Prototyping Strategies
We have decided that rather than prototyping a whole quest sequence or the whole game tutorial from the start, we would be better suited ourselves to develop in the alpha / beta phase by first make proof of concept scenes that each addresses a design problem / assumption / challenge. These are:
- Our three core mechanics, will they successfully convey the goofiness of our game to the player in an interesting and intriguing way? Are they realistic to implement in Unity? Are they realistic for the player to carry out in the public?
- Our art style and character design, how will the player react to them? Will they understand the “Scrungly” feeling without us telling them? Does the art feel concise with our game concept and other elements in the game?
- Our game lore, does it provide clear and interesting space for game design? Is the lore itself interesting enough to be attractive to the player?
To these ends, we decided that our dev goal before the prototype milestone would be:
- A working demo scene for each of our core mechanics. (Game Doc 4.2)
- VPS based persistent object placement in AR space.
- First draft of complete game lore.
- Art demo in static environment, integrated with game UI.
Art Progress (Character/Narrative)
As we move into the third week, we’ve begun to make this concept of “scrungly” more complete. On Monday, we discussed which of our character concepts we thought was the most successful.
These were the initial concepts we created last week. During our meeting time, we refined these to better fit our vision. As well, we came up with character backstories to match.
For example, the messenger ghost/mascot/guide, Daniel, we wanted him to feel like he was once human in order to match the narrative. We felt this better matched this vision by giving him arms, legs, and an outfit. We also refined his quest:
Status upon encounter: Conscious
Personal item: postman bag
Task:
- Take his item while delivering his last letters One of the letters would be to a Miss Franklin
- Use his item as the player’s item bag! Carry him around to meet new characters.
A postman who was very diligent in life. He likes the nature of his occupation because he gets to go around the city and see different people and the glimpses of their lives. He is warm-hearted and always willing to help people (there could be some potential relation with another character here). He could give the player small pieces of information about other characters in this graveyard. He was unable to deliver some of his last letters and he wishes that the player could help him deliver them himself (wearing his postman bag).
Stuff he could say:
“Can you see me? I have not talked to people for ages! I’m Daniel, a postman. So nice to meet you.”
“Have you seen the others? I wish I could travel around freely as I used to. I’ve so bored.”
“Here, take this with you. It is my postman bag. There’s plenty of space here to carry things around. Take it with you so that I could meet my neighbors here.”
“Oh, the letters! Ah I was on my way to deliver them. Could you help me with this? Help me deliver the letters to their receivers?”
“Thank you! Let’s go on a new journey!”
We also looked into creating a father botanist figure, Dr. Guillaume Alexandre, his quest is as follows:
Status upon encounter: Amnesiac
Personal item: A small herb plant that he cultivated
Location: Botanical Garden
Task:
- Sing his wife’s song to him
- Bring him to his son and wife
The father of Jacque. A botanist at Cranberry Mellow University. He cultivated a new bread of plant when he was alive and he is now attached to it. He is amnesiac, and does not remember anything. Once you sing Agathe’s song to him, he remembers his past and asks you to bring him to his family.
Stuff he could say:
“Hi! How are you doing? Who are you? Who am I?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember anything.”
“I, I seem to remember everything now. How could I have forgotten about them! Mes anges!”
“Sorry. I believe introductions are in order. I am Dr Guillaume Alexandre, a botanist.”
“You have seen my family? Could you, could you bring me to them? I have not seen them for too long.”
We also worked on concepts for the characters we discussed last week.
Ms Richardson
Franklin
Young Boy
We also looked into potential toon shaders for our 3d models. We believe that a toon shader will help us have a cartoony style for our story. This will elevate the goofy/scrungly feeling.
A rough draft of the story flow as for now that shows all types of ghosts and gives a comprehensive view into the gameplay is also written.
1 The Postman
You first meet the postman, Daniel, your guide through the rest of the game
His post bag will be your item bag, and you will deliver the letters in it for Daniel
2 The Little Boy
You meet the little boy, who tells you to find his mom
You find his mom who is Madame Agathe at the theatre and learn from her the “secret passcode”
You return to the little boy and tell him the code
Your bring the boy (toy) to his mom
3 The Dad
The boy and his mother asks you to find the father of the family and ask you so sing the song to him
You find Dr Guillaume who does not remember who he was in the botanic garden
You sing the song to him and help him restore consciousness
Your bring him (a small herb plant that he cultivated) to his family
4 The Singer
Madame Agathe ask you to put her poster on the poster wall and to gather an audience for her debut
You put the poster on the wall and capture random ghosts to bring to her concert
5 The Lit Guy and the Chem Girl
You meet Richardson, a college literature student, who happen to be one of the senders of the letters you are delivering for Daniel, in Potter Hall.
He asks you to deliver his letter to a Rose Franklin, a chem student at the same university.
You find Rose in Wean Chem Lab and she asks you to help her record the last lab data on her lab book.
You deliver the letter to her, which she kindly decline and ask you to bring her words to Richardson.
You go back to Richardson and tell him the response**.**
6 The Clown and their Twin
The Clown is spawn upon the player.
You encounter a resentful clown who defeats you upon first encountering.
However, you are able to glimpse at their item, a photograph of them and their twin brother at the orphanage with the name Eddy written behind it, when it was dropped by the clown.
You find Eddy at the tennis court, and learn from him that the clown is named “Jesse”.
You go back to Jesse and cleanse them by draw the letter “J” with your phone when encountering them.
After you cleanse Jesse, you bring him to his twin Eddy.
UI Progress
We created a sitemap for our game to figure out what players can do on each screen.
We are starting off with the map/home screen because this is core to how our players will encounter the ghosts. We did a few iterations trying to understand how to stylize the map.
We are still determining the visual UI styling but are currently trying to make it a bit scary but cartoony.
Programming Progress
This week we just continued to:
- Try to build to Android. We keep getting Grandle build error. Turns out we need a specific Grable tool version & Gradle build version for it to work for ARDK builds. A combination we know will work is tool version 4.2.0, build version 6.7.1.
- Continue to develop the mechanics prototypes.