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Introduction
A small development diary on making a small 3D iOS adventure game in the style of Grim Fandango. All development on this project started on the 20th of december 2012.
Things the game should contain
- GameCenter achievement support
- Character control relative to active camera
- Proper menu system
- Option to save/load progress
- Inventory to store items the player picks up
- Gameplay time tracker
- Speech tree
- Should run with at least 25fps on iPad 3
- High quality realtime cutscenes
- Code should scale to other platforms (PC/Mac) without elements needing to be rewritten
Things the game may contain
- Dynamic news feed on the menu screen to inform about news
- Buttons to access GameCenter and Facebook sharing on menu screen
- Chapter selection depending on progress
- Game rendering in retina resolution on iPad 3
Outcome
The final product is not being developed for commercial distribution, but if the quality of the product is good enough it may be uploaded to the Apple App store.
About me
I am a 22 year old graphic designer from Denmark with a passion for cinematography and interactivity. My stance on games is that it can be an art form by which we can express ourselves on the same levels as Movies, Music, Photography and Illustration, but is for the most part limited by fundamental design choices that aims at making the core gaming experience about fast player choices rather then go for a more slow pace that enables the player to take in the rich content they are served.
As a media form, the consumer of the content is consistently underrated and the aim is generally not to respect the player, but instead to hold their hands and to make things far more elaborate then they need to be. Movies are a great platform to look at and a big inspiration on how to create experiences that can appeal to wide audiences while respecting them. Movies are generally pretty elaborate in the ways they tell their story, but due to the condensed nature of the medium, a lot of the underlying meaning of the entirety comes from what we perceive in the minor details for actually engaging in the experience we are presented.
Another stance for me is regarding the nature of the mobile gaming market outside of the dedicated console market is that the platforms aren’t bad at all in terms of hardware, there are just not enough original quality content on those devices. There are too big a focus on everything being a social experience and creating lazy dumped down experiences for a quick cash grab.
Initial progress
A video of the projects current state:
As of now the basic fundaments are mostly in place for controlling the character and make it move relative to the active camera. I need to implement a function that makes the movement direction stick to the direction the player was moving in before a camera shift in order to get rid of some navigational annoyances.
The active camera is triggered by the player entering a triggezone and is then switched. The script could possibly be improved to make me only need to select the camera i need to switch to.
There is an onscreen joystick for now, will be changed so the entire screen acts as a touchpad at a later time.
GameCenter is implemented and can properly award the player with an achievement for reaching X situation in the game. To ensure that GameCenter can always be started by the game regardless of the changes i make in a level or change how the application starts, GameCenter is loaded automatically as the game boots and is not tied to a given scene.
The script is easy to implement in the scene and is easily changeable to the desired achievement to give to the player. The code also wont run the GameCenter specific activation if running on another platform, so the same script could be changed to trigger achievements in another framework (Steamworks).
As you can see from the video, there is a pretty broken logo fader in the beginning that needs to be fixed and some junk on the screen. Some of the test HUD items i have worked on will also scale to have the same height and width regardless of the resolution.
The next step i think will be to look at how i can create good cutscenes and have a look at how i want my player to interact with things in the environment. I also have a concept for a story in my head that i maybe wanna use for this project.
I really like how the lights play on the character as it walks down the hall. the setup almost reminds me of the first few resident evil games. It does look a little clunky going around corners, but im sure that has to do with the camera placement and all that, so im sure that’ll improve with time and practice, finding out what angles work best and all that.