Jumpin Jim's Beach Adventure

The working title for my tutorial level is "Jumpin Jim's Beach Adventure." The main conflict in the level would be Jim vs the alligators, which for the sake of my story, have taken over the beach. It'll be set on the beach during the summer between late afternoon and sunset. Prior to Jumpin Jim getting to the beach, the alligators took over causing all the tourist to evacuate, leaving everything behind. Architecture wise, I was thinking having the boss alligator in a lifeguard's stand. Jumpin Jim was having some ice cream near by when he heard the screams. Seeing as he's the only Jumper in town, he rushed off to go help. Here's a link to my rough layout for my level: Jumpin Jim's (rough) Beach Adventure

Cuboy Quest 2

For my analysis of the tutorial level of a platformer game, I choose something not so traditional. Cuboy Quest 2 is a platformer that also involves puzzle solving. After playing through the game, I decided that the first seven levels cover the "tutorial" for the game. The very first level is so basic that I find it brilliant. One of the mechanics of platformers is jumping. That is the only obstacle in the first level. Each of the following levels have simple layouts for the easiest understanding of future gameplay. Level three is set up so that the only way to unlock the door is to ricochet bullets to hit the targets. Level five you must shoot a wooden block out of the air so you can walk across the lava blocks. Its all set up so simply that you understand almost straight away what you need to do to advance. The puzzle aspect of the game allows each level to stay fresh and not get to slow. Not only that, but they aren't very cluttered (the platforms that is) so each level doesn't feel like an eternity. Nothing is handed to the player in the game. In the very first level, you get stuck in the first indention. If you don't jump, you don't move on. Nowhere does it say that, but all the clues are there. That's how most of the game plays. Each level, the obstacle of getting to the exit is present. Each level though, has its own specific challenge. Some are targets that you have to hit to open the doors while others are robots or lava blocks you must avoid. Each level, the obstacles get slightly harder and harder. The only reward really given to the player is that, by getting to the exit, you unlock the next level. There is no story in the game.

Here is the first seven levels:

  

10 Tool Ideas

For programming class, we have to come up with 10 tool ideas that would be useful to our major. Here are my 10:

    1. Combine touching faces. I've had issues before where I'd duplicate a model on accident, delete it, and somehow there would be a few faces left over. And of course because they're touching, I can't see them.
    2. Rotate 90 degrees. Yes, it's easy to do, but I'm lazy and would like a button that when I click, it would rotate the model exactly 90 degrees on whatever axis I choose. Having to move my hand to type in 90 takes time.
    3. Snap pivot to the bottom of a mesh when it's combined. Every time I combine two objects, the pivot goes right back to the origin. That's not helping when I'm modeling away from the origin.
    4. Backwards normals and Ngons. Have a tool that will check if all the normals are facing the right way (basically switching them with conform) and if they're are any Ngons on the model.
    5. Align objects to the same axis. If you need all your objects aligned on x, it'll snap them to it.
    6. Snap object to center of the world. When exporting you put your object center of the world, why not make it easy with a preprogrammed button.
    7. Equal out verts on a single edge. This would make all the verts uniform and easier to manipulate.
    8. Find all one edge verts. When you accidentally hit delete rather than ctrl+delete on an edge, wouldn't it be nice to be able to select all those one edge verts and just delete them?
    9. Move verts around randomly, I see this being helpful when modeling rocks. One quick button and you're already started.
  10. Delete edge. Instead of hitting ctrl+delete, a button that you click so you don't have to move your hands.

Attract Trailer

The Split Second attract trailer I think is really cool. Not only does it set up the location in long sweeping shots, but it also shows off the obstacles that the players will be facing. All of that is even before the race begins. Then it actually shows how those obstacles work. The voice over also let's the viewer know that these aren't just random events that are happening, but are events that the players themselves trigger. The trailer has so much info on the way that the game is player, which I think is great!

Game HUD

We've got to come up with a HUD for our racing level. These are some of the images that I thought were pretty cool.

This is a pic of the speedometer of a 07 Mini Coop.

I also looked up some images of pre existing racing HUDs:

I really liked the lap and time counter on this. Unobtrusive and simple. 

I really like the circular speedometer on this one. 

The amount of info on this one is insane! The rising bar is really cool. 

This is one of the ones that I wanted to try and replicate. The style that is. 

This one was the best one that I found. I love the futuristic look to it. This was my major inspiration. 

Here is the start for mine:

Research For Particle

The main particle that I need for my level is a rocket exhaust smoke particle. The first thing that I decided on was that I wanted the particle to look something like this:

I want the smoke to be pretty straight down until it hits the ground and fans out. I do however, not want to include the fire in my particle. 

My level is a kind of cheesy cartoon pinball level, so I want to try and make it look like that. I decided to go with cel shading for my smoke material.

Here are a couple tutorials that I will be using to create this particle:

eat3D smoke tutorial

3D buzz tutorial

UDK smoke tutorial

Final Destructible Asset

Here's my final destructible asset. I had to switch my idea from a destructible bumper to the coin insert due the bumpers shape. Overall though, I think it worked out.