Video
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL10dezsuCFL5nsbqSW6-wycuU3LnQuSfZ
Thought Process and Development
When creating our Killer Klowns game in our group, we came up with a lot of different ideas just by talking things through. The first serious idea that we had was that the main character of the Killer Klowns film, Mike, was dreaming all of these events, but we realised that was a bit of a boring idea. The next idea that we came up with was that after the events of the film, Mike was traumatised by what happened, and turned to alcoholism. After causing a public disturbance Mike was put in prison to sleep off the alcohol, but had nightmares about the Klowns. This added more detail to the previous storyline and made it more interesting, but we were worried about the effects of adding alcohol to the game and how that might effect the age rating of the game. Finally, we settled on the idea that the game would be an alternate timeline of the film. Instead of defeating the Klowns, Mike was defeated and was taken by the Klowns, being placed in a candyfloss cocoon to harvest him. After sometime, the Klowns interrupted the process, expecting Mike to now have become a Klown, but instead he became a hybrid Klown/human. He wants revenge, so he goes off to find and destroy the Klowns spaceship, which is where the game starts.
When first designing the game with concept art, I had very different ideas to how the game ended up. For example, I wanted to have a level that was a theme park style near the ocean, with this being the Klowns main base of operations. The problem with this idea was that in order to create a realistic version of the level, we would've had to have create many models in Maya, and we realised that we would not have enough time. I also wanted to have a forest area where the Klowns would be hiding as the level before the theme park style level. However, I found a compromise in the level that I created. I decided that instead of create a whole theme park area, I would take aspects of that and create a level using inspiration from that. My level ended up being a forested area that leads up to a haunted house which has a old rollercoaster around the outskirts of the house. This meant that I got to keep the theme I wanted whilst also cutting down on time and allowed me to focus on getting the functionality of the game working, which was my role within the group.
In regards to models, I did create a Klown model for the game, but when it came to putting this model onto the enemy character in the game we found that the model become too stretched and didn't look good enough to put into the game, which is why we used Kori's model as well. Although the model doesn't look perfect in game, it looked much better than mine, and we felt that it was good enough to include in the game. The reason we both created models is because we wanted to have multiple types of Klowns in the game, but once mine didn't work we decided that it would just be easier to include one type, and work on getting other things working as we felt that we had a good enough enemy for the game.
When looking at the functionality of the game, I am very happy with the way that the game has turned out. I was in charge of this part of the game, and I feel that I did a good job in getting the game to work. I was able to include lots of complicated functions such as an inventory and equipment system that allowed the players to find weapons within the levels and pick them up for use. Furthermore, I added functionality for a stamina system that allowed the player to move faster for a time, which was important in this game as it allowed the player to escape the enemies and hide if they ever got surrounded. I was also able to add the ability to do damage to the enemies using weapons, and gave the enemies a health system where they could die if they took enough damage, along with many other things that helped to get the game to work well.
What I Liked and Things I Would Improve
There are a lot of things that I like about our game. First of all, I'm happy that we have some kind of story line included within the game as it helps to give a sense of purpose when playing the game instead of having no reason to the things that you do in the game. I also really like Kori's inclusion of a tutorial level that actually has information that the players can read so they can easily learn the controls of the game, rather than being thrown in at the deep end and getting frustrated when they don't know the controls. Furthermore, I also like the Klown footprints that Kori added as a guide. They aren't everywhere so that don't make the game too easy, but they give the player a nudge in the right direction, which is great. Another thing I like in the game is within Noel's level, with the use of trigger boxes in order to talk to NPCs at the houses in order to add more story and substance to the game. It helps to immerse the player in the game as it gives them more reason to be playing. I love the level design of Kori's main level, as it uses a small space to do a lot and add a lot of exploration, compared to my level which is very linear and straight. Finally, I'm happy that I managed to add a boss to the end of the game, which also links in with the story line of the game. By having the boss being the spaceship it adds some variation to the enemies in the game and also creates a unique challenge for the player that needs to be overcome to defeat the game.
However, despite all of the good things in the game, there are some things that I would change. The main thing for me would have been to make lots more models to add into the game. It feels that I didn't really contribute much to that site of the project and although that wasn't really my focus, I didn't do much in that area that actually made it into the game. I would also like to fix the enemies animation and models as they still look a bit off. I would like to add an attack animation for the enemies as well as it's a bit rubbish that they just do contact damage when they could swing at the player or shoot at them instead. We were also discussing having objectives and collectables in the game to add more depth to the game than just run through and kill Klowns, which would have been nice. Another thing I would like to add is sounds. We had a lot of focus on the functionality and the environments, so for the most part sounds were just forgotten about which really effects the atmosphere of the game negatively.
Overall, I am incredibly happy with the way our game has turned out. I feel like it has a lot of functionality, along with some interesting and diverse maps that highlight the work of our group really well. I also like how accessible the game is to newer players thanks to the tutorials and the hints given along the way. Most of all, I like how much content we managed to add to the game, with 4 levels and complicated blueprints that make the game feel much more professional. If we could've had more models and sound that would have made the game much better, but on the whole I am very happy with the work me and the group have done and I am very pleased with our final game and the project as a whole
No comments:
Post a Comment