Alpha Mask Striker Update 8: Level Design - Area 2: Mystic Rooftops

Alpha Mask Striker

Level Design: Area 2 - Mystic Rooftops

Intention

- Offer a more challenging round of play by introducing different enemies and adding dangerous obstacles such as traps and pitfalls.

- Expand upon the available items and power-ups the player can use

- Teach the player how to open colour coded locked doors with secret colour keys

- Give the player puzzles to solve in order to progress, find secret locations and obtain collectibles.

- Supply the player with a shop, where they can buy useful items with the currency they have collected

Objective

1. Expand gameplay to keep the player engaged

2. Tell a narrative story through gameplay with the game environment, colours and setting

Map Design

More open environments leaving room for more combat scenarios. Different heights of elevation for the player to make use of their movement and jumping abilities. Multiple branching pathways and secrets to discover.

Walkthrough Screenshots
































8.

Area 2 Setting

After climbing the stairs from Area 1 the player will see a change in the surrounding area. Colours of walls will change and various alien devices will be seen around the area. Parts of the terrain will float in mid air, almost as if the planet is being abducted by a strange force.

When the player reaches this area they will have two ways to go. If they head to the right they can use some nearby objects to bounce to a higher balcony, once on the balcony they can head inside the building to discover some useful items.

Head back and go up the stairs to come to an intersection, if the player heads to the right they will go straight to section 10, if they go left they will head to section 9.

9.

When heading left from the stairs the player follows a path to get to a large combat area where the door will be locked down as they enter the room. Defeating the enemies in the room will reopen the door. There are two other rooms that the player can get to from here. On the right will have another small section with aliens to defeat to exit the room as well as a shop that the player can purchase useful items from however the shop doesn't open until nearby enemies are defeated.. On the left you can see a window with a secret item behind it. To get to it you must locate a secret key in the area and return to unlock the door blocking the entrance to the secret room.

After the player is done here, they will head back and continue to section 10.

10. 

The player will enter a large area that will be plagued by aliens. The path ahead is blocked by an alien lockdown door and will open once enemies in the area have been defeated. If the player jumps up across balconies on the right they can find the berserk power-up which heavily increases the players gun fire rate for a short time. 

11. 

After getting past the alien lockdown door this area contains more aliens to defeat to progress forward. Floating buildings move around slowly around the area, splitting this section off into islands. Players can time their jumps to jump on these buildings to get to different locations where they can find useful items as well as enemies and secrets. To progress through the level the aliens must be defeated to open up the alien door that leads to section 12.

At the beginning of the area there is a secret passage that can be opened by hitting a secret switch in the area. Going through the secret passage leads to section 11A

11A

Entering the secret passage leads to a small area with many targets hidden around the area. If the player shoots all of these targets the blue walls will smash, revealing a secret item. One of the buildings in this area will have some useful pickups hidden behind it.

12. 

After getting to section 12 the player will approach a large building that can be entered after activating a nearby mechanism. Entering the building will cause the room to go dark, the player is ambushed by glow in the dark aliens and the room will be on lockdown by a magic purple wall. After defeating the aliens a glowing switch will appear from the ground. Hitting this switch opens a door that allows the player to move onward and drop down a hole to get to Area 3 - Alien Territory.

Move to Area 3 - Next Blog Post

Alpha Mask Striker Update 7: Level Design - Area 1: Downtown Invasion

Alpha Mask Striker

Level Design

Settings:   Area 1 - Downtown Invasion

                Area 2 - Mystic Rooftops 

                Area 3 - Alien Territory (Interior)

Area 1

Intention

- Familiarize the player with the main characters movement and basic techniques 

- Offer a gameplay segment that introduces the rules of gameplay and give the player a taste of what the gameplay experience will be like. 

- Show the player different types of pickups and how they can be used

- Introduce the Alien threat, firstly with the underlings. Easy to defeat.

- Offer a round of play that is easy to complete

- Allow players to discover the value of secret areas, rewarding them for exploration with upgrades and power-ups.

Objective

1. To offer an opening that is exciting and draws the player to the game

2. To hook the player with fun gameplay, so they desire to continue and accept the challenge of eliminating the alien threat.

                             

Map Design

Simple and straightforward until eventually branching out to multiple pathways for the player to choose. No death pits or difficult challenges. Introduce mechanics in a safe environment for the player to learn at their own pace, then add more danger as the player progresses.

Walkthrough Screenshots

• Each screenshot will have a circled number, the numbers indicate the general area shown on the next screenshot.

1.

Downtown is a city filled with skyscrapers, many areas of the city are on fire. Nearby UFO's can be seen flying around and blasting buildings in the background.

The level begins with the main character landing in a cool pose after jumping from a building. The player then gains control and can progress forward to learn how to perform various actions. Tutorials will appear as button prompts with an image on the hud and will not stop the gameplay. The first couple of jumps don't pose any danger, if the player falls they can simply jump back up.

2.

Progress down the path, learning how to double jump and melee attack along the way. The melee attack tutorial will have breakable objects for the player to destroy.

3.

The player reaches the first branching pathway, they can continue to the left where they will learn how to dash and pick up their first health and armor pickup as well as advance through the game. There is a secret off to the right, jump across platforms to reach the top of a building where a treasure chest awaits. They can then jump off of the building and back to the branching pathway.

4.

The player reaches their first large combat area, teach the player how to switch between Haste and Strike Style. Teach player how to shoot and aim. The first instance of alien enemies will appear, once they are defeated, teach player about alien lockdowns. They cannot progress beyond the green alien door until the nearby alien threat has been eliminated.

4A & 4B (Top Down View)

The center area is where the player just first encountered the aliens. In order to progress forward they must explore alternate paths and defeat the aliens in other locations. Once the player has defeated all of the enemies the alien door will be shown opening, showing the player they can now progress forward.

5. 

After going through the alien door the player reaches an area where they are shown alien UFO's abducting humans in the distance, directing the player towards the large mothership. Upon dropping down they can find 3 pathways to follow, pickups are located on the right, while a secret tunnel is on the left. To progress they must enter the narrow alleyway (6) shown in the screenshot, jump across balconies and avoid falling into the city flames down below.

5A ? Route

If the player goes left they will find a secret tunnel that they can walk through to get to an area with some minor platforming. Moving platforms and elevating platforms can be found here. After jumping up to the higher area aliens will appear on the floating platforms. After taking care of them the player can take a route that leads them to a treasure chest and back to the area in screenshot 5.

6.

After jumping across balconies the player lands on the top of a building where flying aliens will attack from the front and the sides. After dealing with them, the player can jump onto a balcony near a large window to be able to jump over to the next part of the level.

7. 

The last part of Downtown Invasion consists of a combat arena with many different heights and elevations to tackle the various aliens that will be inhabiting the location. They can take the high ground that loops around itself, they can cross the bridge and jump to the various platforms around the area. They can also fall below to locate a passageway that leads to a jump pad that helps the player get back up to where they fell from. If the player falls to the alternate passageway they can find a secret tucked away in a corner behind a destructible wall. After defeating the aliens the player can progress up the stairs to reach the city rooftops.

Move to Area 2 - Next Blog Post

Third Person Shooter Update 6: "Alpha Mask Striker" Level Design & John Romero Research Material

Been a while since an update, exactly a month actually! but "Alpha Mask Striker" now has a complete Level Design and is now fully white blocked. It took a while but the level is pretty large, and ranges to around 20-30 minutes of gameplay, possibly more dependent on the player. "Alpha Mask Striker" is the game's new title by the way, came up with it so I had a more interesting name than Third Person Shooter Project.

The feedback I got from my 3D platformer was that the level you play around in didn't feel like it was actually designed as an actual level. For the most part this is correct, I ran out of time so I used what I made for the test level and connected it to two platforming challenges, which were rushed. So this time around I was asked to properly design a level for the game. 

I already know how to design a level for a game, but before I began I decided to check how notable level designers in the industry go about designing levels. What I found was a whole video series of game industry legend John Romero, where he discusses the creation process behind the original Doom including reasoning for his level design. John Romero if you haven't heard of him is the co-founder of id software and a designer for many of their games, including Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Quake. All three of which are exceptional games for their time and led to establishing the first person shooter genre. 

You can watch the video series for yourself here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rV6HlBa88js&index=2&list=PLF-Nf60AUpykRCzGVGwt8Bt5JnQA8Qz8N

As for documenting a level design, I will show in engine screenshots of the block map while annotating them, explaining what is happening in that area in terms of enemy placement, navigational choices and directions, secrets and narrative. With the level being quite large I'm going to separate the level design screenshots and annotations into another blog post. I have all the screenshots I need, about 35 of them. I'm just in the process of annotating them and formatting them for the blog posts.

Design Research "Show & Tell" Poster

For the design research side of the course we were asked to create a poster using a template with strict guidelines. The poster required us to talk about our current progress on the MA course and what our plans are for the rest of the year. At least I think that's what they were asking for...they didn't really explain what they wanted very clearly.

Gutted we had to use a template though, I had this cool idea on setting out my poster like a game level select screen. Oh well.

Here's the poster anyway, I'll attach a link to a pdf. The poster was A1 and when I enlarge the image blogger really messes with the layout of the blog post.

pdf link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/tdvoau5fi963caw/Show%20%26%20Tell%20Poster.pdf?dl=0

Third Person Shooter Update 5: Getting Sick of Animating

As the title implies, animating is annoying me now. It's taking too long so some of the animations I have done today are pretty bad. I've probably half assed them because I'm getting frustrated/bored with it. Not only that but getting the aim offset to work properly is proving difficult too. An aim offset is where the character blends between 9 different aiming poses so they move and aim their weapon smoothly dependent on where the crosshair position is on screen.

Aim Offset Example

My Current Attempt

Anyway I've done about 7 animations today including:

Aiming Idle
Ground Slam
Ground Slam Recovery
Forwards Dodge Shot
Backwards Dodge Shot
Sideways Dodge Shot (both left and right)

I'm going to take a break from animation work and go back into it later with a better mindset. In the meantime I'm going to work more on game mechanics and level design, two things I enjoy.

I did a couple of things in engine that I haven't shown in an update yet so here they are.

First we have some armor pickups of varying sizes. Simply walking into one of these will fill up your armor meter.

Then we have health pickups, same again, of varying sizes. Picking up these will refill your health.

Gaia as explained in a previous post will be the game's currency. Gaia will be found in treasure chests and from defeating enemies. I used the shooting range targets as test enemies and got them to dispense Gaia when they are destroyed. The Gaia will automatically be pulled towards the player and they will collect it on contact. There are 3 different values of Gaia. All represented by different colours for small, medium and large values.

And lastly I've mainly been implementing animations to their in game mechanics. Some of these are proving difficult to get working correctly, especially the aiming offset.

Plan of Action

Start designing the first proper level of the game. The current area I've been using is only a test area. I'll accompany the level design with annotations, screenshots, and maybe quick drawings.

Third Person Shooter Development Update 4: Continued Animation

I was sick today, so I decided to continue animating from home. Got a couple of animations done and I'm trying to get some melee attack animations looking right, but I'm having issues making it look good enough.

The animations shown below will be faster in game, I just need to adjust their play rate in Unreal Engine. It's easier for me to do that rather than accommodate animation speed with frames in Maya. So I can keep the frames that make the animation smooth but I can still make the animation faster like I want it.

Double Jump Falling Loop

Strike Style Moving

Strike Style Dashing

Haste Style Aerial Dive

Haste Style Spin Attack

Third Person Shooter Development Update 3: Animation

A quick update on animation, I'm working on it but I've had a couple of problems this time, rig problems, model problems and general annoyances with Unreal Engine that are halting progress. But it's been sorted now and I'm now animating the character and putting the animations in engine.

Here are a couple of animations I've done so far.

Idle Animation

The first running animation I did, not happy with it at all though, I decided to try and do it again.

Running Animation (Still not happy with it, it's better than the last one at least, if I find some spare time I'll redo it)

Single Jump Animation

Single Jump Loop Falling Animation

Double Jump Animation

I'm going to carry on animating at home, I can't animate in the studio due to the software on the computers not being updated. While I'm in the studio I'm going to start properly designing the first level of the game. On paper and in unreal engine. That play-test will come soon I swear ;)

Third Person Shooter Development Update 2: Mechanics, Pause Menu and Preparing for Animation

An update on my current progress, my main focus right now has been to get everything working mechanically in game alongside modelling and rigging a playable character. The quicker I get this done the quicker a playtest can go out. I'm hoping to get the first playtest out by either Wednesday or Friday. But anyway what's been done?

Haste Style & Strike Style Movement & Mechanics

Firstly I started to work on how I think the game should play and how I want the player character to move around the game's environment.

Haste Style

Haste Style & Strike Style have movement speed differences, Haste Style you move a lot quicker and if you hold down the right trigger on a controller you can sprint and move even quicker.

While in Haste Style you can jump and double jump. If you press the B button in mid air you will slam towards the ground, which will be used to break objects and as an attack.

This straight lunge forward will be a mid air punch that will knock enemies away. It will also be used to smash through breakable walls. If you use this move on the ground it will instead be a short ranged punch which you can combo into a 2nd and 3rd punch.

Holding down the left trigger in midair will activate the characters hover boots.

Strike Style

Holding down the right trigger during Strike Style will cause the player to shoot with their weapon, right now this is shown in game as a line trace.

Some target practice to check hit events. When a bullet hits an enemy they will take damage until eventually being defeated

AI

Not dabbled in AI before so as a start I've got some simple AI behavior patterns working that can be used for some enemies.

Chase AI is a pawn that attempts to follow the player wherever they go.

Patrolling AI goes from one target point to another. I can freely customise where the target points are and how many of them there are. In the example above there are only two target points, however I can add more to allow the pawn to patrol a larger area.

I forgot to record footage of it (you can see it in the background of the chase AI GIF) but I also made a random location AI where they randomly move to a spot every 2 seconds within a large area.

Pause Menu

I also added a pause menu to the game that will show certain game stats as well as provide the player with other options such as viewing the level map, checking their equipment, checking item info and quitting the game.

Pause Menu Mockup in Photoshop

Pause Menu in-game

HUD

Lastly I did some HUD work involving getting a working health and armor bar along with the strike style crosshair and the currency counter.

Modelling the Player Character & His Weapon

Along with the unreal engine work I have finished modelling what the player character will look like. He's ready to be rigged and animated.

Here is the gunblade weapon that he will use. 

 And that's everything, now I've got to rig and animate the character, put his animations in game and get the game ready for a quick playtest.

Unreal Engine 4 Winter Game Jam 2018 - Cooly's Funky Ride

Just a quick update about what I'm doing right now, my uni work is coming along nicely, I'll have some updates to show soon. However, I recently took part in my first solo game jam that went on from 8th February - 11th February.

I've been wanting to start doing regular game jams for a long time, so I finally caved in and decided to do one. The jam I took part in was the unreal engine winter game jam 2018, where I worked solo to create a game to the given theme "On thin ice". In the end I made a game called "Cooly's Funky Ride"

Cooly's Funky Ride is a short auto runner focused on precise jumps and player decision making. The goal is to reach the portal at the end of the course whilst picking up collectibles along the way to increase your score.

For this project I animated a character again, character animation seems to be something I want to get good at, so the game jam was the perfect opportunity to test how quickly I could model, rig and animate a character.

I'm quite proud of the outcome, the game can be played to completion, there are a bunch of animations to give the character a bit of personality and people that have managed to play the game say that it is addictively challenging and fun.

I'll definitely be doing more game jams in the near future, but right now I'm going to pass out and try and sort out my sleeping pattern. Throughout the 3 days I only got about 10 hours sleep so I'm gonna hibernate now.

Here's a link to the game download, so you can play it if you want:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/fb68uubrro2blyc/AABM7_icbXM6B7AVzEbP813ia?dl=0

And here is a link to a play-through of the game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ff0xNnvpNUM