Idea Material

http://bepic.net/view/276

http://pinktentacle.com/2010/08/post-apocalyptic-tokyo-scenery/

http://loadpaper.com/large/Ancient_wallpapers_358.jpg

http://matty17art.deviantart.com/art/Post-apocalyptic-City-282570955

http://digital-art-gallery.com/oid/0/1200x711_203_Dead_city_IDsoftware_2006_2d_sci_fi_city_ruins_post_apocalyptic_picture_image_digital_art.jpg

Game Engines

PhyreEngine

PhyreEngine is a free to use, cross platform game engine from Sony Computer Entertainment. By 2011 PhyreEngine had been adopted by dozens of game studios to power almost fifty games for the PlayStation Store or on Blu-ray Discs.

PhyreEngine is distributed as an installable package that includes both full source code and PC Windows tools, provided under its own flexible use license that allows any PS3 game developer, publisher or tools & middleware company to create software based partly or fully on PhyreEngine on any platform.

The engine uses sophisticated parallel processing techniques that are optimized for the Synergistic Processor Unit (SPU) of the Cell Broadband Engine of PS3, but can be easily ported to other multi-core architectures.

PhyreEngine supports OpenGL and Direct3D, in addition to the low level PS3 LibGCM library. It also provides fully functional game templates as source code, including support for Havok Complete XS, NVIDIA PhysX and Bullet for physics.

PhyreEngine was launched during the Game Developers Conference. The engine was developed to introduce new rendering features. This engine was used to develop a few well known games, such as Dark Souls, Demon's Souls, Disgaea 4 and Journey, some of these games being highly rated with special consideration to the engine used to develop them, especially in Dark Souls. PhyreEngine was a finalist in the European Develop Industry Excellence Awards in 2008 for Technical Innovation, and 2009 for Best Game Engine.

The PhyreEngine has a new and powerful asset pipeline, combining enhanced versions of the already robust exporters, with a powerful processing tool to generate optimized assets for each platform. Also new is the rewritten level editor, which permits a far more data-driven approach to authoring games using PhyreEngine. Combined with a more accessible API and far more game-oriented functionality including support for entities, scripting, and integrated physics and navigation components, PhyreEngine 3.0 empowers developers to produce high quality titles with less time and lower costs.

A list of Games that have used the PhyreEngine:

Colin McRae: Dirt                                                       Shatter

Race Driver: Grid                                                        Flow

Burn Zombie Burn!                                                     Flower

Demon’s Souls                                                           Journey

Dark Souls

Disgaea 4

Under Seige

GripShift

Blender

Blender is a free and open-source 3D computer graphics software product used for creating animated films, visual effects, interactive 3D applications or video games. Blender's features include 3D modeling, UV unwrapping, texturing, rigging and skinning, fluid and smoke simulation, particle simulation, animating, match moving, camera tracking, rendering, video editing and compositing. It also features a built-in game engine.

lender was developed as an in-house application by the Dutch animation studio Neo Geo and Not a Number Technologies (NaN). It was primarily authored by Ton Roosendaal, who had previously written a ray tracer called Traces for Amiga in 1989. The name Blender was inspired by a song by Yello, from the album Baby.

Roosendaal founded NaN in June 1998 to further develop and distribute the program. The program was initially distributed as shareware until NaN went bankrupt in 2002.

The creditors agreed to release Blender under the terms of the GNU General Public License, for a one-time payment. On July 18, 2002, a Blender funding campaign was started by Roosendaal in order to collect donations and on September 7, 2002 it was announced that enough funds had been collected and that the Blender source code would be released. Today, Blender is free, open-source software and is, apart from the two half-time employees and the two full-time employees of the Blender Institute, developed by the community.

The Blender Foundation initially reserved the right to use dual licensing, so that, in addition to GNU GPL, Blender would have been available also under the Blender License, which did not require disclosing source code but required payments to the Blender Foundation. However, this option was never exercised and was suspended indefinitely in 2005. Currently, Blender is solely available under GNU GPL.

Though it is often distributed without extensive example scenes found in some other programs, the software contains features that are characteristic of high-end 3D software. Some of these are; support for a variety of geometric primitives, including polygon meshes, fast subdivision surface modelling, Bezier curves, NURBS surfaces, metaballs, multi-res digital sculpting (including maps baking, remeshing, resymetrize, decimation..) , outline font, and a new n-gon modeling system called B-mesh.Internal render engine with scanline ray tracing, indirect lighting, and ambient occlusion that can export in a wide variety of formats.A new pathtracer render engine called Cycles (can use GPU Computing).Integration with a number of external render engines through plugins.Keyframed animation tools including inverse kinematics, armature (skeletal), hook, curve and lattice-based deformations, shape keys (morphing), non-linear animation, constraints, and vertex weighting. Simulation tools for Soft body dynamics including mesh collision detection, LBM fluid dynamics, smoke simulation, Bullet rigid body dynamics, ocean generator with waves.

Blender was used in many titles, such as:

Sonic The Hedgehog                        

Quantum

Grid

Tank Wars

CryEngine

CryEngine is a game engine designed by Crytek. CryEngine 3 Free SDK, originally called Sandbox Editor, is the current version of the level editor used to create levels for the CryEngine line of game engines by Crytek. Tools are also provided within the software to facilitate scripting, animation, and object creation. It has been included with various Crytek games (including, but not limited to, Crysis and Far Cry), and is used extensively for modding purposes. The editing style is that of the sandbox concept, with the emphasis on large terrains and a free style of mission programming. The editor can also construct indoor settings.

Opposed to editors like UnrealEd which use a subtractive editing style that takes away areas from a filled world space, the Sandbox has an additive style (like Quake II). Objects are added to an overall empty space.

The Sandbox's concentration on potentially huge (in theory, hundreds of square kilometers) terrain, means that it uses an algorithmic form of painting textures and objects onto the landscape. This uses various parameters to define the distribution of textures or types of vegetation. This is intended to save time and make the editing of such large terrains feasible while maintaining the overall real world sandbox free roaming style. This is different from some editing styles that often use fake backdrops to give the illusion of large terrains.

In a fashion somewhat comparable to the 3D Renderer Blender, which can be used for game design, the Sandbox editor has the ability, with a single key press, for the editor to jump straight into the current design (WYSIWYP, What You See Is What You Play Feature). This is facilitated without loading the game as the game engine is already running within the editor. The "player" view is shown within the 3D portion of the Editor.

The Editor also supports all the CryEngine features such as vehicles and physics, scripting, advanced lighting (including real time, moving shadows), Polybump technology, shaders, 3D audio, character Inverse kinematics and animation blending, dynamic music, Real Time Soft Particle System and Integrated FX Editor, Deferred Lighting, Normal Maps & Parallax Occlusion Maps, and Advanced Modular AI System

The CryEngine was also used in many large titles, such as:

Crysis

Crysis 2

Far Cry

Blue Mars

Lego Lord of the Rings Level Design

Level Design

This is the complete level. The player shall traverse through the puzzles, platforms and battles from left to right.

All yellow areas are triggers and all red areas are reactions, necessary destructibles and enemies.

This is the starting room, which is immediately met with an NPC Boss fight with NPC enemies. In order to defeat the boss the player will need to get on top of the ledges and lure it to attack the destructible pedestals that are marked out with a red circle. The yellow area's are where the player will need to use different characters' abilities to overcome the puzzle and mount the ledges.

The starting area is followed by a narrow hallway with more NPC enemies, along with a room where the player will need to combine 3 different triggers to get past the door.

Once past the door the player will need to use one of the character's abilities yet again to get to the destructible object and cause the reaction and extend the bridge...

Where the player will yet again have to use the same character's ability.

Once past the bridge the player will come to a room filled with NPC enemies and will have to destroy all the area's marked on the walls to stop them from spawning, once that is done, the final door will open and the player will be able to complete the level.

Halo 4 Analysis

Halo 4

This document will look into the mechanics and build of Halo 4 released in 2012 by 343 Industries. The first mechanic noticed in Halo 4 is the health; it is the defining mechanic that the game was built around. The health adds an element of challenge but survivability. Playing through the Campaign the player is exposed to many short range fire fights, where the player is expected to be exposed to the enemy for long periods of time, watching as the AI struggle to take off the player’s health gives said player a sense of power. Due to this, the player will feel powerful and feel like a super soldier. However in multiplayer the player does not feel as powerful as they are playing against other super soldiers. The player will be given a sense of challenge as each opponent (online) will still feel difficult to kill however the player themselves will feel weak; this gives the player a sense of achievement when they successfully kill another player. The health system has 2 main functions, number 1 is the shields. The shields in must first be broken down before a kill is successful, once the shields are broken down, the player will come across the second function of the health. The player will instantly be alerted with the status of the shields, once they are depleted, with a red flashing light at the top of the screen along with an alarm; this alerts the player that they must be careful. Once the shields are down, a simple shot to the head, melee or a small amount of bullets will successfully kill the player. The shields themselves suffer from a big weakness; specific weapons can take off all the shields instantly. As well as weaknesses the shield has bonuses and can even be improved in the form of brief upgrades or even game mode specific setting changes that can give the player more shields or even remove them completely.

Halo 4 has a second major mechanic that was introduced. The weapon pickup mechanic allows the player to openly swap weapons during a single life. They player does not have to ‘respawn’, meet any specific location or requirement, all the player would have to do is come within a close vicinity of a weapon that is not being held by an enemy NPC or player, nor an allied player, (however they can with allied NPCs) with available ammo, the player will then be prompted with an option to exchange the weapon they are currently holding and drop it, for this new weapon. However there are exceptions to this rule. The player can carry any 2 weapons at one time but cannot carry 2 of the same weapon, this means that if the player is only holding one weapon, and chooses to pick up a new weapon, instead of dropping their previous weapon, they will simply pick up the new weapon and equip that one placing the weapon they were currently holding to one side, ready to be swapped over easily at any time. When a player comes across a weapon they are currently holding they player will simply automatically pick up the ammo from this weapon without being prompted, but the player will hear a ‘clicking’ sound, informing them that additional ammo has been acquired, this does not apply if the player’s weapon already has full ammo. There are no restrictions to picking up weapons; the player is free to pick up whatever weapon they come across without hassle or difficulty. This mechanic introduces a whole new fast paced gameplay, very rapidly altering the chances of the player’s ability to kill their opponent. Even shooting or being shot at, nothing will stop the player from being able to pick up a new weapon, resulting in a game altering mechanic.

Halo 4 incorporates a very unique mechanic. The vehicles in Halo 4 are very specialised and differ greatly from one another in regards as to each vehicle’s individual mechanics. The vehicle mechanic works very similar to the weapon pickup mechanic. Once the player sees an available vehicle and is within a close vicinity of the vehicle, they will be prompted to ‘pilot’ the vehicle and depending on which vehicle and whether there is already a player or enemy NPC in the vehicle the player may have a choice to pilot a second section of the vehicle that has its own mechanics. Most vehicles will increase the player’s survivability and mobility; also most alternate fire a vehicle provides will be more powerful than base weapons. As well as being able to pilot vehicles, take a secondary and tertiary position in a vehicle that is being controlled by an enemy, the player will be able to mount or hijack the enemy vehicle, this mechanism could completely alter the outcome of a battle and give the player a big advantage. This mechanic will allow the player to destroy the enemy vehicle, killing the enemy piloting the vehicle; or even steal the opponent’s vehicle and place the player in the piloted position in which they hijacked, and throw the opposing player out of the vehicle dealing enough damage to remove the shields of the opponent or even kill them. This specific switching mechanic can be stopped be killing the player who is hijacking/mounting the vehicle resulting in the original vehicle’s pilot unharmed and still able to pilot the vehicle.

This is a player mounting and destroying an enemy, player controlled, vehicle.

The final feature of Halo 4 that will be mentioned in this document is the medals. Medals in Halo 4 are the main drive for the player during multiplayer. Whenever the player accomplishes a task in multiplayer, from a simple kill, to a rapid succession of kills, to inventive kills, the player will be awarded a medal, of which the harder ones to acquire are accompanied with a loud voice telling you of the medal and a message to all players in the current battle announcing what medal the player has acquired. These medals are frequent and appear instantly and colourfully in the centre of the player’s screen. This is an instant sign of the game praising the player, making the player feel as though they have accomplished something commendable and driving the player to acquire more medals. The harder the medal is to acquire the more dramatic and lengthy the loud voice is in announcing it, and more dramatic the visual display is to the player; with “Double Kills” being a quick announcement solely to the player, to an assassination, where the player will witness a quick animation of themselves creatively killing an opponent instantly, followed by a very loud and long announcement of what you just witnessed. The feel of accomplishment and visual effect these medals and achievements give the player enhance the player's enjoyment of the game.

These rewards apply to many other rewarding features of the game. As the player acquires rarer medals, their score will increase (depending on whether they’re achieving their objective) and in turn so will their personal “SR level” ranging from 1 – 130, giving the player a goal. As a player’s level increases so does their ability to customise their personal Spartan with their own personal appearance with level based unlocks of armor pieces. To add even more of a sense of achievement, some of these personal armor pieces can only be acquired by completing certain tasks ranging from collecting, analysing in game videos for encryption codes and accomplishing a certain number of medals or kills. With all of these combined goals and achievements, the player is constantly bombarded with colourful imagery and sound effects informing them of what they have achieved; the game has be very well designed around making the player feel important and as though they are making a difference in the matches they play, and even keeping the feeling that the player is an individual.

Unreal Tournament 3 Diagnosis

The level design is balanced well with adequate placement of weapons. The weapon types are useful to the map and gameplay environment with each weapon having it’s individual uses. Each player has the same mechanics and physics with no advantage for any individual.
The map of choice was Deck, it is semi-symmetrical in design with a circular type design. The map is balanced well for a fast paced multiplayer experience presenting good drop points and stand-offs. There are many long corridors to encourage good co-ordination, aim and requires a good prediction of how the individual players would move. The corridors present enough room to strafe without being blocked by scenery. The map presents good choke points and leaves no room for "camping" or "cheese" tactics.
The map allows for 16 players for a good balance for there to always be combat and no slow moments where the player would otherwise get bored. The game is intense and gives the player a sense of adrenaline, there is no margin for error, you cannot be predictable or stand still or you will end up dying.
The upgrades places throughout the map aren't unbalanced and so they do not present and unfair advantage for players, however they are useful in the close situations and will come in handy to the player fortunate enough to pick them up before a firefight.

Blood Runs Red

Blood Runs Red

‘Blood Runs Red’ is a game based around a drop of blood trying to reach the outside world for good. The drop is must complete puzzles and platform its way through the body until it reaches the top where it can escape the body’s nose, after that it is a race to the ground dodging clothes, hair and other peripheral objects. However the player must do their best to avoid germs, insects and even drops of sweat to complete the journey. Human blood isn’t the only blood trying to escape, so you’ll have a multitude of different host bodies to play through ranging from humans, to animal, to mythical creatures and even aliens!

 

 

The drop of blood has several enemies to avoid; the blood cannot fight and must avoid being absorbed by them. There are 3 main enemy types, germs, sweat drops and mosquitos; more enemies can be implemented in the future. Each enemy applies a new element of challenge for the blood, the germs will try to attack the drop and decrease it’s mass until it has been absorbed entirely, this is a benefit however as you become harder to be hit as you become smaller. The sweat will chase you down outside the body to absorb you altogether with no recovery, finally the mosquito will attach the blood from inside the body and outside, and the player must do their best to avoid being struck by the mosquito as must as possible, because it’s game over if they’re hit. However there isn’t just human blood in the world, the player will have 4 body types to try and escape from, the human, the tiger, the dragon and the alien, each presenting different puzzles and obstacles to complete and avoid. The other bodies will present appropriate challenges as the player will be able to understand e.g. clothes on the human, hair on the tiger, scales and fire from the dragon and weightlessness from the alien.

 

The game’s view position changes depending on where the player will be relevant to the body. While inside the body the player will encounter a platforming, 2-D view style and outside will encounter a view from behind the blood drop. The blood’s main mechanism comes from its ability to alter its shape to fit between and under obstacles. As the player makes their way through the body, the difficulty of the puzzles will increase and they will be relevant to the certain areas of the body. The player will go from the feet, scaling the bones of the legs and avoiding bacteria. The platforming will have to be done carefully as the bacteria will be falling down to attack the blood. At points in the game, the player will need to go through cracks in the bone to get to the other side and continue platforming. The shape-shifting will be needed to avoid obstacles and get through the body. The player will go experience force based puzzles involving places like the heart and lungs, where the player will be pulled and pushed due to the blood current through the heart and the oxygen in the lungs. While inside the body the player will encounter points where the mosquito will penetrate the skin and attack the drop. A shadow will appear in the spot where the mosquito’s stinger will hit, the player must duck, jump and shape-shift to avoid being hit.

Once outside the body the player will now have to trickle down the body with no means of stopping. While the blood runs, it will be chased by drops of sweat trying to absorb it. The player will encounter obstacles as they fall, such as clothes, hair, wounds, limbs trying to wipe the blood away and again mosquitos, which the player can see diving into the body. The player can still shape-shift and jump as before but this time it will be much harder as the player will be racing against the time.

 

Key Features

·         Shape-shifting

·         Multiple Camera Views

·         Platforming

·         Scripted Event Obstacles and Enemies

·         Area based puzzles

 

The game’s genre will change from a puzzle platforming game to a racing game, trying to escape the drops of blood. The genre will alter the way the player will need to think in order to solve the puzzles and avoid the obstacles. The chasing aspects of the game will be exhilarating when compared to the slow platforming. The platforming will still deliver a sense of excitement to the game as the player still needs to avoid the bacteria.

The target audience will be 3 to ensure everyone can play as the game itself is fun and child friendly, it doesn’t deliver any adult themes but will educational to some small children as it will be anatomically correct inside and outside the body.

The Art direction of the game hasn’t been set in stone, it’s aimed towards a toon like art style or a cell-shading style.

 

 

Robots Don’t Like Borders

Robots Don’t Like Borders

‘Robots Don’t Like Borders’ is a game based around the main protagonist Washington. Washington is a robot who based inside a comic book called ‘Robot Force 5’, however he dislikes being part of a comic book and wants to escape his comic prison at whatever cost. To escape the comic book he has to ruin the series by altering the story and doing things that shouldn’t happen to annoy the readers. His adventure will eventually lead him to cross over into other comics to acquire items and help from other comic book characters.

Washington is part of a squad of Robots. He is the 5^th robot and each robot’s strength is resembled by their level (1 being the strongest and 5 being the weakest). The other 4 robots are called Hawaii, Tex, York and Cali. The other 4 robots are trying to stop Washington from ruining the comic as they are under the belief that if the comic is ruined then they will cease to exist. Washington will travel between his comic and 2 others, a Japanese themed comic and Dark style comic. Washington will travel between older and future issues of his comic to ensure he can find a way to progress in ruining the name of his comic. He will make friends with the 2 other protagonists in the other comics who will help him to ruin the name of his own. The 4 other robots as well as the antagonists of the other comics are the main bosses of the game who Washington has to defeat before progressing onwards. Each time he defeats one of his fellow he ruins his comic’s reputation even further. As Washington continues to ruin his storyline the better chance he has to travel between comics by “breaking the fourth wall”. Before the end of the game Washington will become Robot 0 and have to defeat the final robot 1 (Cali). Once the other 4 robots are defeated the story is completely ruined and he can finally escape the book itself.

The game is an over the shoulder, 3^rd person, action-adventure. Washington’s main mechanism comes from his continuity bar. As the player makes their way through a comic ruining the linearity, the “continuity” meter will decrease and once the meter is completely depleted, the player can exit the comic and jump into another one of their choice. The player can jump between a previous and subsequent comic to assist a past (NPC controlled) ‘Washington’ to pass blocked doors and impassable areas that the player would have met as they themselves played through the game. ‘Comic jumps’ allow a player to take something they have found in another comic of a subsequent area of the game and take it back to a previous inaccessible area, and the player will in-fact have to do this to progress through the game and ruin the continuity.

As well as being able to jump between comics in his own series, the player can use Washington’s ability to jump between other comic series. In these other comics he will make use of items, get to objectives, fight other bosses and even come across allies to help him tarnish his own comic. All throughout the game Washington will come across the other robots who try to stop him, and occasionally he will have to fight them, these are the boss battles set into the game. The game will try to be funny and make pop culture references for the audience to relate to and laugh at. Overall the game is set in 3 comic universes, a robotic cartoon-style future, feudal japan with an ancient Japanese water-colour style, and a modern day city which is dark and adds a stealth element to the game.

  

Key Features

·         Comic Jumping

·         Collision of Art Styles

·         Time Phasing

·         Over the Shoulder Ranged/ Melee Combat

·         NPC Allies and Past-Self

·         Team of Robots

The game’s genre is Action-Adventure with hints of puzzles and platforming involved. The genre will play an important role in the structure of the game itself and how the player should look at the game. In certain areas of the game you will have a stealth sequence incorporated into the game, especially around the ‘Dark City’ comic, where you will be accompanied by an ally who will help you understand this sudden genre change. In the Japanese themed world you will experience a change in genre again as the games incorporate Japanese stereotypes and pop-culture references, mainly linking to Japanese game shows and RTS style combat, these will only be around for short instances and will only be implemented as a small mini-game.

The target audience will be 16+ as the game itself isn’t directly offensive or graphic but will include strong language and adult themes to get the jokes across, especially with some of the theorised humour which will border 80s movies and classic movie jokes and themes that are splashed into the game at points.

The Art direction of the game will range depending on which comic the player is in. There are 3 comics, ‘Machine Force 5’, ‘Night Hero’ and ‘Oh, Japan’ (these names are all little jokes in themselves). The art style shall change as the player progresses through the difference comics and will be exposed to difference visual effects and themes.