blender3d

Game Jams, White Rose

Creative Design Process Behind White Rose

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There has been some interest in the style of White Rose, so we would like to share the creative design process behind the game.

White Rose gameplay gif 7 - Combo (Tumblr, Itch.io)

Synesthesia, an Audiovisual Experience

Synesthesia is a neurological condition in which different senses are linked together. Our character is a blind boy who has audio visual synesthesia and sees a plethora of colors with each bump to the beat. You’ll first notice this when you pick a song and press play. The layers of warm color fade in and suddenly give depth (parallax scrolling) and life to an otherwise dark and empty world.

White Rose gameplay gif 6 - Begin (Tumblr, Itch.io)

Unfortunately, due to time constraints we couldn’t add in the rhythm mechanics where you can combo to the beat of the song and be rewarded with more spectacular visuals. We noticed in your comments that this was exactly what was missing, and we love how you guys totally get it! We’ve been listening to your feedback and are working on a rhythm-based combo system. It’ll be available for fun as a post-compo version (not to be rated for this jam), so stay tuned!

Paint Splatter and Particles

If a blind person has audio visual synesthesia, what do you think he or she sees when music is playing? I don’t know myself since I don’t have the condition, but I imagine it being a vibrant, abstract painting on a black canvas that continuously bursts with more color to each beat. To signify that, we used paint splatter sprites and particle effects that exploded out in the direction of each punch.

You can never have too many particles… until the FPS drops and the game crashes… then it’s too much… But until then, particles are just so amazing and easy to implement, and add a lot of extra satisfaction to every punch.

White Rose gameplay gif 5 - Attack (Tumblr, Itch.io)

3D Character vs. 2D World

If you pay close attention, you’ll notice that the boy is a 3d model while the monsters and the rest of the world are 2D sprites. From a technical development perspective, animating the run cycle for a 3d model takes less time than drawing enough sprites to account for 8 directions of movement in a 2D isometric view. From a design perspective, we wanted a clear distinction between the “real” him and the abstract painted environment that only exists in a world created from music. What better way to distinguish that than with a 3D model and 2D sprites?

White Rose gameplay gif 9 - 3d model vs 2d sprites (Tumblr, Itch.io)

Final Words

We hope you enjoyed the game and good luck with the next 2 weeks of Ludum Dare 34! Feedback is always greatly appreciated!

Game Jams, White Rose

Synesthetic Beat-’em-up | Ludum Dare 34

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Synesthetic Beat-’em-up | Ludum Dare 34

In a world created by sound, play as a boy with synesthesia as he fights the ever growing darkness with music and his fists, painting the world in color with every damaging blow. Destroy the monsters before they spread the ever-growing darkness. Turn up the beats and enjoy the visual experience.

Check the game out on our Ludum Dare 34 post! Or, play the game directly on our Itch.io page!

Screenshots:

White Rose gameplay gif 7 - Combo

White Rose gameplay gif 3 - Parallax

White Rose was actually one of the first concepts we came up with when we got into game development, so we were really excited to be able to turn it into something playable. Unfortunately, due to time constraints for this jam we couldn’t implement all the features, such as combo-ing to the beat of the music and adding a rhythm element to it. Check out the game and have fun!

Mind the Trap, Tips & Tricks

How to Make a Game in One Week | Epic MegaJam Learnings

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How to Make a Game in One Week | Epic MegaJam Learnings

Building a playable and presentable game in one week is no joke. In October we attended Epic Game’s biggest game jam to date, the Epic MegaJam. We would like to share our experience on how we accomplished it through scheduling, prioritizing features, coming up with the minimum viable product, and incremental playtesting. You’ll find that it applies to all forms of game development and not just to game jams. To see where it took us, here’s a gameplay trailer of our submission, Mind the Traps.

In the end you’ll find the download links for the winners of the MegaJam. I highly recommend playing their games for your learning.

Half of our team had school or a day job, so scheduling was key to get us started and to ensure we would finish the game on time. We listed out the phases of development, assigned what needs to be accomplished in each phase, and allocated the number of hours to be spent in each phase.

1. Choose an awards category (30 minutes)

Choosing an award to aim for helped create the framework for our game’s design. We wanted to make a game that we would enjoy making and potentially sell, so given our quirky personalities and love for multiplayer party games it made the most sense that we target the Addiction (most fun) award. (more…)

Mind the Trap

Play “Mind the Traps” Now!

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We’re happy to announce that our game jam submission, Mind the Traps, is now available to play for free! Download the game here.

Mind the Traps is a multiplayer dungeon crawler, but unlike games of this sort it’s a light-hearted and chaotic party game. Use your friends as a tool to clear the path so that you can get ahead. Oh, and by the way, there can only be one winner…

Since we received a lot of positive feedback so far, we’re committing to finishing this game and would really appreciate your thoughts. Any criticism you guys have will make this game better and better.

The current version is a prototype that came out of the Epic MegaJam last week. It is designed for two to four players in local multiplayer on a PC using gamepad controllers. This game is playable single player, but is highly discouraged.

Have fun!

Mind the Trap

Submitted Our Game, Mind the Traps, for the Epic MegaJam

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Pulled 3 almost all-nighters with some friends to submit a game for the #ue4jam (Epic Game Jam)! Stay tuned for more footage of our game, Mind the Traps!

Theme of the Jam:

“Standing on the shoulders of giants”

Gameplay:

Use your friends as a tool for you to discover the path ahead of you! While they sacrifice their lives, you gain the knowledge and pathway to the future. This game must be played with 2-4 X-Box controllers as multiplayer. Single player is possible but not recommended.

Did you make all your own assets?

Yes!  We made everything in the game.

The Team:

Michael Lee, Christopher Ng, Kenneth Ng, Conrad Fay, Jordan Henderson

Wispy Willows

New Level Complete

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Woo!!!!!!! Just finished up the design for a new level of #WispyWillowsGame. This one caused me some especial pain. Lots and lots of unseen bugs came up during testing. I’m quite happy with the layout. All art are placeholders at the moment.

Level15

Wispy Willows

Fishes, Water and Rain

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Woohoo FISHIES! And RAIN!! MOVING WATER!!

Fishies

These are kept simple because they’re so small. The models were made in Blender and have no animation. The movement is done in Unity by script using “Random.insideUnitSphere”. Each fish uses this function to swim around random points in a sphere of a pre-determined size.

I may add waggling tails at some point… You can’t have fishies without waggling tails…

Rain

This is done via a really neat tutorial that teaches you how to take advantage of 2 particle systems working together—one to create the rain itself, and one to simulate the “splashes.” I highly recommend it for a nice raining-and-splashing effect.

Water

This is actually the same gradient color shader that is used on all objects in the game scene. The only difference is that this one allows for transparency. The “waves” or “white caps” were drawn in GIMP on a png texture, which was then added to this transparent, gradient color shader.

We would love to hear your thoughts!

Here’s a bonus screenshot in case anybody wants to use it as phone wallpaper:

Wispy Willows

Ambience and Scenery Concept

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We really like Monument Valley’s philosophy of making your game poster or wallpaper-ready, so this piece utilizes Vignette (dark, blurred corners) to focus the viewer’s attention on the center. All objects are arranged in a circle and the background is relatively dark—there is nothing out in the distance to distract the viewer.

This scene actually uses no lighting. All objects use a shader that provides color depending on which direction the object’s surfaces face. In addition to that, the shader overlays a gradient based on the height of the object.

The floor is a splatter of different paint brushes done in GIMP. I lightened up the center of the splatter to give the illusion of light shining on it.

Here’s a screenshot in case you want to use it as phone wallpaper. Enjoy!

Ambience and Scenery Test 2