Prototype 3 is Underway

So I haven't posted anything since we presented our 2nd prototype. The presentation went really well, thanks to Josh's awesome presentation skills.

We got some good feedback, like we needed to make sure that the circuits looked a little more complicated and that it had to make sense on how it all works. I thought that the layout I made would get the idea across that it was a bomb and that everything was connected, but I guess it needs to be a little more clear.

I still don't know if any of the prototypes that we showed will actually get deployed to the Mechanical Engineering students like we were told at the beginning of the project.

Since then, we've started on our next prototype. This time our client is the Utah Museum of Natural History. They just finished building a new building for the museum and they are in the process of getting all the exhibits ready for when they officially open their doors to the public. But they have one problem, one of the exhibits that they had wasn't working the way that they had hoped.

The exhibit is called Futures (or something like that) and it has to do with technology and the future of Utah. They want to have a short game in that exhibit that will teach the visitors about how Utah will be impacted by its doubling of the population in the next 40 years and what we will have to do to manage all of our resources.

The game that they have right now has all that information, but its too wordy, too long, and really confusing. So we were called to try and save the exhibit.

We have to incorporate as much information about water conservation into our game, but it has to be a short game (about 2-4 minute play) that will be fun and teach something to the visitor about the future of Utah.

My team this time consists of: Brandon Karratti as the producer, Jorge Elola & Pace Sims as engineers, and Christine Olinquevitch & I as artist.

I'm so happy that there is another artist in my team this time, it means that I won't fall behind like on the other 2 projects because there is too much art to do and I have to do all of it.

So for our game, Pace got the original idea of coming up with a game that you have to "shoot" your resources to parts of Utah that need it the most. While making sure that you keep everyone happy and keep track of your limited resourced. We hope that this will make it easy to understand and fun to play for children and adults.

We are going to make this game using flash, I'm still not sure how all the technical stuff will work but I can leave that stuff to Pace and Jorge to figure out. In the meantime, Christine and I have to come up with some placeholder art so that the engineers can start to put stuff in place since we only have 3 weeks before the museum opens.

If we succeed over the other team (there is only 2 teams working for the UMNH this time, everyone else is working for another client on a different project) we will have our game shown on the exhibit.

I will have to brush up on Flash, but I don't think that it will be too hard since Christine is a graphic design major (or something like that). :)

That's all for now, thanks for reading.

Prototype 2 Presentation Today

So the time to present our second prototype has come.

Overall, it went really well. Our game really emphasized that it was going to be used for educational purposes and we managed to get our idea across of how it would look once it was finished.

It was still a little confusing for some people, but they managed to get the idea in the end and gave us some input on how we could make it look better.

One of the things that someone said that really got burned in my head is that the assets have to scaled up, never down until you have had time to experiment with them. This was because the grid for our game was really big compared to the size of the circuit/problem on the board. So basically the cells needed to be bigger to allow the player a more clear view of the art and it also gives us more room to work with.

Finally, I don't know if any of the games will actually be used/fully developed but it was a nice experience getting to work for a client.

After all the presentations, they told us a little about our next project. Apparently there are a few people that will be flying in from a company that is looking to expand but don't have much experience with games. We weren't really told what we were going to do, so will have to wait until next week to find out.

In the meantime that is all, thanks for reading.

End of Fall Break

So over fall break I worked on a bunch of stuff, and I still didn't manage to get everything done that I was suppose to.

I manage to do the following things: a new game board, title screen, icons, and some text for the buttons of the title screen.

Most of the art work that I made was done in maya and then I just rendered it and tweaked it in photoshop.

Here is the new title screen:

Bomb Defuser is just a working title for now, and it will most likely change.

I still have a bunch of stuff I need to work on before the presentation on Wednesday, thanks for reading.

Simple Layout

I've made some progress in the art needed for our game. A while ago I posted some really crappy "art" for our game. 

Well, I think that I've at least made some improvement. Here is what I have so far, and keep in mind that I'm not done yet.

So that is the general layout of our game. We have our main grid in the center, then our tool box to the left and a box that will provide hints, tips, and the game state at the bottom. I'm trying to do something simular to what Bioshock did with their hacking mini-game. I'm planning on adding more stuff to the background to make it more interesting. But it the meantime, this gives something to the programmers to work with.

The red things at the side of the grids are suppose to be wires. I don't know I think I did a good job, but please let me know if they don't look right. For this project, I'm going to try and focus on the layout and the art of the layout as our "one sliver" of good art for this prototype.

That's all for now, thanks for reading.