At the start of week 10, E-Jay took initiative and started to make spaces for us to do our collaborative work. We also needed a software for task management for this project. E-Jay had mentioned Jira as it was a reoccurring software seen on job applications. However, it was recommended to both of us to stick to just using Trello since it was just the two of us working on this project. The software we have chosen to do our collaborative work are:
- Miro (main area for sharing mood board, tutorials, gameplay, and other aspects of our game)
- Discord (communication – I suggested that we host a server to separate personal affairs from work)
- Trello (task management)
Miro: Here is all the visual work we have and important links to tutorials.
Discord: We currently have a few channels set up to differentiate and go back to certain links and posts
Trello: We got Trello set up ready for next semester, originally was going to use Jira, but advised to switch back to Trello
Game concept:
You are a fallen demi-god, abandoned by the heavens and casted into a raging storm. Stranded on a shore of an island, your journey begins. Explore islands with platforming movements to restore your powers and sail from one island to the next, using the stars to guide you all in search for your magical fish hook.
Genres: 2D Platformer, adventure, mythology
References Polynesian history and culture: Find artefacts around the island that you can interact with and find out the history and uses. This doesn’t add to the gameplay, but it adds to the environmental story telling.
Storyboard showing the intro scene (art done by E-Jay)
Green light!
Before we continued further with E-Jay’s initial concept, I wanted to make sure that we weren’t treading on any sensitive ground since Polynesian inspired media isn’t something we both come across often. Luckily for me, I have a Tongan friend that is very in touch with his culture and I explained our concept to him to check if having a Maui inspired player character could be seen as culturally insensitive especially since me and E-Jay have no concept of how important this figure could be.
^Also responding to my question if we could make a character INSPIRED / BASED from the existing Demi-god, Maui.
He was also kind enough to give us a suggestion to add culturally significant structures / tools in Polynesia scattered across the map.
Title Idea
I searched some words that could possibly be a placeholder title with no cultural significance:
In the end, me and E-Jay chose the word “Haerenga” as it means to journey.
For next semester, I have listed my part in this project so far:
- Character animation (needs below first)
- Turnaround
- Finalised character concept
- Background art
- MULTIPLE assets for the foreground and background (decorative + interactable)
- Tilesheet/map (? – still talking about this)
- NPCs
- Artefacts art
In E-Jay’s case, I’m aware that he will be:
- Designing the levels (an exemplary level needs to be shown to me so I can revolve what assets should be made based on the structure of the level)
- Programming every thing
Screenshot shows what me and E-Jay consider low priority and high priority for now. Essentially, I need to work hard and deliver these character concepts done as soon as possible.
Screenshot below shows us talking about how we would use hand-drawn tile sets. I’m not a fan of pixel art, I want this portfolio to showcase my capability in 2D work and how well I can do it. However, I’m not opposed to it. The picture E-Jay drew shows that for each level, there could be 3 rooms that aren’t in parallax. We also looked into Hollow Knight to see how they managed to make areas of the map different aesthetics whilst still remaining in the same style.
I feel like the task that will take me the longest is the character animation as it’s a subject I don’t really delve into nor do I involve myself that much into. The character animation is definitely something I want to get out of the way as soon as possible, but to do this, I need to get the character concept out of the way. One thing I need to remind myself when making this concept is that I’m not making a character for a professional animator – I’m making this character for someone that has no skills in animation at all. To make this easier for me, I will need to decide on silhouette that is recognisable, but not too intricate and create a character that doesn’t have too many accessories as this can hinder the length of this task.
We looked at Hollow Knight and Nine Sols to see how they have animated their player character. The most obvious thing noted was that these characters look visually simple, this makes it far easy to animate.
Screenshot below shows the frame by frame animation done in Hollow Knight
We have also started to look at tutorials and we have been adding links to other things that the other may want to look at.
All the things that need to be checked immediately by the other team mate will be in a red post it note.
The post it note above has been semi answered: We both had a conversation about how much we will make in overall levels. It first started with 10 levels but E-Jay had previously communicated that each level should show the player gaining a new ability. However, as of recent, he changed his mind and wants to compress the levels as he doesn’t think it’s worth a level for a player to just learn “jump” or “dash”. In summary, we will have fewer levels. To make things more digestible for the both of us, I want to aim for E-Jay to make 5 levels.
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