Dissertation Progress Part 1 (Intro+Chap1)

Game Concept 01

Title : Merry Structure

Objectives : 

• Complete the art music gallery (menu)

• Bring the sound and colour back into the art by interacting with parts of the set.
• Once music has been brought back into the art to give it new life, collect the next piece of art to unlock the next level.

Movement :

• Using the tablet, tilt the screen to move the character in the direction it is tilted. The characters movement will make theme tune according to the movement.
• Movement may be reversed or interrupted by intractable objects.

Interaction :

• 'Blue' objects are positive. they help you explore new areas and collect the missing power-up parts.
• 'Green' objects are negative. They will interrupt the play and have three random outcomes, sent back to last checkpoint, send you to another location, change the weight of the character.
• Collecting the 'Red' power-up parts will power up parts of the world and enable the player to obtain the next painting.

Using Merry Structure I have broken the art down to form a course in which he player will have to work through.  I have broken it down into 4 stages of play and marked the routes with arrows.

All Stages Together 

Stage 1:  The stairs are the fist challenge. The player has to time his slide correctly down the slope to the hole to miss the 'green' segment. The player continues to avoid the green segments and using the sucker and blower (the blue triangles) collect the first piece to the power.

Stage 1 end: upon collection of the first piece, the first hatch opens.

Stage 2: Also upon collection of the power a new part comes into play. The gravity shifter will suck up the player and pop him out with a shift in gravity.

Stage 2.5: With the shift in gravity, the level will rotate  to the new gravity. Upon reach of the blue ball the player may control the ball by either sitting on it, to which will make the ball slowly fall or jumping on it, which will make it move to its destination. The player must use this rise and fall in order to avoid the green ball which will also be in motion.

Stage 2 end: Once you have collect the item the second latch will open.

Stage 3: With the last 2nd power part collected, upon entering the gravity shifter you will be sent into the maze in order to reach the last piece. Once you have the last piece the player will be sent to the gravity shifter.

Stage 3 end: Once all pieces are completed the last hatch will open.

Stage 4: The player has the final challenge of chilling the wall up to capture the next painting. This will unlock the next level.

Music And Game Combined

Going on the theme of music possibly in my game interacting with movement or game play I have come up with three possible outlets to form and shape this theme.

1:When the character moves by shifting the tablet around, a theme tune follows the character in the movements that he makes.

A really good example of this is from a game recommended by Steven, Chibi Robo.



The theme tune for the movement would come from the music by Schoenberg from the post before (click here) while listen to the music for a while I quite liked the beat from min 7,9,13 and 15 which could be broken down and work.

2:You Are the controller, your voice controls the character. Speaking or sounding out things such as boo boo boo or bop bop bop will make the character move forward or backwards.

3: There is no sound is the world or from your movements. You have to interact with the world to make sound and bring colour and life back into the paintings. 

Lighting tester

This is a simple test for my self to show the possible start of the game. I am playing with lighting to get a feel of how a painting (level) will be selected to play

Base 

Lighting up the pictures using an occlusion plugin

Darkening the rest to show which one is being selected.

Same as before with lovely decay

Possible Workings Of The Game

While beginning to play with sounds I have come up with a primitive set of rules for my game to which to play off of and change as I go. This is to begin to refine the world in my mind and begin translating that.

Primary objective: To bring life (colour) back to all of the pieces of art 

Secondary objective: Collect small objects for points

Playing the game: Player one enters the art space to find it rendered dull and soundless. Using sound to move the character the player will work through the level. Player one will encounter items and pieces of the art to interact with to bring back sounds to the world and bring back the colour. Beware, not everything player one interacts with will help and may change your 'colour' and change your ability to roam free.

These are only basic at the moment but shall help me refine the game play and help it progress.

Music From Schoenberg

I have recently have discovered the link between Schoenberg music and Kandinscy's art. I believe this to be a possible from what inspired Merry Structure and is quite the tune.

Base For Sound Tests

Just a quick set up ready for movement sound tests.

Sound Research

I am looking for a gimmick for my game, something to make it special and different. For this I look towards sounds and music.

This game is rather interesting, as you play, you make music

App Emblem Colour Tests 04

Continuing on with coloured tests I now look towards the backdrop of the app to which I have kept block colour to match the objects.

Colour Sheet 1

Colour Sheet 2

Colour Sheet 3

Emblem Colour Test.03

Here I have looked at thumbnail 09 to which I quite liked before. I personally like no 2 & 5 but feel that the earlier tests were more successful.

Emblem Colour Test.02

Here is number 06 of my thumbnails. I much prefer this one compared to the last as I can visualise it in my mind being an app.

Emblem Colour Tests.01

Here I'm beginning to explore some of the emblems I liked from before. Here is no 2 from the thumbnails from before. I quite like no 2 & 3 from these.

The Workings Of The App

I am beginning to think on how my app will actually work in regards to menus and level selection. I have done a very basic 3 step thumbnail to get my idea down.  

The plan is to start off nice and easy by selecting the app (emblem still being designed) like any other to which takes you to the menu screen. I am thinking of having some sort of abstract design to this. The final part is to view the levels like you would a piece of art in a gallery. When you scroll, you move the paintings down the wall to view new ones, just like walking down a gallery viewing the art work. 

App Emblem Designs

I am beginning to look at how my app would look. I have started off trying to make something a little abstract as well as using parts from some of the art work I have been looking at. 

I personal like 9 and 11 although I do not think I have quite found the mark yet. This could be due to its lack of colour thus far. I plan on taking 9 and 11 and adding colour to explore them a little further. 

First Samples Of The Testure Tests

Using the tutorial Alice kindly placed on her blog I have had a crack at it my self. 

This is not quite what I'm after. I'm looking for a more Jelly like texture that has multiple colours but this is a good first step to my goal to get a semi transparent coloured texture.

Sweet Structure

Here I'm look towards sweets to work out the foundation of the structure of the set. I plan to use jelly and sweets as the foundation of the structure. However, I do note that I am not making a ''candy world'', more look towards the characteristics of the structure.

Looking For An App Name

On the hunt for a name for my app I look towards the one piece I am rather quite fond of and desire to modal for the set. 

The name of this abstract print is Merry Structure. I quite like this name and is a possible name for the app. 

To get some variety, I have made a list of similar names :-

Merry Land

Land of the Merry

Merry Plane

Merry World

World of the Merry

Structure of Merry

I am still not 100% sure on a name just yet but I do quite like Land Of The Merry.

Level Selection

 Here are a collection of art I am looking at in order to select ideas for my sets. I only plan to use maybe 10 or so for the app it self and then maybe only 1 or 2 for the modal.

Update Time!

Sorry for not having much in the way of visuals being posted this week however, this week has been quite written based one. So I thought Id do a little update post of the thought processes I'm going through with my minor project.

So I've been very much thinking about what the game is, what it will entail, what its made of and where it is set. The basics really. So I've broken this up into a few sections to which I have noted idea's down in order to seek out the ones that best fit the world I am creating.

Where is this world?

The basic out line is from abstract art from a ranger of artists so going off of this concept, it could simply stay that way.

An idea coming off of this is to have it in a gallery thus when one piece is down you jump to the next painting going on the idea the paintings connect some how, maybe on the same wall? This could also lead the way for how the ''app'' works. How you select the level you play, a flick of the finger to move along etc.

A different idea or maybe an idea that could link is that its an alien world called ''Abstractainen'' where everything is made up of different things such as jelly. I think is could still link to the above as its more of what its made up of as well as where, thus a jelly world in side an abstract make sense to me in an abstract way. This could lead it to being made up of all sorts of things.

World of Jelly!?

How the game works?

So far the tests have simply been to move the ball from the start, 'a' to the end 'b'. This has also touched on certain objects behaving in different ways weather it be to turn the world up side down by playing with gravity or to simply move left to right.

What I'm also thinking is to add a couple more levels to this, both expanding the effects of the certain items such as pushing the ball high or forcing it down due to the 'wind'. Also by maybe having items to collect along the way for maybe a score or in order to fix some sort of problem along the way. This could entail maybe having a part from another bit of an abstract in the wrong one. This could be so that you have to find and collect to bring back to the right one?


Why?

As to why I would have the object behavior is to add challenges to the game which can expand the game as to how its being played and to also make the most out of the idea of abstract.

The collection of points could be used to and crate objectives during the levels.

Same goes for the 'missing pieces'. This could be something that allows you to complete a level further ahead of maybe save the art world and restore the worlds of abstract.

The end?

So what I'm thinking for the end is a demo of the app game, maybe 2 levels to show some of these ideas being implemented.

Abstract To Set Modal Test - Part 2

This is my 2nd experiment on another bit of abstract. This time I have made the test a little larger.

This is my workings out of how I could make it into some sort of course. Its a little complex and hard to understand by drawing.

Close up shot of basic test modal

Hole Modal that I have slightly expanded from the painting.

Basic test from the side view.

This has allowed me to play around what the game play could entail such as gravity shifts and though it is rather basic it has allowed me to branch out new ideas to which to push forward and opened this little world up to which is the next stepping stone

Abstract To Set Modal Test

I am using this abstract to experiment on how I can shift it and use it in a set for a game. I am using a small portion on the top right for this experiment. 

Maya experiments

01. non smooth

01. smooth

02. non smooth

02. smooth

Small Basic Test

This is a basic side view, however, in the game the camera would follow the character (the ball in this case) in a frontal view.

The game it self is consistent of getting from point A to point B in this test using the the shapes, moving or not, to get to the goal.

A simple test on camera view.