blackwood Key, which unlike the treasures, is found with in a trap. This adds a different dynamic because you have to fall into a trap to win the game. 

4.You lose the game when you lose you character's token possession, which is lost when you lose all collected playthings and your randomly assigned plaything which is given to you at the beginning of the game. 

5. You roll of a d6 die to move between 1 and 6 spaces, and can choose to land on a trap tile if you arrive at one before the end of your move. Trap tiles may also include more valuable playthings but you may pay a price in movement speed or direction, or you may not even find a plaything and lose an existing one. 

6. Game lasts about 20 minutes but can be quicker if a key is found early on and they get to the library without losing their playthings and character token. However, if you find it too early and try to enter the library, you risk falling into one too many traps and losing. 

7. Each plaything has a value and if a player has a higher value than the Tome finding player, they may win despite not finding the Tome. This is one tactic of winning without a key. 

• Playthings found on plaything tiles are worth between 10-15 points
• Trap Playthings are worth 30 points
• The Tome is worth 75 points

8. There are 4 characters with different visual appeals and non-modifying possessions.

    

• Autumn- Striped black and white tights, black dress, pale with black shoulder length black hair. Possession-Black Widow Broach
• Calliope- Red lace dress, Long white hair, and red headband. Dark eyes and red lipstick. Possession- Ruby Wand
• Layla- Floor length blue spider lace dress, White pigtails and white face with black lipstick (similar to below) Possession- Voodoo doll
  
• Ophelia- White rose petal dress, white tights with no shoes, blood at the corner of her mouth. Possession- Vial of Blood

Board Game brainstorm Ideas

I'm pretty sure I want to do something creepy, with a Wednesday Addams type of theme, but I have a bunch of ideas below worth going over.

1.     The Blackwood Manor: 3-4 players as young spooky goth girls similar to Wednesday Adams discovering the secrets and fun surprises of a haunted house.

2.     The Great Escape: navigate traps and villainous situations as you try to escape an evil circus

3.     Under the Full moon: 3-5 players hunt down a werewolf terrorizing a dynamic town

4.     9 circles: Players solve puzzles representing the 9 circles of dantes inferno. Sand timer to do little puzzles.

5.     Maya the board game: UV mapping is a puzzle, modeling is building challenge from cards, poly count is amount of cards in hand and can change with project cards.

6.     Haunting: dice heavy game where players are ghosts who are competing in trying to spook inhabitants of houses the fastest. Cards in hand decide effectiveness of haunting and dice is power of spook.

7.     Nuclear Family: a perfect white picket fence family all wants to kill each other while keeping up appearances.

8.     Slam Snack: Game takes place in a refrigerator where food fights to stay good. Card matching and strategy game.

9.     Fall of Titans: Fantasy card game taking down massive destructive titans. 1 player is titan and 2-4 players are factions working together.

10.  Wolves among sheep: Tiling game with sheep and wolf pieces. Goal of game is to empty hand by completing sheep with wolf heads.

11. Mr Candy has sharp teeth: 4 children are stuck in a carnival with a maniacal clown. Children make traps together to catch him using the rides and attractions. Carnival games are games of chance to win upgrades.

12.  Mr. Dino: after a long day at the plants, Mr Dino comes home and plays with his son. Short minigames to win fun cards. 5 fun cards wins the game.

13. Night of  the Punkins: the night after Halloween the Punkins come to life and create mischief. Game has spinner and plays like LIFE.

14. BvG: It’s all out war and the Boys are at war with the girls. Use waterballoons and catapults to destroy the other team while building up your club house.

15. Graveyard Shift. A corpse’s wallet is missing and  he doesn’t know which grave he left it in. Help a zombie find his wallet before he gets hungry again.

16. Hospital breakup: You are a newborn baby and you rally up the delivery room to escape the hospital and go out into the world. Situation cards and a board with multiple hospital wings.

17. Betcha can’t Do this: Players must play cards that match a given topic and if they do not have one, they must do something strange listed on the topic card

18. Land of ghouls: territory conquering game with vampires, werewolves, ghost girls and laboratory monsters.

19. WHO?: One player ate the last slice of cake, but who was it. Plays like clue mixed with majoras mask. Time limit large part of game

20.  Snerk: Use your hand to build a tower that will fall when it is not your teams turn by using certain pieces and tactics, as well as precarious challenges.

Aether Captains Clockwork Cabal

    We had to pick a game to pick apart and analyze, so I picked the solitaire print and play Aether Captains Clockwork Cabal. While we were encouraged to do a 2+ player game due to our upcoming board game creation project, I chose this because I felt it would be interesting experience, and I planned to talk about how you could play it with more than one player.

1. Goal of the game.  You have 4 cards to keep track of your health, knowledge, strength and the object that makes you win the game parts: the Antikytheria, which has 6 part that are hidden within the location and event deck. You also have a card marked with 60 points that represent the hours and every move you make counts as one hour. Your goal is to complete the six parts of the Antikytheria machine before time runs out. You lose the game if your health or time reaches zero before completing the Antikytheria.

2. Core Mechanic.   One of the core mechanics, is that whenever you move, unless there is a previously placed map tile in your direction, you must place a new map tile. There are 3 possible markings on a map tile. A gear signifies an event card must be drawn and acted upon. A key is essentially a warp tile, if you have already gotten the Amber market card, which is where you receive a key. There are also blank map tiles that simply act as bridging spaces. Another core mechanic is that every move you make takes away 1 hour of time.

3. Space of the game. Each map card has black arrows denoting where the player can go. As your map grows, so does the space of the game, but when all cards have been placed, the space stops growing. It is a 2 dimensional game, that follows a 1 dimensional path. This sounds confusing but is really simple: You can move in the X and Y axis, but only when you have a card that tells you that you can, making your path linear. You essentially make a single hallway like a very linear video game. Each map card is one entire space, meaning wherever you are in it doesn't matter, the entire card is a 1 dimensional point, made into a rectangle. 

4. Objects, attributes and states. Your game objects are the map cards, your attribute cards, and the Antikytheria. Your player does not change states, unless you have found the map, which adds 2 additional movement speed; but the map isn't guaranteed to be found in a game. Your Strength and knowledge are the most affected during the game, as they decrease and increase depending on the event card drawn. The map is both static and dynamic; in its state. It is built as you go on, and usually stays the same layout. However, there are multiple cards which make you rearrange the placement of the map, while keeping its original layout. 

Your player has 3 attributes which are kept track on your player cards. Your strength and knowledge is allowed to go down to 1, because many cards can bring one or the other back up, but one condition of winning the game, is that your have not lost all your health, so health cannot go below 1.  

5. Operative Actions. The actions a player can take of their own choice are pretty limited, but that is only because most of the actions are started by event cards. Your options in movement are to move to a new tile, or move to existing tile (this is also considered the same as moving to a key tile when you possess the key.) 

6. Resultant Actions. Most event cards affect your strength, knowledge or health, and one in particular, gives you a choice between two outcomes. The Cabal Attack card allows you to either subtract 1 hour of time and move to an adjacent tile, or to roll a d12 die to see if you can beat them or not, risking your precious knowledge points on the outcome of a die. This card has different gravity or ease of countering when your stats are higher up at 12, versus when they end up in the 2 range. All of the event cards with the pieces of the Antikytheria require you  sacrifice time, knowledge, or strength as a means to get them. I found myself being more and more strategic as the game went on, taking longer to decide whether or not to attack or flee. When I ended up winning the game, I was very close to losing and was very low in stats, but I still pulled through, so my strategy worked it seems. 

7. Notes on Rules. Because the game is a solitaire game, the rules are pretty straight forward and easy to follow. It is games like this that if you cheat, you are literally only cheating yourself, and a great deal of fun in this game is following the exact rules to see if you win.

8. Learned skills. While playing this, I think it can be a learning experience. The event cards are very strategy based, so weighing your options becomes a big part of winning the game. You learn to pay attention to your time first of all, and your health, and to use your strength and knowledge in tandem to make up for each other. One tactic that I learned in this game, was when I came across a card that allowed me to look at the top 3 action cards at the expense of 1 hour of time, and to rearrange them to your liking on top of the deck. I put a card that reduced my knowledge (which at the time was at its maximum) on top of the deck, and made the second card under it a card that swapped my strength (which was only at 2) and knowledge, so at the end of my second turn, both my strength and knowledge were close to eachother, and my more important strength attribute was better so when I came to a fight and won, my knowledge went up to 3 and beyond as rewards.

9. Chance. The is a good amount of chance in this game, due to using a die to decide the power of enemy attacks and comparing them to your own. Also the randomness of the map and event cards when you draw them. But with most of the event cards, you have a choice, and the ones that you do not, have more of a positive side to them than the negative that they cause. You cannot predict what the dice may say, but you can prepare by being strategic.

10. How I could make it 2 player. A simple way to make it two player, would be to have two games going at the same time, with 1 time card, but each has their own health, strength , knowledge and Antikytheria. Because action cards like the pieces of the Antikytheria and the Amber market are placed on the board when drawn, players could go to them to get the piece if they were not the ones who drew it.

Print n Play board games

 On wednesday, a group of GAD students including me met up in the library to play some print and play games. I played 3, including the one I found and printed.

1. They Who Were 8
A pretty simple card strategy game, played in two teams of two with each played having 2 god cards and two action cards at the beginning of each turn. Each turn you use 1 action card and when everyone has gone, you pass your remaining card to your left.

In overall complexity, it turned out to be pretty simple and easy to learn. I found it pretty fun, but the game can feel a little repetitive after awhile due to there only being 10 total action cards, 8 of which are in play at all times. 1 thing that while playing that we figure would be a slight improvement would to be more types of action cards, perhaps that allow use on yourself (a mechanic that is not allowed, although use of actions on your partner is allowed.) Also more god cards to change up play to play action.

2. Zombie in my Pocket

This game appeared that it would be rather complicated and fun, due to the action cards and need to build a board out of tiles. After about 10 minutes of play, it became apparent that this wasn't entirely true. The game has a pretty small time limit and is incredibly easy to lose. You at most get about 3 total turns before you automatically lose, and individual turns tend to take about 3 minutes by themselves. Most action cards have 3+ zombies on them and your base attack is only 1, and base health is 6. This means that you will either have to continuous run away and make almost no progress (what I ended up having to do) or die. The way to win the game is essnetially blind luck becasue the only way is to get the grave yard tile AFTER having gotten the totem room. The game was not very fun and was very repetitive and in order to extend the game long enough to not feel like a bad game of solitare, we extended it about 3 turns. 

3. Cards against Humanity

I joked that I should print out CAH because technically it is a pritn and play because it is open source and one of my favourite card games. When I saw it was indeed on the boardgamegeek site, I realised this was an actual possibility. The mechanics are very simple, involving having a subject card that you must answer with a funny object or action card. There is a judge who chooses the winner of each round. The game is very offensive and easy to learn as well as just fun. It plays like an adult version of Apples to Apples. I think due to the simple nature of the game, it excels past some other games we played because it had replay value and replayablity. The fairness of each round is decided by the judge, who changes each round, so it has appeal and the possibility of winning, where other games lacked the ability to win due to how random they are. 

Presentation of real world observation

Here is the presentation I did while observing the snack habits of people at the school

Rewards In games

     When you play a game, you usually want some of reward, in game or in the case of non -videogames, some real world reward. Some games don't always have rewards, and some of those don't need them because the game in itself it the reward. The desire for rewards fulfills your character's wants as well as your own want. Say you were playing an open world game such as Borderlands, except there was no random drops or quest items. Imagine how horrible of an experience that would be. Where your weapon never changes from your default and there is no incentive to complete challenges. You could go as far as saying that experience points are rewards. Many FPS games that are supposedly story driven do not have any reward system apart from completing the game sometimes getting your a new difficulty or small reward, such as Call of Duty. There isn't really an incentive to go on unless you only account for the story and thrill of shooting things.

     A game like Destiny or Borderlands is essentially a reward simulator. Neither have gripping stories and are essentially driven by the want for higher damage and weird modded weapons, as well as leveling up with EXP. A lot of the fun factor of games is the reward, proof that you did something difficult or tedious, or just happened to kill the right enemy.

Borderlands 2 took this to new height by using this as an actual advertisement, knowing full well what people liked about the first game. Nuff said.

Modular kit in 3D class.

     In 3d, we are making a modular kit to go with our 3d level that we are making as a class. As we go along, we discover what it really means to be modular. The obvious being that everything has to be compatible by size and shape to a point. If something is half as tall as another piece, it should work in that way, whether it be stacked or the geometry combines in a presentable way.

    Another thing that while making my kit, that I discovered, is that putting modeling on the edge of a piece can cause some problems when trying to piece the level together. If there is decoration on the edge, maybe it will work with a duplication of the same wall, but what about with a different wall, or a doorway. You constantly need to think of how a piece will fit with another. This is not to say that there shouldn't be edge decoration, but if there is, it should work with all pieces throughout. It is sometimes easier just to make trim, which our group is, to unify the whole look of the level and add extra visual appeal to the level.

My concept for my game level.

We had to pitch an idea to the whole class to see who's idea we would use for the rest of the semester, Mine was not picked, but I still enjoy the idea we are going with: an art nouveau city block living in harmony with all sorts of fungi.

Here was my concept piece for my idea.

The idea was that children had put together a town of their own, and that everything would be made out of cardboard boxes and adapted treehouses. There would be toys everywhere and playground equipment integrated into the environment.

This was my first digital piece using photo textures in conjunction with painted work. About half in the sense of space taken (the grass, and trees) are my own photos that I have taken,

Freshmen Art experience

     Now that I am in my second year at Ringling, I have had some time to reflect on certain projects and glean some information from my projects as well as figure out exactly what I learned and how it applies to my major.

One of the first projects that I did, was a project on focal points and leading the eye to the subject. I chose the concept of a little girl running from/fighting giant spiders. The project required us to use four type of focus points, as well as 4 unique focal points.

I learned a good deal about leading the eye, and this relates very much to gameplay and objective design in video games. Many games use the idea of following the light, and the correct path is usually the brightest/has leading lines or some unique color.

My second project that I felt contributed something unique and interesting, while being one of my favorite projects was the Thorne Room, which is a 1/12 scale room meant to look full scale.

I learned a good deal about composing a scene and creating an inhabitable space. As well as this, it helped me learn to tell a story in still images while still being subtle.

My final project, which really helped a huge amount make me excited about creature 3d model, whether they be in maya or in real life with sculpture mediums, is the Grunt.

It helped me understand silhouettes of figures and objects, use of different textures and creating an overall unique concept and bringing it to an finish.

One of my favorite game trailers: The Last Of Us

   
     When playing a game, I really feel the need to connect with the environment I am playing within. So many games depend on environmental storytelling, because no story can be 100% character driven, every story has to have a setting

I love this trailer because if this was your first time seeing it, having not played the game, it shows you exactly what to expect from the game: A seemingly calm plant infested area, a young girl helping out a man, who is fighting off raiders, and finally, a different type of enemy that is driven by the need to kill.

This is the type of trailer that you could mute the sound on, and get the exact same message: this is what life is. Another thing that makes this one of my favorite trailers is just how beautiful it is. The vista that is revealed when Joel and Ellie burst out of the double doors is breathtaking. I can see all of the time put in by the modelers, designers and texture artists especially. The Last of Us is one of the games that makes me incredibly excited to be going into the game industry.