Ideas/Thoughts on Trail Tiles

Terminology

• Mind-Game - involves predicting what the opponent will be doing (in the future), and tricking the opponent (into believing and doing something that would be advantageous for you).
• Depth/Complexity - refers to the number of distinct, relevant possibilities/choices/situations that exists in the game.

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Focusing on "Simplicity" (of design and work), there's a few ideas I want to bring up, that we may want to prototype (if we like it).

1) Steal Highlighted Tiles -

- Explanation: What if characters can steal highlighted tiles through weapons or through walking. That is, highlighted tiles owned by someone else can be converted to yours. Of course, stealing highlighted tiles would be useless if it didn't give any benefits, so suppose it does. Then this concept should cause the opponent to think about how their highlighted tiles can be used against them, or the reverse case (i.e., how can they use other opponents tiles). Also, they'd have to think about whether it would be wise to create highlighted tiles in certain situations. Etc.

- Questions to Think About:

• Upon ownership change, how is tile expiration time preserved/changed (based on varying situations, factors, weapon/armor types, etc.)?
• How many and what are the "valid" tactics that would be introduced?

2) Highlighted Tiles Increases Speed -

- Explanation: This is just 1 possible benefit of highlighted tiles, where the character's speed increases by running on a highlighted tile. I think this can add a bit to the mind-game element, where there's a clear benefit of a speed boost by being on the highlighted tile, but the highlighted tiles only exists at limited locations, which would make it easier for the opponent to shoot the target if the target only moves on the highlighted tiles.

- Questions to Think About:

• How many and what are the "valid" tactics that would be introduced?
• What if the type of benefit for being on the highlighted tile depends on some factors (e.g. armor type, traits, combat situation, environment, etc.)?
  
• Other Benefits or Restrictions imposed by being on the highlighted tiles?
  
• Alternative/Better Solutions (than what I discussed that would add more depth/complexity to the game or include other game elements that we want)?
• Other design ideas/concepts that would enhance this concept?
  
• Other ideas to add to the mind-game element? (Note that the existence of multiple "valid" tactical choices is an important ingredient for creating mind-games. Now, for example, consider how temporal and spatial aspects may come into play; what if moving towards a projectile allows the character to negate the push-back effect if the character has enough stats to withstand the impact, but moving backwards reduces the damage? How about moving left or right? To come up with these questions/considerations, realize that I focus on exploring the available freedom of control or choices first before injecting in rules/logic to support their "validity".)

Edit: just so I don't forget. I also want to talk about the "Hook/Cool Factor" (see the google site). I'm thinking some sort of EX/super move that uses up the highlighted tiles; maybe the move allows the character to counter the opponent somehow...

Linking up firing animation to actual weapon firing

I've set up an AnimTree for the robot here:
AnimTree'GI_Robot.Anims.AT_CH_Robot'

For "Lethal Injection," we used an AnimNodeBlendList to link up the attack animations in the AnimTree, and then triggered the children of the AnimNodeBlendList in UnrealScript. I want to try something a little different this time.

This time I have two nodes of the type AnimNodeBlendByProperty. Each of these supposedly chooses a branch of the AnimTree based on a boolean property in the UnrealScript.

http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/AnimationNodes.html#AnimNodeBlendByProperty

Currently, I've set the AnimNodeBlendByProperty nodes check for the following booleans (which don't yet exist in the UnrealScript, I think)
1. bFiring
2. bEndingFire


bFiring is set to activate the branch of the AnimTree that holds all the firing animations when TRUE. When FALSE, it uses the branch with non-firing idle and run animations.

bEndingFire is set to activate the animation in which the robot lowers his arm after he's finished firing when TRUE. When FALSE, it uses the branch in which the robot raises its arm to get ready to fire.

Rather than use Gina's firing recoil animations, I chose to use a Skeletal Controller named GunRecoilNode linked up to the r_arm bone. I did this because somewhere within the UnrealScript, UDK already looks for and triggers GunRecoilNode whenever a character fires a weapon, and it already works well with the default Linkgun's rapidfire and sustained fire modes.

So how I think the firing animation calls would be programmed is something like this:

1. When the player presses the attack button, a boolean named bFiring is set to TRUE, which should tell the AnimTree to use the firing branch.
1a. After some delay to let the AnimTree blend from the normal to the arm extending pose, actually fire the weapon, with the GunRecoilNode triggered upon firing (which already happens).
1b. While the attack button is held down, the character sustains the arm extended pose (which is the last frame of the extending animation). The weapon will keep firing at its fire rate, triggering GunRecoilNode with each shot.
1c. If the weapon runs out of ammo while the attack button is held down, then the character switches back to the default weapon automatically and continues firing without lowering the arm.
2. When the player releases the attack button, the weapon stops firing, and a boolean named bEndingFire is set to TRUE to select the arm-lowering branch of the AnimTree
2a. After some delay to let the AnimTree finish the arm-lowering animation, set bFiring and bEndingFire to FALSE, which should set the AnimTree back to the non-firing branch.

If you think names other than bFiring and bEndingFire would be more useful, you can easily change what property the AnimNodeBlendByProperty checks for by opening AnimTree'GI_Robot.Anims.AT_CH_Robot' and selecting the nodes.

Trail Screenshot

I just did a quick (improper) implementation to show what the trail would look like. (I'm not committing the changes, since the implementation is improper).

The currently implementation of the "highlight" is a bit jarring, but there's probably things we can do to make it look better.

I'll do a proper implementation some other time.

Edit: Changed the image, after I've used a new trail material.

art reference

few more art reference

Meeting Summary

Not really a complete summary, since I will just focus mostly on the combat/game-play topics which we mostly talked about. A lot of the discussion was between Thomas and I. The topics are listed below.

- Main Combat Game-play -

Purpose - the main purpose of the below described mechanics is to add complexity/depth to the combat system.

Note - weapons don't just deal damage, they may cause status effects as well. (e.g., slow-down or modified paint color).

• Tile Ownership - which tiles you own (or don't own) may result in different triggered weapon effect types or alternatively, the power of the weapon. (e.g., the number of owned connected tiles that you're standing on, may influence the fired weapon result.)
  
• Tracing Tiles Walked On - I thought it would be visually interesting to see the tiles that the character walks on be tracked (by highlighting the edges of the tiles). More specifically, we're thinking that the tiles that the character has walked on for a certain previous time duration should be tracked. Again this can influence the fired weapon result. I'm still pondering if it should be possible for an opponent character to cut off the trail.
  

• Mind-Game - For the game-play experience, we're thinking there should be some sort of mind-game. That is, some game mechanic that allows players to predict, guess and try to figure out what the opponent is doing and/or trick the opponent into believing the player is doing something they're not. (e.g., Street Fighter 3 has the parry system; even the regular fight mechanics has this mind-game element, since the speed of some attacks/throws are too quick to react to, so reading the opponent's patterns/habits become important.). For this aspect, we don't have any clear detail yet.
  

- Hitpoint Recovery - some form of hitpoint recovery is probably necessary, because we don't want the case where one player is left with little health left until time starts to run out, at which time the other player shoots him to erase all of his painted tiles. A couple of possible solutions are listed below:

1. auto-regenerate - the hp auto-regenerates. We're leaning towards this solution, since it reduces the necessity to remember a player-character's hp, which means we may not need a constantly displayed health bar on the screen.
   
2. items/weapons for regeneration - there's items or weapons that can aid the player in recovering hp.
   

- NPC Robots - we talked about NPC robots possibly being modified, upon being shot, to paint the tiles in the color of the shooter. (My personal thoughts: I think the rules/logic behind the NPCs should add some unique/distinct flavor to the level/map. But I have no clear detail in mind for this yet.)

enemy bot redo

enemy bot redo

So here's another version based of gina's comment

item bot sketchy

ehh mind as well can get started on modeling. texturing i will do later

few env thumbnails

space station stage

factory stage

the blue highlight shows the actual play area (2 levels)

On Story

For story, I think our target audience is looking for setting and backstory rather than plot/narrative. It's a multiplayer combat/party game after all.

An interesting example of the level of story to have is the Street Fighter game series. The games actually have a story that many people remember as the series progresses, yet it's almost entirely backstory and doesn't have much of a presence within the game outside of the characters' win quotes. Within each game, there is no standard narrative progression (rising conflict leading up to a turning point and then resolution) although you could say that each battle is its own story with its own conflict, and if a fight is particularly close, players may experience a degree of tension similar to what might be in a good narrative. This kind of tension is not deeply emotional or profound, but it is still powerful and memorable. Note that in Street Fighter, the story the players create through gameplay has little connection to the backstory of the characters or the narrative progression of the series. There's some evil criminal organization trying to take over the world, but that has no effect on the gameplay and the gameplay has no effect on the narrative. I'm not saying Street Fighter has a good story, but people who have followed the series over time often remember the story, and that's a mark of success.

Regarding what Tony brought up about making a story memorable through emotional appeal, I agree that it works better for most audiences. However moral/philosophical stories are very memorable to me as well (although I may be in the minority, and even these stories need to have a significant emotional connection). In Metal Gear Solid, one of the main points of the story was that the protagonist was a genetically inferior double of the antagonist, but having a good reason to fight for, and accumulating experience and skill over time allows the inferior one to fight on an even level with the superior one by the end of the game. As the player defeats each boss in the game, Solid Snake's health bar expands, until the end of the game when the player health bar becomes as long as a boss health bar (it's the exact same length as the final boss' health bar). Since the health bar grows through the player's actions, the gameplay actually tells the story of a character who starts with a handicap growing beyond what was believed to be his potential. One of a couple morals to Metal Gear Solid is to not let yourself be limited by the circumstances of your birth, because passion and experience may still lead you to success, and I'll always remember this game for so effectively making this point. Of course, the audience also has an emotional connection to how the protagonist's growth and victories.

"Player Skills"

I'm defining "player skills" to be any ability that allows the player to excel at a game and is attributed to the player (e.g., reflexes). I think it's important to analyze and think about which "player skill" we want to be in the game so that it can guide us in our design decisions.

I'm going to organize the categories as I think is best, defining and separating concepts that I think deserves separate attention even if there are similarities. If there are other categories (which there probably are) that you believe should be listed, then please share them.

• Tracking (Past Events) - this is defined as in the case of poker, where the player keeps track of which cards has been drawn.

• Spatial Awareness - that is, awareness of what's going on in the surroundings. For example, in Bomberman you needed to be aware of where all of the bombs are and which tiles are affected as a result.

• Wisdom/Knowledge - knowledge of the game logic/rules. (e.g., knowing the priorities of attacks in certain situations, such as an uppercut will beat a normal kick).
  

• Foresight - think ahead about which events will occur and which events could occur.

• Multitasking/Management - managing and switching between multiple separate tasks.

• Reflexes/Reaction Time - speed to react to an event.

• Speed of Physical Execution - (e.g., rate of button presses.)

• Speed of Mental Processing - (e.g., solving a puzzle by quickly thinking through all possible combinations.)

• Pattern Recognition - recognize spatial/temporal patterns. (e.g., patterns to form combos or opponent's movement patterns, etc.)
  

• Coordination - The ability to execute the player's intention. For example, hand-eye coordination.
  

• Estimation - (e.g., estimate the distance of a projectile or time of an event)

1. Timing - timing exactly when a specific event will occur. (e.g., timing when a bomb will explode).
2. Distancing - (e.g., in Street Fighter, advanced players will keep certain distances from the other character, for example to make sure that the other character won't be able to do a kick attack in range.)
   

• Guessing - it's not really any ability a person has, but people tend to attribute it to themselves when they guess correctly. (e.g., consider the concept of betting/gambling, which involves choosing not only what to bet on, but also how much to bet).
  

With each of the above categories, also consider how the following related concepts can be applied to them:

• Breadth vs Depth -
  
• Accuracy vs Precision - Accuracy is defined to be the closeness to a goal/target. Precision is defined to be the consistency in multiple results, even if it's not close to the goal/target.
  
• Spatial & Temporal - (i.e., physical space and time)

Edit: We should probably consider other categorizations too. That is, we may want to look at more specific or higher levels of categorization of 'player skills' (e.g., forming complex combos in a fighting game is considered a player skill).

Website

I made a functional site to get it started.

http://toshnak.com/gridironv1/index.html

Summary of Current Game Direction

To explicitly keep everyone up-to-date, I'm posting a bit of information about the current design direction we're taking thus far based on what I understand and have extrapolated. I could be wrong on some things, but hopefully not...

• Target Audience - In a way, we're targeting an audience who may not have a whole lot of time in one session to play a game. That is, a game battle will be short like approx. 3 min. and will give the player a sense of progression/accomplishment in that time frame, which we're doing through the accumulation of achievements. It is also intended to be easy for new beginners to pick up and play. However, the amount of depth and complexity is intended to be comparable to that of bomberman.
  

• Game-Play -
  

1. There is no regular jumping.
   
2. There may be multiple floor levels.
   
3. Characters paint tiles by either walking on the tiles, or using weapons.
   
4. Aiming and shooting is manually controlled by the player.
   
5. The player with the most tiles at the end of a battle wins.

I think the next topic we should look into in detail is the combat and game-play. In particular, I think we should look at the "Player Skills" that we want to be a part of the game-play for the player to experience, which I will post about next (albeit probably not today).

Edit: I'm routinely re-evaluating and re-considering our approach to design discussions and co-operation. I'm going to list down things I think I or we should do.

• Email topics to be discussed approx. 1 day prior to meeting (to promote group participation and thinking)
  
• Ask for each individual's opinion when discussing a design idea (to better understand each person's thoughts)
  
• Keep track of design ideas that anyone thinks should be in (even if most dislike it), so that we may revisit it in the future or delve deeper into the reasons why some aspects of the design is attractive.
• Explicitly define constraints to direct design development
  

some more enemies

forgot to post these.

some potential enemy we can put in