Here I will be writing about my journey in creating a game with my group. but covering my individual experience.
For our game, I am eager to use pixel art and I have begun researching other pixel art games online and found a video highlighting 25 pixel art games. *insert video*
In this video, I discovered the game Phoenotopia: Awakening.
I immediately fell in love with the art and the game, in my opinion this game is an example of what it looks like to master pixel art. with so many differnt beautifull scenes in the game it will
The amount of content the game has to offer is amazing for its price of £15.
I will be buying this game very soon and I'm looking forward to playing it so much. One of my big goals in my future is to create a game that would give someone the same reaction and joy as this game has given me.
I watched many tutorials on how to make pixel art, I found these ones very helpful.
*link videos here*
There is so much good information online about game development and game art, I've learned so much just from watching youtube videos from indie game developers and it has also helped inspire me with my own game and future projects.
Ideas Development
Josiahs gathering of Ideas from Thursday 9th March
2d Platformer. The camera follows the character. The scene moves freely with the player but will be locked still in specific segments
Multiple characters, each with their own abilities,
All characters have a default attack, 1 Skill, and 1 KEY SKILL
Each character has stats: Health Damage Speed (to add variety and strategy)
Combat will have to be figured out sometime in the future (Requires a damage leveling system and AI enemies)
Each game level requires Key Skills to get past specific obstacles and win.
*Key skills are character-specific abilities that are required to solve a problem to progress further into the game.
Example:
A lever must be pulled for the door to open, so the Octopus Key Skill is required here.
A wooden pillar is blocking the entrance, using the Turtle Key Skill is Required to continue.
You start with one character, and along the way, you will unlock more characters
Each new character is locked in a crate on a pressure-plated bomb. (Removing the weight will make it explode) To free a character you must swap the current character with the one in the box, this way there is only one character available at a time, and as u progress in the levels, characters left in boxes will be no longer useable until swapped out again.
Each character is found and unlocked (from a crate, anything to go with the story) and players can switch between characters on a cooldown every 15* seconds. Any unlocked characters that are not in play will automatically follow the main character in the background.
(Josiah: B) (Harper: B)
(Han
(Aria
Character | Skill | Key skill
Octopus - Throws Enemies [deals area damage] | Swinging/Grappling [Pulls Levers + Swings on bars]
Turtle - Shell Shield [protects you from damage] | Snapping Bite [breaks through certain obstacles]
Jellyfish/Eel – Shocks enemies [damage effects 2 enemies if close together] | Paralysis [stops tech and enemies for a limited amount of time]
Angler fish [uses light to sea in dark parts of the ship]
(Please insert your own characters here with skills listed simply. We will go into detail about each character in a separate place)
Important Things to Consider:
1 What device is the game being made for?
(Josiah: I say PC (I guess we will have toto make it for whatever platform the college wants, and I think that will be PC)
2 How will the combat system work?
3 What art style will we use?
(Josiah: Pixel Art)
(Harper: 2D simple cartoon)
(Han:
(Aria:
Game Story
Josiah’s Story Idea
Here is my idea for the story:
Plastic is constantly being dumped into the ocean by humans, harming sea life and making their homes into wastelands (literally) a large number of plastic waste containers have been loaded onto a ship set to be dumped into the ocean.
tired of being harmed by humans and plastic, a group of sea creatures has prepared to sabotage the ship. They are ready to fight with their lives to defend their homes from further destruction.
*Might or might not be in the opening cutscene*
All the creatures have been captured during their attempts.
You are now the only creature left (whatever we choose the main character to be, Turtle for example)
You must board the boat and fight your way through the humans to rescue your friends. When a creature is rescued, you can then switch to playing as that character. Each character has its own set of skills that are needed to stop the boat and win the game. The main goal is to reach the very end of the boat and shut off the garbage dumper (or stop the captain).
Harper’s Story Idea
Story: earth has become mostly water with little land due to glaciers melting, because of climate change. When the sea level rises nuclear waste spreads through the sea and as a result sea life mutates. The last remaining humans now sail on boats looking for the last bits of land left as they must fight the mutated sea creatures to survive. The mutated sea creatures attack ships because they are killing off the ocean environment with plastic, due to the nuclear waste it even mutates the plant life into plastic. Different groups of mutated sea creatures fight off the ships to stop the plastic from being chucked into the sea.
*Group conclusions on the story idea. 13th march
After some good discussion, we came to the decision on this game's story and features.
Final Synopsis
Our game will have 3 main playable characters. Within each level, there will be multiple weapons/tools to be used for specific tasks.
Years of humans harming the environment have led to catastrophes.
An all-time high in temperature and the melting of the ice caps has set the world into a panic. Water levels have risen drastically overtaking the land, and devouring continents. Containers of toxic nuclear waste have been submerged and spilled into the ocean onto giant masses of plastic waste. The nuclear waste mutated the plastic and created a mutant plastic heart. This heart spreads the plastic mutation onto everything it touches, and it quickly starts to turn the entire planet into plastic.
With decreasing amounts of land and toxic water closing in, humans begin to die out. Humans try to destroy the plastic heart to save the world but none of them succeed. On their mission, the human becomes mutated by the mutant plastic heart and turned into plastic mutant zombies. The plastic waste is spreading rapidly into the remaining bits of the earth. Humans have fully died out and there are hardly any safe areas left. Only a small group of sea creatures remain living, for now...
You will play as the remaining sea creatures with the goal of finding and killing the plastic heart to restore your oceans to what they once were.
You will adventure across the ocean through shipwrecks, coves, and submarines. Fighting your way through hordes of mutated plastic zombies and collecting weapons and resources left behind from the fallen humans. These items will be crucial to your survival and to finding the heart.
You have a health bar and there is healing (to be woven into the story somehow) that u can access occasionally. But if u take enough damage, you will get infected and become a mutated plastic zombie. But the game's not over! You now play as one of the other remaining sea creatures, but your previous lost member is another enemy to look out for! It's game over once you’ve lost all 3 of the sea creatures.
While exploring a submarine you stumble across an old lab which you discover was used by the humans in a desperate attempt at survival against the plastic waste. You find a recipe for a super mutant serum that enhances the consumer's abilities in combat and helps protect them from being infected. It does this by mutating them. The serum can be created by mixing ingredients that you will collect on your adventures. The serum does not last forever so you will have to occasionally return to the lab to make more.
Eventually, you will find yourself face to face with the plastic mutant heart. It’s time for a boss fight! When the heart is defeated all the plastic waste will die with it, and the ocean will return to a clean environment for the sea creatures to live in. You won the game!
* To fix the problem of water and gravity underwater, well just say the water is so murky mutated ect that it's not got the proper properties that would affect your movement, so it's almost like a haze. Also further into the game, the water becomes more murky and green
I created a level summary to help me and my group see what each level contains,
It uses backgrounds by Han, and the images of the creatures are references online to show the minibosses we will have in our levels. these will be replaced once we have our own concept art for all our mini bosses
I created a document with all our ideas for the games combat and weapons.
Mechanics Weapons Tools
Combat
Player has basic attack
This can be used to attack emeys dealing a low damage. Costing low energy.
Basic attack can also break specified blocks such as
Breakable blocks:
Wooden Crate – Drops 0 – 1 Stone on chance
Treasure Chest – Drops 1– 3 Stone (Luck depending on Weapon Strength
Different Weapons Available.
Left behind from humans. Will work underwater, have relevance to the story and can be used to achieve something
Keys – to open doors in submarine or shipwreck chests (josiah)
Melee Weapons (hit in set position in front of character deals area damage)
Wooden Oar
Pipe
Axe
Sword
Tools to break Blocks
Pickaxe
Mechanics to consider after level plan
Levers to open doors
Basic zombie enemys drop peices of plastic
Plastic pieces can be uses to...
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