Edwin's Competitions, Festivals and Exhibitions Blog

This entry will be focus on UI design "ME" will have UI for distance between player and ending, and death between player. The initial plan:- Making a progress bar to determine the distance. Progress bar in-game. It was not used because of technical unreliable. The distance changes when the game scene is changed, giving false visual data in the progression bar. To fix this, I've designed another UI for  it. The distance reading:- Distance reading is where text shows the distance while attaching it with the character instead of icons. I find this method to be more special than progression bar. Distance reading in-game This method gives more flexibility in the format of the data. From distance format, I'm able to change it to time format to show that how many hours left to death and progressing to next stage. This UI is inspired from a game, Split Second, where Position, Lap and Booster UI is attached to the car.

This entry will be focusing on the stage design and the look n' feel of it. "ME" initially have 4 stages, which are :- - The Beginning of the End (Young) - Fate Decide (Adult) - Dying amongst the Rats (Failed Old) Alt. Ending - End of Time (Success Old) Lecturer's comments:- The initial stage design looks really dull and monotone. Add some mood to it. [I made the scene look better by color adjusting to the right mood (orange tint in End of Time stage).] The Look n' Feel The Beginning of the End - It needs to feel fresh and early in a countryside. The sense of hope yet a subtle despair is there. Fate Decide - Running in the night in a city. The sense of danger and anxious is needed to show that every steps count and every mistakes are high liability. Dying amongst the Rats - After losing Fate Decide stage, player will be redirect to this stage where everything is difficult. The sense of exiled and lonely is required as the city is now abandoned ...

This entry will show the character design for ME. The character for this game must represent the character as ME and as a 2D sprite character in a 3D environment. Initial character design:- Character Design #1 The character have obvious flaws which are:- - lacking of contrast - looks sluggish - lack of shadows and depth Lecturer comments:- - Add Shadow [Shadow might make the character blend to much. Adding depth/fog is better] - The character's ME typo can be improved [Within this limited timeframe, I think it can be improve in the aspect of font type (Pixel Serif type might look better in the old version character) in the future.] - Add thickness in 3D [It might break the intended visual, but adding thickness will make the character to be part of the environment (it can cast shadows). The catch is creating thickness on a 2D sprite animation might take quite time to create within these limited timeframe] The final character design Ch...

This entry will be describing what's the initial game title is. In the proposal stage, this game was named "Time is your Enemy". These title determines the gameplay where the player must outrun death. Since the name is not quite memorable, the name was not used but changed into- VITA, "life" in Latin. Since it relates to life, I assume that Vita is a good title for the game. The name was not as memorable as I think it would be, thus- ME is now the final game title for the game. The title comes from the prototyping stage where the player model is in the prototype. My testers kept referring my game as "ME" but not VITA, thus, I think ME will be the best name for the game.

This entry will show how the game is prototype and its main features. The prototype is done in Unity Engine 3D. The prototype is done to achieve the needed feature :- - Player moving from left to right. - Player's button mashing and limiting its  speed - Player character's jump and duck - Death with uniform speed. - Game over - Restart function Figure 1 shows the stage layout and game objects required in the Prototype This prototype will be the "skeleton" for the final artefact. In the final artefact, the stuff :- Must Have:- - Character aging - Replayability (a game loop) - A pause button - Quit button - Main Menu - Ending Good to Have:- - Color correction - Strong mood in environment - Music - Contrasting obstacles Nice to Have:- - Cinematic  letterbox - Motion blur - Alt. ending

This entry will focus onto styleframe according to stages, from 1 to 4. I'll explain the story and mood of each stages. Stage 1: Young Age, the scene will be in a farm where ME live and play in the break of dawn. Everything is CAREFREE Stage 2: College Life, the scene take place in an urban environment and ME is all grown up and living in the night life in the night with college stuff to do. Everything is HECTIC. Stage 3.1: Failed Life, the scene will remain in the urban environment but much darker than College Life under the moonlight. ME is old and alone in the abandoned city and everything seems to be exiled. Everything is ABANDONED. Stage 3.2: Golden Age, the scene will return back to the farm but barns are replaced with mansions in the Golden Hour (evening). ME is old and carefree at his hometown with nothing to be worry about. Everything is GOING AS PLANNED.