Major Project 9 - Week 1 Milestones

Sam:
-Complete a storyboard for the game's intro movie.

Zach:
-Complete a simple prototype level with a character that moves using WASD and always faces the mouse pointer.

Mike:
-Design each of the game menus: main menu, high score menu, and in-game upgrade menu.

Major Project 8 - Goat Goat Revolution

Team Goats!

Zach Kohlberg: Lead Producer, Programmer

Sam Moses: Lead Artist

Mike Conwell: Programmer, QA

Synopsis

            Goat Goat Revolution is a bighorn sheep-themed arena shooter. The player controls the bighorn sheep dictator of a revolting nation of bighorn sheep. The dictator has been abandoned by most of his subordinates and left to face the angry horde of rebels alone.

            The action takes place in a single level, where the dictator must fight off larger and larger waves of his former constituents. The player’s goal is to survive as long as possible and beat the current high scores. The game will feature a number of enemies and several weapons for the player to use in their attempt to survive the onslaught as long as possible.

Pitch: http://zckohlberg-gdd200.blogspot.com/2012/03/minor-project-9.html

Assets

Intro Movie:

-       Background images

-       Music and sounds?

-       Character images & animations

Menus:

-       Menu button graphics

-       Background

-       Button & high score code

In-Game:

-       Enemies

o   Image

o   Attack & death animations

o   Attack & death sounds

o   Code

-        Player

o   Image

o   Attack & death animations

o   Attack & death sounds

o   Code

-       Ammunition/Weapons

o   Power-up images

o   Power-up sounds

o   Projectile images

o   Code

-       Background

Milestones:

Week 1

-       Functional level with player movement

-       Intro movie storyboard

-       Menu design

Week 2

-       Functional enemies

-       Intro movie visual design

-       Functional main menu (Exit, move to blank level, move to high score table)

Week 3

-       Enemy spawning, level prototype (Level begins and ends)

-       Intro movie assets, begin animation

-       Functional high score table (loads high scores and displays them)

Week 4

-       Scoring merged with high score table, weapons and ammunition added

-       Complete intro movie

-       Integrate movie and level into functional prototype

Week 5

-       Add wave manager, any misc tasks, begin beta testing to balance game

-       Replace in-game filler assets with in-game graphics & sound

-       Play testing, bug testing

Week 6

-       Finalize game code

-       Finalize graphics

-       Complete testing

Minor Project 9

Goats!

The Game Overview

Goats! is a bighorn sheep-themed arena shooter, where the goal is to survive as long as possible against waves of bighorn sheep-themed enemies. The player's goal is to get the highest possible score.

Why are we making this game?

Some GDD students find the bighorn sheep model in the poser program entertaining when it is put in unusual poses. The game's bighorn sheep-themed graphics will appeal to this fascination with bighorn sheep, making the game very popular with its target audience.

Walk us through the game!

The game is fairly simple, as are most arena shooters. The player begins in a bighorn sheep-themed level, and is given a bighorn sheep-themed tutorial to introduce them to the game's controls. After the player has been acclimated to the bighorn sheep-theme and knows how the game works, the game will begin spawning bighorn sheep-themed enemies for the player to fight. The enemies will be spawned in progressively larger waves, starting with simple, weak, bighorn sheep-themed enemies and building up to very challenging bighorn sheep-themed enemies.

When the player is killed, they will be taken to the game's bighorn sheep-themed high score table. A player who has made it onto the high score table will be allowed to enter their name, which will be given a bighorn sheep theme before being submitted to the list of high scores.

Similar Games

There are numerous scrolling shooters, shmups, arena shooters, and other 2D shooting games in this genre. While none of them share the bighorn sheep theme of Goats!, this game's mechanics will be similar to many existing games.

Major Project 6

Screenshot of the game Sam and I made for Major Project 6.

Minor Project 8

Pseudo-code:

if (Gear1.connected(Gear2) && ContinueButton.pressed())
{
    nextScene();
}

Minor Project 6

I believe this was my slideshow for Minor Project 6:

Major Project 7

1. My game will require players to combine rotating objects in an order that causes all of the objects to move simultaneously. The player advances if all objects are moving.

2. There will be many ways to combine the objects ((n+1)!, where n is the current level), but the player will be able to eliminate many of them by observing the shapes of the objects. This shouldn't become a problem because the levels will likely have multiple solutions, and again, many combinations will be easy to eliminate. A new mechanic will likely be necessary to keep the game interesting, but it could continue to hold the player's attention if the puzzles do not become repetitive.

3. The feedback for this game should be reasonable. Gears will not propel themselves off-screen, but mashing gears together instead of just bringing the teeth into contact will produce an unpleasant noise and result in lost points.

And as entertaining as it might be to watch someone play a level where the gears break and no restart function is provided, the game's negative feedback will not be quite that harsh.

Positive feedback will simply involve getting points, having the gears move, and advancing levels.