I made sure I left early to avoid possible delays on the M62. Luckily I was OK and had time to have a tea at McDonalds close to the Sony offices.

The plan was to show the powerpoint presentation which includes a video file. This part should all work fine. The game itself had developed a long loading delay due to all the new artwork we had added in. So we devised a way for me to load the game and leave it in the background until needed, I would then press a key and it would play the game. I knew from a previous meeting that my laptop worked on the big Sony screen. When I went into the room I discovered they had an even bigger and newer screen and typically my laptop refused to work with it! We eventually used the original screen but then my laptop forced itself to change modes and so my mid presentation video did not play and I had to come back to windows and run it through media player. Then the game crashed and had to be re-run due to the mode changing. Even with all these issues I was able to stay on message and deliver my pitch. The game seemed to be well received and now we wait to see if Sony wants to move ahead with us on the title.

The key insight I have leant through this whole process is that my team and I have to own the game idea, concept and plan for making it happen. It’s no good hoping someone else has the answers for you. The various meetings helped identify areas we had not defined and resulted in a crystal clear plan for the game.

• My advice to others would be;
• Understand the technology you’ll be coding for.
• Know your target market and define why your game will stand out and be different.
• Work with people who can create great results, both visually and coding wise.
• Create a buzz within the team about the game and get everyone singing from the same song sheet (with the aid of an X Statement).
• Don’t be afraid to change things. If areas need to be improved, removed or added, then do it.
• Get plenty of feedback. Not just at the meetings but from other game players and friends.
• Do your best to clarify the end vision for the game, visually, audibly and if possible with a simple game play prototype.
• Spend your budget wisely. Until your game is green lighted and given full funding it’s best to spend with caution. We used freelancers for the artwork, so when they were done on these jobs we did not have to keep paying them.

We’ve enjoyed the whole process, it’s been exciting to be involved. Finger crossed now for Carnage!

Rick Vanner

Financial Director

The Game Creators Ltd

A great deal has happened on the game since my last post on this blog. I missed a week because we have some cool new visuals that I wanted to show for the first time in the meeting. Now that’s all out of the way I’ll share it here.

Coding Carnage

On the coding side a ton of new features have been added;

• The higher quality level and the high poly characters are now added to the game, including the grim reaper. When the Reaper power up is picked up the game alpha blends smoothly from the main character form into the Reaper form. The player can then run around the level at a faster rate and cut down anyone in his way – it’s a lot of fun!
• Power-ups like the reaper and the shields now re-appear (respawn) after a short delay.
• A special check had to be added for the shield. There are some weapons that don’t work with the shield – one example is the grenade launcher, using it with the shield could result in you blowing yourself up! Valid weapons for the shield power-up are pistol, shotgun, ak47, uzi, flame thrower. Dual weapons are not allowed. If you pick up an invalid weapon when you have the shield, the shield is dropped.
• One of the main coding blocks completed included the AI for the BOTS. It’s now possible to see 8 vs 8 battles! Even with the simple AI we have at present there’s a lot of carnage being dealt. They can even pick up the reaper power-up and go on a killing spree!
• An intro screen has been added to the start of the game and the voice over introduces the background to the game. This is the script we have used; “Hello ladies and gentleman, and welcome to the filthy and stinking ghetto of North Bridge, hosting city of one of our favourite arenas – the industrial complex we lovingly refer to as The Butcher House. Prepare yourselves for another evening of quality dismemberment, with your host Randy McBane. And without further ado… let the CARNAGE commence.”
• We added an INI file control to the game. It’s wise to do something like this. It makes it easier for the person who has to do the demo. For example, I might want to set the game up for 2 human players and 4 BOT players. I can do all of this by just text editing the INI file.
• We also added PS3 controller support. Due to other priorities for the meeting I decided not to use them. Hopefully I can demo using two PS3 controllers in the final meeting, they just need testing more.
• During the game the commentator will make announcements on what’s happening. Here’s just a small sample of some of these;

“Rest in pieces!”
“Where is the justice?”
“Oooo. That’s gotta hurt.”
“Now isn’t this quality family entertainment?”
“Checking out!”
“Another one bites the dust”
“Taken a licking, and he sure aint kicking”.
“Ooooooo. I hope you’ve all eaten already.”
“Just another arena misdemeanor”
“Replicator to the rescue”
“It’s all pain and no gain!”
“Extinction!”
“Call a mortician!”

This is by no means an exhaustive list. A lot of other smaller tasks have been carried out, these are just the head liners!

Artwork
The main level is now complete, here’s the final render;

The characters are all textured and animated too. Just after our meeting we completed the giblets and charred textures for the poor soles who suffer the world of Carnage (look away now if you’re squeamish).

The first shot shows two different textures for team White and team Black;

After a blast from a flame thrower you’ll end up looking a lot worse;

Once your body has taken a few bullets, you’ll look like this;

And should someone take a long sword to you, you’ll be in pieces (literaly);

Now the carnage begins…

So for the remaining two weeks we have identified the following areas we want to improve/add;

• Add an environment floor pad which triggers a circular saw to cut up anyone in it’s way.
• Add support for all the new animations
• PS3 controller support
• Death camera views (close in shots as you die)
• Change the voice artist to another one
• Add an animated intro
• Animate the “Reconstructor” which brings warriors back to life
• Code pick-ups for Health and Steroids
• Make the game play for about 2 minutes so it can be won
• Create a fence around the arena to make it feel more like a live game show
• Improve the AI of the bots

Rick Vanner

The Game Creators Ltd

www.thegamecreators.com

At this stage the AI is fairly simple and will be improved and tweaked as we play test it and suggest improvements. Yet even with this simple implementation it feels real and dangerous – these enemies mean business and don’t offer any mercy as they relentlessly hunt you down for the kill. I like fooling them by making them engage in battle with another AI bots, leaving me time to pull out the missile launcher and take them both out!

Here’s a screen shot from the game showing the Carnage. I’m in the gun turret on the right, about to be blown up by an AI bot with a rocket launcher. On the left you can see a battle between two AI bots, one with a flame thrower and one with a chainsaw;

The game’s level is almost complete and our art team have vertex lit the level as a test – here’s the result of this rendered test;

The character animation is stil being worked on. When they are all complete we can move the playable game over to use the new high quality character.

The game’s logo has also moved on. It’s an important image to get right and we have moved through a few designs so far. The current design is shown below;

We’re now into March and have to start to prepare for our next production meeting in two weeks time. I’ve had a quick review of the production plan and I see we need to focus our efforts on the voice announcer script this week. Everything else seems to be on time and the results are looking great.

As a developer of PC games and technology we are not so sure about multiplayer coding on the PS3. So we have Google searched and found a solution with a company called Quazal (www.quazal.com). We are in the process of evaluating their middleware solution. If possible, it’s best to use middleware if it can save you a lot of time in development. You will need to consider the cost of it, the time it saves you and how successful it’s been used in the industry already (don’t be a guinea pig to some new tech).

And BTW, we have released our March newsletter over at www.thegamecreators.com

Rick Vanner

The Game Creators

www.thegamecreators.com

For the final pitch in April we want to demo how we feel full on multiplayer battles will be. We don’t have the time to develop multiplayer code and have it tested within the prototype time frame. So the aim is to create some basic AI bots that can battle in the game.

In the picture below, it shows a large number of waypoints, linked together by line of sight (i.e. if a waypoint can see another waypoint, they’re linked together). These waypoints are placed in such a way that from anywhere in the level an object can see at least one waypoint. This means, no matter where an AI character is in the level, it can always get onto the “network of travel”.

The next step is to use a propagation algorithm to teach each waypoint where each other waypoint is, how far away it is, and what route to take to get to it. In essence, the waypoints all talk to each other, creating a comprehensive map of paths through the level. This map allows you to work out the shortest route through the level from any point to any other point, instantly.

In the second image below we see two characters standing far away from each other. The white line shows the quickest route through the map between them. This instant route calculation allows us to get AI BOTs chasing you down at all times. Unless we choose to give you breathing space, there is nowhere to hide!

Art

On the art side a test animation of the main character running has been exported by the art team and tested by the programmer. This test went perfect and so now the production of all the various animations can begin.

The level art continues to be developed, with extra props fully textured (crates, oil tank, sandbags and a dumpster). More work on textures, including railings, shelving and flooring. The current level has incorrect shadows – this is because balancing these will take time and it’s best to do this lengthy job when the whole level is completed. Here’s an updated image;

Music to die to!

We also thought about the music for our game’s pitch. We decided it had to be a hard rock type sound. In the past we’ve used an online music store called www.shockwave-sound.com

The benefit of using this service is you can quickly find a track that can be a place holder for the type of music you want for the game without having to go to the expense of hiring a musician. The track we selected has just cost us $30 and fits perfectly with what we’re doing. If we then get full funding we can brief a professional musician who then has some reference music for what they have to produce.

Bubble on your iPhone…

One final note, we released our first ever iPhone app last week. It’s called iBlow! and let’s you blow bubbles on your iPhone. Check out the video demo on You Tube here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4H650q4KdQ

Rick Vanner

The Game Creators Ltd

On the development side, our main hero character is now textured;

The process of animating him will now begin. With the player’s hero being them main focus, there’s a long list of animations to do. How the player reacts to the user’s input and what he does on screen has to be the most important aspect of a game. You can have all the wonderful “Triple A” graphics but if the game play sucks then so will your game and your reputation, and ultimately sales of the game. So a lot of attention and refinement must be spent on this.

The level continues to be worked on, with the final floor texture added, box, toilet, and furnace props added and the inclusion of a prototype wall texture. Here’s a new render;

Coding time at the start of the week consisted of making a demo video to show at Sony and to also make a two player playable demo. After the meeting we decided to work on the game design document and production plans to further crystallise our ideas.

Rick Vanner
The Game Creators Ltd
www.thegamecreators.com

Arise Sir Reaper!

Our freelance character artist has started work on the project and we’re now able to show the progress he’s made on the Reaper character.

We started with a very high poly model of Reaper, here’s that first un-textured image of him;

After a lot of email discussion we realized that we would not end up seeing much of his skeleton because we’re viewing the game from above. We also wanted the reaper to fly quickly through the level scything player’s down, so it was not necessary to see his feet. After this a new un-textured render was created;

The classic image of the Grim Reaper is of him with his hood up. So we have put the hood back up but not so that it covers his face totally. At the very end of last week we had our first textured version of the Reaper;

Level design

You’ve seen it start from an early layout plan and now we have a partially textured environment. More props have been created and the floor area is all textured ready for a player’s spilled blood!

Still to be worked on for the level design over the next two months are;

• Texturing the warehouse props
• Finishing the upper floor textures
• Texturing overhead items
• Replacing the placeholder props in the upper level

The floor textures are critical because it’s what the game player is looking at all of the time. So it’s been important for the artist to spend lots of his time and detail on these.

Voice Actors Auditioned

There’s a superb online service called Voice123:

It’s where you can post voice over jobs to the world’s largest market of voice over artists. We have used their service a number of times before with great results. Last week we posted a job for Carnage. Our aim is to find a voice artist who sounds like a typical American sports commentator. I set the number of auditions to 70 and within just three days had filled up my in box with 70! What’s great about the site is you can log in any time, listen to the voice and then rate it immediately. The best auditions are then easy to find when you have to decide who to hire. There’s no cost to using the service, just the payment you make to the artist when they’ve done the job. For more details visit www.voice123.com

On the coding side we’ve had a productive week too

• Some changes to the sound system were made to add proper panning and volume control based on the player’s distance from the camera (this wasn’t necessary on the original single screen game).
• A new shell casing engine was developed so that bullet casings can litter the scene as the Carnage kicks off
• The Reaper power-up has been added. For now the player can pick it up – which then triggers the haunting music and the slaying can begin!

A solid month of development with all areas progressing as planned.

Rick Vanner

The Game Creators Ltd

www.thegamecreators.com

P.S. Our company released it’s latest Newsletter, take a look here;

http://www.thegamecreators.com/?gf=newsletter

Last week we added in the early level design into the main game engine. Due to good early planning most of this went very smoothly but there was one issue that caused concern. We were finding that the collision system used was doing far too much work and slowing the game down. Luckily for us we employ the author of the collision system and I was able to call him in to help out. Within a few hours he had fixed some bugs and improved it to work great for our needs.

Coding this week has very much been making the new level work and some fine tuning had to be reported back to the level artist. I am quoting what the programmer reported to the artist so that anyone reading this can get some idea of the sort of issues that come up when developing a game.

• The vertical route (i.e. on the z-axis) down through the 4 generators is too narrow. The scale I gave you for the width of the man must’ve been slightly out. The player almost gets in there, but gets stuck once almost inside. I would suggest moving the generators outwards from each other by 1/5th of the distance they are already apart. That should be enough.

• The bricks near the emplacement, because they have some height, can’t be walked over. I could probably fix this programmatically fairly easily, but if it’s just as easy for you to provide the bricks as a separate model, then I could import them that way and exclude them from collision. I’ll have a bash at a code tweak first and let you know.

• Aside from that, there were no problems with the geometry. If you can tweak those generator positions, and then re-upload the level, I’ll confirm they work ASAP.

• One other issue. The forklift texture was a TGA, but in the .X file, it’s referred to as a BMP, so it couldn’t load. No problem though, since this was just a test level!

Later the artist reported back with a new version of the level;

• Corrected collision around generators/ furnaces
• Converted the map to use separate meshes for collision and visuals
• Added detail to the warehouse area and broken wall
• Added collision meshes for complex geometry
• Added test texture to walls
• Testing the Multi-sub object material on walls
• Created a layer system in 3ds max to make object selection easier
• Export no longer looks for BMP textures

Here’s an image of the current test level from within 3ds max;

Cheers, boos and excitement!

As reported in the blog last week the lead programmer was going to experiment with crowd sounds to add atmosphere. Using just some basic sound effects the game has taken on a whole new dimension. Now when you cut someone down the crowd cheer you and get excited but if you’re taken down the crowd boos at your poor performance. We’re looking to add to this in the coming weeks by adding more sounds, music and voice overs.

It’s also worth pointing out that we are developing our game using our own game development technology called Dark Basic Professional. This is a BASIC programming language for the PC, geared towards making games. It’s a great tool for getting your ideas to the screen. With only three months for prototype time available we’re using DBPro to make the game more of a reality.

The Coding Area

This is what we’ve focused on last week from the programming side;

• Some tweaks and bug fixes to the camera and particle code.
• We began work using an “Enhanced Animations” plug-in for Dark Basic Professional. The lead developer needed to familiarize himself with how it works and will be using it once the character models are ready. This extra functionality will allow him to quickly prototype the animation moves of the game characters for the prototype.
• Sound and music will be a significant ingredient to Carnage. So we did some work on the crowd sound effects, and recording sound samples of “Ohs”, “Ahhs” and cheers etc. from sound libraries. We’re also playing around with a sound engine to have ambient crowd noise in the background, and then cheers and boos when players die and other cool things happen. We’re not sure how good this will sound yet, but it’s worth a try, to see if this adds atmosphere for this “game show” type idea we have. If it does, we will try out a few “Leeeet’s get rrreeeeady for Carnage!!!” type sound bites, which could be used at the start, and also start to consider the music snippets idea. This morning I (Rick) was listening to some classical music that I had purchased at the weekend. One of the tracks started and simply blew me away – it sounds perfect for when the player picks up the Reaper bonus. The track is “Tuba Mirum” (meaning Days of Wrath) and the first 30 seconds will instill fear in any player who knows the Reaper is racing through the level killing all who pass his path.

This coming week will see the implementation of the new test level that the artist has created.

The Art Attack

Our level artist has moved the level design forward. He’s changed the layout slightly and begun to add details and props. The walls have all been converted into elements now, in-line with the template. Although it saves polygons by making it a contiguous mesh, the programmer’s method of hiding non-visible elements will probably be better for performance.

The level is still un-textured but it’s now in a format that can be used by the programmer to test within the main game project. This is the key to good prototyping, do as little as possible and then test your ideas. You don’t want to end up down one avenue of work and find you have to back track and start again.

The artist has also added a forklift truck prop with a texture. We’re aiming to have a number of props to populate the level, ensuring the game looks as polished as possible. Here’s a render of it;

Also a note about the polygon count on the above image, because we are using Dark Basic Pro to make the prototype we would like it to run smoothly in any realtime demos we make. All models in a PS3 title will have many more polygons – so the wheels will be nice a round and smooth.

The artist has warned us that he thinks some proxy collision objects might be necessary for some of the more complex props such as the generators and forklift. Again, this is nothing to be worried about right now, that’s all fine tuning work which will not affect the game’s chances when it comes to present the idea.

Another solid week of development for Carnage, see you next week on the blog.

Rick Vanner

The Game Creators Ltd

www.thegamecreators.com

The prototype game level has its first design layout which you can see below. It’s not set in stone and needs some talking about within the team:

Carnage – first draft map design 

On the programming side we now have;

Camera control

The camera view now follows the player around as the screen scrolls. It also zooms in on the player when he dies.

Dust

When bullets hit the walls, they kick out dust sprays (that’s been in there for a while):

What’s different now is that the dust now fills the immediate area with airborne dust. This thickens the more bullets hit around the area, and lingers for some time. It’s a cool effect, as it thickens the atmosphere of the room where heavy fighting has been. In this next image you can see that the player is obscured by a cloud of dust from his continual firing in the confined space:

If we add in other debris effects like brick pieces and mortar flying around and lingering about, it should make the battles more intense.

Battle Recorder

We don’t have enough time to add in multiplayer gaming to this three month prototype. Because of this we wanted to be able to show what the game will be like when this becomes possible. The solution was to create some code that records one player at a time fighting in the scene. We keep recording lots of players in the scene and then run a play back routine that just plays these all at once. It’s not perfect but it will certainly show what the game should look like when it’s done.

We’re pleased with the progress so far.

Remember that the artwork shown here is just temporary and will be replaced by high quality artwork as and when those assets are completed by the artists and added in by the programmer.

Rick Vanner

The Game Creators Ltd