Spike's Digital Media Blog

  Today is my Final Day before I wish to submit. Aside from building the game for Export and finishing the accompanying Game Design Document there were two changes I had to make before hand. Those involved adding an invisible wall on the purchasable barriers so the player cannot exploit them to get out of bounds and adding some code (As pictured above to the enemy with a True/ False statement as the Boolean being, is the enemy dead) which prevents the enemy from damaging the Player after dying which I could not figure out for myself at the very beginning when I first made the enemies. After that, I did some final touches to the escape levels such as when the Player meets the Gamemaster in the Endgame they lose all their ammo. I tried to asign the score to a word but quickly realised I couldn't as the score UI is bound to an Interger Value which can only ever be a number, also it was a very minor cosmetic change which wouldn't have amounted to much anyway. Oh well. I also rearra...

  Today I was polishing Geometry on the Levels moreso, so there was not any ways to cheat or cheese the game and play by its rules, aside from that I also added sounds for the weapons, levels as ambience, enemies etc. All of this can be found in the bibliography on the Design Document. Aside from that I am in the General polishing stage now and there is not much else work to do... comparitively speaking.

  This is the updated version of the other escape level, aside from Geometry it has one object with any actor with any code running which is a more simplified version of the Level End Trigger in the the other "Hidden" Escape Level. This one, removes character inputs aside from moving the Camera and ends the level after a delay of 10 seconds, allowing the player to take in the view before fading to a fake level end sequence. it was quite difficult making the level look natural and flowingh and not completely fake mainly because this level is only there to really be looked at to represent a change in the character you play as, rejecting killing their kin and escaping the city. While i'm still not fully happy with how the landscape looks and do not think I ever will be, I do like the effect of the rollingness of the hills I made by duplicating the Landscape Plane and placing an even larger version behind it, with the Trees only there to add to the sense of scale with how far...

The barrier issue where they would not allow the player to purchase them, for reasons still not fully understood, was fixed today by separating the node in two and tying the interaction of actually purchasing the barrier to the ticks of the game, which for the purposes of this script is basically a check the game makes for each tick as a measurement of passing time like seconds on a clock. I also started working on a sequence involving the 'Gamemaster' Gibby who's meant to be like an Entity existing in the code type thing, which is the reason for the floating text which is a 3D object tied to a Triggerbox. This is the Node Graph for playing the Monologue in the Level as an object, it's tied mainly to a custom event but it also references the trigger every tick and has the trigger as a reference though I suppose it doesn't necessarily need to but that doesn't hurt it. This Node Graph is specifically for the player walking into a collision box which disables all m...

  This is a an update from my city environment. the key to making it look alive and I guess realistic to a city was adding buildings far away and up close with the spaces you can't see to fill in the blanks. I also changed the key model to have orange glowing textures instead of blue because the locked door model has orange instead of blue as a complimentary colour. This is the indev of the 'escape' level where the player will leave the city through a hidden door. The player will through a tunnel and end in a field where the game will cut to black. This in the narrative of the game represents the player escaping the city and objectives, going against his programming at the cost of no points, which is meant to be an easter egg/ reward type thing for finding the hidden exit.  This is another secret ending level for the player where they escape through a locked door with 3 hidden keys. At the moment this level is supposed to represent that the game is all a construction and yo...

  This week I have worked on a great many things, firstly there is some cosmetic additions to the level, which is still a little bare bones but I have at least made a start on it. in terms of texturing. I have then created a great many more assets integral to the escape the game/ escape your life feature such as the escape doors which will blend in with the level and be as hidden as possible as these endings although hinted at are meant to be a secret for the player to uncover. Most objects code wise are very similar, they all contain references to a part of UI which will appear when the character is near it and when interacted with the object will either appear/ disappear (Barriers/ Keys for doors) or there is the case with the doors which will change your level to a different one. All of them use the barrier code below with slight variation as at they're core they are all actors with a collision box and 2 states. This has lined up well for Easter as now a majority of code is done...

          These Screenshots contain all my progress for this week, I created an ammo box (The Blue Cube) which is based on the model/ code I used for the Health Item just retextured and set to change the value of ReserveAmmo Variable rather than PlayerHealth, I also created an enemy spawner (Dinosaur head icon) - it is essentially an invisible object that just places down enemies on a delay - fairly simple but is all I think I can really do with the short amount of development time remaining, especially as I'm not adding individual wave numbers, then there is the player barrier which you can purchase using points from killing Gibbies, so far I have only added the ability for a widget to appear asking if you wanmt to purchase and place the barrier but it is not yet functional - I will need to have it so it first checks if you have enough points and then subtracts however much the barrier costs as they will have differing sizes and costs, I will hopefuly work out ...

These are backgrounds for the menus in my game, I was partly inspired by Geometric Abstraction and followed a red/ googly eye kind of aesthetic which is line with the Gibby artstyle and that was as deep asthe inspiration really went. I wanted to try something new though actually as I often just use a screenshot as the background or a cloudy horizon, which I originally intended to do for this game, I'm not sure why really, it just puts the game all together and makes it seem less bare-bones. Today, with much assistance from Josh may I add, I also managed to add an ammo counter/ system to the game which took a very long time, we also got the ammo count to display on the gun model itself in real-time, which currently is not working because the texture I assigned to the on-weapon ammo counter was a modified base material which the editor did not like me saving over. It's rather simple at the minute as there is no reserve ammo or way of relaoding which I will attempt again probably ...

  Today I added a health item pick-up and a greyboxed map separate from the test level. Not the biggest lap forward but every little helps. Next week I will probably move on to adding menu functionality and a working ammo system probably with some assistance from Josh as I have no clue where to start.  

  Today with some assistance from Josh, a lot of progress has been made. There is now a dunctioning Health bar, reusing alot of the nodes from the Health bar, a score counter, a funbctional time and also an Early version of the death screen for if you do not escape the level. This is what enables all UI elements in the level This is for the Player receiving damage and having the death screen widget appear These nodes cause the death screen widget to get the Timer reference for the final time and also adds button functionality This is what causes the text block for the score to display its number This casts the time value to the final time counter on the death screen Unfinished Pause functionality

 This blog will be going over some of my inspirations for 'Invasion of the Gibbies' and what informed my creative decisions when it comes to this game/project overall. ( Dani, 2021) Muck Muck as an inspiration is very surface level, only because of the game's aesthetic and that the Gibby model will be human shaped with googly eyes, other than that and the fact that this game is also first person that is where the similarities end entirely. I feel a style to this will give me adequate time to work on the game's mechanics as they should take precedent. (EPIC GAMES, 2013) (EPIC GAMES, 2013) Gears of War: Judgement Gears of War: Judgement and the Gears of War series as a whole were big inspirations for the gameplay of Invasion of the Gibbies because not only is it an Unreal Engine creation but also because of its horde mode which was one of the first big games to give these wave-based high-score arcade style modes a go in shooters  as a resurgence in 2008 with Gears of War ...

This is a better close-up of my Gantt Chart. My methodology behind it is that I will first create a functioning game and when that aspect is complete and hopefully bug free I will then work on models/ visuals/ sounds. I think this will lead to a better outcome as with previous projects I've focused too much on visuals and not enough on mechanics sometimes leading them to become underdeveloped, usually in terms of focusing too much on the level design. Edit 21/02/24: I need to make sure Pause and Game Over are working by next week as it will make testing easier. They are mostly finished, they just need interactivity added.

  Today I worked on a level design for the game while creating through my prospectus, which was helpful as I had not considered it so far, the yellow represents areas where you can escape the level and red represents barriers and fortifications you can build using points earned. I tried to build in some symmetry for the level so the player has a method of easily knowing where to go and can more easily plan their movements around. I also planned the barriers so that they don't completely isolate the player and enemies can always be able to get to you too which keeps the challenge there so the player cannot 'farm' kills with no repercussion for points and are always in danger.  I also worked on other things needed for the project, user personae, a risk assessment and a Gantt Chart which will help me plan properly and inform the direction I take the generation of this project.