Entry #11: Feedback

We received feedback after our presentation which I will now post below. Thanks for reading.

Entry #10: Final Days

Hello again, the hand in date of our game is tomorrow and the game is pretty much ready to go, all the assets, music and backgrounds are finished and have been implemented into the game. Everyone in the group  have been busy with their solo work for the game group that they need to do, such as a post mortem for their level and evaluation. The deadline is 4pm tomorrow to hand in all our work which will give us enough time to fix a few bugs we have found and for our producer to finish the paperwork he needs to do. Their isn't much more to talk about until after the group presentation which we're still waiting on a date from our teacher so their will be one more blog update after this one for that.

So for now I'm going to show you my trailer for Level 1 that I had to make as part of my Solo work for the group. Enjoy.

                                  A Sticky Situation - Level 1 Game Trailer

Looking forward to sharing the feedback we get from our presentation with you all so see you next time

Entry #9: Alpha Testing & Level 5

Welcome back to my 2D Game design blog, today i will be talking about Level 5 of our game and also the in class Alpha testing we did a few days ago, originally our Alpha testing was suppose to be on week 8 but was pushed back for unknown reasons to us but it gave us a chance to finish up a few things. We only showed the testers Level 1 of our game as we didn't want to spoil to much in till we had fully completed the game, also the fact that other levels still had a few bugs in them and we hadn't implemented sound into Level 2 yet.
Overall we got pretty good scores, I'm the programmers of the group so that day i had a few hours to prepare everything and get our PC & game set up for testing and then it was pretty much up to the producer(Oscar) to explain the story line(as we had no cut-scenes in the game at the moment) before they got started and then listen to their feedback and also to keep the alpha testing sheets. I'm not sure exactly what scores we got but I think we averaged about 7/10. We got a few complaints about Level 1, many people found the level a bit hard to traverse, we ended up adding another staircase to one section to make it easy to get up and removed a lot of crates so you're not having to constantly jump over them. All i can say is it was a really enjoyable day but i was still nervous as being the programmer if they find any glitches/bugs it would of been my fault.

Level 5:
Level 5 is almost complete, we've had a few problems with this level, first off we wanted to have rotating platforms which you will have to time your jumps to get over but the coding became to time consuming just because how little i know about the citrus engine at this moment in time, we got it half working and ended up scraping it because we had other things to do. Another problem was getting the end boss(CEO of Uranus Bars) to be invincible, this was pretty tricky but I ended up talking to another programmer from a different group who was having the same problem and after about an hour or so we both managed to figure it out together which was pretty fun.

Here are some Assets and Background for Level 5.

Elevator for Level 5

Large Platform for Level 5

Background - Level 5

See you next time!

Entry #8: Level 4

Hello again, we're nearing the final weeks of this project so we are hard at work trying to get everything done and make sure all levels are playable and bug free, Level 1 is fully finished and has it's music completed so we're happy about that, Level 2 underwent a redesign after we found the first layout to be unplayable, the second layout fits much better with the background and is really great fun to play, we are working out a few bugs but other than that it's pretty much complete.

Level 4 was really fun to do, we knew that this level was going to be different from the others, in the story line Sticky(The character you play as) finds a Uranus bar on the floor, hes just ran pretty far in the previous level so he's pretty hungry and eats it, turns out it's gone off and makes him trip out. He wakes up in a weird world(or so he thinks) and makes his way up a giant tree, when he gets to the top he falls over a pirate ships wheel which turns out to be the steering wheel for the spaceship he's still on and ends up crashing it.

All the assets where redesigned for this level, making the elevators look like clouds and the platforms look like mushrooms.

Here are some pictures of the assets as well as the background for the level.

Platform for Level 4

Elevator for Level 4

Level 4 - Background

We will be starting work on level 5 this week so look forward to that in the next blog post. Thanks for reading.

Entry #7: Level 3

Welcome back, we will be talking about the 3rd level of our game, with level 1 and 2 pretty much complete apart from a few bugs and adding in the music once I've properly finished them, It's time to move on to the 3rd level.

Originally we was planning this level to be a timed level, in which there would be a giant laser(deployed by the CEO of Uranus Bars) chasing you down the level in order to try and kill you, we can face first into a big problem, learning to code that kind of mechanics would take far to much time up then we actually have to finish this game, we have to make the game within 10 Weeks so this wouldn't be possible, especially for a new programmer like me. We ended up scarping the idea, but since we already had the level layout designed (which was just a simple run right and down, run left and down layout) and time was running out we manage to convert it into a speed jumping level, laser on the floor which you have to constantly jump over as you're moving forward in the level. It wasn't the level we was hoping for but we're still pretty proud of it.

Here is the background to level 3:

Level 3 - Background

The white areas indicate where the platforms of the level will be, that's all for this entry so see you next time.

Entry #6: Music

Hello, this entry will be about the music and sound effects of our game.

Originally another member of the the team was in charge of the music (Jed) but as a group we decided that i should take full responsibility of the Sound for our game, this was mainly due to me being better at producing music than the others.

Unfortunately I have not found a way to import music into Blogspot and therefore I am unable to show you any samples I have been creating for our game. I do however have some more art work to show you which i will now post below.

Coin

End Level Door

Medium Sized Platform

Small Sized Platofrm

We also have come up with the design and background for level 2, I don't hold a copy of the layout of the level as i wasn't the one who had to design it but i do hold a copy of the background of the level which will be posted below.

Level 2 - Background

Another artwork heavy blog so i hope you're enjoying the pictures. See you next time.

Entry #5: Game Logo

Welcome back, I had a few things to show you.

First off we now have a Game Logo

A Sticky Situation - Game Logo

This will be used for the title screen of the game and will be shown at the start of our trailers.

We also have some assets ready to be put into the game, such as platforms and boxes, I will post them below for you to see.

Large Platform

Elevator

Box

As you can see the design of our game is starting to come together with more art work being created we are able to really see how our game is going to look and I'm really happy about the way everything looks.

This entry was short on the writing but heavy on the images so I hope that makes up for it. See you next time.

Entry #4: Level 1

This entry is about the first level of our game, this is the level that i have to design for the game, i came up with a basic sketch a few days ago and have since updated it many times to come to it's form in which it is in now.

Level 1 - With Background

This is the layout of level 1, at the moment there are no assets in the pictures, just basic grey blocks to show where everything will be, this is also the 3rd or 4th version of the background and I think think it will go through a few more revisions before it's complete.

A Bucket of Meat also now have a company logo to show off, this will be included on the starting screen and all our game trailers.

A Bucket of Meat - Company Logo

That's all for this week, we got a lot of work to do right now and i'm excited about what i'll be showing in the next blog so stay tuned.

Entry #3: Art Work

In this entry i will be talking about the different designs and art work we have decided to do in our game design.

First we have came up with some "baddy" design which i will post below, They are robots that patrol the inside of the missile when you manage to get on board. They won't be able to shoot you. but as they are made of steel and weigh a few tons if they come in to contact with any part of your body you will instantly be crushed and would have to restart the level.

Baddy designs - Sketches

We have also come up with level design ideas for all 5 levels.

Level 1: The Missile has just been launched but it's still in reach, you must run up the girders and make it on the missile before it leaves the lift off zone.
Level 2: You have made it on to the missile and need to scale the inside to reach the top and try to stop the missile.
Level 3: You have reached the top of the missile but something has gone wrong, you must make your way back down the missile before you are hit by the malfunctioning laser heading your way.
Level 4: After you have escaped the laser you are knackered, you decide to find something to eat, finding a chocolate bar on the floor you eat it not knowing that it has been tampered with. You wake up completely tripped out and in search of a way out of this crazy place and somehow in doing so you manage to get the missile to crash into Saturn's Ring's
Level 5: You are now on the asteroids belt and fighting the CEO of Uranus Bars, this level will be the only level going horizontal instead of vertical.

You are up to date for now, see you next time.

Entry #2: Revisions

This is Entry 2 of my Game Development blog.

We recently had a presentation showing off our concept for our game to the class in which we were told about one flaw in our design, we wouldn't be able to use the Mars Bar due to copyright laws, therefore we decided to change the rival planet from Mars to Saturn and have the chocolate bars be "Saturn Bars". Other than that one mishap we received positive response's to our game design.

We have already made a few sketches of our main character and have come up with a final design which is posted below: We have decided to call him "Sticky"

Hero (Sticky) - Final Sketch

Entry #1: Bucket of Meat

Hello, my name is Daniel-Ian Smith, I study Game Cultures at London South Bank University and this is my Development Diary for my Game Design group.

I will be documenting the progress of my groups game over the next few weeks. We are called "Bucket of Meat" and our game is called "A. S.ticky S.ituation"

A. S.ticky S.ituation will be a 2D Side Scroller, It will scroll vertically instead of horizontal which we thought will mix things up a little bit and create some new gameplay ideas for when we make our game.

The story is going to be that there where two rival chocolate bar factory's battling it out to be the best chocolate bar on earth, one chocolate bar was called "Mars bars" from the planet "Mars", the second was "Uranus Bars" from the planet "Uranus". Mars Bars always out sold the Uranus Bars (for obvious reason) so the chocolate factory for Uranus finally had enough so they have decided to send a missile to destroy the Mars Bar factory once and for all. You are an Alien from Mars and you have been tasked with the job of stopping the Missile from hitting mars before it's too late.

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My job in the group is the programmer, i will be tasked with producing the code for the game and to make sure everything works properly, the rest of my group members jobs are as follows:
Robbie Connolly: Design
Andrew Rolland: Art
Jed: Maloney: Writer and Sound
Oscar Hocking: Producer

Thanks for reading my first Entry and there will be many more to follow this one.
Daniel Smith