Context
Trello site
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What effects does the game experience have on you? What does it make you feel or think about?
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Which techniques are used by the developers? In this case, think about any narrative and any imagery used.
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Are there any aspects about the context that need to be considered? This could include who created the game, where it was created, when and under what circumstances, as well as your relationship with its context.
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Ask yourself about the meaning of the walking simulator – what you think the game is about, and whether it might be trying to convey any messages.
Walking simulator review (Virginia)
The game was made by 505 Games and used Unity as it's engine. It was released on 22nd September 2016 on PlayStation, Xbox and PC.
The first 20 minutes of the game is setting up the story and introducing the character to her new job as someone in the FBI. It uses more hand gestures rather than speaking which makes it seem more secluded as there is no speaking, throughout the game there is little to no speaking as it's all auditory sounds and sound cues. The game starts up with a nightmare as you see yourself laying on the bed with a bright red glowing door behind you.
When developing the game the team had about 10 people who were all from random places scattered around the world as they were working from home as two friends wanted to make something for them self after meeting at deep mind. These two were called Jonathan Burroughs and Terry Kennel . They came up with the idea of not using much dialogue by playing a game called "Thirty Flights of Loving" by Brendon Chung where they thought that it was an amazing way of not having dialogue and speaking through actions. The other idea came from Terry and how his animation abilities allowed for a different approach with characters making them distinct.
They chose a simplistic type of art style as it would be easier to access all areas as they only had a very small art team. "Because of the cinematic cutting, the game takes place across a great many scenes in a great many locations, featuring many unique props and characters." (Burroughs,2016)
Brainstorm
This is my initial brainstorm and I have coloured the ones that I found/find to be most intriguing in green and I am going to go into more detail with them.
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Theme:
Dystopia, I chose dystopia as one of my favourite ideas as it can be anything from that and even mix in others with it as dystopia's quite a wide theme that can go in almost any direction so it has a wide choice.
Action, this was my second choice as there are quite a few games I can get ideas from as most games nowadays are action.
Puzzle was my third option as I could make a simple game where you must collect a few different pieces and put them into a door in the correct order to escape or something like that.
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Setting:
City building, this would be a good setting for a dystopia theme as you could do vines in between different sky scrappers with homemade bridges and in general you could do many different things with cities and dystopias.
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Lab could be done with puzzles and mysteries as you could be trying to escape when there is a massive fire or something like that.
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and with cargo planes you can mix that with the action and have it to be as if you are part of an AC-130 crew where you can interact and swap between different stations
SWOT
Strengths
I believe that I can do 3ds max and texturing while improving my skill in unreal engine.
I have used wix a lot now as well which allows me to have good website organization and know my way around it.
opportunities
develop and improve modelling
improve my mechanics as in the way everything works and interacts with eachother
weaknesses
I get distracted very easily
and can forget things quite quickly
threats
most people might have the same ideas as others so I might have some struggle to stand out
loss of work or might become ill and miss a few sessions or have my practical becoming too one sided or not knowing what to do
contingency plan/ schedule
project proposal form
Layout designs
Labs map layout for game
portal 2 levels
These are my layout designs for my general design but I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do for my main room as it was a decently sized room as I wasn't sure what to do for it yet to fill the room. I also couldn't quite easily display my ideas on what I wanted to look like.
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I want the general floor to look a bit cracked and worn down with bits of glass over the floor to give it a general look of being rundown/ slightly destroyed.
My potential ideas
most of my ideas have a slight rundown look to them as I am going with a dystopian theme so it can look like it's been a while since it was last seen. I have gone towards a lab as the setting/location.
For one of my ideas I thought of having to collect a certain amount of keys or key cards to escape through certain doors and maybe have a vault door that has a lift behind it and that is how you escape. Another idea is where you can escape through the vault but you need a code for the door and a tool to open the door like a wrench.
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Pitch
what I'm basing my level off
I'm basing my level off of the Labs map in a game called escape form tarkov as it was my inspiration for my level. The game is based in a fictional area in Russia called Norvinks where two private military groups/ corporations are fighting one another. You have npc characters known as scavs which are a faction which you can see throughout the maps.
I got my inspiration form one of their maps called Labs which is owned by a corporation called terragroup. which are one of the rival factions but you don't see them often.
secondary Research
In order to gain inspiration for my level and how it would look I took a look at some other games that were based in labs or had a near enough design to what mine is hoping to be.
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SCP secret laboratory (right) is a game about the SCP foundation where you as the player (which are in a multiplayer server) are randomly selected to play as a few different characters, those characters being: a scientist, D-class, chaos, security, nine tailed fox or even the SCP's. From SCP secret laboratory I'm taking the base layout and the key card idea as to be able to escape form the currently being destroyed lab. You need to use the key card to open the door to be able to get the vault which allows you to then escape.
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Viscera Cleanup Detail (below) is a game about slightly wrecked places which can have bullet casings or lots of blood around a certain area with your friends or by yourself. From this game I am taking the idea of a destroyed or degraded lab to show that it has been a while since it was last seen.
SCP Secret Laboratory set their age demographic to be for teens and up with the main audience being teens and Viscera Cleanup Details target audience was mainly for teens to adults with it's age rating being mainly set around 16/18.
Primary research
I am going to be using this research for some details on my project like detail and age rating.
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In VCD(viscera clean up detail) the level is covered in blood and body parts which I am not going to be including in my level as the area is going to be more abandoned than raided. I am also taking it into account with regardence to my age rating as i do not qant it to have blood everywhere as it does not fit with my level idea.
what I can take away from these results is that most people like 1st person view which is why I have made my level first person. I am going to make my level slightly cluttered with their being objects on the tables like experiments just left there while the floor is going to be quite tidy in a way as per the feedback from Q8. I am also planning on having 2 ways to win as per what people have suggested through Q7 with " Really like games that encourage freedom...more than 1 way to win"
research links
Here are some links for guides I'm planning on using for certain ideas in my level like interactable doors and sound for footsteps.
First Person Footsteps | No Mesh Or Animations - Unreal Engine 4 Tutorial - YouTube - footsteps
How To Open & Close A Door Using The E Key With Sound Effects In Unreal Engine 4 - YouTube - doors
How To Create A Main Menu - Unreal Engine 4 Tutorial - YouTube - main menu
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SCP: Pandemic
This lab design was made by Kyle Fitzpatrick who has worked on a few other designs for different things. This room/ area was designed on the idea of "pandemic" settings. The purpose of the lab was to create a zombie virus which s weaponised. the lab was stuck with an idea of it being formed and designed after a virology lab as that would use the ideas and structure for the setting.
Target audience
My target audience is for people around the ages of 16 or up while also for anyone who is into escape/ puzzle games. I have made my target audience for 16 or up because other games that are this genre like SCP or VCD also have an age rating of 16. People will see my work on Kickstarter and my website where the game and its progress will be uploaded.
I can engage with my target audience by asking what people think of my game after playing it by adding a comment section for them to put their opinion.
software
I am going to be using software such as unreal engine, 3ds max and substance painter for my texturing. In unreal engine I am using decals to texture my walls so it looks more unique and not copy and paste.
I am going to be using these software's because I have practiced with them so far which means I have experience with them and shall find them easier to use
substance painter
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What are some of the key features and tools of Substance Painter?
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a powerful paint engine, smart materials and smart masks, VFX support and advanced material creation.
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Adobe offers 4 versions of Substance: Substance 3D Painter, Designer, Sampler, and Stager. What do each of these do?
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texture 3d models in real time with painter. With designer you can design parametric 3d assets with full control and infinite possibilities. You can create 3d materials and lights in a flash from real life images in sampler and with stager you can compose and render state of the art 3d scenes in your own virtual studio.
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What is good practice to prepare a 3D model before bringing it into Substance Painter? Please provide detail.
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good practice is to make good UV's, creating a low and high poly version, paint your model to identify materials and to export using FBX.
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Provide an example of a designer showing their Substance workflow and summarise some of the key tools they applied for their result. For this you may want to check out Substance video tutorials on YouTube, or an ArtStation Breakdown.
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Finally, do you feel you will use and explore this software for certain assets in this project? What would those assets be?
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some of my assets I shall be trying and have already done are my lights to make them look good/ slightly broken. I am not fully sure which of my assets and how many of them will be textured using substance as my level does not require much
Website Feedback
based on this feedback I have uploaded more practical updates to make sure it has shown my project in the best way possible and so that people can see what i have done along the way.
Decals
For my game I had used a lot of decals for the design of the walls to make it look more unique which is what I was going for because I didn't want it to look like a copy and paste environment. The decals were quite difficult as it was a very time consuming process as I had to place each one in different patterns and scattered so that it didn't look repeated.
In the games industry decals are used for small details in areas generally being blood splatters, bullet holes, dust, etc. They are able to be applied multiple times over and can range from something big and not too detailed to something small and very detailed.
Decals have been used for many years and been used lots of games maybe since before doom. Decals like simple bullet holes can be used lots in one game and can have a limit so that it does not crash the game. For example, in CSGO, dependant on what you have your graphics settings set as, you could have around 1000 bullet holes before the first bullet starts to disappear if you are on low graphics but it can greatly increase to numbers such as 4000 if you are on high graphics.
Substance painter
All the assets I had made were taken and put into substance painter to be textured.
The assets that I had designed and made for my level had to be put through something called the UV unwrap which would allow me to take their outline and place it into a certain box where different sides would be separated to allow it to be easily textured and have different sides be a different texture.
substance painter is a very good app to use for texturing as it has tones of textures to use at your disposal as well as smart materials which I mainly used for my assets. The way the smart materials work is interesting and good because the material can wrap around the whole asset apart from certain parts if you highlight them.
