Narrative Project

At the project launch we were told that this during this project we would be charged with the task of creating a fully playable game. Our game would be required to have a short and simple narrative that would engage and challenge the audience, which would be fellow students on the same course but in other years and groups. We were also told that we would not be alone in creating this game and that we would have to assemble into groups of at least two, composed of one designer and one artist.

Because the groups would be made up of designer and artists. Each specialty would be charged with a specific task. The designers would be tasked with creating the map in UDK and the artist would be creating game assets to implement into the game. Because I wasn’t confident with my skills as a modeller, I considered switching to a designer but was convinced otherwise by a peer and was put into a group with Ram and Matt.

Sculpting Project

After finishing the induction project we were told that our second project would be split into two different groups, designer and artist. These two groups take two different routes in the course. The designer route is more computer based, were as the artist route is as you have guessed it more artistic. After talking to Drew about what each route would entail I decided to go with artistic. I chose the artist route mostly because I wanted to use the sculpting software ZBrush.

We were then briefed on what our next project would be. The artist group were told we would have to create a digital model using Zbrush and a physical model of the characters we had already designed. We were then told we would have to modify and refine our current designs so they were more suitable.

I was pretty happy with my design but I decided to tweak it slightly by adding a little more detail to the face and upper torso.

GameBoard Rules

 Star of the Lost City

The Game

This game is based around the mode free for all, meaning no teams are involved when the game is happening. The only player you can rely on is yourself, while always being aware and cautious of what the other players are doing on the board at all times.

Starting

To decide who starts first each player must roll a dice, whoever has the highest number on their dice roll means they will start first. If two or more players roll the same number they must keep rolling the dice until someone rolls the highest. The player turn rotation will be clockwise from the first person who starts the board game.

Movement

For the first turn of every character they can only move the amount of blocks they are allowed, due to it being the first turn they cannot attack any other characters until the next turn. Once the first round of moves are over, players can then move their character and also on the same turn be able to attack other characters. You are only allowed to attack one character per turn, unless stated otherwise in someone’s special ability for example.

Ranged – Ranged characters are permitted to move 1 block per turn.

Melee – Melee characters are permitted to move 2 blocks per turn.

Attacks

When a player decides to attack a character they must first roll a dice to find out whether they hit or miss the enemy. Rolling a 1-3 means you will be able to hit the opponent, this means rolling a 4-6 will result in missing the opponent, and thus meaning your turn is over.

Ranged - Ranged characters can only attack an opponent if they are within a 3 space distance, if they are out of the 3 space distance it means they will not be able to attack the opponent unless they move closer.

Melee - Melee characters can only attack an opponent if they within a 1 space distance, if they are out of the 1 space distance it means they will not be able to attack the opponent unless they move closer.

Damage

If the player successfully rolls a 1-3 on the dice to hit the opponent, they must then roll the dice again to determine the damage on the opponent.

Rolling a 1 = 10 damage | Rolling a 2 = 20 damage | Rolling a 3 = 30 damage

Rolling a 4 = 40 damage | Rolling a 5 = 50 damage | Rolling a 6 = 60 damage

Special Abilities

Each character has a special ability they can use, to use a special ability they must first draw a card which allows them to use it. When a person initiates a fight the standard procedure for hit or miss is applied, as well as the damage. However, when rolling for damage you will also roll a special second dice which will determine whether you pick up a battle card from the deck supplied with the board game. Among the deck of cards there are various different types that can be obtained and used, some will be useful in battle (buffs) however some will not. When you roll the special dice if you land on the colour black you can pick up a battle card, landing on any other colour will mean nothing is obtained. If you successfully land on the colour black you will pick up a battle card from the top of the deck, obtaining a good card means you can use it whenever you want however if in a next turn you successfully get a battle card again your previous one will be discarded and the new one will be yours. This means that if you obtain a special ability card and don’t use it in time, you have wasted a chance to use it and you will need to use the next one. If you are able to pick up a battle card and it isn’t useful to your character it will automatically be applied to your character. For example if you get a minus life card, then the life will be taken away from you immediately. This also applies to the cards skip a turn, joker (half life) and minus life.

List of Battle Cards x28

x4 +10 Health

x4 +10 Damage (To Basic Attack)

x2 +20 Health

x2 +20 Damage (To Basic Attack)

x2 Skip Turn

x4 Null Card (Does Nothing)

x2 Joker (Lose Half Of Current Health)

x8 Special Ability

HP (Hit points)

Depending on whose character you play as the health on the character will vary; if you decide to play as a melee character you will start off with 250hp (hit points). However, if you decide to play as a melee with healing capabilities it results in you starting with an extra 10hp. Lastly, if you start as a ranged character you will start with 200hp, due to being ranged and having the option to shoot players numerous spaces away from yourself you will have less health.

Characters/Roles

Rob – 250hp - (Melee)

Aaron – 250hp - (Melee)

Safina – 260hp - (Melee/Healer)

Jack – 200p - (Ranged)

Jamie – 200hp - (Ranged)

Josh – 200hp - (Ranged)

Chris – 250hp - (Melee)

Characters Special Abilities

Rob (Seduction) – This special ability can seduce anyone within a 1 space radius, allowing this player to control them for 2 turns, however seducing that player means you cannot attack them for 2 turns.

Aaron (Critical) – This special ability can be used to double the attack damage of a move this character does, for example if this character rolls an attack damage of 6, they can then use this ability to double the damage from 60 to 120.

Safina (Health Steal) – This special ability drains 50hp from a selected opponent within a 2 space radius, the 50hp are then added onto the current character, the total hp of this character cannot go over 260hp.

Jack (Fire) – This special ability burns a selected player for 3 turns (-20hp per turn), must be within a 1 space radius to cast.

Jamie (Copycat) – This special ability copies anyone’s special ability within a 3 space radius, meaning this character can essentially use any special ability on the board.

Josh (Double hit) – This special ability hits two people within 1 space of this

character, causing 25 damage to each character. If there is only 1 person within the space radius then 40 damage is inflicted on the opponent.

Chris (Trap) – This special ability deals 40 damage to a selected player within a 1 space radius, along with this the opponent will also miss a turn.

Our GameBoard

We were set the task of creating a board game. We were first assembled  into a group and then let free to disguise the task. We pretty much got straight to it and starting coming up with a few basic rules such as the range of each class, health points and the strength of different attacks and abilities.

Health: 
To start everyone was given the default of 200 hp.

Movement:
Ranged – Ranged characters are permitted to move 1 block per turn.Melee – Melee characters are permitted to move 2 blocks per turn.

Abilities:
Rob (Seduction) – This special ability can seduce anyone within a 1 space radius, allowing this player to control them for 2 turns, however seducing that player means you cannot attack them for 2 turns.Aaron (Critical) – This special ability can be used to double the attack damage of a move this character does, for example if this character rolls an attack damage of 6, they can then use this ability to double the damage from 60 to 120.
Safina (Health Steal) – This special ability drains 50hp from a selected opponent within a 2 space radius, the 50hp are then added onto the current character, the total hp of this character cannot go over 260hp.
Jack (Fire) – This special ability burns a selected player for 3 turns (-20hp per turn), must be within a 1 space radius to cast.Jamie (Copycat) – This special ability copies anyone’s special ability within a 3 space radius, meaning this character can essentially use any special ability on the board.
Chris (Trap) – This special ability deals 40 damage to a selected player within a 1 space radius, along with this the opponent will also miss a turn.

Battles:
When a player initiates an attack he would role twice. The first roll determines weather your attack hit or missed if the player successfully rolls a 1-3 on the dice that is a hit anything else is a miss. The player would then roll the dice again to determine the damage on the opponent. 1=10, 2 =20, 3=30 and so on but if a player rolled a 6 they would be able to use their special ability and would then roll again to determine the damage of that attack

Once we had our basic rules we started coming up with a few ideas for a board. I had a travelling pack of board games and among them was this really convenient 6 pointed star which was perfect as it gave our group a starting point each. We decided to use this board to test out the game rules we had currently came up with. We then tested the game we found it rather fun but we agreed there were a few kinks in the game that needed to be worked out, like the ability system was a bit useless. But we decided to try out a few other board designs first.

Once we decided on a suitable board we then started talking about improvements we could make. We changed the Hp of certain characters and the ability system we used to have was you had to roll a 6 on the dice to determine whether you used the ability or not and we found that the number six was not coming out very regular. So I came up with a new card system which would incorporate the abilities into them. 

With my system a player would roll two dice at once. One dice was a regular normal dice this was the damage dice and the other a poker dice which was the card dice. A player would roll both of these after the hit and miss roll. The damage dice was still the same, but now included 6 equalling 60 damage. The Poker dice would determine whether a player would pick up an ability card or not. I then came up with ideas for different cards, I then also designed the cards as well.

Unfortunately we only tested the card system once so we never really got a chance to iron out all the kinks. While I was doing this the other members of my group were creating a finalised board for our game. Once I had finished the cards I then helped my group paint the board.

Here is our finished board game with our model pieces ready to be played.

My Model

Once we had completed our designs we then had to make a small sculpture of our character  We first had a short tutorial on how to effectively use the modelling material. We first sculpted a small backpack and sleeping bag and then I attempted to do a head.


Here is my attempt at a backpack and sleeping bag. I think I did pretty well for a first try I struggles slightly because of the really small scale but overall I was pretty happy with it.

Here is the had I sculpted. I had a lot of trouble with the head as you can see it quite poor. I really struggled with adding detail to the face. As you can see its pretty plain and simple. But I think with some practice I'm sure I could improve.

Here is the start of my sculpture. I first started off by making a simple wire frame to support the main body and legs.

I then added some extra material and moulded it to the correct shape and the added some extra detail to the shoe using a scalpel.

I then added a new layer for the trousers and shirt and once again added more detail using a scalpel like the zip on the top.

Here is a close up of some extra detail I added to his trousers, and I also gave him a belt.

I also gave my character a long coat which was very hard to do as the coat kept changing shape when I left it to harden so I had to keep checking on it to make sure it kept the right shape.

 I then made some basic arms for my character, using a wire frame and a layer of modelling material.
I tried to make it so you could see the different muscles in the arm but this was very fiddly once I had the basic shape I left it to harden.

After doing the arms I the started making a head and because my character design had a mask I didn't have to make a mouth so added the mask straight on.










Once everything had dried I added the head and arms to my character I also added a hood and a bow to my character.

The Summer Project

Over the six weeks we were set the task of creating a character for post-apocalyptic event. This Task seemed like it would be fairly easy and enjoyable, but once I got my sketch book out all the ideas I had seemed to of fell out my head. The main problem I had was putting my character ideas onto paper. Because I was starting to get a bit frustrated at this so I took a break and did some research instead. My research consisted of watching films that came under this genre like Mad Max and Book of Eli, I also played a few games such as Rage and Borderlands. These media sources gave me a few ideas, so I started drawing.

I was still having trouble coming up with character ideas so I first drew a few simple sketches of different weapons that I would like my character to have.

I then started drawing a character design but struggled a lot and my drawing was very poor, after having some very harsh but true feedback I scrapped my initial design and started again. I first started by doing a few thumbnails of my character in varies different poses and positions.

Once I had picked a pose I liked, I then incorporated it into my design. I gave this character many thing that I thought would be appropriate for a post-apocalyptic environment like a mask to stop him from inhaling the toxic air, I also gave him goggles as well to shield his eyes from sand and dirt. I also gave him a bow and arrow, as this weapon is well suited to an environment with very little resources, once I was happy that my character fitted the post-apocalyptic genre I had finished.

I also drew an orthographic of my character. This layout lets me view every side of my character, which is very useful when modelling. I first started out by just practising proportions by sketching a plain character with little detail then drew another more refined one and added the characters aesthetics like clothes and accessories.

Here is my better, and more refined orthographic of my character  I decided to leave the coat off because it allows you to see the detail on his head, body and the weapons around his waist.