Coding - Patrol Revamp - John Howard

Task

To overhaul the patrol into a better format

Overview

Overhauling the patrol code was something I mentioned previously. Now as of the moment the patrol code is running as a simple void function. However the function updates itself upon reaching different destination and needed a wait time. So it made sense to bring the code out of a void function and into a coroutine. By doing this I have allowed the patrol to be called once and therefore allow the calling to travel through each component one at a time. This allows it to update only when necessary and provide a pause at the end for the AI to stand before carrying on its assigned path. Furthermore this means I can call the routine once from the TranstoNoAlert state and thus maintain minimal constant calls. This overhaul is a very strong iteration I feel and development is most likely not going to be required on this script as it is already rather well laid out.

Code

Environment Designs - Matt Glen (Concept Art)

The first concepts for the environment and setting of this game were provided by other members of the group. What we decided to go for was a sort of underground dungeon, permeated throughout with binding roots. The theme is a sort of magical prison, and so it should feel fairly mysterious and ethereal, yet oppressive and foreboding at the same time. Using these ideas as a starting point, I first toyed around with an idea for the outside of the prison, which should be at least predominantly underground and involve plenty of tree roots. Here are a few rough ideas:

 

However, this didn't really work, and the illustrations weren't particularly strong, so I left the exterior alone and focused on the inside. The first room I started working on was a large, cathedral-like space in which the player should first encounter the Golem enemies in the game. I began with a moodboard of relevant interiors and spaces, focusing on grand designs as well as library-like environments.

Crystal Room

The cathedral theme has clear implications of mysticism, grandeur and ancient importance, and I felt the inclusion of library aesthetics would add to the sense of age and forgotten learning. Following these influences I began the piece below.

As a starting point, it does work on some of the themes I wanted it to, and it does include some nice parts, but the illustrations is severely flawed, and even more cartooney than my work normally is. I'm not hugely experienced with environments, they are not quite my forte, and this weighed heavily on the piece. However, reconsidering this as a practice run, I saw what elements I liked and wanted to take forward, and also what parts I did not like. I also decided to work harder at establishing perspective before committing to paint (an error I make regularly) in order to make the scene read better and be more useful when it comes to building the space in 3D. I went back to the drawing board and produced some sketches.

A few of these designs read well, and had a strong sense of drama and atmosphere, and so I compiled a few of my favourite parts into a perspective plan for another go at a full colour piece.

This is not a perfect use of perspective, but it is much stronger thanks to taking the time to actually think about where objects should be placed in 3D space from a human perspective. Using this more in my work should hopefully improve it quite a bit. Once I had this foundation, with a bit of painting I got it to this stage:

This is a much more dramatic and interesting scene than the first attempt, but more importantly the sense of the room is conveyed in a much better way, and it is easier to place yourself in the space thanks to the more recognisable perspective. There are still some fairly noticeable issues with this, but it is still a great improvement on the oddly warped and confusing illustration I created the first time around. The lighting creates a feeling of intrigue which I think draws the eye to where I want it to go, and that sets the scene for what the player will encounter when they enter this room in-game.

Screaming Cells

I decided to give the rooms interesting names to keep their identities clear in my mind. It helps to set them apart a little. For this room, essentially a corridor with cells coming off of it and a larger chamber at the end, I decided to revisit the faces theme that came about when designing the Golem. I liked this sort of grotesque-like, Gothic aesthetic, and it seemed to lend an element of unsettling mystery to the place. I put together a moodboard of dungeon-like areas just to get some ideas.

Once again, I set up a perspective guide, and then began painting over it. This time, I went for a scheme of pretty much entirely green, but from shades of primary to a yellower tone.

The end result is once again pretty atmospheric, and the perspective helps place you in the scene. However, I feel this piece is a lot less successful than the Crystal Room one, especially due to the fairly haphazard application of textures over the painting. Overall though, it does get across what I wanted to with the room and how it should feel to the player entering it.

Threshold Steps

For the last room, I didn't create a moodboard. I wanted instead to throw together some ideas in a sketch and then paint it up to completion. I knew the rough dimensions and form of the space from an initial level layout sketch that was given to me, and so I drew these out and then began painting in some ideas for colour and lighting. A sort of Mount Doom-esque theme seemed appropriate for the final room, and I wanted to make it seem at least a little like a stage on which some grand event was going to occur.

I'm pretty happy with how this piece came together. It does contain plenty of perspective mistakes, again, as well as a numerous amount of other issues, but I do like the way the fiery glow plays off of the structure and the bridge. While I think the green magic could have been implemented better, it does have a dramatic and nicely contrasting aesthetic that draws your eye straight to the centre of action. As a dramatic final set, this should probably work quite well.

Coding - Alerts, Chase, CCand Search - John Howard

Task

To create an AI setup that allows it to Chase and Search for the player

Step One -  Core State Machine

Before even thinking about setting up the functions needed for chasing and searching I first need to establish a method of calling them. Thinking back on my previous project I realized the appropriate way of controlling the calling of functions would be the state machine. I actually really like using these as they help isolate code segments and therefore isolate problems, if they may arise. Simply they help structure the code into manageable areas and allow the calling of them through states. Within this state machine I set up three main states, NoAlert, Amber, and Alert. And three transitional states, TransNoAlert, TransAmber, and TransAlert. The transitional states allow me to call and stop the appropriate sections of other code before moving into the core state. Setting up this state machine didn't actually take much time or research due to my experience with them in the previous game.

Core Switch function

Step Two - Alert State Machine

Next I had to set up a state machine that would control what the AI would do when alert. This state machine is called when the AI has sight of the player. The two states within here would be Combat and Chase. For now I will leave combat and start working on that after I have finished the intial movement codes. This is because I want to have everything else sorted so that I can devote my full attention to creating a combat script. This statemachine has the same switch mechanic as the core state with a change of what controls the state. Basically when this state is active i'm constantly calling a distance checker which keeps track of the distance between the player and this gameobject(the AI). Then by using an if statement I can compare the distance against a float of combat distance and say that if the distance is less than or equal to the combat distance to change to combat state. This just means that the ai will stop when close to the player and start chasing again when not.

Distance checker and playeractive

Sidenote PlayerActive

I was finding it tiresome to constantly having to create a gameobject to assign the player too or calling the player via a Find command as it was both repetative and messy. So I created a script called PlayerActive that stored public statics enabling me to call any static from there in any script. So I stored variables such as the player gameobject and rigidbody.

Step Three - Chase

Setting up the chase was actually really simple. A constant calling of the ChaseUpdate() function constantly setting the nav.destination to the transform of the player in question.

Chase Script

Step Four - Search

Creating the search was the hardest part of the setup of these so far. But nonetheless I was able to create a rough working search function. Firstly the search script launches from the core state machine once the AI loses sight of the player after having chased or been combat with them. Within the sight script I have stored a variable of personal lastsight for the AI and the nav.destination is set to this point in space. Once the AI has reached this point a random point is created in a sphere around the AI and a timer is started. Once the timer reaches a certain value the core state is told to return the AI to patrolling. Now while this works I find it to be both very buggy and very hacky. I think turning this into a corotuine would be a much better idea and instead of basing the point on a sphere basing it in a cone that is roughly aimed at the player. This would allow the AI to search in a much more sensible manner. However as a rough setup this works.

This video showcases the search along with a tester squad function that I decided to remove for now.

Thoughts

 I would like to get this put into a game environment as soon as possible as it is important to test these mechanics. However we seem to have no player controller yet so I must continue testing using the standard one I have set up. Hopefully within the next week or so the player controller will be at a point that can be tested with the AI. 

Coding - AI Sight - John Howard

Task

To create a sight script which allows the AI to recognize when the player is in sight.

Overview

To create this script I admit I took a lot from the stealth tutorial sight input. In fact is the exact same script modified. Using a collider to initialize the script and taking a slice of the collider to act as the cone of vision. This then turns on and off the playerinsight bool. This enables me to have a strong starting point to edit the code. The notion of vector3s along with angles towards the player have got me thinking about ways to set this up in a much better ways as this current setup has some vital flaws. For example the cone of vision is the only sight section so peripheral vision doesn't exist and the notion of a collider being dragged back and forth feels a tad outdated. But for now the code does the job and enables me to set up the statemachine and then chase/search scripts. Since this is such a temporary script I shall forgo sharing the script here, also because its available on the stealth site, however once i have researched into raycasts and angle finding much more I will present the newer sight model I have in mind.

Concept Art - Starting Room - John Howard

Overview

As it turned out I ended up having an additional concept task to finish before fully stopping concepting for this project. And that was to recreate a new design for the initial prison room. It appears the group has moved away from the whole idea of a root system breaking throughout the complex. I think this is actually a poor design choice as the roots were a unique element that prevent the environment just feeling like a generic dungeon. However as I am not the group leader I have let my thoughts be known and just decided to do as asked.

Image

The concept of the main room was to be him chained to the floor and I liked the idea of this being placed near a precipice or pit still as this helps highlight the prisoners importance. I went towards a very green colour scheme trying to get a magical feel. This was further attempted by the shards of floating crystal which, as mentioned in previous posts, are what bind his powers. I couldn't resist adding a root system in along the pillar so as to try break up the similarity of the piece. I tried forcing the perspective lines inwards. However i'm not entirely sure it worked, specially on the front collums.

Modular Testing - James McAndrew Environment

Being the main environment artist it is up to me to get the level to look like the concepts produced by the concept artists. However as there isn't any concepts or level designs at the moment, as we are still in the very early stages of the game development process. Because of this i though that i might as well do a few testings and try outs to see what would work and what defiantly won't.
To this, as i know that at some point in the level there would be a traditional dungeon, brick wall environment. I thought that i would start to test how to get the best result for a normal mapped brick-like wall.

I started by really roughly blocking out a wall in maya. This worked kinda well and gave me foundations to build on.

This first attempt was just to see what the outcome would be like. The low poly didn't fit the shape of the bricks very well and the actual bricks themselves are pretty much all the same, there is only 4 or 5 variations. The low poly is very clearly visible in certain parts. I did try and make it so that there would be gaps in the wall. This is dank dirty poorly maintained area and the walls would show this, however i don't think this worked very well and don't look as good as i was hoping.

After a couple more attempts with this process i managed to get a result i was happy with. This later attempt worked a lot better than the previous did. I think this worked a lot better because the bricks were a lot squarer and a lot less rounded, this meant that the low poly could fit around the high poly a lot better. No i didn't sculpt all these bricks myself luckily there is an IMM brush in zbrush that has a number of variations of bricks and stones in. I really liked the outcome of this, however in an attempt to get some true depth and bring one of the brick out of the wall i brought the low poly out and this didn't work very well.

As the tri count for all in game assets is only 300,000 modular walls, floors, ceilings, etc... is the only really option as 5 of the same modular walls only count as one. So a relatively detailed models can be made. Also as we are also allowed to use normal maps this project. Highly detailed models and modular pieces (such as walls and floors) can be produced and baked down. The only tight limitation this project is the 100 texture sheet limit. As we have been talking about PBR textures and shaders, this number will quickly get used up.

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How to Move - Alessio Giustarini

As I've been mostly working on developing and perfecting the character controller for the group project I thought I'd give a quick update on how it's going.

The image above shows how the animator looks so far.

It's already gone through a couple of iterations and all the modifications done to it have their own particular reason. We can start to see the basic motion and death states which are pretty much standard for any animator.

I might eventually insert a Blend Tree State for the motion so the character can then easily smooth between walking and running, but it's not a priority at the moment.

On the side of that we have the combat system which is going to be quite unique to this game:

the idea is to have a three hit melee combo which will then smoothly combine with spell casting in between the attacks to enhance attacks, boost defences or dash away.

To do this I've had to create three different Basic attack states which were originally connected to one idle stance state but this cause the animations to play on loop. 

To solve it I created a stance state for each attack transition, which solved the problem, in part: no the combo loops itself all together but I believe that is something that is going to be solved in code.

As far as the spell casting, it still has to be developed since I was concentrating on making the initial animations done to figure out the process and any eventual complications.

In addition I added a second layer for combat in motion. This layer is masked so that it only affects arms and head of the model, so that when moving the animator would use the animations for the legs from moving and the attack animations from the combat layer.

The way it was set up though might change as changes are made to the combat system, for example we are already discussing changing to having a small time during each attack during which the character will be stationary, rendering the extra layer useless.

No matter what we will probably still use it for some of the spell casting but it's still to be decided.

Next step is refining the code and then start on the spell casting part of it.

Coding - AI Patrol - John Howard

Task

The first element of AI I needed to setup was the patrol system.

Stage One - Animator
The first thing that needed to be setup before even beginning the patrol code was that of an actual AI  itself. So I decided to take the ethan model from standard assets along with its animations. However I did not take the animator itself. I decided that if I am to setup a custom animator for the AI later I first must learn how to do so. To learn this I decided to follow the setup stages of the unity Stealth tutorial series, available here, this allowed me to create the animator myself but also make sure I was doing it in the correct manner. However I did avoid using Hash IDs as they have now become redundant in the newer unity version. Eventually I ended up with a working and functional blend tree for movement for the AI.

Stage Two - Patrolling

Naturally the next step was to begin the patrol code. I began with the idea that setting the NavmeshAgent(nav) destination would be the main way of developing this movement. By storing waypoints within a transform array I was able to set it so that upon reaching the nav.destination the waypoint index would go up by one, or if at end of array reset to start, and thus set the destination to the next waypoint. This system allows multiple waypoints from as little as two to as many as needed. Again the stealth tutorial was a lot of help for starting this. I also found out how to apply icons to empty gameobjects as gizmos. Which enables me to see objects without a renderer in the scene view.

Video

Thoughts

The patrol works as intended but I believe it can be redone in a much cleaner and better format. However the learning of arrays is a valuable tool and one that can be applied to multiple areas of this project. I shall revisit this patrol over the coming week or two and get it working in a better fashion. 

Initial Enemy Designs - Matt Glen (Concept Art)

After our first group meeting about our Game Project, a few of us went away to come up with some initial designs. I set to work coming up with some creatures to fit into the magical dungeon we had decided to set our game in.

We knew we wanted a few different types of enemies: a large, tough but slow unit, a smaller ranged unit and then an even smaller swarming unit that only posed a threat in a group. I started off with a few rough sketches before trying out silhouettes.

Sketches

These very quick sketches were to plot out some initial ideas for shapes and types of enemies, but unfortunately none particularly worked well or stood out. A few of them may have been usable with development in a different sort of game, but for our purposes it was back to the drawing board.

This was no matter, however, as it helped rule out what direction I didn't want to go in, which is just as important as settling on a design.

 Golem

After the lack of success in the sketches, I took a different approach and took to silhouetting forms. From initial discussions, the idea of an inanimate statue of a humanoid being brought to life via magic in order to patrol the prison had been quite popular, and so I began by gathering some images and creating a moodboard, as well as working from one put together by another member of the team.

Once I had these references as a guide, I began drawing out silhouettes with a few variations on this theme.

I knew I wanted the character to be broad and heavy at the top, possibly balanced out with a very slightly caricatured smallness in the bottom half to give the form a strong appearance and visual flow. After picking out some favourites, I began creating slight variations. 

Eventually I started to know what I was after, and what was beginning to work a little better. With this in mind I settled on a few last variants, all fairly similar in most ways, and built up the level of detail a bit more. I then splashed on a few colour schemes to see how they read.

After consulting the team, it seemed that variant 3, with its more face-like metallic head and mystical purple and yellow glow was the favourite, and so I painted it up to a more detailed final image.

The result was fairly successful, ignoring some technical issues with the drawing, such as the elongated leg to which I had attempted to apply, for some reason, an element of perspective even though the image is essentially a flat, front-on view. It looks fairly intimidating, mystical and also powerful, which is exactly what we were aiming for. Hopefully this design will transition well into 3D, but I think it should look fairly imposing to the player. Next I moved on to the ranged unit.

Enchanted Archer

I began again with silhouettes, this time focusing on a smaller form, but not one that was scrawny or too thin. I felt this enemy still had to look quite menacing, but clearly less brutally strong than the Golem. I didn't create a moodboard for this design, mainly because I wanted the character to tie in closely with the Golem concept, and so instead used that image to inform my choices.

Once these initial roughs were in place, I knew what direction I wanted to go in with them fairly quickly. I didn't like the idea of the bow very much, it seemed out of place and too cumbersome. I instead decided to have the unit simply cast magic at the player with its hands, and then moved on to variations.

The rolled-back head was an accident that came out of the previous design phase, but it lent a sort of unsettling menace to the figure that reminded me of the zombie enemies from the first Halo game, and so I went along with it. I once again did a few colour variations and showed them to the team, but I was fairly sure we would end up pursuing a matching palette to the Golem, and so we did. Once again I produced a higher detail colour image of the unit in the same mystical colours as before.

I think this piece works fairly well. While not a proper three-quarter view it offers a slight inkling at what the character would look like from the front and side, and gives an overall impression of what it would be like to encounter the enemy in game. 

Skulker

As a group we had talked about including a smaller, weaker enemy type that would only present a real threat in numbers. However, to begin with we had no real idea what this unit would look like, and the only real concepts flying around were phrases like 'attack dog'. I started drawing out some silhouettes to see if anything sprang together.

Unfortunately, nothing really came of this. The designs I began just didn't fit with what we wanted to do with the game, or the other units that I had come up with. Also, the top right silhouette above is just plain messed up. No other way to put it. Where did that come from.

The initial design that we eventually went with for this class of enemy actually came from another member of the group, after I hit a road-block, who produced the below illustration:

From this atmospheric mood piece, which set out the function and bearing of the creature very well, I drew out another version and included some elements to tie it in with my designs a little more, such as yellow lights all over the body and a sort-of control unit.

This unit is a nice change to the other humanoid enemies, which should add a bit of variety to the combat of the game and look quite intimidating in a cluster. I'm mostly happy with the illustration here, which is quite line-heavy, but in a way that works well with the colour. Once again, I seem to have forgotten that this piece is entirely flat and devoid of perspective at some stage and have drawn an oddly sloping shadow, but this should be easy to fix when I go on to do model sheets for these enemies.

Once the whole group is satisfied with the designs, I'll draw up model sheets for each of the units so that 3D versions can be made up for the game.

Initial Rig Test - Character - Jack Schular Animation/VFX

 

These are the initial punch animations I used to test the humanIK rig in Maya and practice animation techniques. I wanted to create a fighting stance that the player would be stationary in whilst in combat however the character coder wants to create mobile combat so the next iteration will attempt to take movement into account. The animations I created used too many key frames over a long duration so the animation ended up too slow and jittery in places. I will need to choose a limited number of keyframes in the future and work on timings.

Presentation - John Howard

Overview

I decided to create a proper presentation reel for the first milestone. I believe just talking about our ideas in a non-presented format would both be unprofessional and lead to misunderstandings. I simply used prezi and just set everyone's work up so as to be as easily viewed as possible.

Link - https://prezi.com/kbhmrkyt0bns/team-chest-arm/

In regard to my area of work I got a lot of input and feedback from the reception of this presentation. Concept art wise the notion arose from feedback that I need to work more on my perspective and placement which is completely correct. And in terms of the future code parts the choice of developing one for now seems to be accepted. However it was suggested to just develop it to work before adding major functionality which makes sense.

Coding - Overview - John Howard

Initial 

My role within the group has now been changed to become a coder rather than a concept artist. And although I would prefer to have stayed as a pure concept artist the call has been made by the lead. I've been assigned one major area to code. That of the Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Overview

In regards to the AI I have been writing up and developing some initial ideas. The first stage of which was to decide the different types of AI. This means working initial combat setups and the required behavior.

• Golem
• Close combat
• High Health
• Searches 
• Archer
• Ranged
• Seeks cover
• Weak
• Skulker
• Close combat
• Low Health
• Flocks

Each of these will have a unique feel and function to them. And as such will have varying degrees of complexity to them. Now I haven't actually developed AI before and thus this project will be a new challenge for me. And due to this being an initial try and the fact that the group wanted it more I shall be focusing on getting the golem AI done first and then moving on to others if time permits.

Plan

The golem AI has a few major parts to it, listed below, and as such a plan of action must be made. Working out how to approach the code and which area to start with first. After a while of consideration, with many sketched flow charts, I have come to the following list of needed elements.

1. Patrol
2. Sight
3. Search
4. Combat
5. Animator

However i'm sure as time develops this list of 5 elements will become much larger as I'm forced to revamp different areas or add extra elements. Yet these core elements are the most needed for now. I look forward to this challenge.

Research

Moving into this topic I have had to research a lot of different sections. Firstly the general feel of the AI should work like that within Guild Wars 1(GW1). The enemy will react to an input, sight for mine proximity for GW1, and then proceed to chase the player until a condition is met. I believe a sight system for this would work better than the chase till distance reached that resides in GW1. This is because our level will be quite small and adding a distance chase would feel awkward. However being able to lose the enemy by dodging out of sight will allow us to keep a smaller level as well as adding the additional gameplay of sneaking around the sight radius. The unity forums and reddit will be a great asset for helping developing this as well as the unity Stealth tutorial from which i'll establish the first setup and code snippets. 

Concept Art - Skulker - John Howard

Overview

My final concept task was one I assigned to myself. The current creatures were all very humanoid and I wanted to try create an interesting variation of an enemy. This enemy would also act very differently to the Golem and Archer types the other two enemy types will be.

Concept

The idea I came up with in the end was roughly based on insectoid-humanoid mergers. I wanted to create a creature that would sneak around and be rather close to the floor. Something that would use cover to group up and then swarm the enemy, thus whilst being weak individually as a whole they become dangerous. The design itself was made to be very dark so as to blend into the many shadows of the dungeon with a metal carapace that reflects the glow of its gems. They crawl on their stomachs dragging themselves with their claws. Their attacks are leaping like and try and drag the intended victim  to the floor.

Concept Art - Crystal Room - John Howard

Overview

The next environment I was asked to design was a corridor that held a crystal of some sort at the end. This crystal would be one of the ones that gives the player a power. And so has to look important enough to draw the players attention quite easily.

The Image

The first idea I had before even starting the piece was to again try experimenting with perspective. And as can be seen from the image I went for a 3/4 view from above with a slight fish-eye lens effect. I tried to go for a very dramatic colour scheme with lots of reds so to contract with the usual greys/purples so as to attract the players attention more. The crystal itself I split into 4 so as to have the option of animating around each other so as to again highlight its importance to the player. The painting of the images itself was interesting as I was messing around with colours but wanting to keep it rough still. I believe this worked for the floor but had lesser success on the far walls. As a design concept itself I think I needed more development to flesh out this idea and give it a more unique feel. But sadly I have been informed by the group that after the next creature concept I am to become the AI coder. So I must leave this development to the main concept artist.

Concept Art - Prison room - John Howard

Intro
As my initial role within the group has been designated as a concept artist I have begun to piece together some environment ideas so as to have some concepts ready for when the environment artist has finished their level designs.

Overview

In regards to the first room I have been given by the group some general key themes. Firstly it is to be an underground wizard holding area. With roots coming through the walls and a general feel of disarray and unnaturalness. Basically a blend of a classic dungeon with more magical elements too it.

Stage One

The first concept I came up with is the one above. The idea of the roots holding a crystal/rock prison in which the main character is imprisoned in. I wanted to portray a large space as well as getting some architecture and potential game routes shown. The colours are very cold as I was trying to get a dingy feel to it. However the perspective felt too stiff and the room not extravagant enough for the purpose of the room itself, as it is meant to hold a powerful wizard. So I decided to leave this concept as it is for now and move on to another idea.

Stage Two

Within this second image I wanted to try a more minimal approach to the prison structure itself. I approached this concept with the notion of a giant root system acting as the bars of the prison itself. I then included two crystal braziers as a means of holding his power back. This is because the group has decided that the player gains his powers back by retrieving them from crystals. This meant a portrayal within the starting area might help the player understand their importance rather than just saying  "hey heres a crystal you now have a power". The colours of this image feel a bit more successful than the previous one and the design itself feels quite interesting with the crossroad notion. However this concept must be halted as the group as a whole have decided that they would rather a statue be within a room such as this rather than a prison. So whilst this idea may be developed further along in regards to another room. For now I must develop a newer concept.

Stage Three

The final stage. In the end the group decided to go with something similar to this last concept. I tried to take elements from the two previous concepts. The hanging roots from the first and the crossroad/pit idea from the second. I then introduced the notion of a statue as mentioned above and made that hold the crystal that would drain his powers. I tried to experiment with the perspective a lot more within this image. I find that I tend to create very static and side on environments. And whilst i believe the attempt was not in vain. I feel it could be a lot better. And that I should take much more time on construction lines rather than trying to fix these elements within the painting phase, However the idea as a whole I am quite fond of. It sets the scene and feels dramatic enough to have a sense of importance. The idea of ascending out by having to climb the stairs helps provide the notion that this prisoner was supposed to be long forgotten and buried.

Thumbnail Concepts - John Howard

The first step when trying to understand what environments a game should have is to create a set of thumbnails and colour studies. This gives a broad range of options to the group and members can begin to visualize the direction the game ought to be taken in. And thus I created a set of images to start of this discussion.

Thumbnail Concepts

I'm a fan of the top right one. A dream-like feel with pastel colours to act as a unique take on the whole prison concept. However the team as a whole were more inclined to the bottom left with hints of the top left. A classic RPG dungeon with a root system clawing its way around the levels. And whilst I would rather go with the ethereal type one the groups idea of an under-forest dungeon could have its own merits.

Pen sketch of a under-forest complex

Intial Game Idea - John Howard

Initial Setup

I came into this project with a general idea of a rpg leveling wizard. The notion being that there would be multiple skill lines to progress down and the like. When speaking to the group I put this idea forward and it was met with a measure of success. We then developed it further and tried to piece together a rough game concept.

The idea of skills and being able to unlock them through an interactive 'spell book' emerged and then the concept that the playable character was actually a villain. Perhaps letting the player play as the overpowered version of him before taking away their powers and forcing them to relearn them and escape from a prison.

From here we realized we needed to concept some ideas about what a prison could be. We had the general dungeon one, a mind one, an underforest, and, my favorite, an ethereal prison realm. Each had their own supporters within the group and as such I took it upon myself to come up with some initial environmental concepts that I will post when they are done.