Scott V Goth Contributions part 3

Finally it was down to creating the level. After some small discussion about the boss I decided the level should not have platforms, but simply a limited space for the player and boss to run around in. At first the size of the level was hard to determine, so I had some versions scrapped (I never screenshotted them so they could not be shown here) but eventually the main character art was created, as well as some attack animations, meaning I could use those as a guide for creating the level. The idea for the level is that it would have a large space for the player and boss to fight in with two towers on the end to limit combat space. One of these towers would act as a training room for the player to get used to the controls before entering the battle area. The result of my work was this:

Initially the idea was to have a door open up by the player opening it after learning the controls, however this seemed too difficult for our programmer and so this was not implemented in the test version, which was honestly disappointing. My last task before the test version was complete was putting on the finishing touches. Our programmer had "finished" his work, so I fiddled around with the values to make the gameplay feel as could as I could get it to be. I had also added some extra background to the towers by using some art I had lying about for RPG maker, but it did not turn out great. Unfortunately I was in a rush at that point so I had left it at that. The final result looked as such:

And as such the test project was ready for action!

Scott V Goth Contributions Part 2

After completing the GDD and presenting it, our group decided to start by creating a boss level rather than a full platform level. I was initially sent to simply gather ideas for the level and create the base of the game for further development, however after two of our group members had announced they were leaving, I became much more involved in the project as a whole. My task then included creating the level itself, including a background, so that our programmer can put the art and level together. As such, I started with the background, which is the focus of this post. The idea for the boss fight is that it would be on a rooftop, as such I wanted a background of a cloudy sky, as if the battle was taking place in the clouds. I made this to start off with:

This was clearly not good enough, however it did provide a good base for what I was looking for. Using the smudge tool, I was able to change this into a much better image by removing the guide lines and giving a more cloudy effect to the image. The result can be seen here:

This was allot better, but I felt it didn't really match the pixel art style I was going for. A simple Pixelise filter changed this into what can be seen below:

This was a subtle change though and did not seem to change much. As such I showed these to my remaining team members and asked for their opinions. It was decided then that we would use the second version, seeing as it was the most cloud like, but it was too uniform to be worth using. As such, i went back and applied more of the smudge tool, this time removing the entirety of the guide lines to give the clouds different sizes rather than simple layers. This was the result:

This was well received and as such we used it in the test version of the game.

Scott V Goth Contributions Part 1

This series of blog posts showcase my progress in making the Scott V Goth game with my project group. This post includes my initial contribution towards making the story for the game for the Game Design Document. After much discussion with the group, I was told to work on the story and some of the character backgrounds so that we can get an idea on what to work on within the game. As such I went on my own and created a small story with a few character bios, including characters that could be added to the game if the initial project went well. Here was my initial story before it was modified for the GDD:

Setting/story:

The game is set within the various underground dungeons of The Goth King, Where various Goth looking art and decoration is placed all along it. The player starts on the surface in the middle of a graveyard, however this is only to get the player used to the controls. Quickly the player is sent down a grave to enter the dungeons. The final room is a heavily decorated medieval Goth styled room with lots of velvet. In a large throne sits the Goth King for the final battle, who turns out to be female despite her title. If time and skill allows us we can add various levels with other bosses before the final boss that is The Goth King (Queen?). With the defeat of the Goth King, she loses her immortality, dies and all of her experiments return to rest in peace, including Scott (and the other revived heroes if we add them).

Characters:

• Angus, the Great Scott: An ancient scottish warrior from years passed revived accidently through the Gothic King’s experiments at raising the goth-dead. He is disgusted by the idea of goths and the actions of the Gothic King and swears on his kilt he will eliminate them. However, he finds them resilient to harm through normal means, but finds an odd weapon that replaces his lost arm from before he died. The weapon is a high powered Chainsaw that seems to be powered through the wearers blood. Through use of this weapon he finds he can’t feel pain, allowing him to learn the weapon with little risk. The weapon proves effective at annihilating anything made of meat and wood, and thus Scott uses it to achieve his goal of eliminating the Gothic King and his followers.
• The Gothic King: A sad, gloomy being who wishes of only pain to herself and those around her. She was originally part of the Visigoth people, a European people who contributed to the fall of Rome, however in her quest to defy death he somehow became immortal. As such she lived through various phases of the world, and learned of the many dark secrets of humans. She began to love this darkness in people’s hearts and the drama that would appear in various theatrical productions and films. She eventually found the Gothic Rock scene of the early 1980’s particularly favourable to her. As such she became was one the first Goths, and eventually became a Queen (king?) among them. In her quest to replicate her immortality on others she did many experiments, including raising his dead followers, who died from the various things they would do to their bodies to achieve the Goth look of the time. These beings became immune to pain, but that led them to crave it. However, as a side effect of her experiments, she raised a couple of unwanted company, including Scott himself.
• The Gothic Followers: These people, normally teens, follow the Gothic King for her style and as the epitome of being a Goth. As such they following her in her goals. While some of them are still living, many are revived beings, however retain their mind. The revived beings are notably crazier due to their craving for pain, meaning they are unsuited for higher cognitive actions. This leaves them as effective brawlers. Only through death will these people feel true pain, and so they fight for their king in the chance that they will feel true pain. They are not zombies in the classical sense.

Tentative characters (If time is available):

• Madam Lily: Another unwanted revived being, Madam Lily loves pretty things, such as flowers, diamonds, frilly dresses and her weapon of choice, a Ruby Crystal Mace. This mace has all of its damage on the end, the ball part of it, but deals more damage there when compared to Scott’s Chain Whip. It is also comparably slower, made up for the fact that Lily's dress allows her to float daintily down to the ground. She simply despises the Goth sense of style and the idea that the King wishes to keep these things alive. She wants to make this world more pretty, and thus she fights for that.
• Duke Metal: Originally this Duke was part of the highly sophisticated D.O.P society. However when he was revived he found Metal music and fell in love with the style. However, Gothic Rock became his most hated style of music. His weapon of choice is simply a spiked electric guitar tied to a piece of rope which he flings around constantly when he is not playing it. As much as he likes metal though, he never learned how to play a guitar…..
• Horus Anwar: A man that wears only white clothing. He was not revived by the Gothic King but instead works for a secret organisation that protects the world from supernatural events and beings. Despite his constant killing, he perfectly avoids any piece of dirt or blood touching his suit at all times. His weapon of choice is an electric whip that paralyses enemies before exploding them. He walks fairly slowly though to avoid losing composure.

 The idea was to muck around with the idea that the plot was a silly scenario to get a Scottish guy to fight a Gothic King. After discussing with one of the artists in our group (Michael) we had decided to change the Goth King into a female. My added characters were designed to be variations on the main character so that the game could still play overall the same, but each character would have their own thing, as such they each had to have a reason to fight the Goth Queen and had their attacks explained incase we were to make them. This document was slightly modified for the GDD, as shown here:

Characters

Character designs were inspired by games like Brutal Legend and Volgarr the Viking.

• Angus, the Great Scott: An ancient scottish warrior from years passed revived accidently through the Gothic King’s experiments at raising the goth-dead. He is disgusted by the idea of goths and the actions of the Gothic King and swears on his kilt he will eliminate them. However, he finds them resilient to harm through normal means, but finds an odd weapon that replaces his lost arm from before he died. The weapon is a high powered Chainsaw that seems to be powered through the wearers blood. Through use of this weapon he finds he can’t feel pain, allowing him to learn the weapon with little risk. The weapon proves effective at annihilating anything made of meat and wood, and thus Scott uses it to achieve his goal of eliminating the Gothic King and his followers.
• The Gothic King: A sad, gloomy being who wishes of only pain to herself and those around her. She was originally part of the Visigoth people, a European people who contributed to the fall of Rome, however in her quest to defy death he somehow became immortal. As such she lived through various phases of the world, and learned of the many dark secrets of humans. She began to love this darkness in people’s hearts and the drama that would appear in various theatrical productions and films. She eventually found the Gothic Rock scene of the early 1980’s particularly favourable to her. As such she became was one the first Goths, and eventually became a Queen (king?) among them. In her quest to replicate her immortality on others she did many experiments, including raising his dead followers, who died from the various things they would do to their bodies to achieve the Goth look of the time. These beings became immune to pain, but that led them to crave it. However, as a side effect of her experiments, she raised a couple of unwanted company, including Scott himself.
• The Gothic Followers: These people, normally teens, follow the Gothic King for her style and as the epitome of being a Goth. As such they following her in her goals. While some of them are still living, many are revived beings, however retain their mind. The revived beings are notably crazier due to their craving for pain, meaning they are unsuited for higher cognitive actions. This leaves them as effective brawlers. Only through death will these people feel true pain, and so they fight for their king in the chance that they will feel true pain. They are not zombies in the classical sense.

Tentative characters (If time is available):

• Madam Lily: Another unwanted revived being, Madam Lily loves pretty things, such as flowers, diamonds, frilly dresses and her weapon of choice, a Ruby Crystal Mace. This mace has all of its damage on the end, the ball part of it, but deals more damage there when compared to Scott’s Chain Whip. It is also comparably slower, made up for the fact that Lily's dress allows her to float daintily down to the ground. She simply despises the Goth sense of style and the idea that the King wishes to keep these things alive. She wants to make this world more pretty, and thus she fights for that.
• Duke Metal: Originally this Duke was part of the highly sophisticated D.O.P society. However when he was revived he found Metal music and fell in love with the style. However, Gothic Rock became his most hated style of music. His weapon of choice is simply a spiked electric guitar tied to a piece of rope which he flings around constantly when he is not playing it. As much as he likes metal though, he never learned how to play a guitar…..
• Horus Anwar: A man that wears only white clothing. He was not revived by the Gothic King but instead works for a secret organisation that protects the world from supernatural events and beings. Despite his constant killing, he perfectly avoids any piece of dirt or blood touching his suit at all times. His weapon of choice is an electric whip that paralyses enemies before exploding them. He walks fairly slowly though to avoid losing composure.

Enemies

These will include emos, Nickleback fans and clubrats. As the game becomes more supernatural enemies will too. Eventually Angus will stumble upon a graveyard where zombies will begin to spawn, thus beginning a new wave of non-human enemies. These will include demon nuns, vampire priests and Orc politicians.

Setting & story

Our game will be inspired by the stereotypical view of heavy metal culture and subcultures.

The game is set within the various underground dungeons of The Goth King, Where various Goth looking art and decoration is placed all along it. The player starts on the surface in the middle of a graveyard, however this is only to get the player used to the controls. Quickly the player is sent down a grave to enter the dungeons. The final room is a heavily decorated medieval Goth styled room with lots of velvet. In a large throne sits the Goth King for the final battle, who turns out to be female despite her title. If time and skill allows us we can add various levels with other bosses before the final boss that is The Goth King (Queen?). With the defeat of the Goth King, she loses her immortality, dies and all of her experiments return to rest in peace, including Scott (and the other revived heroes if we add them).

Though most of the changes were formating, some details were added including our inspirations and minor changes to details of the main characters. This provided a good base for our ideas of the full game.