Level Designing and Story Telling, Yo.

So yeah.

May.

I've avoided writing up my progress because of, essentially, being too wrapped up in it to really study.
That was wrong, and without this I feel I've missed the essential summation of work every week or few days like I did previously all those months back.

Essentially creating a piece of work(s) and putting on this glorious blog of mine for discussion, reasoning and analysis as to what the work represents within the project and within my current mind frame. With the latter, I mean how other work's consistently influencing and re-molding my SpaceBoy project week after week, game after game.

But enough of that.

SpaceBoy's last outing on my blog was in February; an analysis of level design styles and methods, of which I'd have potentially adopted to fit the gameplay and pacing of what I wanted SpaceBoy to play out like.
Tile-based level design is great - a wonderful reflection and reference to old-school game design, of which has served almost perfect examples of platform games with it's mathematically 'correct' tilesets and sizes for old 80's and 90's video games.
This I worked on for a while, though I was struggling to convert a natural, modern looking environment with old-school block-specific design.
So I decided on the Limbo/Braid-style, of which rectangles within the game engine could be shaped, copied and pasted to create basic platforms, of which the player would perfectly assign to - as collisions are perfectly assigned from the moment of the shape's creation - as opposed to self assigning collisions through tile designs imported in through Photoshop.

Above is the video game Limbo, a work-in-progress selection of screenshots designed the game's level designer; Jakob Hansson.

With these screenshots Jakob writes;

Below are some work in progress screenshots of levels I created using our level editor.

I stopped at Limbo after the basic game play, level design and puzzles were created,

so most of the graphics layers were created afterwards.

And some artwork that closely resembles in-game screenshots;

With the art style visible, the designer then showed technical aspects to the level designing approach;

And with this; established level design for SpaceBoy is confirmed - natural looking environmental pieces created with multiple, alternately-sized rectangles is a much more sound method in creating SpaceBoy.
With the above, Jakob runs through and slightly discusses the intentions and use of colours, giving the user a grasp of the level flow and pacing through trigger and mechanic placements.
He suggests that the aesthetically pleasing elements; such as the designs of the artwork above suggest, like completed grass, rocks, trees - are added after all these basics are created;

And with this I have taken to the game engine - Construct 2 - to mock-up basic 'tests' of consist of platforming and mechanics needed for the final demo.
The creation of in-engine rectangles, and the copy and paste - there of - is essentially an easier and much quicker way of mocking up basic and soon-to-be fully realized level designs, that encapsulate the freedom of differently layered surroundings, as opposed to 32x32 grid-like tiles.

This, in reference to newer styles of level design, counters traditional and often primitive tile-based design. However, not to diss this tactic; as a lot of well established video game franchises - old and new - still implore these design ethics and as such produce some of the finest platforming games ever made.
For SpaceBoy - so far - this cannot be done, if I'm looking for a Rayman-like, modern platform-puzzle game based around organic environments and backdrops.

If anything, the tiling will come to fruition with the artistic layers over the basic rectangular platforms, such as the image above suggests - tiled grass can be copied, pasted, rotated; to fit/blend in with the solid ground; giving the illusion that the player is running atop a grassy path.

Animation-wise, SpaceBoy is in it's 'final' stages of design, were 'rough' and 'better than rough' (terrible alternate) served as blueprints and implemented ideas that showed how he would run, jump and generally interact when the user interacts with the controller/keyboard.
With black&white being a primary colour scheme, SpaceBoy and indeed most of - if not all - the environments will emplore this style, with potential occasional colour within some parts of the proposed release.

The story has developed somewhat, originally playing out as a 'get from A to B'-type iPad game involving puzzle solving speed around light and dark, the project then evolved into a traditional platform game, with it's black&white visuals - white outlines of characters, props, environments - becoming a staple and perfect style choice. The game was originally set around SpaceBoy, roaming from planet to planet, saving each by restoring light through specific landmarks. The light within these planets had been taken so abruptly that they all quickly evolved into mere outlines of their former selves, and thus only SpaceBoy remained colourful when in light.
Although most of this is still relevant, SpaceBoy now has somewhat of a sidekick, in the form of a large super computer named S.O.N. (Super Operating Network), who serves within a small identifiable ship that they both originally arrive in.
SpaceBoy is Master Chief-ed up (frozen) until thawed when landing on a mysterious planet. SpaceBoy then begins to realize - as you play through the desolate ship - that things are indeed odd, and slightly a miss. Learning the basic controls and mechanics as you play, SpaceBoy encounters and powers up S.O.N. who then reveals that the planet's riddled with 'glitches', and the ship has essentially been dragged down and ceased to operate, until SpaceBoy solves and demolishes these problems.
Glitches are essentially now the main antogonists of the game, and serve as boss-like encounters within glitched environments leading up to their reveal. These glitches have also demoted S.O.N. to a mere DOS-like interface, and with every glitch destroyed; so S.O.N. can upgrade and aid SpaceBoy further.
Darkness still plays a major part within the game, tarnishing SpaceBoy's body heat health - of which heals when in light - but it's now glitches that dwell within the darkness, and if within the wrong area for too long, SpaceBoy himself can get infected and appear to become glitched - THUS my previous posts from Feb and Jan - animations there of.

That's it for now. I like to close things off abru....

Level Design Moderation

Today I done found a beautiful article based around 2D level designs, alternate in scope, finesse and construction, but all profoundly relevant to my recent exploration of GOOD design, use of pacing, narrative, structure, humour, originality and personalized imitation.

For me, personalized imitation is the concept, design and working application of something, based on something already present. And with this I've been racking my brains, trying to establish a level design-based narrative, that would appease the concepts and designs of SpaceBoy throughout this and last year's work, and reflect on my best work aesthetically and technically.
I've considered modular asset-construction, as I did with LIMA, and indeed of which is practiced in a lot of video games; it saves memory usage and can be easily replicated (copied and pasted) throughout environments with alternate textures:

Tiles used with Sonic 2 for the Sega Megadrive. Blocks such as this can be replicated or alternately textured to fit with the level's surroundings.

I've, however, always considered SpaceBoy's level design to be quite organic, in it's shape, thus having a completely random style; unique to specific situations.

This representation of design, and it's process, shows the workings, rough and in-game layouts, but all based around large, odd/uniquely-shaped platforms.

Though, as the developer suggests, the trials and tribulations of such design incur slow frame-rate and heavy use of memory, of which had to be constantly and consistently tampered with to fix.

'After getting the graphics and adding them to levels, we found that the game ran at about 1FPS. Which was a slight issue. This brought us to the stage of optimizing, refactoring, and rebuilding all of the levels to work with graphics. In the end all of the level graphics are pre-cached as tiles of bitmaps (starting as vector to save download), as the level might be up to 20,000 x 20,000 pixel in some cases.'

The Scarygirl Project

Thus, with construction of modular-based level design began - based around a mockup background grid showing 512x512 each in an 4096x2048 file - I discovered that even a rough design wasn't enough.
So I resorted back to paper.
Not with design, but with words.
I quickly devised a rough 'Level Design Method' of individual design styles to see and discuss which one would be most beneficial for SpaceBoy, yet also incorporating the essential additional charming and medial elements.

My write-up:

ZELDA STYLE
- Open areas, small sections throughout, surrounding puzzle-based cave areas.
- New areas unlocked when power ups/items are found; thus can access the previously inaccessible through rock-smashing, or wall climbing.

RETRO SONIC/MARIO STYLE
- Level to level; each level is unique, the same narratives/design aesthetic within one zone/world until the next is unlocked - level selection (specifically Mario) accessible throughout, for repeated plays.

METROID STYLE
- Like Zelda, but entire game plays like the player is in the Zelda-esque cave.
- Sections unlocked also through power ups, but the entire world plays out as one big level/maze.

LIMBO STYLE
- Puzzle-based areas are connected together with atmospheric, aesthetic areas - areas which serve the purpose of running through perfectly placed environmental pieces and scenery, opening up the next puzzle.
- Game plays out as one large level; surrounded by and discovery-based narrative and wonder.

SUPER MEAT BOY STYLE
- Quick arcade/pick-up-and-play design; often displays the player's start and goal of a level within one screen, as opposed to the traditional scrolling of the camera.

SWORD & SWORCERY STYLE
- RPG platforming, where environments are the narrative, and are explored and unlocked through interaction.

CURRENT INDIE GAME STYLE
With that title I'm not stating all independent games follow this process, it's a mere title that I've used - as I've used with the other ones - to easier understand the principles of each, or as a rough guideline.
- Style, charm and use of design techniques over technical level design; aesthetics over gameplay.

I discussed the latter 'style' with some friends and determined that by that I meant it not as a negative, but as an alternate current style used to show of unique and wonderful design styles, over basic level design. With this, however, I noticed that playing games like this actually quenched my thirst for exceptional level design with it's artistic approach. Instead of 'style over substance', the style almost in fact BECOMES the substance, at least from a sharing of experience point of view.



And with these fresh in my head I began randomly creating alternate non-essential scenarios - comedic and/or charming elements, if you will, to heighten the sense of uniqueness and creativity, instead just another platformer.
Scenarios of which, that include interactive characters - one of which I sketched originally as a super computer, based around the old-style PC's, that would act as a sort of mission-briefing, but also engage in talks with the character, as though it had itself formed an almost human personality - I was thinking HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey and of course GLaDOS from the Portal series; of which, the character's portrayal is that of mystery, it's seemingly helpful and curiously clumsy - giving the player an uncertainty of if it's on your side, or has alternate agendas.

Although this is only a small asset, ideas are then spawned from them, and thus designs evolve and the entire game's narrative and plot-development become something more than just mysterious or generic.













Almost forgot.



The Guide To Implementing 2D Platformers



(The website based around the introduction of this post. Still reading.)

Frankenstein's Monster

IT'S ALIVE!

I'm wanting to incorporate a multitude of classic references, such as Pong above, within SpaceBoy's idle animations.

Idle Animation Mock-ups

Some generic idle animations.

Cheers.

Testing

My post titles have been severely uninspired recently, but judging by the SO FAR title of 'SpaceBoy'; what do you expect. My laziness is just even more visible, is all.

I've been talking with my buddy Oliver - the fella who's helping build the game, via Construct; to keep you in the loop - and he shared with me some builds based around the gravitational mechanics and low-grav/flip-grav/teleport beams throughout the game's design.

With these builds we've discussed camera work - whether it should/shouldn't track the player when the world has flipped, yet, keeping it on the player when in hamster ball-type areas, gravitational triggers - 'press space-bar to flip gravity' - and area zone in which the player can manipulate their gravitational powers.

With these 8 tests firmly in place I've maneuvered swiftly back to animations and, to quote my tutor, "make it look pretty" through potential in-game art and design.

I also managed - again, with the help of my tutor - to alter the image size of SpaceBoy to pixelated, and back again; to give off a glitch-filled feel.

Forget the unregistered shit above the animation; the software was used in order to quickly put the PNG frames together and thus show off a quick mockup of a glitched SpaceBoy running sequence.

Another quick mock-up of an idle sequence 'glitched'.

SpaceBoy in 'prone', transitioning from normal to glitched and back again. The static-like animation references the Wreck It Ralph style of jolty animation (see below).

Notice the minor characters - the ones dancing - and even Felix's walk, reference old-school video gaming it their animations; as though frames are missing, as they jump from one position to another. This is the style I hope to somewhat incorporate within SpaceBoy.

Glitch Generator

SO.

One of the new mechanics - well, altered mechanics - is the addition of the 'glitch'.

The glitch resides in the darkness, and takes over SpaceBoy if he resides in there for too long, eventually turning him into a glitched version of himself. Well, severely pixelated. As a form of metaphor towards wanting to escape the old-school pixels for the more modern, HD-in-an-app look, or whatever.
Glitches, mainly, class as boss battles, and surrounding areas will become tainted by 'glitchiness' (dictionary, without a doubt in there) as SpaceBoy nears them.

With that in mind, I've tampered with how the glitch-look will appeal, and how - indeed - SpaceBoy will look when glitched.
I found a 'create your own glitches' website, that allows you to open up a JPEG image and randomly - or by your own control - glitch the hell out of it.


For example; normal and glitched, respectively.

             

As you can see; the imagery becomes more and more obscure and off, even creating colours that weren't within the original incarnation of SpaceBoy.
They serve as examples of possible side effects of 'glitches' found within the game's design.
It will be fun (frustrating) to see how these play out within basic animations such as movement.






GLITCH GENERATOR LINK

Back To The Concepts

So, I'm going to start another post with 'so'.

So. I've reverted back to concepting. Pen and paper-type shit, y'all. Old School.
I used to traverse, from paper to Photoshop on what I found best with concept work. It even got to a point where designing characters, objects, environments, level designs was much easier on Photoshop, than paper. But as of this week I've gone all traditional and summoned out the pen and paper. I draw better with pen, as any errors in drawings or spelling is forever imprinted in front of me, as a learning/guiding process to avoid such things with future tasks.

I knocked up a 'test list' - of which is exactly what the title suggests; a set of tests that would be designed and then built and tested, in order to get a feel for the animations, designs, and mechanics I'd established within the concept work.
The reason I've recently gone back to concepting - as well as continuing with the testing - is because I don't feel like the game's design is quite there yet. There's still something missing. Maybe, eventually, I'll see that the missing thing is actually the thing I've been overlooking of recent; basic designs, cleverly designed. Not that I haven't always had that in mind, that's in fact the driving force for my project - charm, character, originality - yet, it's often overlooked when consistently feeding ideas and mechanics into it. This is how confusion happens, and an original and simple idea becomes a highly saturated task.
Thus, frustration occurs.

I've decided on concepting again to take a step back and look at the 'novelty', the 'kitsch' - to a lesser extent - of what makes a game - and indeed, hopefully mine - stand out, through (as stated above) charm and character.
And with this, I've been highly influenced by my own past experiences in gaming, music, film and TV.
It's about using an existing thing or product, what works and doesn't, and almost borrowing from multiples of these to create something that's my own, something that highlights the best and worst of nostalgia and charm to bring a fresh spin on an old idea.

For example, I've been working on 'idle animations' - of which are animations a character will produce when un-moved by the player - which aren't a necessity to video game design, they're potentially seen as novelty, yet lying in these small details comes the charm, the character. Disney and Nintendo's famed franchises flourish in charm, through small, almost seemingly unimportant features like these, these are - in fact - what makes these stand out from the rest. Anybody can replicate a blueprint, and mimic a design, but it's the masters that turn something so simple into such a wondrous and complex experience that excel, in my eyes at least.







Abrupt end.

To be un-abruptly continued...