EMMA TETHRAIN
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When I came back from being sick today I saw that Kielo had started to do some landscaping yesterday in the Night Island Level that I'm working in. Since I wasn't done with the block-out I had to remove her progress for now, however, I made a Art Level for Kielo where I copied and pasted her progress so she could continue to play around! I continued working on the Night Island: I had planned a secret passage that would go though the waterfall revealing a secret area inside, and that the player would find it by change if they tried to jump through the water fall. However that didn't make sense gameplay wise since we have decided that the player will immediately die if they come in contact with water. My solution was to just have the former "secret" area open for the player to explore if they want to. Giving the player a choice to continue on to the left or straight inside the waterfall or to the right. I decided to block off the view to the left when they come inside, to guide the player to the right. There are two platforms that are moving up and down and the player will have to wait and time their jump to progress upwards. Then there is a Bounce Pad that the player can use to first get the three bugs and then jump over to the path that will lead the player to the pond where they can fish for the Flying Fish. I also added a placeholder crying statue that can just be switched out for a waterfall if Alva-Maria decides not to use it for narrative purposes. But I wanted for her to at least have one place where she definitely can provide the player with narrative. I also decided to place the statue there to draw the players attention to that place when they enter the cave since the pond is placed higher up than what they player can see. When the player is done they can proceed to leave the area by using their new gliding power. The Blue orb is the former "Dream Catcher" which is now just called "Placeholder Item", but it is the item that will turn Gloomy Loomies happy again. As a reward for getting through the area.
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I was sick and home from school today. But I managed to come up with one thing for the night island, on how to get the glide power. You have to go around the depression in the room by platforming to get up to the pond, then when you've gotten the Flying Fish, which gives the player the ability to Glide, then you can glide to the platform in the middle and then back to the entry way to quickly get out.
In the morning I held a art meeting where I informed all artists about environmental props, that they have free hand to do whatever they wanted, and that we designers would only ask for gameplay or narrative related assets. I remade the night island from the beginning since I had no direction. I'm taking inspiration from Super Mario 64 in the level layout. The light green cylinder is the player (a size reference), the dark green cylinder is a Loomie (size reference). The orange glowing orbs are Bugs that the player can collect. Kielo's texturing on a leaf. The Player Avatar that Elin is working on. Rain's fishing rod. Emelie's pier; where the player can fish.
Today Tobias from Palindrome came by and talked to us second years about their company and LIA. He was really nice and kind enough to walk around afterwards and helped me with my portfolio. I'm very grateful for that! I took time to edit my portfolio a bit today as well keeping Tobias notes in mind. Us designers had a meeting with Martin and Fanny today. It really helped me to understand a lot about how everything in the project should work, so I'm really happy we had this meeting. It feels a lot better now and it also feels like everyone are on the same page about how the production cycle works. And I clearly know now what I need to do in my role as a Level Designer. I felt very overwhelmed before. Kielo's progress on foliage! Rain's progress! They added the shells to the artists art island, as well as rocks! Felicia worked on rigging the Loomie today!
I started out the day with added a Level where the artists can place their finished assets so they can compare their props to each others and make sure they have a consistent style. We had our second sprint presentation today. I continued on the level block-out for the night level. It is far from done, but I'm working on it. Right now I'm focusing on having this as the only playable level, with points of interest where the player can travel to. It's really big at the moment but I will make it more compact. Rain's shells they made!
Today I researched levels and I also started doing some block out to get into it. I Started on the Night Island, but then I decided to throw together the HUB island so there is a base ready for it if we were to have time to make more islands in the future. The HUB Island for now. It has a fishing spot, a cooking spot, one "portal" that will take the player to the Night Island (to do so they need to fish and get the double jump ability, otherwise they can't jump up on the platforms to reach the portal). I fought with Fork and Gustav from the other group helped out so I managed to push my progress in the end. I was very nervous and I hope I didn't ruin anyone elses work! I discarded the "changes" I made on other peoples assets/levels and then I had to close down Unreal to do the push for it to work! Thank you Gustav!!!! T___T Me, Linus and Melinda had a meeting with the programmers where Linus presented the idea of adding multiplayer (local) to the game. We discussed about that and came with suggestions about how to go about it. This was partly because the programmers doesn't have much workload according to Linus and Calle.
I suggested that when playing single player the player would have all abilities, but when playing multiplayer the players would have the abilities split amongst them so that they will have to cooperate. I was hoping to add ways for the player(s) to get around the level(s) in different ways so that it's not linear gameplay. Which will give the players freedom to mess around with each other too. We decided that we will give it two weeks from the coming Monday, and that at anytime if the programmers feels that it's too much, we will stop and go back to only single player. Our first goal is to have two playable characters. I researched and read a bit in the "Beginning Game Level Design" book by John Feil & Marc Scattergood. I made a Level layout with paper I teared into pieces, to start to create a vision for what I'm after. The yellow dot is a Landmark that is placed in a pond where the player can fish. My idea was for it to be seen from different points of the level so that the player can find their way back. I was also thinking that from the pond the player would be able to see Landmarks, places of interest that they want to go to and explore. I shared my narrative with Alva-Maria after talking with Melinda so that Alva-Maria can use parts of it if she wants to. This right now is what I'm basing the level on, because of the theme of the island, and to keep the narrative easy to grasp and easy to expand on. I also encouraged her to think of Landmark assets. Translation: The narrative on the Night Island can be that a child is sad. Water. Blue tones. What does it mean to be sad? How can you get better? WHY is the child sad? (or perhaps, WHY are the Loomies sad?) I added a pier asset to indicate to the player that they are able to fish at specific places, since the "Nattö" I'm making right now is water themed, I was thinking that we need to teach the player where they can fish. So they don't get confused. I also added a Kettle asset for the Bugstew. I started to transfer the Artist asset list to an excel sheet instead so that all information could be seen without being cramped in a document. I had a meeting with Melinda and Linus where we went through how objectives should be conveyed to the player and we also talked about the player avatars camera view and placement. I also told them that I will only focus on Level Design and not Sound Design and doing presentations (if Melinda was busy / became sick), because I feel like I already have so much on my plate and I really want to focus on my area. Isabella was away promoting PlaygroundSquad today, but she shared her progress on the cloud that she has been working on! It looks really good! Rain created a Smart Material that the artists can follow so that the art style stays consistent in the Art Bible! Elin is working on the Glass Balls! And she finished the Glass Ball that is cut in half! Felicia is working on the Loomies!
Today I made a size reference for the assets for the artists. I decided to use Alice Madness Returns as the main size reference. I added assets to Trello, and Miro. I also discussed with a few of the artists about props. I did research about what type of level I'm going to make. I also took time to make LIA applications. It feels like the game concept is a little more clearer to me now after hearing from Linus about the gameplay. I also discussed the scope with them and I stood my ground on how I was going to work on this project and informed them about that, we reached a conclusion. I feel a bit more relaxed now. Kielo's work today! Rain's work today! Magda started working with a water material yesterday and continued on today! The water's color changes depending on the distance of the ground. Lighter if closer and darker blue when further away. Felicia worked on the Doomie Loomie transforming into the Loomie form.
The placeholder name "Sky Giants" has changed to "Trouble in Loomie Land". I had an art meeting this morning where we decided on the art style and direction of the game. I also discussed it with Alva-Maria and made sure we're on the same track. I continued on making the asset list. I added assets to the Trello board and also the Miro board. I'm still very confused about the game concept and what exactly we are doing, and people seem to adding things and I have no idea what's going on. These are the themes for the islands: HUB: Pillow fort Dreamland Dreamy, Sky, Safe haven, Fluffy Island 1: Nordic Spring Playground Playground, Grass, Coltsfoot, Warm, Cosy Island 2: Mediterranean Sea Dark Night, Illuminated, Fantasy, Seashells, Water On left is the asset list on Trello, To the right is the asset list on Miro. They contain the same information, but on Miro Bard I can see the full picture of the island by having assets next to each other like on a mood board. Island 2's assets so far. For the HUB island I'm thinking of keeping it small and simple in size, but still make it enjoyable to walk around in. As well as containing the important elements of the game. The artists are working with concepting.
Today I had a meeting with the designers where we decided on roles for the project. Product Management is Melinda. Narrative is Alva-Maria. Gameplay and AI is Linus. Gameplay and UI is Calle. Level Design and Sound Design is me. I had two different meetings with the artists today. In the first they decided on roles and I informed them on the current status of the game concept. We also discussed a bit about art style and different shaders, which continued on in the second meeting later on. Bella and Alva-Maria joined and we talked about the narrative as well and listened to what Alva-Maria was envisioning. Unfortunately I had to say no to a lot of ideas since I felt that it was too asset heavy with focus on 2D imagery instead of environmental art or character art which would scope up the project a lot. In the end we decided for Alva-Maria to continue to work on her narrative and then she could present it in a design meeting and we could discuss it with all designers. Hopefully Calle and Linus will have the gameplay figured out by then so we can fully grasp what this game is. We also had a meeting with the entire group and talked a bit. We had our first sprint today as well. I also started to write a generic asset list for the artists and a list for sound design (music, SFX, Voice acting). I added one VFX asset to Trello from the list I'm writing on. Here is a small bit from the Artist Asset List I'm writing on.
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