Submission/Learner Declaration

Illustrator

Simple Shapes

Typography exercise 1

Typography exercise 2

Pen Tool exercise

Presenting text

Photoshop

Manipulation exercise

Jigsaw exercise

Selection Exercise

Task 5 sound effects

Supporting documents

Reaper Tutorial evidence

Personal Branding

Self Branding

Suitable fonts

• Arial black
• Baskerville old face
• Broadway
• Castellar
• Franklin Gothic medium continued
• Rockwell extra bold
• Showcard gothic
• Verdana
• Wide Latin

All of the above have been chosen, due to their bold nature, which would stand out from afar, and attract more attention. It also implies the company is ‘big and bold’ giving a positive image of the name.

Company names exploration (production)

All-star- A member of a leading, professional and outstanding team giving the impression that my game company would produce games of a high calibre.

Prestige- Wide spread respect and admiration from other people. This would give a positive connotation to other game developers.

Hawk eye – Someone who has excellent vision and a talent for spotting out even the most small of details which would make it appropriate for my game company name due to the positive connotation the name would give.

Sell Yourself Exercise

 

Game Ideas Task 2

Ideas for my 2D game

Idea 1- A alien invasion pushes humanity to near extinction and in a final, desperate attempt to push back the aliens, the British army pushes into an invaded city and take it back. The main character would be called ‘Alexis Gordon’ and the enemy would be called ‘The Horde’

Idea 2- After a forest has been burned down; you play as a deer trying to escape the burning inferno. Along the journey to escape, the player would come across many different animals also trying to escape, and you would team up in an effort to escape as easily as possible. The protagonist is not named, and the game has no particular antagonist, apart from the humans who accidentally set the forest alight.

Idea 3- Set in a different universe, two races of elves go to war, and the basis of the game is to escape the city district where the opposing eleven army is attacking whilst dealing severe blows to the enemy's hierarchy. The boss fights would be encounters with high ranking elves, and they would all have vastly superior powers to the player. The protagonist would be called Drudic Ashenworth and the enemy army would be called the ‘aggressors’ by in game characters. There would be a multitude of power ups including extra lives, enhanced armour and new weapons.

Written Overview of game Task 3

 Breakdown

Story- A army sergeant’s vehicle breaks down while on a last stand operation against a superior alien force.

Location- Unnamed European city

Protagonists – British Army

Antagonists- ‘The Horde’

Characters-

Alexis Gordon - Main protagonist – A former Russian soldier who went to live in Britain and soon became a respected and battle hardened sergeant. He is humanity's last hope at dealing a crippling blow to The Hordes armies.

Daniel Leeroy - Protagonists squad member – A former enemy turned best friend of Alexis and they have fought many battles against the horde which has strengthened their bonding. Daniel is one of the squad members you team up with in the game.

Field Marshal McCoy - Head of the British army - A decorated war veteran who holds immense power over the armies of Europe and plans to take Europe for himself with secret reserved forces once The Horde has been disposed of and the other nations are at their weakest. His ultimate goal is of a new world order with all nations under the British’s heel

Time period – 2050

Power ups – Extra lives and armour vests are scattered around the levels. The extra lives allow the player to live after dying and the armour vests allow the player to take more hits.

Boss fights – After each stage, a powerful alien with a health bar confronts the player and they are forced to use the environment against them due to lack of weapons. After each boss is defeated, the player finds a squad member and teams up with them, allowing for ability’s to be used. For example, an extra squad member can give the player boosts on to higher ledges, which would be introduced in the next stage upon defeating their respective boss.

Art Style- Since the game is set in a destroyed city, all the buildings are either destroyed or still burning, and as a result of this, the game has a rather drab colour scheme which also emphasizes the fact that humanity's hopes for a better future has now vanished and that the world is resigned to its fate.

Theme- The theme is of isolation and keeping the players sanity hence the title ‘Breakdown’. The player has the deal with mankind’s dominion over the world broken and The Hordes invasion nearly complete. The game is not about humanity’s triumph over impossible odds, but rather humanity’s final stand before The Horde terraforms the planet killing off all humanity.

 Complete synopsis- The game is set in 2050, 5 years after the first appearance of The Horde, a vastly superior alien force, who after their planets resources expire, harden their hearts and enlarge their intellect’s and look for inhabitable planets to take over. Humanity’s armies have been reduced to a third of their size, and the only army that is still powerful in their own right is the British army. Their leader, Field Marshal McCoy has plans to use a secret reserve force of 3 million men to take over Europe after the horde is dealt with and to establish a new world order with Britain as the dominant country despite universal knowledge among earths forces that the war is lost. The war against the horde is nearly at an end with humanity suffering catastrophic losses and the horde just keeps getting reinforcements from their world light years away. It is obvious that humanity has lost and after the detection of a massive device humanity’s scientists are convinced is a world terraformer, the worlds combined forces decide to launch operation ‘Rolling Thunder’ in an final desperate effort for a large crippling blow at The Horde. Their plan is to infiltrate a European city where the alien mothership is located over, somehow infiltrate it and destroy it, which will, despite their inevitable victory, hit The Horde hard. In command of this operation is Alexis Gordon, a celebrated and hardened sergeant. While within the city, Alexis’s car breaks down and he is forced to make it on foot towards the motherships entrance portal, while re-joining lost squad members along the way.

Task 4 Prototype

At the start of the tech demo, the player (Red sprite) is spawned on a small platform, which is shielded by a higher platform (Seen in the second pic). This allows for the player to learn the basic movement controls while being shielded by the platform, giving them security from the turret (seen in the second pic).

Once the player has got the basic controls, they start advancing up the platforms. Upon doing so, they come across the first enemy, a turret (The green sprite). They have to navigate the platforms, while avoiding the bullets spawning form the turret. If the player makes contact with the bullets, the player health bar goes down (The yellow sprite). Upon the loss of all health, or the instance that the player falls off the platforms, the 'GAME OVER' text opacity is set to 100 and every other sprites opacity is set to 0 allowing for it to be seen. After a set amount of time, in this instance 3 seconds, the tech demo is restarted. The same event occurs if the player collides with the turret.

After the first set of platforms is passed, the player comes across another turret, and a secret explosive (small blue sprite) on the platform directly below the turret. The player has already encountered a turret, and they know what they look like and act, so it is no surprise to the player, but they are unaware about the explosive, and will have to learn what it looks like, and how to overcome it. This gives variety to the tech demo, and keeps the players on their toes, and wary of other potential threats. The platform has also been programmed to move up and down, making it hard for the player to avoid the explosive giving the tech demo a level of challenge. This would give the player a feeling of satisfaction for overcoming the obstacle, in this instance the mine.

Once the second enemy and the mine has been overcome, the player comes across the course end. In order to end the tech demo, the player has to collide with the winning flag, as seen above. Once they have collided, the opacity of the 'COURSE CLEARED' text is set to 100 and the rest of the level's opacity is set to 0 allowing for the victory screen to show.

Dialog and sound effects Task 5

Dialog 

Background Design and Concept artwork Task 6

Character Uniform (futuristic marine)

Character Face

Background 'Burning chimney'

Background 'Burning residential area'

Background 'Burning Factory'

Background 'Destroyed city skyline'

Character sprite 'Commando outfit'

Task 1

These are the two 2D platformers I have researched-

Super Mario Bros 2D Level design

Super Mario Bros was a 2D platformer released September 13^th 1985 for the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System). Being a 2D platformer, a lot of emphasis was made on level design to keep all stages of the game interesting.  The game was separated into 8 worlds with multiple stages in each.

One notable aspect with each world is that they escalate in difficulty, keeping the player on their toes throughout. This made the player think how to approach each situation and freshened their experience every time they entered a new world. One example of difficulty is world 8-4. This is the final boss level and has multiple stages.  Initially, the level takes the approach of the previous 3 stages by throwing in pits and various other enemies. Since the design is familiar to what they have faced before, albeit with tougher enemies, the player can proceed through the level with relative ease. However, the level then throws the player into a water environment forcing them to change their strategy and adapt to survive the stage. After they have gone through this, they come upon the final boss, in this case, Bowser. A boss is an enemy, usually with a great importance in the story, and generally requires the player to use all their knowledge of the game mechanics to defeat and sometimes their downfall allows the player to acquire a reward like a power up or a piece of high quality loot. Due to this the player has to go all out to defeat Bowser and not just win the level, but the entire game with that being the reward for defeating the boss.

World 1-1 - This map shows the starting area, and the obstacles the new players would of faced.

World 8-8 - This map shows the layout of the level, including the different environments, obstacles, and the final boss mentioned in the paragraph above.

Another example of good level design is the first stage. The player is thrown into the level without knowledge of the games controls. They are forced to adapt to each situation quickly, keeping a tense feeling throughout. It starts off with no enemies and only platforms, allowing the player to practise with the controls. The level then gets more challenging with enemies being introduced. Since Goomba’s can only be defeated by being jumped on, the player has to find out for themselves, maybe dying in the process. To aid their efforts, the game provides ‘1UPS’ that give the player extra lives if they make a mistake. This is a common convention in older platformers. There is also collectibles called ‘Rings’ that allow for the player to gain high scores which can be used to show their skill at the game. (Image’s taken from VGmaps.com)

Rayman Origins 2D level design

Rayman Origins is a modern platformer released on the 15^th of November 2011 for the Nintendo 3DS. It is a platformer and as such, has various concepts and mechanics from older 2D platformers. For example, the first level increases in difficulty as the player progresses through it. It initially starts with simple platforms to progress across, but as the player progresses, enemies are introduced, forcing the player to manoeuvre around the level while avoiding or attacking the enemies
.

 Just like older platformers, Rayman Origins, has collectibles, in this instance, ‘Lums’, which allow you to progress through the game. This is the games ‘Ultimate Goal’, which is to collect/save as many Lums as possible which is done via breaking cages in which they are kept. This is just like older platformers, which all have an ultimate goal, for example Super Mario Brothers which is to save Princess Peach from the villainous Bowser. This gives the player motivation to adapt and overcome every new enemy or obstacle to achieve that goal and beat the game.

 There is also items within the game that enhance the players ability’s such as ‘Blue Punch’ which increases the players offensive ability which is similar to, yet again Super Mario, which has mushrooms that had positive effects on the player character. Items are a tried and tested aspect of 2D platformers that has become a staple of them ever since as shown by the inclusion of them in Rayman Origins, even 30 years after they were first introduced.

Just like older platformers, Rayman has Boss fights. This enemy provides the player with a harder enemy to defeat and provides them with a challenge. This has once again been a staple of 2D platformers, among other genres, which shows that Rayman Origins is an old school platformer at heart, which shows how timeless games like Super Mario Bros are even now enjoyed and appreciated by modern gamers.

The first level

 The game also has three primary areas that have different ways to traverse them, and provide new obstacles in each. This forces the player, to once again, adapt to get through and finish the level, and eventually the game. This keeps the player interested, due to scenery change. This enhances the players experiences and convinces them to keep playing.  (Image taken from GiantBomb.com)