P10 Planning And Problem Solving

Collage

Chosen Game

Above is a collage I made as a reference for the graphical style of my chosen game that I am aiming to recreate to the best of my ability in a 16 bit format which will be challenging, the collage is made up of a collection of concept art, gameplay, promotional material and the comics that all help give a feel of the style the game goes for which is what I want my demake to feel like since it will help me to appeal to my audience.

Chosen Platform

Above is a collage I made as a reference for the graphical style of my chosen platform, the collage is made up of mostly gameplay from top down GBA/16 bit games since that’s the style I will be mixing with that of team fortress 2’s graphical style that I am aiming to recreate for my demake, I hope that I will be able to blend both of these styles together well so that it will be appealing towards all area’s of my target audience however since I am not very good at art it is an area I am worried about but I will give it my best try and hope it turns out good.

Gameplay Loop

A gameplay loop is the series of events the player repeats often in the gameplay such as in a shooter it would be something along the lines of spot player, shoot player, find next enemy or die. There are larger cycles found within games such as progression systems and winning or losing a match which all require the core gameplay loop to be good as this cycle has to be fun in order to keep the player engaged since if it isn’t the player will lose interest.

Team fortress 2’s core gameplay loop is that of my example which is spot player, shoot player, find next enemy or die in all official game modes, There isn’t any loop in a progression system since the game doesn’t really have one so the only larger cycle would be winning or losing a match in the cycle of kill players,attack objective, win/lose or in the case of mann versus machine there is also a larger cycle in buying upgrades via the cycle of kill robot, get money, buy upgrades.

Team fortress 2 can be broken down via its variety of game modes and from my research I found capture the flag, elimination(arena) and mann versus machine. When it comes to my demake these are the 3 modes I am considering recreating, I could translate all of them over to a top down 2D format pretty well however in the case of capture the flag I would have to make it so the player only has to attack the enemy flag since due to it only being 1 person it would be hard for the player to attack and defend plus there are not any difficulties I could think of as I believe I could translate this game mode pretty well. In the case of elimination I would once again have to change it slightly from team death match or free for all to player vs a team of AI and the only difficulty I would have is balance and even then it isn’t that much of a difficulty, this game mode would translate over pretty good too. Lastly mann versus machine would translate over perfectly with no changes and once again the only difficulty would be the balance which is easy to figure out with testing, this mode would translate really well.

It is very important that I get the gameplay loop for my demake right since its the core of a game, I will have to translate it into a 2D top down format which should work pretty well however the main issue with maintaining this gameplay loop is how team fortress 2 is a multiplayer game and even mann versus machine which is a player versus enemy mode still heavily relies on other players which is why by default the mode requires a minimum of 3 players to start. I cannot do this for my demake and instead will be focusing on making it a solo experience which means I am going to have to rebalance certain area’s of the game so that the player is able to complete this task on their own however its key that I keep as close to the original gameplay loop as close as possible so that I don’t stray too far from the source material and keep it recognizable for the area of the audience that have played the original game.

Game Details Grid

Above is my game details grid which is a clear and concise way of showing the ideas I have for my demake in a good amount of detail and will be a good reference during my later planning and production for what I am aimed to do with my demake, from this I will be able to continue my planning of other specific area’s of my demake now that I have this foundation of what I want to do so that I don’t stray too far from my original intentions. This document was easy to complete as I already had a solid idea of what I wanted to do and I have done this document many times which makes it very easy to do.

Narrative Planning

Above is my narrative planning document, while the story of my demake is not that important I still did this document to give context to what the player is doing. Since my game is a demake the narrative is straight from my source material and I just put it into the format of the heroes journey so that its easy to understand.

Level Design

Youtube.com. 2022. [online] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOqz54b9xQE&ab_channel=AndreNg&gt; [Accessed 28 January 2022].

Above are two designs I created for the level design of my demake, when I designed them I tried to stay very close to the original map in layout and the location of key things such as the spawn locations which can be seen above however some changes had to be made due to the change from 3D to 2D such as simplifying the map since I would be unable to include the raised areas/roof tops the players can use as it wouldn’t work with my top down 2D perspective and since the player couldn’t use them I had to make a way for the player to get from the right path to the left path or vice versa however beyond these slight changes I have stayed very true to the source material in both designs. Due to how similar the designs are and how I like them both I will test both of them during the grey box stage of my demake and find which one works better and make any further changes needed but for now I am happy with these designs.

Asset List

Above is my asset list which is a effective way of detailing what I need for my game to graphically complete, these assets will be made myself and I will try to be as accurate to that of the original game as possible while sticking to the limits of my chosen platform of the GBA. This list has helped me to get a feel of everything I need to design which I enjoyed doing and I had no issues completing this document.

Visual References

Environment

Above are some references for my environment some from the original game and some of what that map is based on which is an old mining town, the images of the game will help to be accurate to the original design that mine will be based off however it is also important to look at what the developer’s of the game would have looked at when creating the map so that any authenticity of the original environment they aimed to simulate is not lost. These references will help me to recreate this environment in a top down 2D setting which will be interesting to do and I am looking forward to that challenge.

Characters

Above are some references of the mercenaries which will be the playable characters in my demake, the way the characters are designed is to make them distinct from each other, their environment and easy to recognize and these references images will allow me to hopefully do the same with my designs. I keep their designs accurate to source material but still manage to convey what they are like from a completely different perspective from what they were designed for however despite how they were made mainly for a front facing view they are still pretty distinct from most perspectives even top down which will help me for my demake which should assist in my ability to remain accurate to their original designs.

Enemy

Above are some references of the variety of enemies that will be in my demake which are the robots, the tanks and lastly the bomb. These will help me to create my own versions of these enemies that maintain their core design so that they are easily recognizable to people who have played the original game and also players who haven’t so that they can understand what each enemy does from its design which was very important for the design of team fortress 2 and is something that will be equally as important in my demake.

Weapons

Above are some reference images of the in game weapons used by the variety of mercenaries and robots and their real life counterparts, similarly to the environment references I did this as to not lose the authenticity of what the game is trying to simulate. It is very important that I get these designs correct as they are one of the defining traits for each character and were designed to be eye catching so that players would know what weapon their opponents were using and hopefully these references will allow me to do the same for my designs.

UI

Above are some visual references of several different bits of UI from my source material that I will serve as the base for my own UI for my demake, these references will help me during my planning of my UI for what my designs should be like.

Collectible

Above are some references of the collectibles from my source material that I will need to include in my demake, these references will help me during my planning of my collectables for what the designs should be like.

All of these references images are very helpful for me as they allow me to make sure that my own designs are similar to that of the source material so that my demake is still easily recognizable by fans of the original game. Due to the way team fortress 2 is designed I shouldn’t need to change these designs much when I create my own version as each item is made to be very distinct and clear no matter where the player is viewing them from which will further help me stay similar to the source material which will better appeal to my target audience.

Production Art

UI

Above is some production art of my different elements of the UI which are the main menu, upgrade menu and the HUD which are all inspired and quite similar to those of the original game however I have adapted them to better suit my demake such as simplifying the upgrade menu and changing the layout of the HUD. I enjoyed creating these designs as it was a fun task to think about and complete.

Environment

Characters And Weapons

Enemies

Collectables

Above is the production art of the different assets I will need for my game, when creating these I have stuck as close to the original design as I could since it would be recognizable for fans of the original game which will help me better appeal to that part of my audience and team fortress 2 is designed so that everything is very distinct and clear so that it is easy for players to know what something is and what it does hence why I have not needed to change the designs too much from that of the source material. Instead I have changed the proportions of things a bit to better suit the top down perspective of my game and tried out a few different colours on some objects such as the tank which I tried mixing a darker shade of blue on the top to contrast the light blue seen on the sides or the added red at the bomb site to make it more eye catching to show its importance but I still prefer that of the original designs for a variety of reasons. I really enjoyed doing this as while art is not something I consider myself to be very good at it was very fun to be able to draw assets from one of my favorite games in a perspective that you rarely see them in.

Sound Design

Above is my sound design document that I created to help create a list of sounds I believe that I will need to serve as a reference during production, After creating my game I may find that some other sounds are required that at the time of creating this document I didn’t think about which I will add which will most likely happen because I will need a lot of sounds so its almost certain that I will have missed some. I found creating this document to be easy because I have done this before which helped my complete it this time, it has helped me better understand what I will need for my audio for my game and helped break the process down for me since I now have a written list of what I will be looking for during my sound production. All of the sounds will be library as I if I can I will be using the sounds from the source material and just editing them so they better fit the GBA aesthetic of my game. Since I have done this document many times before I found it easy to do again and encountered no issues.

Production Schedule

Above is my production schedule which shows all the tasks I need to complete in order to finish my game, I believe that I should have enough time to complete each task since I am working in 2D again which I am more confident in my abilities in. I also plan to do work outside of class and during half term which should allow me to get all of this done and maybe even get ahead of schedule, this schedule will help me maintain a good work flow for this project so that I will be able to have completed what needs to be done before the deadline and not fall behind on my work. Since I have made many production schedules before I found this to be easy and had no issues completing this document. During the project I will regularly update my schedule as a record of my progress and make any necessary changes to it such as cutting features due to time constraints or other issues however I do not believe that it will come to that since I have set myself a pretty realistic work load for me to complete.