Post mortem: Team Bugbear Umibozu

My previous posts have been detailing the design and production process of a game me and a couple of fellow students have been producing for a course in game design. Now the project is over and it is time to reflect on the experience.

In the end I think most of me group are feeling a bit disappointed with the end result. We ended up having to cut a bunch of features due to time pressure, whilst also having to hastily add features as the deadline got closer and closer. What we ended up with was a game with the the basic components we set out to add, but without much else. Features like a second enemy type, a boss fight, or a story told by the level design, were things we wanted to add but didn’t have time to.

Screenshot of the start of our game

Most of the problems we had could be attributed to inexperience. Starting out we had a concept document which was written by someone else. Instead of sitting down and creating our own more detailed version of that document we went into production quickly using the already made concept document. This meant that we had to make up design decisions on the spot, and when we didn’t write these decisions down it created confusion later when two different people said that it was supposed to work in two different ways. This would’ve been solved by having a master document where all the design decisions were documented, instead of wasting time arguing about what we decided last week.

We also had a hard time adapting to feedback we got during or playtesting sessions. I talked a out in my previous blog post if you want to read about it, but to sum it up: The testers didn’t understand how to play the game, and instead of making changes to address that, we assumed that it would all make sense to them when we fleshed out the game a bit more and improved the tutorial. This lead to the game stagnating due to the basic mechanics and gameplay being flawed. If we addressed it earlier we would have been able make our game play better and more intuitively.

These problems, combined with a lack of time due to all of us having other lectures and assignments, meant that in the end we only managed to build a game with a the basic components. The goal is to go from point A to B without getting sunk by sharks attacking you, if they reach you they slam into your boat and deal damage to you. The sharks are covered in a cloud of mist. There are also items that are covered in the same clouds as the sharks. To tell them apart you have to the spotlight attached to your boat to shine a light on the cloud, revealing what is hiding inside.

As for what I’ve learned personally this project has been pretty beneficial. The things mentioned above are great to have experienced because now I know how important proper planning and listening to your testers are. This project also gave me the opportunity to put some things I’ve learned into practice, the biggest has been animation. This is my first time creating a high quality sprite animation for a game and I’m very happy with how my process worked, and the resulting animation. I’ve talked about animation for the enemy shark in previous blog posts if you’re looking for the process.

The finished animation of the enemy shark.

With this project being over, that is all for now, Esbjörn out!

How (not) to Handle Playtesting

During the development process we had a couple of playtesting sessions where me and my team, together with all of the other teams, gathered to show and play each others games. The reason we did this was to give us an outsider's perspective on how the games felt to play. Things that are obvious to you when you are building the game might be completely alien to someone who isn’t involved in the creation process. This is something we struggled with a lot.

In our game you’re playing as a boat. Your goal is to move forward and get as far as possible whilst attacked by sharks hiding in the mist surrounding you. In order to protect yourself against the sharks you have to shoot them with your harpoon. In the mist you can also find helpful items to pick up, the problem is that in the mist they look the same as sharks and if you shoot the items they get destroyed. In order to see if it is a shark or an item approaching you have a rotating spotlight attached to your boat. You can turn it on and off, and when it is turned on it drains energy. More energy is one of the benefits you can get from picking up items.

The problems we had during the playtesting was that none of the playtesters could figure out the controls worked and had great difficulties understanding what was going on. They had trouble shooting the sharks because the way the harpoon projectile worked was different from how projectiles usually work in games like this. The testers also never found or noticed items because the placeholder shadow they used looked way to much like a shark. This lead to all of the testers destroying everything approaching them. Even when we told them how the game worked many testers found it difficult to understand the game.

The tutorial screen of one of our early playtesting builds

My point with this post is not to discuss the exact problems we had, but rather point out how our attitude to them were wrong. After the playtesting ended we all sat down and looked at the feedback we received and we could clearly see that the testers had a hard time understanding our game. Instead of identifying that, and making changes to the game design and how the game communicates the mechanics, we shrugged it off and assumed that the testers would get it when the game was more fleshed out. Of course, when we came back two weeks later the testers still didn’t get how to play the game. It was only in the final weeks that we started to take it seriously and made changes that actually made the game more intuitive. We simplified the harpoon and made the shadows covering the sharks and items more ambiguous, which is something that we should have done after the first playtest.

When we put our first prototype out for others to playtest we had most of the basic mechanics implemented, but when they didn’t work we didn’t try to fix them, we instead chalked it up to the testers being stupid and that they would understand if we made a better tutorial and when the game was more fleshed out. This is a dangerous thought because you are trying to protect your ego instead of realizing that your basic mechanics are flawed and you’ve made a mistake, but as long as the basic mechanics are flawed, the game as a whole is flawed. It is only when you realize this and fix it that the game becomes better, and sometimes you learn it the hard way, like we did.

With this lesson learnt we strive forward, that is it for now!

Catching up

Describing Scrum and me and my groups experience with is all well and good, but I also want to go over some of the things I have been producing these last two weeks. Right now we are coming up on the Beta deadline for our project, and, due to some of the reasons stated in my previous blog post, we are a little bit behind in terms of art assets. Which meant that it has been the time for me to increase my production pace a bit.

Last week I worked on the death animation for our shark enemy. The process of how I made it is very similar to how I created the swimming animation for it. I started out by figuring out the movement, added the rest of the body, drew the outline, and lastly added some color to it. If you want a more detailed description of how I created it check out my blog post from two weeks ago.

That took up most of last week and didn’t leave me with much time to work on other assets. The good news is that this week that is exactly what I have been able to focus on this week. We started out this week by discussing what art we needed in the beta during our monday meeting. A few of those things had to be kept as a placeholder for now, and I don’t feel like they are that valuable to share. Therefore I will instead show you one of the things that I actually put some effort into.

In the original concept of our game you are meant to set sail and find Umibozu, and then escape from it when you manage to find it. One of the main topics during our monday meeting was whether or not we should include the escaping part. In the end we decided that including that segment would take too much time and effort compared to what it added to the gameplay experience. We now needed a way to signal to player that they had reached the end and that that they’ve found Umibozu. In order to show this we decided that we wanted an illustration of the player character in front of Umibozu.

I created this fairly quickly in Photoshop, which is why it feels a bit rough still. I tried taking a speed painter approach to how I created this image. Starting out my blocking in the shapes of the objects with their base colors, adding elements such as textu

re and lighting after the general composition was finalized. Because I needed to complete it quickly I also relied heavily on custom brushes in order to create textures and effects. I would love to revisit this before the project is finished and give it the touch up I think it deserves, but due to needing to complete other assets, this is how it will look in the beta.

That’s it for now, Esbjörn out!

Sprites again?

If you've been following this blog, you will know a fair bit about the sprites I've been making. Last week I talked about the level two sprite. The logical progression is that today I will be talking about the level three sprite, which I will.

The level three sprite was a mixed bag of obstacles. The weapon she would be using had no clear concept at all, the only thing that was set in stone was that it was supposed to be attached to the main character's arm. There was also the recurring problem of not having enough room on a 64x64 pixel big sprite to show any significant progression. What worked in my favor was that since the gun is attached to the character's arm I could use the level one sprite as a base on which the level three sprite was made. I only had to move around her arms a bit to create the pose and from there on out it was smooth sailing. You can see the similarities below.

Level three (left) compared to level one (right)

Making the gun was interesting because, as I said, I had no direction to start in. This meant that I had to experiment quite a bit. Unfortunately I have nothing to show from those experiments but there are still some remnants in the final version. The spool of thread on side was one of the first things I added. Maybe it has some interaction with the weapon or maybe she uses it while she works, since she is a tailor. The spool felt a bit too heavy on it's own, so I added a counterweight to the other side. The pipe was originally bigger, but it felt to cumbersome to be carrying around on ones wrist, so I made it smaller.

If you look at the image I've provided you can see what I've done to show the progression of the character. The scarf/blanket on her is added at level two, which I unfortunately don't have a picture of at hand. In my previous post there is a picture of the level two sprite, but it is not the most updated version. Anyways, what is added at level three is most notably a leather glove with brass clasps that covers her whole lower arm. She also has a piece of cloth attached with brass bracelets on her right arm. It is still fairly hard to tell what they are supposed to resemble, but in the game we will have some high resolution pictures which hopefully will make the player understand what everything is supposed to be.

Level Up!

Keeping with the theme I've set these past two weeks I'm going to keep talking about the different artifacts I've created related to the main character in the game me and my group is making. Last week I talked about how I made the first sprite of the main character, the level one sprite which you start out as. This week I'll talk about the level two sprite, how I made it and what challenges I faced while working on it.

After I made the level one sprite I immediately moved on to making the level two sprite. At level two the character has some more stuff on her and is carrying a gun instead of a pistol. Having a gun instead of a pistol meant that I couldn't  recycle the level one sprite to create the level two sprite. There was also a problem making the main character look stronger because the character is both top down as well as only 64x64 pixels big. The limited size of the character means that anything I add has to be fairly big, because you wouldn't be able to tell what it is supposed to be otherwise. Furthermore the only area that I'm able to add detail on is the on top of the arms, shoulders and head.

The steps I took when creating the level 2 sprite were the same as the ones I described last week when I made the level one sprite. I start out by sketching the pose and making it look anatomically correct. After that I add some flat colors, boxing in the shapes of the character. I then add a black outline around it and add some texture to the colors.

The level two picture in this post is not completely accurate as I've made some corrections to it, mainly changing the shroud on her shoulders from blue to an almost scarlet color with a golden border. The green has also been made a bit more saturated to stand out better from the background. You can see that green color in the second picture.

The second picture might be a bit confusing if you read last weeks post as it looks more like the level one sprite than a level two, or even a level three sprite. The reason is because it is a level one character, but with an upgraded gun. It is the same base as the level two sprite but I've removed the shroud and added the bag from my level one sprite.

In the end I not really pleased with how the level two sprite came out. Especially the arms I think could use some work, but at this point it is probably more important to make sure all the art assets exists instead of polishing a single artifact to perfection.

Head First Into Making Sprites

These lasts weeks I've mainly been working on the main character. Last week I discussed how I designed the main character and showed the different stages she went through during the design process. This week I'm going to talk about how I turned the concept art into the sprite that is in the game at the moment.

The sprite I'm mainly going to talk about is the level one sprite that you see when you start the game. I'm almost complete with both the level two and three sprites right now, but I think the process of making the level 1 sprite is more interesting as I had no experience making sprites when I started out.

The level one has her holding a a pistol with both her hands. The game is top down so the only things you see is the top of her head, her shoulders and her arms. Starting out I made a new 64x64 canvas in photoshop which I then sketched the the main character's pose on to. I used a small brush tool with a lower opacity for this as I didn't need to define the lines at this stage. In hindsight I should've probably started out with a bigger canvas and then scaled it down to 64x64 when I was happy with the proportions. When you are working in such a small size as 64x64 it is hard to make lines the way you want them to, which is why I think that starting out bigger would've been easier.

When I finished her pose I made a quick outline and started to put down color on her just to experiment with her color scheme. I may have done this a bit backwards as I put down the colors before I had a final outline to work with. Instead I put down the colors on top of the half-assed outline and then created the final outline by painting a darker color around the main color. E.g. to outline her green clothes, I took a darker shade of green and created a one pixel wide outline around it. At this point I was using a one pixel big pen tool in photoshop.

This technique of making an outline looked good in photoshop, but when it was put into the game it didn't provide enough contrast to stand out. To fix this I made the outline pitch black which made everything much clearer in game.

It's still not absolutely final as some group members still have some problems with the colors, but at this point I'm starting to feel I've put more than enough time on it and that my time could be better used on something that is yet to be created. That is something that I will have to speak with the rest of group about though.