Week 6

Week 6:

Learning How To Use Unity -- Part 1:

For my Degree Project, I have set my sights on creating a “Survival Horror”-type game using the Unity Engine. In order to create it, however, I must first learn how to use the mechanics and navigate around Unity Engine itself. Fortunately, Wayne, has began to create and post a series of Unity Engine tutorials on his YouTube channel that I can follow.

In his first video, Wayne has began to show us to create a basic 3D Environment in Unity. As a result, I have given it ago myself and by following his instructions, I have managed to create my own 3D Environment. To begin with, I first needed to create a landscape that’d act as the hub for my game. I began by “Right-Clicking” > “3D Object” and then “Terrain”. In the “Inspector”, I then went into “Paint Height” and then set the “Height” to “100”. I then pressed the “Flatten” button, which raised the “Terrain”. With the Raise/Lower Terrain options, I can now sculpt and create a terrain by using the “Raise” tools and the “Lower” tools.

Before I continued, I went into the “Paint Texture” section and clicked on “Add Texture”. Here, I proceeded to add some texture. I then went into the “Raise/Lower Terrain” section, which I then began to use the “Raise” and “Lower” tools to sculpt the terrain until I managed to create a landscape to use. Admittedly, I feel I'll need some more practice and this will likely not be the final landscape that I shall be using for my Degree Project.

Week 5

Week 5:

More Inspiration -- Call of Cthulhu:

Call of Cthulhu is a is a Survival Horror Role-Playing Game set in the “Cthulhu Mythos”, that’ll released at the send of the month and a game I’m looking forward to play. The game features a semi-open world environment and incorporates themes of Lovecraftian and psychological horror into a story which includes elements of investigation and stealth. It is inspired by H. P. Lovecraft's short story "The Call of Cthulhu", while also being an adaptation of the 1981 role-playing game of the same title which was made by Chaosium.

The game follows investigator and war veteran Edward Pierce, a private detective experiencing an existential crisis, who is hired by wealthy industrialist Stephen Webster to travel to Darkwater Island to investigate the death of his daughter, Sarah Hawkins, and her family in a fire. His investigations soon tell him that there is much more to the case than meets the eye, and that the locals of the island are hiding dark secrets from him. As he investigates, he will have to deal with horrors and dangers that threaten both his life and his sanity.

I'm hoping this game will give me some more inspiration in regards of game-mechanics and atmosphere for my Degree Project. 

Week 4

Week 4:

Before I start the development on my Degree Project, I have decided that it would be a good idea to research some games first. Instead of the usual formula inspired by Call of Duty’s Zombie “Game Mode”, I have decided to base my game’s mechanics around puzzle-solving or item-collecting. For this reason, I’d like to base my game’s mechanics on Slender: The Eight Pages or Amnesia: The Dark Descent.

Slender: The Eight Pages and Slender: The Arrival:

Both games are based on the quasi-folklore meme figure known as the Slender Man. The character is known for the ominous (although fictitious) abduction of countless children in dark mysterious settings, such as deep forests and abandoned buildings. The game is played from a first-person perspective with the player's objective to collect all eight pages located in various areas of the forest while avoiding the Slender Man. As the player collects pages, the fog in the forest grows thicker, and Slender Man appears closer to the player's character. The player's character has the ability to "jog", which will eventually tire out the player and cause them wheeze if forced to go on for too long. Even if the player's character successfully collects all the eight pages, the Slender Man will continue to chase them. Once all the pages are collected, one is allowed to walk around for a couple of seconds in total silence until Slender Man finally appears behind the player and ends the game.

The game is very much inspired by Marble Hornets, the web video series that popularized The Slender Man Mythos, flawlessly recreating its most terrifying moments as you scamper through the forest looking for pages and praying you aren’t caught. The first game was released in 2012 and the second game was released in 2013. In the first game, you play the role of Kate as she avoids the Slender Man, while in the second game game, you take control as Lauren, a friend of Kate's (the protagonist of the original game), who visits the latter's house just after the Slender Man attacked. She traverses through the scenery (which was remastered quite epically), finding notes of Kate and her friend CR, all the while avoiding the Slender Man and his proxy, a hooded, masked chaser.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent:

Amnesia is an exploration-based horror adventure game played from a first-person perspective. The player is able to interact with the environment in a wide variety of ways, such as picking up and moving objects, opening doors and lighting up areas. There are no weapons and no combat mechanics in the game, making the player unable to fight the different monsters that he encounters. Thus, the only way to get past the creatures is by running away and hiding from them. Amnesia makes use of a “Insanity” bar, Being in darkness too long, witnessing unsettling events, or staring at monsters will reduce the player’s sanity. Light sources and completing objectives help restore sanity.

The game, set in 1839, casts the player in the role of Daniel, a young man from London, who awakens in the dark halls of Prussian Brennenburg Castle with little to no memory about himself or his past. The first thing he finds is a note to himself, which informs him that he has been deliberately self-inflicted with amnesia so that he can make a dark descent into the heart of the castle and kill the proprietor, Baron Alexander. As he journeys further within the bowels of the Prussian estate, Daniel comes across his own diary entries, hinting at otherworldly influences, particularly the dangerous living 'Shadow' that pursues him for something he did in his past, killing everyone it comes across. He also finds notes left by an assortment of castle-dwellers that elaborate on the sinister events that have taken place there.

Week 3

Week 3:

Initial Ideas -- Final Idea:

My initial and main idea for the project is to create a game using the Unity Engine. This’ll allow me to utilise free assets in areas that will help reduce the amount of time needed on models; For example, such as weapons, non-player characters or other objects needed in-game. Additionally, it’ll great opportunity for myself to display my design and coding skills. Not only will I be learning something brand new (I.E: How to make use of a different Game Engine and its Assets), but I’ll be acquiring different-but-familiar skills for projects that I can apply in the future.

In terms of ideas, I still need to think of what I actually want to do with Unity Engine. These kinds of decisions can be a whole problem of their own. Will it be a Shooter-type, Racing-type or Sports-type game? As mentioned in my previous blogs, I have worked on and created a few Survival Horror/Third-Person Shooter-type games with Unreal Engine. Unfortunately, personally, I have come to feel I’ve gotten enough out of that particular genre and feel that I should work on something new. In terms of inspiration, I’m still on the fence about ideas and thus, feel I should research more.

Regardless, though, I have been brewing on certain ideas and weighing my decisions of what I should be actually be looking towards in terms of research. Recently, Isometric Shooter/Survival-type games have become popular with the likes of Hotline Miami, Don't Starve and The Wild Eight. By using the Unity Engine, I could benefit from this since there are lot of tutorials online for these types of games. Additionally, they also avoid Unreal Engine’s problem of being Blueprint-centric that are notably very complex, and they can be difficult to troubleshoot should something go amiss.

My second idea that I have now scrapped was to create a 3D Model of a Cartoon Panda (or Cartoon Animals) using Autodesk Maya, which I would have then imported into and to be used as assets for Unity Engine. At first, I was originally thinking that perhaps that I could combine both ideas. Here, I could have created a game using Unity Engine and 3D Model assets from Autodesk Maya. Unfortunately, I had to shelve this idea and simply go with my other idea. The reason why is because I realized that it would have been both time-consuming and frustrating on my part. This is partly because I am still a beginner-level user of Autodesk Maya and I notably found using the program rather difficult to use, and I likely would not be able to advance quick enough to work on both. As a result, I was advised to focus on simply the Unity Engine idea for the time being.

Week 2

Bachelor of Science Project:

Week 2:

Initial Ideas -- Continued:

After meeting with my lecturer Wayne Gallear, last week I have narrowed down to two ideas out of the four initial ideas that I had originally thought off.  These ideas consist of either a 3D Model (using Maya) or creating a Game (Unreal Engine or Unity Engine). The reason behind this is that I strengths lay more in the creativity-side of things, rather than the coding-side of things that came with my other ideas (Web-based Game, Website design or Ubiquitous Computing). Additionally, Wayne had even suggested that perhaps I could combine the two ideas. That’s if, however, if I was feeling confident enough.

First Idea:

Due to having some experience with Unreal Engine, I have previously created a few Demos based on Third-Person Shooter / Survival Horror games. With this in mind, I was thinking I could go back and improve upon this. I could likely create a more complete and working game, without any of the previous bugs and errors. For example, I couldn’t get the enemy NPC to follow their patrol route or sometimes they’d fall through the floors. As mentioned above, I had previously created games using Unreal Engine before and this has been one of my biggest strength as result.  

Regardless, though, I need to flesh out my ideas and make the game more eye-catching. This’ll help me pick out key aspects within the game and determine what a viable choice for development is. To make things more interesting, I should probably pick a different genre and change direction then what I usually go for. In this case, I shall be creating a game using the Unity Engine. At the same time, I will be learning and creating a new game from scratch, as I am not familiar with the layout or how Unity actually works. Additionally, I will have to come up with a basic story-line, a suitable genre and game mechanics for which my final game shall be based around.

Second Idea:

I had created a basic 3D Model and Animated it using Maya for my Level 3 Videogame Design course a few years back. For the project, I would create a 3D Model from scratch, and I could even link it to the “3D Modelling and Animation” unit. My only issue is that I found Maya difficult to learn from and follow any tutorials. Personally, I found it to be somewhat unenjoyable and stressful. As a result, if I were to choose this idea, I’d have to consider using other 3D Modelling programs. 

The second idea I believe I could make a project out of is the 3D Model. The reason behind this is because I have created 3D Models before. On the other hand, though… I have not used Maya in long time, and I found the learning curve too difficult for my personal liking. Very frustrating, in fact. Regardless, I feel I could get back into it and that I could re-learn a lot from it if I focused my creativity into it as a result. Additionally, if I was feeling confident enough, I could even combine the 3D Model with the Game idea and use the 3D Model as the main character.