Success!

We did it! We finished the Game Jam and completed our game, The Rapture, which can be downloaded here - just unzip it using WinRAR and run the .exe (works best in 800x600 resolution)! There's a Mac version here, too!

I (Mitch) have written about my own experiences and feelings on how I think the week went over on my blog, so I won't drag this on any more - some of the other team members may make their own final post here later though.

Until next time (most likely the Global Game Jam at the start of 2012), see you all around!

The Most Productive Day For Suneil and Leanne...

Hey guys, it's Leanne here, and it's our last day! Our game is coming along great, we're pretty proud of ourselves, and so we should be: we've all brought our own ideas to the table and made it work so well with only five days to complete it.

For all of Wednesday I was unavailable (work, bleh) and Thursday morning I was...ill...but to be honest the guys didn't let that get them down, even though deep down I know they were in despair over my absence. The game works! Though we are still sending cubes to heaven and hell, since the artwork hasn't been fully implemented. Robert had been working tirelessly to make this happen, he's a top programmer. I'm sure he's fed up looking at it by now! We're getting there with the artwork as well; Chelsea's on it, and it will be done in no time. The GUI's looking awesome too - be sure to check out Mitch's post for screenshots!

Suneil and I were given the greatest privilege of creating all of the audio, which the rest of the group do not regret whatsoever...however, we've done a lot of work last night and this morning and almost everyone's happy with what we've come up with (Chelsea's still to approve, though). Suneil's audio is simply outstanding. I really mean it, no sarcasm intended. He used a microphone to create it himself (he has used his own voice and put the pitch way up, so he says) and I'll post a link here, hopefully it works. You have to hear it. Actually, I'll need to figure out which one to post...they're all my favourite. I have put together and edited the audio for the "miracles" and for the saints and sinners. They are really boring compared to Suneil's audio, but someone had to do it eh?

Ps, after hearing the rest of the audio Suneil's created, they're not all my favourite. Half of it sounds like a cat being sat on...oh Suneil. I'm not even comfortable linking you to it, you'll just have to play our game when it's done and listen out for it! Hey, ain't that Noah?

EDIT BY MITCH: And here's some incriminating evidence from Suneil and Leanne's "Most Productive Day":

Nicely done, guys. ;D

Dawn of the Final Day (24 Hours Remain)

Howdy folks, it's Mitch here. Cripes, we're on the last day of the Game Jam already! There's still some ways to go, but we're making progress and keeping up with all of our goals - mostly because our sadistic slavedrivers team coaches Leanne and Suneil have been whipping us motivating us so well, so that's pretty groovy

Gameplay-wise, all of the features we intended on included have been added; we haven't had to cut back very many features (we had planned on Jesus making an appearance, but alas, his role was subsumed by the Hail & Flame Miracle. Poor lad). After having played the game through, I've gotta say, it's pretty addictive! Leanne and Suneil have also given us some sounds to include for the various effects in the game (most having been made by Suneil himself), which is groovy.

In terms of artwork, all of the sprites and animation have been added in, and some last-minute tinkering is underway (namely adding in some new GUI textures and polishing up the interface), so we're almost ready to finish off! Sehr gut.

Day 4

Hey guys it's Suneil again. Sorry for subjecting you all to the HORROR that is Mitch. For once since I started this course the programmers are ahead of the Designers which turns out alright considering the implementation is usually what slows down the team. But back to work for us all.

Today was all about the artwork! Chelsea got the frames for the character sprites all finished up and Mitch showed her how to put it together in Unity. Once again Leanne and I showed a good solid effort to the team with our enspiring ability to sit around. HIGH FIVE LEANNE! The GUI came together with the Buttons and textures. The sound still need to get done but thats an all night for me. Sugar overload with a comedown tomorrow me thinks.

MEANWHILE ON THE PROGRAMMING SIDE...

The border art was implemented in the game. The beginning stages of a level system in the game started to pop its head out. The artwork for the tutorial and the level screens need to be completed so the user can differentiate between the tutorial, level 1, level 2 and so on.


I have to say working on this project this week has been a lot of fun and i believe we have actually made a pretty fun game (albeit one that i cannot play). If you want to play the finished copy then just give us a comment and we shal send it over onec it is done. bye for now folks/

Flexible working practises in practise.

Hey there, it's Chelsea here from Team Nyan!

Today I was working from home due to medically induced laziness and I just thought I'd give you all an update of what I've been doing.

Since I'm useless at programming, I've been doing most of the gamer art for The Rapture. The first thing I made was the game environment, which were simple graphics of the sky and world. My tablet dun borked a few weeks ago, so this was all done by mouse. (Excuses, excuses)

I'd also been tasked with making the Saints and Sinners for the game, and thus also making animations for their movement. Without any ACTUAL animation skills, I've reinvented the wheel and had to do the frames by hand, then scan them, then photoshop them. I don't have the skills to put them into Unity yet, but I'll be taught that tomorrow by Mitch and then it will be ALL FINE. 

Here I am drawing out the animation frames by hand. In tomorrow's post, I'll be building a fire in the games lab to cook us all lunch on. 

And here's the clumsy, but working result. 

The things I have left to do are animations of when the Saints are sent to Heaven and the Sinners to Hell. I'm thinking of some firey things and some fly-ey things. :)

But right now, my mouse hand aches and my belly rumbles. 

Chelsea, Over and out.

P.S: It was of my demands that we are TEAM NYAN.

Day 3

Howdy folks, it's Mitch again: our hellish despots merciful emperors Leanne and Suneil are away from the lab today, which means I can once again deliver a desperate plea for help wonderful news of happiness and fulfilment!

It's Day 3 of the Game Jam. Things are progressing well, largely without any problems or frustration (woo!), and we're meeting all of our milestones.

Today, the Design team has mostly been working on graphical stuff - myself and Suneil working on designs for the various Graphic User Interface buttons, and Chelsea working on our sprites (Leanne, alas, has to work). There's a couple of goodies to see on the GUI mockup screenshot: on the left are some icons I've designed for the Miracle powerups - the Flood, Hellfire, and Plague of Hail & Flame (all of which are implemented in the game already by our Programming team -- see below!), and at the right is Suneil's design for the banner that indicates if the player is in Heaven Mode or Hell Mode (which determines whether the player sends souls to Heaven or Hell), and in the center you can see a screenshot of the game in action, using one of Suneil's designs for cursors to indicate what mode the player is in (in this case, Heaven).

The Programming Team has been working on getting the power-ups of The Rapture - termed "Miracles" in our game. In the screenshots above, provided by Robert (one of our stellar programmers), you can see the Flood, Hellfire and Plague of Hail & Flame Miracles, each of which can be used by the player to clear the screen of certain types of souls (Saints or Sinners), or to clear the screen entirely. You can also see our rather unfinished GUI, designed by yours truly (hence why it looks a tad dire), and the shiny boxes that will one day grow to become beautiful saints and devilish sinners, once our head artist Chelsea's worked her magic.

For the rest of the day, we'll be tapping away at the above designs to get our game as pretty as possible, in order to meet our daily goal: a working, playable, First Iteration!

Mitch: Hijacking the Blog Briefly~

Howdy folks! This is Mitch, one of the designers in Team Nyan: I've temporarily wrested control of the blog from our oppressive taskmasters glorious leaders Leanne and Suneil in order to broadcast this distress call message of Empyrean bliss.

Things are going very well here - we're just about at the Game Jam's halfway point, and so far we've kept up with our personal milestones in the game's design and development. Day One was given over to design, and we had set the goal of having our game planned out on paper before attempting any implementation: not only did we meet that target, but we had several hours' worth of getting a head start on our goal for Day Two: creating a prototype. Day Two itself (today!) was tough: everyone was tapping away at one thing or another, each working to meet their own goals and complete their own tasks so that we could meet the group milestone for the day; and while it was hard work, it felt amazing knowing that each of us had the opportunity not only to build something with our own personal touch, using our own skills and knowledge - but that what each of us built would come together with all the other elements created by other members of the group, and it would form the gestalt of our game, The Rapture, in only a few short days. Most of my work included figuring out an effective layout of all the elements of our Graphic User Interface and implementing that in Unity3D. Luckily, I had a ruler, so it was easy to measure the success of my layouts! Ahaha! Aha! Ahaha! Ahem...

The Graphic User Interface may not be the first thing that comes to mind when one has to think of what makes a great game - but it can certainly contribute to making a bad game if it's implemented inefficiently. The GUI is what seperates the player from the game itself, and as such it acts as an translator or intermediary: or, in keeping with our theme, an intercessor, allowing for a communication between the player and game. The player must be provided some means of providing an input to the game, and also to have a way to have information output back to them. In terms of our game, our input is mouse-clicks (to select souls to send to Heaven or Hell) and pressing the spacebar (to switch between Heaven Mode and Hell Mode, allowing the player to choose where to send them); our output is the game screen itself (of course), as well as the quantity and type (Saint or Sinner) of souls in Heaven and Hell, the player's score, and whether or not they're in Heaven Mode or Hell Mode. Feedback is pivotal in a user interface, not only in terms of the information about the game session regarding score, time remaining or similar, but also in the way the player manipulates the user interface: if a buttonpress does not come with some kind of feedback, the player will be at a loss to determine if the game actually received the buttonpress - this can be easily rectified by playing an appropriate sound (aural feedback), animation (visual feedback) or physical sensation like vibration (haptic feedback) when the button is pressed. All of these things must be represented in a user interface to make sure the player has the most rewarding experience possible when interacting with the game. Phew.

Later in the day we had a brief meeting to make sure everything was on track, and to work out some of the details with how our game actually played, adjusting win conditions, tweaking numbers, discussing what tasks we had to do and when they'd be done, and all that good stuff. At the end, I tried to get the group to do that thing that sports teams do when they huddle round and put their hands in to the center and then they cheer. In a demonstration of unbreakable team spirit, everyone simultaneously gave me a displeased look and walked away, so I put my other hand in the center and cheered with myself. Go Team!

Tomorrow, it looks like another busy day: I'll be designing the banners, buttons and GUI skins to put over the top of all the underlying GUI elements. I've learned from past experience that I can't rely on Unity3D to agree with how I lay out those elements (probably something to do with violating feng shui principles), but at least I can rely on my team unity! Ahaha! Haha! Ahahaha! Ahem...

I'd better go before the angry gods benevolent masters Leanne and Suneil find this post. Luckily I've got a more secure channel over on my personal game design blog HypArcStudios.wordpress.com, so I'll no doubt be putting more of my experiences with the Game Jam over there too. See you all around!

Messing about

Unfortunately with the extensive amount of time. Leanne and I have a tad too much time on our hands so I thought I would blog about the 'down time' we have had mostly involving everyone else working, Leanne working with Blender and me talking to Mitch about superheroes while he tries to work. Chelsea is on Two computers right now working on textures and  and backgrounds which she is kicking some ass at it. I'll try get some pics posted soon. Before the sound gets done I'm gonna have to buy a headset but mine broke so I needed one anyway. This is just a good excuse. Will update later.

Day 2

Day 2, and it's Leanne here bringing you the latest on what's going on. Oh and Suneil, of course. Today, we have a basic prototype to work with! Robert, Alisdair and Reiss were working hard this morning completing it, and we now have a basic game working. Alisdair has got cubes randomly spawning and Robert then got these cubes to move randomly then "up" when left clicked and "down" when right clicked. These cubes will then become the saints and the sinners when the art rendering has been completed.

Mitch and Chelsea, being the more artistic ones, are creating most of the artwork today. Mitch is creating the GUI (Graphical User Interface) which will be used on all levels and Chelsea is creating the environment; in particular the sky box for the world and the sky. Suneil is hard at work creating characters, particularly a Jesus character, which will hopefully become a part of the final product and I am familiarising myself with Blender (we had initially decided against 3D models as it will be too time consuming, but time is on our side today). If we're lucky, we may have a 3D Jesus on our hands.


Somehow, time is being extremely nice to us today, so we have extra stuff to do that was originally planned for Thursday! We are play-testing the game, making sure it's fun and setting the speeds just right for each level (getting increasingly faster as the player progresses). This was an initial requirement for the game; a fast-paced button-basher, basically. I messed about with the game once this was more or less complete, and I can safely say it's going to be as fast-paced as we were hoping for. There was also time to discuss menus and whether there will be a mute button in an options menu or on-screen (though judging by the audio Suneil has come across, you might want to mute before even beginning).


By the end of the day, we are aiming to have a functional GUI implemented and once this is done, the programmers can start implementing the "powers" available to the player. We have already discussed what "powers" we hope to have; the flood being the main one which will wipe out all the characters on screen. We have yet to decide whether those that are wiped out will be allocated to their rightful place or whether the flood ruins everything! Later on today, or tomorrow morning, this will be decided and on its way to being implemented. 


Unfortunately I won't be in at all tomorrow, so Suneil will be back with all the exciting updates! Or maybe Mitch will step in. That might be for the best.

Day 1

Day 1 at the week long game jam at Caledonian University! We split up into teams and were asked to create a game with the constraint of  "Friends and enemies". Our team name is Team Nyan, and there are seven of us - Mitch, Chelsea, Suneil and Leanne are primarily designers and Alisdair, Robert and Reiss are the programmers.

We threw around ideas about RISK/Total War type games and visual novel type games. We settled on the idea of a game on the Rapture. The player is God and is sending 'sinners' to Hell and 'saints' to Heaven. The game will consist of a point click system and pushing spacebar to change whether to send the target click to Heaven or Hell.

We fleshed out the idea over a few hours. In the first hour we made the decision to make it part 3D, part 2D and have a retro feel about it. It will be created on Unity3D using C sharp. In this hour we also split up the tasks between ourselves. After this, we made a start on these tasks.

Designers - Chelsea, Mitch, Leanne, Suneil
Programmers - Alisdair, Reiss, Robert
Artist - Chelsea, Mitch, Suneil
Sound - Suneil, Leanne

Reiss, Alisdair and Robert are making the prototype for the game. They have created the basic scripts to spawn cubes and move them. They are also working on the "judgement" element of the game; whether the player has added the correct cube to the correct area, "Heaven" or "Hell". Mitch and Chelsea have their ideas on paper, ready to import these ideas once the programmers have got the basic elements completed.

The blog posts are written by the delightful Suneil and Leanne (Mitch is also an admin though, so he'll edit a lot of what we say thankfully) and we hope to bring you exciting feedback on what we're up to each day!