Completion

So the time has come to ship our game. While sales only reached 5,000,000 units, about a quarter what we had hoped for, we are happy with the results.

But seriously, our final product at the end of the semester is quite pleasing. The parody aspect came together nicely with all of the imitation artwork and music, combined with the cheesy story.

The gameplay improved drastically as a result of some improved combat. The new features such as sparkle in the boss battle and the variability of the boss' attack really improve the experience. I think with combat improving we can really see the influences of Castlevania.

Our fourth level is very exciting to play. Complex level design makes for a difficult yet engaging struggle to make it towards the end of the level where you fight Jacob one last time.

Lastly, wiimote support adds even more replayability to the game as it gives an entirely different feel. Right now the game is probably too hard to beat using the wiimote, but parameters could easily be changed to rebalance the timing and jumps.

Ladies and Gentleman, we give you Twilight!

Level 4

Here is some concept art for level 4. As you can see, our level design is completely original. Now Edward must make his way through Jake's castle to his sweetheart Bella. But not if Jake has anything to say about it. Jake eagerly awaits Edward's arrival by Bella's prison, ruing over his past defeats. This time, he will not be beaten so easily.

We also finished adding all of the game's cutscenes. Level 3 now has enemies, too! All that remains is to implement Edward and Jake's special attacks for level 3 and 4, and further level polishing. The rough outline of levels 2, 3, and 4 is now in-game, but we are not satisfied with their difficulty and flow. We plan to use the next two weeks to implement the few remaining features, fix bugs, and balance gameplay.

We are all very happy with our progress. As of writing this blog entry, we have a full game. All of the general structure (levels, fights, etc.) have been implemented already. Players can now play the game from start to finish, and witness first hand this epic saga of love and vampiracy.

Cutscenes and Level 3

We're quickly approaching the end of the semester, and it's high time we got an important aspect of the game implemented--cutscenes. We have found that without cutscenes even people who have been around our game since the beginning don't understand what's going on! This week we did the opening cutscene. In it, Bella is kidnapped by Jake while Edward is in class. Now Edward must escape to the forest where Jake's werewolf henchmen are waiting.

We hope that the silliness of the game is made more apparent with this new cinematic. Previously our game has been misinterpreted as serious. Hopefully now players will see a distinct theme as they play through our game.

We also started on Level 3. Level 3 is based on a city in Italy. Edward must traverse rooftops in pursuit of his love. This level will stress jumping more than previously. If you miss a jump between some rooftops, you fall to your sparkling death. This level may not be as polished as we like because we are focusing on getting the cutscene in.

Let the Fight Begin!

We are currently working on implementing our first epic boss encounterbetween Edward and Jake! After completing the second level, there will be atransition into an area specifically designed for the fight and our mainantagonist will be there waiting for you. The fight will be broken down intotwo phases, Jake in his human form and in his werewolf form. The switch willoccur after you have damaged Jake a certain amount. It should be achallenging and exciting experience.

On a different note, we are still working on adding in features to ourexisting levels and making some touch ups. Such as going back into level oneand adding the correct enemy, the brutish jock who terrorizes every highschool hallway. As for level two, we've added in our standard health pack forthe game, a cute and cuddly baby deer. It just warms your heart to see Edwardcradle that adorable little guy as he drinks his blood. We will have moreinteresting features to add in soon enough that should really enhance thegame play, dare i say sparkling?

-Alex (posted by James)

Welcome to the Opera

This week we prepared a feast for your ears. We added tons of sound effects for damage and attacks by player and enemy. We added new tracks for high score and menu. We updated the track for level 1's background music. The overall effect of all this is that you can play this game with your monitor turned off and its still fun.

We also added a 2nd level and a soundtrack for the 2nd level. The setting for the 2nd level is in the woods, the platforms include trees with branches at varied heights and turtles. It's a veritable adventure.

We Have A Game

We now how a playable game. Gameplay consists of getting from Edward's classroom to the school exit by jumping on platforms and battling enemies. This week we worked on bugs so that the game could be more polished. We managed to eliminate all of the bugs that we created the week prior from retrofitting our code to be more object-oriented. Our game now consists of clearly defined states and substates. For example, at any given time the game is in a state based on what level it is in (or if it is at the menu screen) and every enemy and player has a substate which specifies what attack they are performing.

There are 9 substates:

• Still
• Jump
• Run
• StillAttack
• JumpAttack
• RunAttack
• StillDamaged
• JumpDamaged
• RunDamaged

When a player or enemy is in a "Damaged" state, they take damage and flash for a half of a second. If the player takes too much damage, it exits to the menu screen. If an enemy takes too much damage from Edward's slap (which is his one Attack state at the moment) they fall to the ground then disappear.

The level editor can be accessed at:
http://www.tstechonline.com/edward/tiles/EdwardLevelEditor.html

Entire levels can be designed, from placing the background tiles to placing the platforms! You can also load levels to edit ones that you have already made. Still left undone: placing state locations of enemies and players and triggers.

Level One

Here is an image that gives you an idea of what level one looks like. The black spots are replaced by platforms in the actual game. This image doesn't show enemies or floating platforms.

Spring Break WOOHOO!

Progress this week:

This week we completed level 1, the high school. There are two types of enemies, death pits and wolfmen. The wolfmen have random movement (2D) and death pits are those ever so dangerous holes in the floor of the high school. The high school appropriately has techno music playing over its audio system the whole time.

We spent a large amount of time working on game play mechanics. Although we did not add a lot of functionality this week, we completely reworked our framework so that adding more functionality is easy and modular. We did add in our first attack, a slap, which will kill a wolfman within 50 pixels of Ed's hand. The slap comes with a nice sound effect. We also added an improved damage animation that can be done on the ground, while running, and while jumping. The hp indicator is now on a top layer and typed in red so that the player can easily view his hp.

Overall Progress:

So to summarize, we now have a completed 1st level of our game. There are some bugs we need to work out, but all of the framework is there and the game is definitely playable and enjoyable now. We are getting closer and closer to the stage when all we do is churn out more content.

Looking Forward:

Our immediate goal is to fix the parts of the 1st level that aren't perfect because we believe the quality of the game is more important than the quantity of gameplay. However, after finishing that we aim to add more attacks for Edward and make more enemies who are also more sophisticated. Due to our improved Character framework, after working out bugs this process should be relatively straightforward. Then we will look towards the artistic side of our game by adding cut scenes and voice overs.

The side-scroller appears!

This week we developed the framework for level creation and utilization. We have an editor which creates a map of which tiles to use for the background. The objects are temporarily coded with arbitrary coordinates. The game is nearing the playable and enjoyable stage.

We added substantial artwork this week including all the tiles, an animation cycle for the enemy, and a shotty damage taking animation for Edward.

In terms of gameplay mechanics, we added the concept of health points and damage. You know can lose the game by getting hit by the enemy a few times. The enemy also 'chases' you now (moves and jumps randomly).

It's Looking Like a Platformer!

This week we implemented jumping and basic platform collisions. Edward can now hop around the level gleefully while his werewolf enemies bounce around the screen randomly. The platform collision scheme we used for this assignment is a little too simple for our plans so it will likely be replaced by an all-encompassing boundary detection system. This will allow us to make much more dynamic levels than rectangular grids. We still plan to have sloping ground much like in Braid.

Programming the jump sequence has given us an idea for how we will have to use states to control all of Edward's abilities. It has also given us an idea for how miserable collision detection can be. Our implementation at the moment is pretty good, but there exists some flaws that a cunning player could abuse. In typical gameplay, however, these problems should never come up.

Our next assignment will likely be to implement the first level with or without a level editor. This is another big leap for us, because it will then allow Edward to move outside the bounds of the screen.

Assignment 3

This week we made significant advances in the structure of our game. We modularized the code significantly and added a title screen, a menu screen, and a high scores screen. We added animation to Edward, our main character, but we need to iron out some details with his movespeed being cast to an integer all the time.

In the coming week or two, we will start to think about music and fixing all the little issues that we let slip through the cracks as we meet deadlines. Smaller details are becoming more important as the development moves further along.

The theme of cheesy romance has been well established already as both the menu and high score screen use hearts to poke fun at the Twilight series. Soon we will move into the world creation where that theme will be even more prevalent.

Stay tuned for more exhilarating updates!

The Beginning

In the beginning there was keyboard input, art, boundary detection, and sound. What we have is a building block for the mechanics of user input. Thats about it for coding progress... here is the write up provided by Tom which does a good job of encompassing our conceptual progress:

Background Story:

Jacob, Bella’s cunning werewolf friend, has grown tired of constantly living in teenage-vampire Edward’s shadow. Mad with jealously and hormone-fueled rage, he decides to steal Bella away. Edward must use his wit, craftiness and ability to sparkle in bright sunlight in order to vanquish his annoyingly-muscular foe and return Bella to his side. In the course of this game, the player must navigate Edward through several themed levels in pursuit of his adversary, gaining new powers and tussling with Jacob along the way.

Game Setting/Rough Levels:

The game begins in Edward’s high school, where the protagonist (through his convenient ability to read minds), hears that his beloved Bella is trapped in the woods and under duress. Rushing to her side (and navigating a maze of violent jocks, pitiless popular kids, and cliques of Bella’s nerdy friends), Edward finds that Jacob is in the midst of making off with his love. After a brief battle, Edward must pursue Jacob through the woods, feasting on deer and fighting off Jacob’s werewolf buddies as he goes. After finally catching Jacob, another showdown ensues, but Jacob is again able to escape, leading Edward into Port Angeles, WA’s seedy downtown, where he must contend with violent thugs and more tasty deer before reaching the outskirts of town, where Jacob mounts his trusty motorbike and takes the chase to the beaches and cliffs surrounding Forks. After another fight, Jacob finally evades Edward, fleeing to Italy with Bella and taking up refuge in a castle owned by the Volturi, a creepy clan of powerful vampires with a strong distaste for Edward and his family. Unperturbed, Edward gives chase, resulting in a final showdown with Jacob and the eventual salvation of his angst-ridden beloved.

The actual levels will be roughly as follows:

• Edward and Bella’s high school
• The woods outside Forks WA
• Downtown Port Angeles WA
• Beaches and cliffs
• The cathedral in Jacob’s castle

Game Mechanics:

The game itself will consist of platform-jumping with a side scrolling frame. Each level’s platforms, background, etc. will be themed for that particular level (i.e. tree branches for the woods, rocky outcroppings for the cliffs, etc). The emphasis of the first level will be on escape; after this, each level will follow a format in which there is a themed enemy (werewolves, thugs, Italians, etc.) which Edward must battle as he proceeds. At the end of each level, Edward will fight with Jacob, leading up the climactic showdown at the game’s conclusion. After each level, Edward will also gain a new vampire ability; thus, the range of possible attacks available to the player will increase as the game progresses, adding interest.

Since the first level will focus on escape, it will emphasize dexterity and acquaint the player with the game’s controls; once the player completes this level and gains his/her first vampire ability, the emphasis will transition to firepower, although the platform-jumping aspect will be preserved. Cut-scenes between each level will advance the plot. The motorbike portion of the third level will incorporate new sprites for the main character and perhaps different physics or a faster pace, but again the platform-jumping requirement will still be satisfied, with the player jumping Edward and his motorbike from platform to platform rather than jumping with Edward himself.

The protagonist will begin each level with a certain number of hit-points; being injured by an enemy (bitten by a werewolf, stabbed by a thug, scoffed at by a cheerleader, etc.) will reduce these. If the player loses all their hit-points, they will return to the beginning of the level they are currently playing. Deer will serve as power-ups; eating them will increase the player’s hit-points. During each boss battle (following each level), the screen will cease to scroll, and the fighting mechanics will change as the player squares off against Jacob. Jacob will become increasingly hard to vanquish as the game progresses; however, the player will also have new vampire abilities after each level, so this will serve to keep the game balanced. The player’s hit-points will regenerate at the beginning of each of these boss battles; if he/she loses to the boss, the boss battle will restart, but he/she will not have to complete the entire level.

Our general aesthetic will be dark and moody, in parody of the material we’re working from. This will be reflected in the character sprites, the level backgrounds, and the game music, which will be original, and will incorporate emo/techno styles.

A Quick Note on Copyright:

Since we’ll be borrowing a lot from the actual Twilight series here, it’s worth briefly mentioning the grounds we feel we have to claim fair use. Firstly, this is a non-commercial game, and as such will not affect Stephanie Meyer’s ability to make money from her work. Secondly, this is project has an educational character, and so is covered on those grounds. Finally, and most importantly, this is a parody, which is another category of derivative work which enjoys protected status. So take that, American legal system!

TODO:

• Resolve velocity vectors
• Figure out why sound takes 1-2 seconds to play after hitting a wall
• Fix screen size issues
• Add more awesomeness

Introduction

The is the blog of Team Edward. We are a team of four tasked with making the next big mario clone for our Introduction to Video Game Design class at Johns Hopkins University.

We're still working on a game idea, but whatever it is, it's going to rock your world.
Think Zelda. Think World of Warcraft. Think The Industrial Revolution.

This will be bigger.


TEAM MEMBERS
James P, James D, Jonathan G, and Thomas


GAME IDEAS

Metal Gear Planar
The side-scrolling version of the hit stealth game Metal Gear Solid™, this game combines intense waiting-for-the-guard-to-move action with a puzzle-driven storyline sure to keep you on the edge of your seat. Now with half the directional movement and two-thirds the spatial coordinates of an aging PlayStation game!