Week 1 development

Firstly, we should talk about our initial idea. Our initial idea was to make a game that would provide the player with the feeling of the environment around them changing not through physical changes, but rather through their perception as they get more knowledgeable. After some playing around with the idea we realised that this would be conveyed best through comparing someone who is constantly learning about their environment and finds new ways to use it (the player) against someone stagnant in their views. The roles we decided to pick were a monkey with an intelligence boost for the player and robots for the AI.

We have already made significant progress in the game's implementation and the rules for the game, but as this is still early development, almost nothing is set in stone and elements are always changing. Story has been completely re-written multiple times (and might be re-written again in the future) to provide for better player experience and to make the game stand out. Some of the mechanics were tested with paper prototypes and have been changed based on the feedback. EVERYTHING in this devlog is very early and up in the air and will likely change later on.

All of the devlogs will be divided into four parts. Programming, modelling, level design, and game design (includes story and QA).

GAME DESIGN

Game design is progressing well, but not as well as it could. The game mechanics are still up in the air and are not tested very well. This is likely due to this being the first week and having only one prototype test. We will work on making cheaper, more frequent prototypes, as well as setting up channels for quick testing.

Thus far, the (very) rough outline of the story is that a monkey (the player) wakes up on an alien ship in a garden of sorts. The aliens are robots from outer space that want to find out if human race is worth exterminating. To be extra cautious they did not abduct a human, but rather a monkey. They made the monkey hyper intelligent so that it catches up to human intellect quite quick. They will try to kill the monkey and see how the monkey performs. If it performs well, the humanity (and the monkey) will be spared. If it performs badly, humanity (and the monkey kind, and all of the bananas on earth) will be eradicated.

The player's goal is to survive. The only way to survive is to craft weapons and defences. Sounds simple, but the player does not know what the items around them are. A player might assume that the fruit they see is edible, but it might actually be explosive! The player will have to explore what each item is and what it does (still thinking of the best way to put that in the game) and base their defences off of that. The player will be given a certain amount of time during that day when they can explore the items around them. When the night comes, the robots will try to exterminate the player. If the player is successfully killed, the player will spawn in the next level, if the player manages to survive, they player gets to stay on the level they were originally on and they can explore their environment more.

PROGRAMMING

Programming is going very well, could even be said that it is going better than expected. Thus far, the team implemented movement, AI, basic interaction system, and a basic learning system. As the game is still in early development, there is a very high emphasis on making the code as well written as possible. We will have to re-write some code (namely learning and interaction systems) but we try our best to minimise it. Currently, we are working on class diagrams for more advanced interactions and learning as well as developing even more improvements for the movement system. Combat system might also see more revisions soon. The team is paying very close attention to the combat system as it is hard to test with a paper prototype. A possible solution to this would be to rush create a combat prototype as quick as possible to allow for more loops of testing, but more discussion is needed.

MODELLING

<span class="NormalTextRun SCXW123790325 BCX0" <things="" that="" have="" been="" modelled="" <="" span="">The things we have modelled so far are the ranged robot, the fruit, the plank, and the vent. To model the robot the basic shapes were created first, this was done by mirroring the shapes while modelling.</span>

Additional details were then added to each part. This includes refining the shape by adding indents or extrusions, as well as adding details such as the camera eyes.

After that additional parts for joints were added such as in the neck or the shoulders. After the modelling of the robot was complete it needed to be set up for animation. This was done by adding ‘bones’, each bone controls a part of the model. This can be seen below.

For example, the bone at the top controls only the head. After the bones were added, constraints were put on the bones so that they didn’t rotate in the wrong direction. For example, the forearm should only be able to move back and forth. An unconstrained and a constrained arm are shown below.

To make the fruit, a sphere was created and then stretched to get a basic shape. Indents were then made on the top and the bottom. The stem was then extruded from the top. To add variation in the fruit model it was distorted using the ‘displace’ modifier. This makes parts of the model change position slightly. The vent and the plank were simpler to model. The plank was made just by creating a cube, stretching it and adding indents. The vent was made by stretching a cube and adding a hole in it, then creating one of the flaps and duplicating it.