multitasking is hard

I found some time to give Bala some love this week, though the things I've done are all over the place.

I want to start this blog off right with the most exciting and pretty stuff!  First off is the Bala promotional sticker!

I've sent in her design to Stickermule and approved her design just yesterday, so she's currently being printed!  I wanted to wait on sending her in until after I bought a website for Bala (which is witchesofbala.com) to decide if I wanted to put the website on the sticker or not.  I decided not to put the website on the sticker because I've never liked stickers with their affiliated website on them.  It makes me less likely to use the sticker because of the out of place text.  Additionally, working the text onto her cloak or sock (or somewhere in her design in general) wasn't working out.  So I said screw it!  I want this to be a cute sticker that people will want to use, even if they don't know what she's from!  Anarchy!  And she's huge!  She's 6 inches tall and wants to be seen!

Whew.  Next is the Bala business card, which shares the same illustration as the sticker, but Life Witch is in her natural game colors.

Sweet and simple and to be handed out with the stickers.  These business cards are being done at Moo and will have beautiful rounded corners.

On to game stuff!

We've begun to plan for upgrades, which means that Khoa has been getting the framework ready for that to be possible.  To help him, I did a mock up of the screen where the upgrades would go.  The idea is to have them fit on one screen so the player knows exactly how many are available to them.  The motif we are going for is pages within Life Witch's spell book, so the layout will be something like this:

Khoa has also been working on little cutscene setups where Life Witch can talk to other characters!  In motion!  Regretfully, I do not have any screenshots or footage of that, so maybe Khoa can make a post about it soon!

Another thing I worked on this week is coming up with a battle plan to update textures for the terrain of Bala, which also included coming up with a smaller color palette.

I don't currently know how well this color palette will work, but it's a point of reference that we are starting from.  And in order to more clearly come up with a plan, I took screenshots of the tutorial and blocked out a path that will go through the forest.  Hopefully this path will prevent players from getting lost, and also make the ground much more interesting than a flat color.

Next, I made a document containing the types of textures I'm going to need to make to really bring the floor of the forest to life.

I'm hoping to do 5 different types of textures.  The base texture will be a base color (with a little bit of noise) that will cover the entire forest floor.  In order to break this up, there will also be dirt patches so everything isn't saturated with grass.  In order to make the base texture more interesting, there will be moss patches.  On top of those things, paths or groups of rocks will be placed.  The rock patterns are going to be supernatural in nature so that they look like they were purposefully placed in circles and other such shapes.

Below, I've already begun working on the above plan for testing:

This screenshot shows progress on the cliffs, and how our floor is constructed in tiles.  This screenshot also shows that we can't afford to have small details like the moss everywhere, which is why we are going with a base texture, and moss scattered here and there.  It needs a lot of work, but we are making progress!

One last thing!  Since Khoa has already set up the groundwork for the boss battle with Time Witch (dang that was quick!  Khoa write a post about that too!), I did a formal concept piece/turnaround for Time Witch.  So far, I've only been able to do the front view.

I feel like I need to do something with her face.  Perhaps rounding it out a bit more will help her look more childish.  Anyway, there is her design, and below, here is a comparison to her size relationship to Life Witch:

I am hoping that Hank will have time to model her so we can hand her off to our rigger and animators.  She might see the light of day before long!  But that's all for now!  We aim to bring more and more updates every week...starting probably two weeks from now!

Too many things!!

It's only week two of the quarter and things are already very crazy for us.  A majority of the Bala team has been working on another game called Prisma (please excuse the very dated site).  We've been working very hard to try to send it to E3, so hopefully we can make it!  Because getting to E3 with Prisma is so important to us, Bala, unfortunately, has fallen to the wayside.  But do not fear!

Working on Prisma so hard these past two weeks has enlightened us with a pretty good pipeline.  I guess all the pressure made us get our act together and crank out stuff like clockwork, which inadvertently is very good for Bala.  Production on Prisma should die down a week and a half from now, and then we can start managing Bala more closely than we have been able to in what seems like a long time.

That said, please accept this text-only blog post, and please support Prisma in the meantime!

You can like both games on Facebook where there will be regular updates in the near future!
Bala  //  Prisma          

Wait... what did you say you want us to do?!

For this final quarter, here's a basic rundown of what would be nice to have to present to all of our peers and professors:

- Polished Title Screen
- Polished Tutorial
- Polished Upgrade System
- Polished Level Selection Menu
- Workable Time Dungeon

So far, we have a title screen and tutorial, though they are far from polished.  We also have a rough outline of how the upgrade system will play out, though we've yet to implement it, likewise with the level selection menu and Time Dungeon.

So a progress report on completion:

- Title Screen: 80%
- Tutorial: 80%
- Upgrade System: 20%
- Level Selection Menu: 10%
- Time Dungeon: 10%

* Note: This is just an estimation of how "complete" we think each item currently is.  Depending on what we want to change and how much we want to tweak, this can vastly change the level of completion.  Furthermore, this gives no time estimate in regards to how long we will need to take to finish each item.

The real question is:  "Is this doable?"

Personally, I believe this is doable, especially given what we have.

The ideal situation is having every member of the team working in tandem.  While the art team is polishing the tutorial and title screen, the programmers and technical artists will start implementing the Time Dungeon.  At the same time, one person will be delegated to the Upgrade System, and be responsible for implementing it and providing basic art, until the art team is ready to start work.  Another person will be delegated to the level select and implement that.

Once those tasks have come together, the art team can focus on polishing the assets for the upgrades and level select, and if they have time, the Time Dungeon.  At that time, the programmers can go back and fix bugs and the technical artists can work on more particles and effects where they are needed.

Of course, this is under the assumption that everything will proceed according to schedule, which in reality is not likely to happen.

Stuff happens.  Deal with it.  It's called life.

Nevertheless, even if we are unable to get the final bit of polish in, we should still be able to get a good deal of work done on the three new items listed: upgrades, level select, and Time Dungeon.

The reason we should have at least these three items included with the final build is that they will give a complete run of the game cycle.  Once these three are in, the Player will be able to do every unique action in the game at least once.  Afterwards, it is merely continuing off of what we've already done: adding more upgrades, more dungeons, more flashy particles and effects that have little to do with anything except look cool and pretty.

With everything listed, the task may seem a bit daunting, especially considering that we took two quarters to show a tutorial and title screen, but it's possible.  It will be a lot of work.  It will take a lot of dedication.  But in the end, it'll be all worth it.

Beginning at the End

We begin and end
Often blinded by closeness
But step back, and watch
- Random Haiku I came up with in 1 minute

And so another quarter quietly reaches its conclusion.  Perhaps the red trees in the tutorial reminded me of red Japanese maple, but I thought the haiku is quite fitting.

Throughout the quarter, there was so much we wanted to do but never had enough time to approach; the level never seemed quite done.  But now is a good time to stand back and see what we have accomplished and what we still have to do.

First, a chart of what we set out to accomplish and what we managed to accomplish.

According to this chart, we didn't seem to get as much done as we wanted, but note that the final column is Polish, which we wanted to leave until last, once everything is done.  Also, here's what an expanded list looks like:

This is a general overview of what the tutorial contains.  Each object on there can be expanded further and further, each with its own set of requirements.  Of course, looking at the overall picture, we still have so much to do that it can seem overwhelming.  Breaking it up like this, we can see that the small moving parts that are required to make the bigger picture are for the most part done. 

Now, let's see the difference between last quarter and this quarter.

The difference is clear and shows definite progress.  Of course, it always refreshing to step back and reflect on what has been done before planning out what is to be done.

Ironically, the title screen, the first thing the player would see, was left until last; and as a last minute announcement, the title screen came out relatively left field.  We thought that it was a "nice to have but not necessarily required" element by the end of the quarter and so put it off until the last minute. When it became somewhat expected, we had to whip up a title screen within one day or less.

The original idea was to have a static image with the the words "Press Start" as the title screen, but doing so at that point in time was impossible since the image would have to be designed, drawn, colored, shaded, and implemented.

Instead, I suggested using elements we already have to create a title screen.  One hour later, an interactable title screen is built.


Personally, I always find interactable menus charming, maybe not always the right choice, but at least the developers are trying to immerse the player into the world, even at the start.

When the player starts the game, it will fade into the scene you see above.  The player can move the character around and start learning how to interact with the world, even at the start screen.

So far, only the Start and Quit signposts work.  They will glow when the player is near them and pressing "A" or "spacebar" will activate them.  Start will fade out to black and lead the player to the first level.  Eventually, the idea would be to have some kind of transition.  Personally, I would like specific particles to play depending on the level loaded, such as falling leaves when entering a forest level, or bubbles when entering a water level.

Also, the title screen is not fully complete.  Ideally, there would be small interactable objects in the environment that would respond to the player's bullets.  This would help to teach the player how to play the game, even before the tutorial.

There is still plenty to be done, but that's a story for another time.  Until then...

What you've done 'til now
What you'll do to continue
Take pride in your own...
- Another Random Haiku in 1 minute

Wait... your "own" what?...

mas

Put in new things.

Signs of guidance.  Still need to put content on them, but they are placed.

Big ol plank of wood is now many pieces of wood.

A door.  And signage.

Another sign and water fish being ridiculous.

Too ridiculous.

Mosh pit of death.

Meiosis has made a come back (kind of).

Fire pillar things for boss room.

The report this week is that we had a surprise playtest this week so instead of doing anything I freaked out a lot and made trees and put in more trees yeah

Check out these new trees and gizmos.

Check out this new door.

Check out these sad babies.

Check out our plan to help lead the player in the right direction.

Check out what we did instead (because no time!).  Trees.

We are in the home stretch of this quarter, and we still have a lot to do!  My motto this quarter is "It can only get better from here!"  We're getting there. 

beautiful suspicious girl

This was going to be a post about our future goals, but I'd rather share these fun images of Life Witch instead.  Our composer (Chris Lucero) took on the task of rigging her so we could try to stay on schedule and get her animations in by the end of the quarter.  We're cutting it a little close, but hopefully we can do it! Now, without further ado:  

Whoooosh

Added bonus!