Game WIP: The Farewell Speech
Hello Online World,
Back Story:
Recently, I decided to document my senior thesis process. We have a year long class, where we can work on any type of project we want. Being a 3D artist, I wanted to make an intractable environment but needed help coding so I decided to team up with one of my close friends. He is studying computer science with a focus in game development. We decided to create a VR experiences. I decided to put this on Poly Count as a way for me to reflect on my journey. I want to be able to look back, at the end of April 2020, and see how my project has transform.
The concept of our idea started off in April 2019. My partner and I sat down and thought of what we wanted. We wanted it be enjoyably for both of us and beneficial. We looked back at past thesis’s to see what went wrong and what we should avoid. We noticed that most people spent the first semester toying around with ideas and experiment on what they wanted to do, leading to the second semester being very rushed. They typically did not end up fully satisfied with their project. Therefore, we agreed that we need to come up with an idea early and spend the summer (2019) experimenting. That way we had a silicified idea before senior thesis started in the fall.
Another thing we took into consideration, when looking back at old thesis projects, was people who made games couldn’t finish them in time. That led us to not making a game. Instead we are making an experience, so we could have a polished piece at the end. One other thing I personally took into consideration was that I wanted to tell a story through my art.
In March 2019 I went to GDC and I had my portfolio reviewed by a few people. I received two main points for feedback: tell a story with my environment and work on fundamentals. Knowing this information, I really wanted to be able to work on both of those in my senior project.
First Idea Iteration:
With all this information my partner and I decided to make a VR experience, but with a twist. We did not want to use the Oculus head set but only the controllers. We want to immerse the player in a physical 360-degree world. We wanted to put the player in a room with projectors and those projectors would display the environment around the player. The player than could navigate throughout the scene with Oculus controllers. We spent the 2019 summer to mid October 2019 trying to implement this system (we later ended up dropping it).
Once school started in September I stopped helping my partner work on the projectors and started to work on the rest of the game. There was a clear path for my partner, but I had to figure out level design, art and what type of experience we wanted to show people. I decided that I wanted to make an experience were people could learn about what the world, if we continue polluting the way we are today.
Step One Research:
I started off researching an idea I wanted to convey to my audience: The effects on our world if we continued pollution the way we are. I did a lot of research on what Earth could be like in the future. In my research I found that there and a vast amount of scenarios that could happen. Because I wanted people to feel the most drastic impact of climate change, I decided to go with the worst scenario possible and chose the year 2085.
Step Two:
Then I decided what location I wanted my experience to take place. I gathered references from different cities and counties. I narrowed it down by picking a place that was by an ocean because, from my research, oceans play a large roll. I then decided I wanted to pick a place in the United States of America because that would be my largest viewing audience. I will be showing the experience off in the US. I wanted to show Americans what their reality could be like, in hopes they my push for change. I didn’t think it would be as impactful showing United States citizens a country they weren’t familiar with. So, I am now down to a state that has a coast line. Lastly, I wanted a place with rich, historic, unique, architecture. Many US cities have this, but I narrowed it down to a small New England coastal city and San Francisco. I then eliminated San Francisco because the city was way too big and too hard for me to take such a task on in such a short time. I chose a New England Coastal City! Then I created a reference board.
Reference Board:
Step Three Mood:
From my internship over the summer, I realized how important light was and decided I needed to get a mood/lighting board done right away. Large inspiration form Pixar's Wall-e and Brave. My lighting changes drastically from this initial lighting board.
Mood/Lighting Board:
I was torn between two different types of lighting.
Step Four Level Design:
My next major goal was to get a block out/grey boxing done. I wanted to make sure we had a solid experience before I started making polished assets. The player will start at the beach, work their way through the city and up to the top of the mountain, to get a view of the entire city. Then the game ends at that point. It leaves behind information about what people can do.
Step Five Adding lighting:
I ended up straying away from my lighting board and deiced to go with a more over cast feel. (Don't mind the gun, it not a 1st person shooter, I used it for a scale reference).
Step Six Adding Game Play:
I realized that I needed more than just a place for people to explore, instead of hoping that they would understand what’s going on solely through art and level design. After expressing this concern with my partner, we decided to think of a way to fix this. I came up with the player being able to gather collectibles throughout the level. The collectibles were facts that they gathered. I told my partner about this idea and he agreed. I used the same route as before. My partner just added in audio boxes that people would find and a counter. Then I placed the boxes throughout the scene.
Step Seven 2nd Lighting iteration:
Step Eight Play Testing Mid October 2019:
We then play tested the idea. And sadly, found out the level was way too boring. Part of the problem was that the level was too big and people did not enjoy running around hearing “random” facts. So, we did a rework. One of our professors recommended to us to play Firewatch. It inspire us on how we could make our experience more fun.
Step Nine the Rework:
Firewatch was a huge inspiration, on this point, when I was thinking of a way to make the game more fun. We decided to drop the whole experience idea and make a narrative adventure game.
Step Ten Script:
The player goes back to their hometown to see the damage left behind after a hurricane passes through. The player is guided around the city by their sibling, recalling past memories and learning about the effects of climate change.
Step Eleven Redesign of the Level:
While working on the first iteration of the script, I also was redesigning the level for the second time. I added barricades to block peoples path to make it smaller. After I finished the first iteration of the script, I realized that my second iteration of the level was not working, it was still too big. I decided to scrap the whole thing except for the beach and the boardwalk. I looked back at my references and broke down what I truly liked about them. I like that there was a straight walk way through old buildings leading to a large building that stood out. So, I pretty much made that. I have the player starting from the beach, going through the town then leading them to the church. This is where they interacted with objects and hear their sibling. Once they complete all the objectives at the church and other parts of town they are then able to go on the trail. Going through the trail then end up at the peek and learn some shocking information. The game ends at that point. My partner is currently implementing the script and the interact able objects. We hope to start play testing soon.
Replies
Step twelve Play test:
My partner and I play tested between November 7th and the 14th. We received some really insightful feedback. One of the biggest things was that our dialogue felt unnatural. I then took the script to my creative writing professor to get her feedback. I wanted to learn how I could make the dialogue better. She came back saying that it was confusing and my dialogue needed a lot of work. She suggested that I read A Doll’s House and Pride and Prejudice. She wanted me to analyze how the two authors wrote their dialogue. I had already read A Doll’s House, but I reread it looking to analyze it instead of enjoyment. After reading through it, I realized what I needed to do to make the script better.
Step Thirteen Script Rewrite:
After my play test and my feedback from my creative writing professor on the script, I deiced that I needed to rewrite the whole thing. I kept the basic premise of the game though.
You are the player as a commercial fisherman in the year 2085. You are trying to cope with the lose of the fishing industry and the death of your father.
In the story I intertwine what could theoretically happen to our future if we continue polluting the way that we are now. I want to teach people about pollution through this game and I do this by weaving it into a story. The player will learn what could happen through a visual story telling experience. But all the while they are still being entertained by listening to verbal story and game play.
Step Fourteen Level Iteration Four:
Because of the script rewrites I decided that the level needed to be redone as well. In my new script I wrote out exactly what I wanted the player to experience and see in this new level. I went into great detail with this. This was extremely helpful because I already new exactly what I needed to build and how to lay it out. I also decided to make the game a bit more linear game. There still is some exploring, but it is not as open. I decided to do this to make it easier on the player and myself. This way the player doesn’t get lost and I don’t have to figure out ways to keep the player on the right path. You can also interact with specific objects in the game.