Case 5

Now it’s time for case five and the completion of the game is the main task in these last weeks. We have to use the things we have learned and improve the implementation and the functionality.

In this case we have to complete the pages in the game which at least have to be a front page and a win/loose page. We have to program the game so the player is able to skip the intro if he or she wants to. Now we also have to finish the work with a timer in the game. This will show the player the status of the game on achieved points, remaining lives and how much time has passed.

Jump, gravitation and arrays needs to be used in the game at this point of the gaming process. As well as in all the other cases we have to keep updated and follow the work schedule.

 

Designer:

In this fifth case my work is mostly about working further with the surroundings and the different scenes. This includes some changes to make it look and work better.

Besides drawing I like to animate, so I drew a bat in Flash and animated it so we can use it in one of the scenes with the castle. I’m working with some birds the same way, which can fly in the sky in the forest-scene.

This combination of Photoshop and Flash is used because of the different program’s features and functionality in relation to the game and to make the work within the group to match better.


Animation!

Another week has passed and her we are again with some blogging. Since this week’s case gave the programmers something to do, I began drawing the interactive bits for our 2D part of the game. To make the game a little harder, we decided that the player have to run through 4 different levels to learn the four spells before he can face the dragon. To learn those, he have to read some books, and to reach them he has to climb trees and use powers he learn on his way. We thought this would give the player a bigger challenge, and some variations in the game. So this week I have drawn a couple of sketches two of the levels, some trees for the player to climb on, and obstacles to make the player think a little. You can see some of the work under here. See you next time!     

Case 4

Now we are back and ready for the next tree cases. The work from now on is about getting the game better and more functional.

Sounds are important in games and in this fourth case we were suppose to add sounds and music to our game.  We had to make all the sounds by ourselves and add at least ten sounds to the game. The player shall be able to control the volume and even turn it off within the game.

In this case we also had to use lip syncing and make the characters lips move synchronously to the things he says.

As a part of this case we also had to make a work schedule, responsibility description and risk assessment. We started this in the tree previous cases and now we had to use it even more thorough.

 

Designer:

We were quite satisfied with our work during the first tree cases but we were also eager to further develop the game and make it more playable and entertaining. So when we started on case four we had come up with some new ideas and new angels for the game. And these included some major changes based on what we had previously had done. I basically had to draw several new scenes but I like this kind of work and I eagerly started on the new scenes. These changes in the game would give the game more levels and challenges for the player.

One of the scenes is in a different kind of forest. This one would be more comprehensive and to make the character and the surroundings blend better together we decided that Sondre and I would work together and draw a little bit both. This is because we have very different styles in our work, but since we are working together as a group we wanted to adapt our work to each other’s.

Another scene I drew is inside the castle where the little wizard is trapped in a room with moving platforms. He has to maneuver himself downwards between the platforms to avoid being crushed against the ceiling with spikes. This scene I also drew in Photoshop and then exported to Flash to animate the door closing. This was really funny because I also like to animate in Flash.


Animation!

Well, back again ey? As mentioned the games sound is in focus this week, but due to the major changes in the game, we work a little around this case for now, and focus on getting the visuals finish before we go on to sounds. But before I could do this, I had to change a little on my animations and make them better. So that’s what I have been doing this week. And also create attacks for fire, water, wind and earth to complete the fighting-part of the game. To symbol the fire-element I used a fireball that drops down from the sky and hit either the character or the dragon. For water I draw a bubble they get caught up in for a little while. For the wind I used a little tornado, and with the help of shape-tween and only mirroring my drawing, I think it turned out pretty all-right. And for the final element, earth, I simply drew a rock. The reason that the elements became like this, is just to do it easier for the programmer. We found out that it would be difficult if lightning and powers came out like a beam from the wizard wand. So it will be exciting to see if this works. Looking forward to start on our “new” part of the game next week. See you then!

Case 3

In this week’s case we were told to get a finished and playable game as possible. The level-manager should be expanded with a front-page and an ending-page, an NPC (or enemy if you want) that follows the main character, score-points and something for the character to pick up.

It looked like this case where mostly made for the programmers, but also we animators and designer had a lot to do. While Ole Magnus were put to work on this case, Hege took care of the backgrounds for the intro, and start and ending-screens. Ravel continued with his dragon, and Sondre animated and created the rest of the intro. And, as usual, you can read more of everyone’s work below.

Animation!

Well back again for another week. As mentioned last week, I have worked my ass off with the intro to the game this week. It stood in this week’s case that we needed to have a intro and an ending for the game. And this became my responsibility with help from our great designer Hege who created the background, and classmate and musician Alexandra Leong for providing with the music.

First off, I began creating a storyboard to get a vision of how it was going to be in the end, and to make shore that I get everything I want into this little sequence that is supposed to introduce the game. And after 12 scenes I felt I got that.

                                          The beginning of the story.

The story begins with a little house in the woods in the middle-ages where wizards and dragons exist. In this house, the great wizard of the elements water, fire, earth and wind lies sick because the dragons takes away his powers and uses them against him. His only hope is an elixir in the dragon’s great castle, but he is too weak to get it himself. So his little apprentice decides to get it for him and save his lives. The sorcerer’s apprentice gets the wizards last powers from his hat and a magic wand, and with this, he goes out in the world to defeat the dragons and save the day.

                                          First scene of the game.

I chose to start the intro with some text that tells the background of the story, and then I animated Hege’s background and gave it a kind of 3D illusion, to get the players attention. In the next scene you’ll see another one of Hege’s backgrounds from Photoshop, which shows the inside of the house, but now with two Flash-drawn characters lying by the bed. The reason I chose to do it like this, is to create a softer transition between Flash and Photoshop, because they make quite a contrast, and for almost the rest of the intro I have used Flash. The story was told over here, so after the sorcerer’s apprentice gets the hat and the wand and runs out in the world, I end the whole intro with beautiful backgrounds from Photoshop, to wrap it all up and give the player lust to explore more of this world.

                                          The sick wizard.

                                           

This is how far I have come for now, and it starts to look more and more like a game every week. Now we’ll have a break the next few weeks to concentrate on some other classes, but then we will continue with three new cases. My plans next is to work some more on the details on the intro and make it a little better, maybe an ending-sequence, spells the apprentice can throw on the dragons, die and damaging-animations, and maybe a Game Over-screen. But we’ll see what the next cases will be about and how we split up the tasks in our group.

                                         The magic wand and hat from the wizard.

It is fun to see that we work well in the group and getting closer and closer to our goal; a finished and full playable game. That gives much motivation, and I’m looking forward to continue this project after a break. We’ll be back!

                                          He is ready!

SondreJ   


Second animator!
In this third case I've continued to work with the design from the first case, constantly adding more detail to the dragon and improving different body parts, as well as trying to correct things in the walk cycle. I've also started on what will become a Sprite for the head and neck of the dragon, that will enable the dragon to make attacks, for instance in the form of biting and spitting fire (for the dragon representing the element Fire. I'm planning that the other dragons will have some form of “water-attack”, “stone-attack”, “wind-attack” and such.
Ravel
 

Designer

We are now in our third case and we’re all working hard to get the game ready in time. I think the progress in our work is going well and I’m sure we’ll be able to deliver a good product after these three cases.

During these last weeks we had to put it all together and finish all the levels. We also had to make some small adjustments in the game to make it look even better.

I have mainly been working with the drawings for the intro and it has been a lot of work. But this week I have also created the report which we have written partially together and individually.   Sondre and I have been working together on this part of the project and the co-operation has, as far as I know, worked very well. I drew the surroundings and the scenes while he animated it, added text and put it together. Sondre had some ideas on how the intro could look like and I thought it was a good idea. We then agreed and divided the tasks between us and Ole Magnus implements it into the game.

In the intro the Sorcerer’s apprentice sits by the old Sorcerer’s bed in his old cottage. The Sorcerer says to the apprentice that he needs to get the potion for him because the old man is weak and bedridden. The apprentice is determined to get the potion from the castle and he gets the Sorcerer’s magic hat and wand. In the end of the intro we can see the apprentice running off into the forest to start his perilous journey.

The drawings for the intro, like all the drawings for the game, contain a lot of details and that’s why it has taken a lot of time creating the various scenes and surroundings. Sondre has done a great job finishing the intro. In this case I have also made the front, win and lose “page”. I wanted it to have elements from the game so I used the clouded sky, the apprentice and the dragon and put it together as a whole.  

Now, when I look at the almost finished product, I wish I had simplified the drawings for the scenes and surroundings. I think it would harmonize better and provide the game a more holistic impression. Maybe if I drew it in Flash it would have been better. But I am satisfied with my drawings and I think the special appearance will give the game a certain character. 

During these three cases I’ve had the pleasure to work with talented co-students and I really liked working as a part of a group. We have been using our skills as well as taking part of the whole process. I think all the members of our group have done their best and we all have been working hard to be able to deliver a good game.  I look forward to the next three cases and I’m eager to see the final result after all six cases.

-Hege-

Programmer:
I started importing graphics and code from the demo, into the level editor. I turned out to be a lot more work than I thought. I worked on making the hitboxes better for the new graphics. A lot of rules were added so you can play the game as a game with a goal. Use a spell and remove the enemy's hit points before he eats you. After defeating a dragon you can pick up a sphere of pure element force, that heals you.



  

Case 2

This week, our task was to put levels in our game (intro, one or more game-levels and an ending). The designers were also told to continue designing and finishing levels, and the animators create a jump animation and make their animations better. The last thing were to create a plan for our project and each and every one of us, to make sure everyone finish their work within deadline.

So this week, we have done some prioritizing. We might have worked a little around the case from the teachers, but our main goal is to get the gameplay working, which we almost have. Ole Magnus have been working on the levels in the game, and getting the 2.5D feeling right. (He can tell you more about this further down), Ravel has been working on animating the dragon, Hege have created the backgrounds and icons for the game, and Sondre have created a jump-animation and a attack-animation. And here you can read a little closer about everyone’s work:

Animation!

Hello again! Well, this is our second week on the project and I, as mentioned in the last blog, had to continue working on our main character, the little wizard. This week I have created a jump animation for him and an attack-animation he does while he runs, stand still and going backwards. Even though I am a little fan of magicians that creates a ball of power in their hands to throw on the enemies, the rest of the group wanted him to use a wand instead. So that’s what I did, trying to use what I’ve learned from my classes to use timing and spacing, to give the illusion that he collects power in the wand to send at the enemies. He lifts his body and back and his arms up in the air. He stands like this a little while and then sends his magic at the enemies. By using this method you get the illusion that throws magic with great power at them.

For the jump, I chose to do that after he jumps up, and are on his way down, his hat comes a little later (see picture). Then his eyes show, and you get a picture of how he really look without his hat. The reason for this was to avoid that our hero that actually is you, are too mysterious. I want the player to get to know the character he/she plays.

I also animated him moving backwards, so now you can control him in all directions in different ways. To do this, I reversed his steps, and made his big cape hang a little in front of him instead of the back.

Since we are a little behind when it comes to intro and ending, I believe this will be my next project. I got some middle-age music from a good friend of mine, and that inspired me to a great idea to introduce our game. And of course, the intro is important, because it shall make the player want to play the game. So I’m going to introduce it to the others in the group later today.

We have much work to be done, and much animating left, but as long as I am motivated I am pretty excited to see how this game will be in the end.

See you all next week!

SondreJ  

Second Animator!
In this second case I have animated the walk cycle for the dragon, which is to be an “Non-Playable Character” (NPC). It has been a great deal of trying and erring, in my stifled attempts to make the dragon move the way I want. It's been a challenge to know how to divide the dragon in to the most appropriate parts for the easiest animation. I am in no way so skilled in drawing and thinking about anatomy from different angles that I can make a freehand frame by frame animation. So instead I've used Bone Tool in Flash to connect and move the different limbs and their parts. Each limb is a Symbol, consisting of smaller Symbols as sub-divisions.
Ravel

Designer:

In this case I also had a lot of work ahead of me. I am still doing all the work with the surroundings in Photoshop and then exporting it into Flash. We agreed that the intro level should look a bit like the game level so I made a similar look but it was suppose to look greener and more living.

The wizards apprentice starts his journey in pleasant and lush landscape and moves on to a grey and deserted one as he fights his way to the castle.

I also made a scene from inside the castle. I wanted it to look like a large entrance hall barely lit by torches. Her he can chose several doors to open to get to the potion.

This scene was clearly the most difficult because it contains a lot of details, but I had fun doing it.

I also had to make the icons witch symbolize the weapons. These are so small and were difficult to draw. But after many attempts and feedback from the others on my group and some help they now look ok.


Programmer:
I started looking on the level editor. I made a simple game with it, but continued to work on the old setup I used in the demo. After reading the documentation for the level editor, I knew it would be easy to implement the code and graphics later. 
I created a simple code for the characters jump. It's really simple, but we are going to learn a more advanced way to do it later, so I put it aside for now.
I created AI for the enemy and created a layer system for the character and player, so you can go around the enemy.

                                   

Image from inside the castle

Image from Sorcerer's cottage

Wave icon

                                                      

    

Case 1

We are a group of four students at Høgskolen i Hedmark which this semester will develop a computer game. We will be given several cases each week and work together as a group to produce a great product.

In this group we are students from three different bachelors, -visual simulation, animation and virtual art and design. In this group we have one programmer, two animators and one designer. All the steps of a production like this will contain different tasks and we had to distribute each task between us to be able to design the best results we can.  We are best in our own field, but in this project we are suppose to involve in every step of the production to learn something about every field of a production like this.

The computer game we are making shall contain an intro with directions on how to play the game, a game part and an ending. It also has to contain several levels.

In this case we had to come up with a story, divide tasks and make a demo of the game.

Our game is about a young wizard who has to fight dragons. The head wizard of this universe needs a potion which is hidden in the castle and because he is old and weak he sends his apprentice to get the potion for him. The young wizard has to fight these four dragons to be able to get to the castle.

 There are four dragons in the game and each and one of them symbolize four elements, -earth, water, air and fire. In the game the wizard have four weapons to use against the dragons. These weapons also symbolize the same four elements and if used correctly are very powerful against the dragons.

When the young wizard comes to the castle he have to find the hidden potion and face the most powerful dragon of them all.

While our designer have created a dark and scary background in Adobe Photoshop to fit in the story, our two animators have begun design and animate a hero (the wizard) and the enemy (dragons), and our programmer have written down the basics of the gameplay. And here you can read more in-depht about everyone’s role so far.


Here you can try out the game so far: http://www.swfupload.com/view/150497.htm

Animation

Hey, my name is Sondre and is one of the animators in this group. After some discussion in the group, I got the responsibility of the hero. We decided together that he should be a wizard, or a wizard’s apprentice to be correct. I drew sketches of different types of wizards, and decided to go with a little more cute version, by hiding his eyes and make him wear a coat that is a little too big for him. The inspiration came partly from Mickey Mouses outfit in Fantasia. The stars and colors I got from the “standard wizard type”.

For now I have animated a walk-cycle for the hero, and an idle animation where he breathes in and out. I have also begun animating his first attack against the dragon, that will consist of the foru elements, either fire, water, earth or air.




Second Animator
My name is Ravel, and I have got the job to design and animate an enemy. When starting on this case we had many ideas that we discussed. We soon became interested in the idea of including the powers or energies linked to the four or five classical “elements”, which in reality represents the phases of matter; Earth (solid form), Water (liquid form), Fire (“plasmatic” form), and Air (gaseous form). In addition there is the element of Ether (“etheric” or “ethereal” form). First we discussed the possibility to use very different characters to represent the different elements. I initially had the very complex idea of basing them on the eight trigrams of the Chinese symbol system I Ching, but we soon decided that it would be too much work to animate, if not only to design. Eventually we landed on the four or five elements most known in Western tradition. In stead of a multitude of very different figures we also fell for the idea to only use different dragons, as enemies or antagonists of the sorcerer's apprentice, and for representing all of the elements. That made the whole thing a lot easier, but still there was a lot of work and many sleepless nights. So far I have started on the design of the first of the dragons, or the last one. 


Here are two pictures of the dragon design so far, and a sketch. Below are also pictures of two sketches that I made of possible elemental enemies, based on the eight trigrams of I Ching. The two trigrams are “Clinging” (Li) symbolised as Fire, and “Resting” (Gen/Kên) symbolised as Mountain, an aspect of Earth.

Ravel

Designer:

When we started this project we basically had a rough start. All at once we had to come up with a story as well as designing, animate and programming it. When we divided the tasks it was pretty clear which one of us who would take care of the various tasks because of the different bachelors.

My task in this case was to create backgrounds and environments to the game. Since the game was to take place in a forest I first tried different variations and looks.  But after more discussions and brainstorming about how we wanted it to look like, I ended up with a grey, deserted and dark environment.

Ole Magnus, the programmer, had made a draft of the scene and how the game could look like so I just had to make the environment fit in the scene.

In next level the wizard comes to the castle.  I tried to design a dark and spooky castle, but it is not finished yet. Also the inside of the castle is not finished and it needs more work. For now we have what we need for the demo of the game and I will keep on working with the design further on. I also designed the icons for the weapons the wizard can use.

I made all the drawings in Photoshop and then exported them to Flash which is the program we are suppose to use making the computer game.

                                                                                            

-Hege-