Progress Report

Since I have been busy this week, I haven't had much time to work on the project with Dustin other than working on details and getting our GDD put together.

 This week I have learned about planning out games and making formal definitions for the plans that I make. I have never worked on a larger scale game like this (all my previous 'games' have focused less on gameplay and more on the concepts for the class I made it in, e.g. computer graphics), and so it is a good learning experience to focus on the gameplay and think about how to make the game fun. Likewise, my previous projects in computing have been mostly defined by professors, so I'm learning how to design my own project formally.

As far as teaching others, I have shared the idea for Lucky Cat Bazaar with the class and taught them what Dustin and I have been working on. Similarly with what I have learned my self, I have been teaching Dustin and working with him as I learned these things myself. Although I guess I'm not teaching him from things I've known, I'm learning about all these aspects of making a game with him.

GDD v1.0

This is the link to the first draft of our GDD

https://docs.google.com/a/nd.edu/document/d/19mkiGfIV5JtiSaixYRL7APigp4T8HwW1D7FcqmnffqI/edit?usp=sharing

P0 Team Formation

Team Name: Mid and Feed
Team Members: Dan Gomez & Dustin Liaw

A4

To enhance my A3 submission, I added a few formal elements, dramatic elements, and cool effects to spice up the gameplay. As far as formal elements go, the first thing that I added was really simple: lives. Before I had it set up so that if you fall, you just get placed back on the first floor, but now you will lose lives and eventually get a game over if you lose all your lives. Another element I added was a jump power up that allows you to jump when you get it. I also attached some dramatic elements and effects to this, which I'll talk about later. In A3, you didn't need to be able to jump to win, so I also had to change the level design a little bit to make the power up necessary. Lastly, I added some GUI features to give the player more feedback.

For dramatic elements, the biggest addition I made was with sound effects. I added a sound for collecting the balls and the power up, as well as a sound track that plays when you have the power up. These help to make the game a little more exciting (and possibly silly).

Finally, I added a number of effects that make the game considerably more exciting, I think. Now when you collect a ball, it will give off a sparkle (firework explosion) that just makes it look more exciting to collect the balls. The power up that you pick up to jump is also a simple stream of particles that will disappear when the player picks it up. In addition, once the player picks it up, his avatar gets an aura that shows the player that he has powered up (in addition to being a little silly).

J6

Most of the responses I got from the people who play tested my game were similar to what I expected, but there were still a few differences between their experiences and my expectations. One of my biggest worries about the game and something that a lot of the people who play tested my game said was that the weapons that I currently have in the game are not balanced at all. Some of the weapons are really powerful without having any significant drawbacks. One of the play testers suggested that I could fix this by treating the items as probabilities (each weapon has a damage value and a hit percentage) and then balance them by making the probabilities equal. One of the differences that I noticed, though, was that the play testers did not approach the strategy in the same way that I thought they would. When I was designing the game, I expected players to take a certain approach to buying items and general combat strategy, but the play testers' strategy was quite different.

As it stands, the game is not very functional, complete, or balanced, but this is about what I expected so I'm not too worried. I knew that the game would not be balanced because I couldn't think of a good way to chooses parameters for weapons and characters, and I just chose numbers semi-randomly. It's hard to make the game complete at this point, I think, because I'm planning a story and several levels for the player to go through, but only made a test scenario with a few example items for the demo. Lastly, the game was a little less functional than I thought because the calculations that are required during combat took longer than I anticipated, but this should be cleared up once I begin to program it.

This prototype made me think more about how much work actually goes into making a new game. I had always guessed that new video games always started as programs, but it seems that having a physical model for the very first prototype is a good thing. It helps you to think more about the game itself and less about how you implement it.

As a prototype, I was quite pleased with how the play testing went, and I don't think the game needs too many large overhauls. I have played with numbers on the weapons and characters to make them more balanced (for example, I've lowered the damage on the battleax, which was overpowered before, from 13 to 11). I've also added an element to the characters to give them proficiency with weapons in order to align people's strategies more closely to my idea of how the game should be played. I did this because some people tried to play a mage (who should stay in the back and attack from a safe position) as a fighter (who runs in and fights up close with the enemies). As I continue to work on the game, I'll work on adding more characters, weapons, and levels as well.

A3

For the game, there are 3 floors and one elevator. Each floor has a ball on it that must be picked up in order to get the elevator up to the next floor. Once the player has collected all three balls, he wins! If the player falls off, then he will be replaced on the bottom floor. The controls are simple: up is forward, down is backward, and left and right turn the player.

J5

For the prototype, I've tried to keep things simple and make sure that I have the basics right. Therefore, the player will only set up for and then participate in a small battle using three characters. I have prepared six characters for the player to choose from and an array of weapons and armor for them to buy beforehand. The player will then use the three units he chose with the equipment he bought to try to defeat two wolves and three bandits on a small (6x7) map.

The actual combat takes quite a few calculations, so I'll explain them here:

• Damage: calculated differently depending on the weapon...
• Swords & Axes & other: 2 x Strength + weapon's damage
• Twin Swords & Bows: Strength + Dexterity + weapon's damage
• Spears: 1.5 x Strength (rounded down) + weapon's damage
• Staves: 2 x Intelligence + weapon's damage
• Defense: Constitution + 1/2 Strength (rounded down)
•  Magic Defense: Wisdom
• Hit: 3 x Dexterity + weapon's hit
• Avoid: 2 x Dexterity + Intelligence - armor's penalty
• Critical: 2 x Luck
• Dodge: Luck + 1/2 Wisdom

In combat, the actual damage dealt to the other character is (damage - defense) or (damage - magic defense) if the opponent is using a staff. To determine if the attack hits and deals any damage, a random number generator (between 1-100) must produce a number under the value (hit - avoid). Likewise, to determine if an attack lands a critical (dealing 3x damage), an RNG must produce a number under the value (critical - dodge).

On each player's turn he can choose to move each of his units up to 5 spaces. If the unit is wielding a sword, twin sword, axe, spear, or other (i.e. claws, bite), then he can attack after moving. Otherwise that unit is done. The game is over once one side has been defeated.

Each character can wear one piece of armor and carry up to two weapons. If the character is carrying a sword, then he may take a shield instead of a second weapon, which would increase his defense. Regardless of whether or not the character has two weapons, he may only attack with one at any time. For the purposes of the prototype, the player will start the game with 3300 gold with which to buy equipment.