Updated Art Assets

A lot has been updated in terms of the art assets for the game.

1. win and lose cards have been redesigned to include a cartoon character of Little Newton either achieving victory or getting distracted by toys
2. Little Newton’s main character model has been re-rigged (given a new skeleton) in 3DS Max to account for a rigging issue found in Maya when exported. He now has a motion to throw and will have a side stepping motion as well 
3. Little Newton has also been UV’d and textured for the game as well
4. A toy chest has been created and textured to give the toys a “spawn point”
5. A new tree has been put into the dropbox to place in the background long with the bushes 
6. New GUI buttons and indicators have also been created in Photoshop to give the GUI more color and differentiation 

 

A new issue has risen with the exportation of the model. The number of vertices tripled and is causing a minor issue in the game. This will be looked into this week. 

First Turned-Based Full Level Settings

Here are the settings for the first full level of the turned based version of the game (in which the player chooses where to shoot, the apple shoots, and then the enemies advance one square):

 

Hit points:

The player can take 2 hits, and on the third, they loose (3 hit points, 0 left means you’re dead)

 

Enemies:

Spawn one enemy one turn at a time until only fourth to last and last spawn turn; on the fourth to last and last spawn turn, spawn 2 enemies at a time.  Order of spawning doesn’t matter for the level in which the player only shoots once per turn.

3 tanks (spawn from 2 different directions)

5 cars (spawn from anywhere)

2 boats (spawn from anywhere)

3 robots (spawn from 3 different directions)

 

Apples:

The player can choose which apple to shoot on each turn, but can only shoot one per turn.

2 rotten apples

2 sticky apples

10 regular apples

 

Note that these numbers don’t give the player a lot of chances to miss, but that should be ok since they have some hit points so missing 2 will be fine anyway.

 

 

GUI Tweaks

We have been talking about tweaking a little bit the GUI. The proposed design:

Shaders and Sound Effects

Hello,

Couple of updates:

1- I updated the shader and now “Toon4” is the latest and has a proper outline and texture and bump mapping. I have applied it to the enemy object. Since the objects are small it does not made any significant changes but I should play with it more.

2- I am trying to put good music on the game. I found some music and little sound effects. Since I am not expert gamer it would be great that you guys give me some suggestion about the sound effect and where you think it needs sounds.

Ehsan

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/k1a24he9xwavzb5/HIJBGx4YdM

Meeting Notes

Hi all,

Here are some notes about what we decided at our last meeting:

• We will go for one last big overhaul in the form of a turn-based version of the game.
• The enemies will move along a radial grid, advancing one square each turn either to the side or forwards based on AI
• The player will be able to place barriers in squares to alter where the enemies will move next-this will be necessary as a delay tactic as the player won’t be given enough resources to deal with all of the enemies individually without planning.  For example, since the tanks need to be dealt with using the rotten apples, if there are 5 tanks and the player is only ever given 3 rotten apples, the player will have to construct the barriers in order to direct the tanks into a strategic location where they have placed the rotten apple puddle.
• The barriers will also have height, which will necessitate that the player carefully set the arc of their parabola to be able to go over the walls if they would like to hit something behind the wall.
• The player will have a limited number of projectiles, and has to choose where to shoot 3 of them each turn.  Therefore, the player will have to waste limited ammunition if they cannot shoot around the barriers, because there is no option to shoot less of the ammunition.

Please add or let me know if I missed anything.  Pictures from the meeting are incoming.

Art Updates

From the art team, the following has been created/is in progress:

• The character is still a boy but had to be reconstructed in 3DS Max due to exportation issues. This is currently underway. Collaborative effort between Ning and Caroline
• Junyu will be exporting a different tree for placement into the environment 
• New GUI textures to indicate which apple projectile is chosen
• 
• New Start and End title screens are being created and touched up in Photoshop

Game Updates

Since the second iteration we have updated a few things in our game.

We created a Game Builds section to store a change log of the different build (weekly), the latest one, as of today is here.

Game play and art update

Gameplay

Just I read jichen’s email, maybe it is unclear for the player to choose right weapon to defear the enemies. I think

• the speed of tank should be more slower.And the scale should be more bigger, in oder to show the tank is a heaviest one. The player should increase mass and choose rotten to defeat it. Maybe when the player heighten mass number, can we make apple become more bigger to fir this change, if so, this can make sence for player
• For the boat, it is a less friction one, so the speed can fast than other enemies. Can we use a rolling apple to defeat it because it is difficlut to defeat a fast object using a thowing apple.
• the enemies should disappear when they are attached.
• I will put new tank into dropbox with 6 wheels. And maybe the black line around tank shoud move out to make it clear

Game Ideas

1. Add a tutorial level to lay out the elements more clearly, keeping the game an action game as it is right now. See the entry below (Level design) for some more specifics.
2. Add elements beside projectiles and enemies, namely obstacles. The obstacles will both deter (by blocking) or aid (by providing cover) the enemies and projectiles in different situations.
3. Make the game a turn based, puzzle game instead of an action game.
   1. Present complicated puzzles with a specific configuration of incoming enemies and a limited amount of projectiles and other props the player can use that require the player to carefully think before executing a move.
   2. New elements will be presented independently and will be required to solve some basic puzzle. Once several elements have been introduced, a new puzzle will require the combination of several of the elements in order to achieve a solution.
   3. Giving the players more time to think their moves will enhance the learning experience although it may decrease the dramatic tension of the pressure caused by the incoming enemies.
   4. Reference games: The Incredible Machine; Contraption Maker
4. About the role of the AI:
   Currently the AI only takes care of orientating moving enemies in order for them to climb to the top of the hill. Later, some ideas for the role of the AI will be:
   1. Crowd control: make sure enemies do not interfere with one another.
   2. Path finding: once there are obstacles on the way up hill, find paths for the enemies to reach the top.
   3. Puzzle planning: find obstacle and enemy placements that make for interesting puzzles.

Art Team Update

Certain art direction issues were discussed briefly. For the time being the following ideas have been tossed up:

• When the enemies die, something similar to the PvZ death sequence where after the enemy is defeated they disappear in a small poof of smoke after falling over
• The toon shader that will be implemented will give the characters a thin outline and dark shadows
• When the main character has been “hit”, he will stagger back for a brief second in his animation sequence
• A new character has been created in order to overcome import issues. Testing will done immediately to see if it works fine