A shadow descends. . .

So this is it!
Done.

All done.
It's quite an emotional moment really, it's not just finishing dissertation, but finishing UCS and my entire university experience, so I'll keep it brief and not too soppy.
It's been an amazing project, I've loved most of it. Apart from that time when I had to redesign the hotel 3 or 4 times. That was pure hell. But now that it has all come together I'm incredibly proud, of the work and of myself. I have learnt so much over this project; level design, new ways of scripting, art techniques, sound production, animation. . .the list goes on.
I feel so much richer as a games designer for this work and I'll carry it around with me forever.

The project was meant as an experiment in immersive gameplay and due to some time to spare at the end, has evolved the way I always wanted it too, into a game. The finished product offers an opening cutscene explaining the 'story' to the player, whilst giving them spacial bearings (allowing a mouse look function as they are transported to the hotel). On entering the hotel, the game begins.
The player starts in the reception area, decked out with dark ambient light, fog (to disturb long distance viewing and cause apprehension) and typical hotel props, cages, seating and dead plants to boot.
A glowing note on the desk entices the player over and without previous instruction, the player doesn't know how to pick up the note, but most will figure out correctly that simply clicking on it will do. A few things including controls are explained here, with a direction of 'room 41'. The player is now ready to enter the hotel, feel immersed, scared and explore what the hotel has to offer.
Playtesters seem to really enjoy the game and days before when the 'ending' hadn't been written, seemed genuinely gutted when they realised it hadn't been finished. This is proof enough for me to believe I have succeeded in my original aims to create an atmospheric, immersive level, with gameplay that gives the player reason to dig in deep and enjoy every second my game has to offer.
The game will be posted online soon enough, so I will be back to post links. Until then, I fear this is where we must part ways for the forseeable future. It's been a fun one folks. Maybe too fun.
Thank you.

Setting the mood. . .

So after some restless nights of solid ploughing on with dissertation, I have come along in a good way. The game is scarier than ever, with working game objectives, scares and some aesthetic design that will hopefully make the player as uneasy as possible.
Part of building this suspense is coming from the music. It's been a 'problem' since the project started, that I could find/make music tailored perfectly to how I imagined this game from the start. With a placeholder dark ambient track used until now (and played in the video in the last blog) it served well, but due to copyright issues etc was not feasible for the long term project. However, I can now proudly present my very own piece of dark ambient horror music, completely made by myself for use in the game. It can be found on my personal youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87grUoek6gk

Also, I'll throw in a couple of screen shots, seeing as quite a few minor changes have been added since my last blog!
Hope you enjoy! :)

Scares Imminent. . .

Hello everyone. . .again. So I've tweaked a few things and the game's a lot scarier now. First of all I changed the lighting somewhat. Instead of a flat white, (which didn't look bad by any means) I have adopted and incredibly pale blue. Down to power of colour and blue implying a subconscious 'cold' feeling, I also made and matched a background fog with the same colour. The atmosphere is a lot more unsettling just from the colour change. I have also finished modelling one of my 'enemies'. . .my good old friend "Slender Man". He he is to help keep you awake at night.

I've also been working on some more assets to pad the place out. . .as I know from my readings, 'Spacial presence' is the cognitive map players build up when exploring a game. Points of reference will help them make their way around and also help to serve the immersive feel of the game. Here are some screenshots of the reception area.

I will continue to build on this, and the scary encounters. More blogs of progress to come!

Last Haul. . .

I finally have a video upload of some of the progress of the Arcadian. Things are really coming together now with the notes, models, atmosphere etc. 

A few people who have seen the video commented that they would not like to play the game as they scare easily and are frightened by it. I suppose it is fair to say at this point that whilst the video simply involves walking, picking up a note and opening a door, that the atmosphere is evident players will feel apprehensive. The game elements will finish off the game and that is my next move. As soon as I have the game next to finished, I will upload it and link it straight to this blog. Until then, I'm off to work on it some more, here's the video! Enjoy :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XIyyqQhYrg

Regrets. . .

So I've only just noticed how long it's actually been since my last blog. . .

I guess it turns out I have trouble juggling modules. In a strange turn around in the group project module I put all my time and effort into making THAT work, knowing I was ahead of schedule in the dissertation project. But now that I'm on top of the group project work, I am now behind with the dissertation work. 

I'm working on fixing that and will aim to put up new screenshots and maybe even a video by the weekend, just thought this post should report the slowed progress of the project so far.

Justification. . .

So I was thinking about my floor plans of the ground floor of the Arcadian walking around, playtesting it when it occured to me that I haven't academically justified my decisions for the layout of the hotel. From playtesting and having playtesters seriously jump from some cheap jump scares I've put in is proof enough that my floor plans do indeed work as an immersive environment, but for everyone's benefit I'll slap in some quotes from my dissertation resources and let the 'experts' explain :P
First off, there's Gregory Trefry who explains about map design;
"Traps can work in both single and multiplayer gameplay and can add fun, or frustration, to the game. They are especially liked by more casual players. However, just as in single player games, keep it fair. Players should recognize the danger as soon as they see the trap - before they actually encounter it."
This is a reason why I have used lighting in certain areas. When the player first enters the hotel, the area is lit well, a 'safezone'. The notes that the player must collect are spaced out, gradually luring the player into darker areas. The final note is in the furthest of the hotel, in complete darkness in a single room away from other corridors and junctions. The player will only be armed with a flashlight and naturally enemies will be placed here. By this point in playing the game the player will be aware that this is a 'trap' and tension will rise whilst playing the game.
Brandon Jones says "Humans tend to naturally fear the unknown -- use that to your advantage. The fewer enemies that players, the better. Throughout the entirety of Amnesia there are about ten monsters."

This is why in the level I've only planned for 3 enemy encounters. Playtesting proves that the hotel makes players apprehensive as it is, the 'scare' factor is there. A couple of jumpscares will keep players on their toes, whilst the general atmosphere of the hotel does the rest of the work. The final encounter (mentioned before with the final note) will be a point where the player is in physical danger and maybe attacked or hurt by an encounter with an enemy.

Finally, Jamie Madigan says "Completeness of sensory information means that the fewer blanks about the mental model of the game world that the player has to fill in, the better."

This is why lighting, particle effects, sounds, good models and textures are all necessary. The player can clearly note everything about their surroundings in detail and experience the interaction with them. The doors squeak as they open, the player can hear their footsteps as they walk around on the grotty carpets, the lights flicker, indicating their age and state of broken-ness. I will also implement sounds of heavy breathing to enhance the first person aspect of the game and make it feel more 'personal'.

I will talk more about these kind of aspects in future posts, but for the time being I hope this clarifies my design choices so far!

Madigan, J., July 27^th 2010. “The Psychology Of Immersion In Video Games” URL: URL: http://www.psychologyofgames.com/2010/07/the-psychology-of-immersion-in-video-games/ last accessed 12^th March 2013

Jones, B., January 2^nd 2012. “The Do’s And Don’ts Of Scary Game”

URL: http://www.gamersnexus.net/features/gg/697-the-dos-and-donts-of-scary-games last accessed 12th March 2013

Trefry, G., 2010.Casual Game Design. Morgan Kauffman publications.

Almost there. . .

Hey everyone! The hotel is really coming along now :) Unfortunately I've been a bit pre-occupied with another module at the moment, but even when I've finished up decorating the hotel I'll still be ahead of schedule. This is just a short blog to inform you all, rather than falling off the radar completely. I have some ideas as well that I will share with you in the near future, along with some screens and hopefully a video of how the hotel is looking!

Getting on. . .

It has been a bit of a slog but the sprints are blending nicely, between finishing the modelling of the ground floor and texturing it and finally making it look pretty. Although the models are done, the texturing is a tedious process and it takes some time to fully incorporate colour into the full level. Along with the lighting and particle effects, I'm carrying on as the sprint plan goes and hopefully should be done ahead of schedule. With some models of light fittings etc to make the ground floor a bit more authentic, I'm confident that the environment will be completley immersive and fitting to the setting of a horror game. Here's a screenshot of a small area that's textured so far, but because of other modules, the dissertation has been on the wayside for a week or two now.

Setting the Scene. . .

So now the hotel has been structured with working doors etc, it's time I focus on the players progression of the 'level'. I've drafted up a level plan of the hotel with corresponding colours indicating details for the ground floor.

This is a top view of the ground floor, with coloured dots representing the lighting of the level. The green dots  mean functioning lights, and areas of the hotel where the player can clearly see their surroundings. The orange  dots represent broken lights, so a flickering effect will be added, only providing limited lighting at best. Mike Birkheads reading on gamasutra and one of my dissertation resource references mentions that 

"Unsettling — "Should not be so" — Moving shadows on a wall, children that know too much, the Brundlefly, Wolfmen, objects moving on their own, flickering lights, distorted humanity". Flickering lights is a good way to build on the atmosphere and he also mentions moving shadows. Implementing these will act as good 'scene setters' without necessarily being jump scares.

The red dots stand for absolute darkness. The players torch will be their only means of exploring the hotel.

The white circles with the numbers express the progression of the notes the player needs to pick up. Again this correlates with the lights, as the last room the player must enter is in the 'dingiest' part of the hotel, and in complete blackness. This is to build tension as the player explores.

The fuzzy blue lines represent where 'scare' events will happen. People running past in the corridors, horrendous images screaming their way towards the player or even damage inflicting run ins with ghostly apparitions. As the sprint draws to a close, I will continue to polish up and finalise these areas to prepare the hotel for a makeover with textures, the proposed lights and particle effects. 

Coming Together. . .

Hello everyone! After a bit of trial and error I have managed to 'successfully' figure out the Arcadian ground floor situation. I spent some time making the necessary prefabs out of planes in unity, adjusting the horizontal and vertical scales to make realistic and proportionate corridors, corners etc. It was only after I made them all and put the hotel together that I decided to try and test out the texture situation. To my absolute horror, I hadn't considered how stretching the planes would stretch the textures also. This led to some rather crude cursing and the realisation I would have to re make all the prefabs and create the hotel again. 

So.

Second attempt has sorted the problem, as I've just used a few more planes rather than changing their scales. This means that any seamless textures I use on the floors and walls will blend nicely. 

It's rather frustrating that this was a much quicker way of 'modelling' the interior, but lessons have definitely been learned and it now means I'm actually ahead of schedule. I just have to work on the reception area now, fit in the doors and I can get a headstart on the textures before the next sprint!

Here's a couple of screens of the prefabs and the hotel, which I have slightly expanded to add more rooms and make the level even more 'maze' like. Enjoy!

 

Certainly No Premier Inn. . .

So after trying to model some more of the Arcadian ground floor, I have found myself running into several technical hitches. It was going well at first, save a few geometry issues. For some reason though, the walls of the hotel were not interacting with light correctly. In 3DS Max, these show up as planes with a black to white gradient (why, I have no idea. . .) and after importing the hotel into Unity, the player can directly see this problem with the flashlight. Obviously this is a huge problem as lighting is a key element in setting up an authentic and unsettling atmosphere, which is not being helped by walls showing up as pitch black. Here are some screenshots to illustrate my problem. . .

This is not acceptable in the scene I am trying to create, and puts me in a difficult position. It is not an easy fix, but the more I work on it, the more 'dodgy' planes seem to occur. Clearly something has gone belly up somewhere down the line, and I am now contemplating using another method to model this ground floor. It was a method Scott and I were using in our group project, using simple planes and organising them into tunnel shapes we needed before making them into prefabs. As the hotel is quite linear in it's design, I would only have to make 3 - 4 prefabs I imagine, but then I could slot them together such as in Tetris. A prefab for the corner parts, a prefab for the longer corridor sections and so on. This would somewhat limit how the textures come out but it might speed things up in the long run, with a deadline to keep and all. I will start making some prefabs, and should be able to tell quite quickly whether or not this is a suitable substitute. Areas such as the reception area can still be made in 3DS Max, but as the reception area is not integral to the horror setting as such, I am approaching that as a lower priority model until I can organise the bare bones of the level which is of course the hotel corridors, where the player will be interacting in the most.

Plodding on. . .

So! I haven't blogged in an awfully long time and should update everyone on what's been happening. Over the Christmas break my internet was travelling at the speed of fog, leaving me physically unable to blog, e-mail, the works. It set a lot of work back and then when I got back to Ipswich I had just fallen out of the habit. Anyway! As work goes, I have been working on modelling the new Arcadian interior, mentioned in the last post. Integrating the code from the previously referenced videos into the level itself and setting up the environment. It's going well, I've already had my first jump scare from a playtester which made me incredibly happy, as it has proven to me that I'm on the right track. This is at a greybox stage as well, no textures or anything particularly fancy.
We recently had a presentation to tutors explaining the current stage of the dissertation, and Chris mentioned specifically that the lighting was too dark. He offered some really helpful, constructive advice about using lights in certain areas, and putting player goals in darker areas to balance the use of the flashlight in game for players. There's enough to be going on with so here is a revised look at the original timetable so I can better manage my time and aims for the rest of the project.

Sprint 4: February 2013

This sprint will be used to focus on finishing the Arcadian interior (ground floor). This means the reception desk, rooms and working doors will be all implemented and working in game. Depending on the method of modelling some areas of the ground floor may be textured, but that might be a tall order.

Sprint 5: March 2013

With the ground floor finished I will finish texturing it completely. This will mean that the entire 'level' is detailed, painted and up to standard. I will also implement lights and particle effects into the scene to add to the atmosphere.

Sprint 6: April 2013

With the bones of the level set and textured, I will use this sprint to model the smaller assets and 'pad out' the rooms and corridors with chairs, debris, bed, lights, lamps, tables, wardrobes etc. These will be easy enough to churn out which is why I'm leaving them until the 6th sprint as low priority assets.

This is a basic re-vamp of what I plan to achieve, which I made add to if I run into any bumps. Certainly closer to the end of the February sprint I'll know if these are realistic goals!