Final Contributions: Sarah Lokay

For this project, I was set as the lead artist. My artistic vision drove the visual choices, and I was responsible for assisting with model and texture development, in addition to applying all the textures in a way that made sense for our aesthetic. I was also responsible for assisting in the visual feel of the game, in addition to creating a cohesive landscape that was pleasing to look at from all angles.  From developing the initial shape and color pallets, to breaking those pallets and working with Nate and Brandon to produce more models and textures, the ultimate final product is the result of applied feedback. What you see in the final build is the collective development of my artistic vision over the course of 10 weeks, combined with the work of my teammates to create Pinball Rush.

Last Week Review

I helped finish up polish in game. I messed with mechanics to get right variable amounts. I talked with my group to get their opinions. Helped out with what I could for the team this week.

Contributions By Brandon

This project I was in charge of sound design, but I did more then just that. Overall I managed to collect enough sounds that were used as sound effects, background music/sound, made the splash pages for rules and the title page, made all the buttons for the splash pages, made the textures that are used in the game, and initially helped with the overall concept of what the game is going to be.

Free at last

For the final week I managed to finish the rules splash page and finish the final needed variants of the preexisting textures.

Contributions

For Pinball Rush, I created the arrow texture, particle images, and most of the 3d models.  I contributed substantially to the initial conception of the game.  I supervised the creation of the other textures and 2-d images.  I ran our playtests.  I cleaned up the level Nick created, and spent a lot of time watching over people's shoulders and giving suggestions.  The following resources were pulled from the internet and modified heavily for use in our game:

• L train - http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=e076772f208aea45a59d80aea7fee6ab
• Reflector texture on arrows -http://www.flickr.com/photos/zooboing/4343330437/
• Starburst particle: http://www.userlogos.org/node/5597
• Fence texture: http://www.a-plusfencing.com/denver-fencing-photo-gallery.html
• Building for Button's :http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Looking_Up_at_Empire_State_Building.JPG

Final Contributions Brian Victores

For this project I contributed most of the scripts and code on them. Brian Gabor from the tutoring lab helped me with a large amount of the balls code incorporating bouncing and physics. The camera follow java script I got from the unity resources page.

Nick Joebgen Contributions

My responsibilites for this game was to make sure that everything was running, while building the level and working with the Unity environment. Nate Chamot and I sketched out levels ideas that could be used, and then I implemented various iterations into the game. I also backed up Brian Victores with coding, handling things that he wouldn't have time to get to, such as the score and the GUI. Brian and I would spend a bunch of time talking about the various code that would be needed in the game, as well as the best way to implement it. 

Since I was the only team member to have really worked with Unity and Perforce, I also was in charge of teaching the other members how to use both systems, and come up with a way that would be easy for everybody. I also was in charge of fixing Perforce issues.

As the Producer, I helped to make sure everybody was working together and playing nice, as well as keeping people responsible for their tasks. One way or another, this game needed to get done, and I needed to make sure we would get it done. 

There was nothing I borrowed from other sources.

Ladies and Gentlemen, May I have your attention please? Introducing, from the west side: PINBALL RUSH!

Here's the build. We've got the rules sheet up but for your reminder.

Play the game in 1024 x 768.
Graphics quality: Anything you please.

Left Arrow = Move Left
Right Arrow = Move Right
R = Reset

Two things to try:
 Going for the most points (challenge your neighbor)
 Fastest time (challenge your enemy)



Build ----> https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2m7fxe8gO0sTWg0Nk0zTmUtX0U/edit?usp=sharing

   

Coming to a close

This will be my final post as I now am hard at work to make good on my promise (granted, I was under the influence of little sleep and a lot of caffeine). This quarter has been great and I wanted to briefly reflect on it, basically the postmortem I won't be doing tomorrow (hint hint, we're pitching the game). I learned a lot about working with a team on a long term assignment. I like to do things myself, which made my team have to remind me a couple of times that I can rely on them too, so I would say I learned to do that. I also increased my knowledge of how Unity and Perforce work together, and that any little change can blow the entire project apart. As a Producer, I learned that it is perfectly fine to set deadlines, keep people honest about their work, and understand that we are all adults and if I have to get stern, so be it. As a level designer, I learned that every part of the level needs to draw the Player, ESPECIALLY if they are being forced to move forward!

Okay, so the quarter has been fun and the team has been good. I'm excited to see the other projects tomorrow, but now its time to go plug something into my system and get back to work on the promise (no, no more hints).

Polish Update

Updated statue textures to match floor aesthetic (green base, tinted with original specular colors).

Some updated lights and tiling the bean texture (x: 5, y: 5).

Updated Blue Texture (waiting on white), changed red to lavender.

Self-Illum diffuse.

Updated bumper colors and lights.

I can't be silenced!

Just when you thought that maybe I was done, buried until Tuesday, I'm back with a vengeance. So I'm working hard to implement the ideas that the team discussed with Brian on Tuesday, and I thought I might take a second to write an update. I've basically locked myself away in a room with half a case of Mountain Dew and am iterating like crazy. It's gotten a bit cold down here in the basement, so I may need to go run and grab a blanket, but these level iterations are getting done and they will make you feel like a badass while playing the game. Oh, and before I forget, I've got a surprise that I'm saving for you all on Tuesday (don't even try to get it out of me, it's seriously a secret) that hopefully will WOW you guys. Good luck everybody, see you at the end!

Final post???

This week I managed to get a lot done. With the help of the group we finally got a really nice looking title page. By myself I managed to make 8 variants of a texture to provide variety with a texture that we all liked. Next I made a wall texture and 10 buttons for the splash pages such as a back, play, rules,quit, replay.
 

 
 
 
 



 

Finishing Touches and Polish

We're in the home stretch now.  This last week we've put together menu screens, shaped up our level, and implemented Sarah and Brandon's beutiful new art.  I've been watching over shoulders and helping everyone refine their work - I'm told it's been very helpful.  The results agree: our game feels more solid now than ever.

On tap for the rest of the week, we're going to be doing a lot of detail work, really polishing up our game.  The menu screens are going to get a little animation, our level will get some more tweaks, and some of our fx will be tightened up.

Cohesion and Lights

We at Accidentally Plaid worked our butts off to get cohesion and game feel, well, feeling good. Here are some screenshots from our most recent updates.

Nearing the End of the Semester

This week we worked with the levels design. We created a level that would now have a section of crazy bouncy moments followed by one based around speed and jumps.  I created a timer so the player will now be able to see how long they survived. As a group we decided to change the amount of points a player gets from objects and whether some objects give points or not. We are getting the splash screens working and polishing the level and mechanics so that the feel is just right.

Reaching the Finish Line

So we're reaching the end of the quarter and everything is finally coming together. It's been up and down but we finally have a game in front of us that we are playing and testing. As far as level design is concerned, I tried a couple of new things that the team seems to like, so we are keeping them in the level. In class tomorrow, I'm going to have some people play the game and tell me what they think about the level, and what they'd like to see added in the final week.
As far as production is concerned, I'm very happy to have worked with this team for the quarter. Everybody worked hard, we created something pretty fun, and our cohesion as a group was great. Nobody blew up at each other and for the most part, everybody worked well together. The couple of minor disputes we had throughout the quarter got solved quickly. Tonight, before we started working, we circled up and talked about what we saw from each other and what we could all improve on as individuals. We are ready for one last week of solid work before submitting next Tuesday.

Beta Test Progres Report

Here is the Beta Test Writeup for Accidentally Plaid..

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          Accidentally Plaid has just finished up it's second round of playtesting, using our Beta Build, and we have some interesting results to report. Our testers included one casual gamer, three game designers, and one hardcore gamer. The reason we did this was we wanted to see what different mindsets had to say about our game.
         The biggest thing that our playtesters seemed to like about the game was that it combined two very different elements and put them together. One playtester described the experience as "eating icecream while drinking a beer", it's two things you don't expect to go together but they just happen to taste good. One of the things that they liked about the game was that it provided them with controlled chaos, the ability to get stuck bouncing forward and unable to do anything about it. One playtester said she would have liked to have seen more of that in the game. Another things that playtesters enjoyed was the ability to use the ramps, he said that was probably the most satisfactory thing about the game.
       Something that all the playtesters agreed upon was that the artstyle of the game was a bit confusing, and everything seemed to be a bit too dark. One playtester said he liked the chicago theme but that unfortunately, there might not be enough colors to go off of to really sell a pinball game. One suggestion this tester provided was to go for a minimalistic style, that it might have an overall better effect on the game. Something else that all of the playtesters agreed upon was that there was no challenge to the game and that they would have liked to have had some sort of risk and reward. This goes along with the difficulty curve, something we know we have had trouble implemented. One playtester described herself as an "achievement whore", somebody who wants to find different tasks in the game and complete them, and suggested that maybe our game could have different levels of success depending on how many points were attained in the game.
       Moving forward, we have about a week and a half to really get something solidified here and we still have a lot to work on. The three biggest things that our team took away was the we need add in challenge to the level design, increase the difficulty curve, and make the art style more cohesive. We are also going to be looking into adding in the different levels of success at the end of the game, for re-playability.
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Artwork

some art style/themes for color scheme

Messed around with Photoshop to try to find a better color scheme to have for the game.  

Dramatic changes

Frequently, you have to face the fact that your game is shit.  A good designer figures out why, and fixes it, and that's what we're doing.  Our playtest feedback has been brutal - our game as it was was disjointed, schizophrenic, and just not fun.

As such, we've made some huge changes.  We've totally removed bumpers and flippers, and our game is now about a marble rolling around Chicago, sans-pinball.  We're focusing on ramps now, and we've added pits to jump (lest the player dies.)

It's scary to be doing this so late.  For the next week or so, we're going to be crunching pretty hard, working on, well, everything.  Wish us luck.

Cracking the case

So this weekend I decided to do something a bit different. I worked on the project, but not in Unity, and instead I took a roadtrip. Okay, I didn't take the roadtrip because of the project, I had to drive the DePaul Club Dodgeball team to Nebraska (we did really well, thanks for wondering). Now some of you may know this, but Nebraska is almost a 9 hour drive from Chicago, which means I spent a lot of time staring at road. So I started imagining if there were bumpers and ramps and hazards on the floor. The end goal was a success and I have new ideas to implement. Let's fast foward to today, and the team is beta testing. What does everybody want? Better level design and more of a challenge, exactly what was being concepted this weekend. With the help of Brian Gabor, Chris Klein, and David (I can't remember his last name), our team now has more focus of the level and what should be in it. The biggest thing we need to focus on is is adding a challenge into the game. It was also suggested that our game should step away from Pinball and become more of a marble runner, however that would take more time that what we have to spend on the project. So we are going to implement some of the suggestions with what we have right now, shrink down the width of the level, add in more ways to get points, and add in a final level challenge, for the Player to have a goal to focus towards. So now it's time to get a bit drunk (don't worry, I'm 21), and start getting crazy with this level.

Turning Art on Its Head

In order to push the art, I went in and messed with the colors, the self illumination, and a few other things. These were the results.

Start of beta week

I worked on the mechanics and got Brian Gabor and two people he brought in to play test our game. They gave us their feedback. They thought that it didn't feel like a pinball game and didn't feel like a runner game either. We decided to now create a new challenge in our game by having holes in the walls and floors to have the player to dodge. Furthermore we will be attempting to implement this and also I will be going to the tutoring lab over this week to help get this new concept working.

very rough draft of title

Rough sketch of what I have been working on

Brandon title splash pages

This week I managed to mock up around 30 drawings for the title screen all in the theme of Chicago. after showing some friends what some of my concepts are for the games title page I ended up with around 4-6 drawings of the splash page. then after adding some details to each of the drawings I ended up with a final one that I am working on right now as well as the next mock up of the rules/instructions screen. I already have around 10 drawings of that splash page and will upload the first illustrator mock up of the title later this week as well as the rules. Also this week I worked on making the lighting for the game work even though they ended up failing. I looked at the help and used as much knowledge from the site that I could to understand on how it works. I will try to figure that out when I have more time.

Refine and Revison

This week was working on the art style and aiming to get a more cohesive vision on the project. Playing in Unity for the first time, I got the glow I was imagining by using reflection and self-illuminating diffuse textures, while tweaking lights and creating a nightscape-esque feel. Use of spotlights and point lights also allowed for emphasis on certain spaces, and guided the player more clearly. I hope to visit Brian G. in the tutoring lab some time in the next week or so, to get more feedback.

Invisible Machinations

I don't have any nice visuals for you all this week, I'm afraid.  I've been spending a lot of time lurking over my comrade's shoulders, polishing up design.  I've made a fair number of tweaks to our level, and I have a list of the work that still needs to get done.  This week, I'm going to continue working on game feel, as well as running a lot of playtests and incorporating that feedback.

Playtest Build

Thanks guys for Playtesting. Click the link here to play.

Controls:
L to move left (can also use left arrow key)
A to move right (can also use right arrow key)
R to restart

I think we're gonna make it after all

It's been touch and go for a little while with Team Accidentally Plaid. Internally, this game dev team has been great, but we kept failing to show that with our builds and we always felt like we were changing our minds on things. Well, after tonight's meeting, I now know why this game dev team rocks. We made the decision that we are going to make the game we want to make, and not keep changing our ideas at every suggestion. We as a team have come together and have assembled the best schedule for the final three weeks. We are going to take this week and next week to finish our game and then bring it to beta testers the week before finals. Our level is finally coming together, and every member of the team will be going to visit Brian Gabor at some point to get his input. We are ready to rock and roll, let's do this.

Brian Week in Review

This week I created a clamp on the ball to fix the tunneling problem. We have also been tweaking the values of the ball to create a better feel. This still need work but we are getting close. We will be creating levels with instances that help better our game play. I went to the tutoring lab over the week and he suggested that we make a lot of areas that help our game's mechanic become as fun as it can be. I will continue to try and enhance the mechanic til it feels right and I will be helping create good areas of game play.

Moving forward

So as Brian told us in class, we have three weeks left before the end of the quarter, and our game is still lacking in two areas. We have, thus far, been unable to lock down a level design that is fun to play and cohesive to our game mechanics, which I need to take the blame for. As the level designer, it is my job to create that cohesive feel. I am grateful that Nate is now going to be helping me out by giving the levels a look over as well, and make changes. Hopefully a fresh set of eyes on the scene will help. I am also going to take the next step and reach out to Brain Gabor, our tutor for the quarter, and ask him to help me in coming up with a cohesive design. My plan is to go tomorrow, if I am able, otherwise I will have to make time the following week, due to a busy schedule over at my internship.