Adapting Canabalt’s concept into Rock Out (our game)

Here’s Canabalt: http://www.adamatomic.com/canabalt/

Canabalt’s makes the most of a simple concept: how far can you go. The game balance is balancing momentum. Ideally, if your timing is perfect, more momentum is better. But sometimes it helps to slow down by running into objects or else you can’t react well enough. The downside of going too slow is that you may not have enough momentum to jump to the next platform.

Canabalt -> Rock Out (using Flint's advice of starting from a prototypical game concept)

Concept: Balancing momentum

In Canabalt, your momentum constantly increases by default. This could be or not be for our game because we have “adrenaline” (adrenaline drinks? Red Bull?) which increases your momentum. And maybe we can add items scattered throughout the stage to maintain or increase momentum like a skateboard. Now, if you think you are going too fast, same as in Canabalt, there are objects (chairs, trashcans) that can slow you down. The reason for keeping a high momentum? Hm, to jump from platform to platform? I think a better idea would be to be able to knock over heavier objects like a desk or people (football players) that are in your path, and if you don’t have enough momentum, you’ll have to jump over them or else you’ll get knocked out (instead of falling off a cliff) and game over. Rather, how about instead, you only get knocked out by objects (a truck), but if you run into a person, you have to music battle (Guitar Hero mode) them, think old school RPG's. Basically, your guitar versus their musical talent - which may be vocals, DJ, guitar, drums, piano, violin, flute, trumpet -> this allows for more game play variance. Here we can have fun with stereotyping: Jocks/ Frat bros -> guitars, bass, drums; University Band members -> flute, trumpets, etc; Rich kids/ Nerds -> violin, piano; hipsters -> n/a.

Other reasons for maintaining momentum: Bullies (enemies) and/or groupies (fans) are chasing after you and you must outrun them or else trampled (like an advancing fire)-> game over. OR, maintaining a high momentum allows you to take shortcuts by running through a crowd of people or a wall (perhaps into a secret stage), thereby incorporating the greed factor for maintaining high momentum. Now we can add an item similar to Mario's invincibility star (campus golf cart-looking mobile, hope this is not too Grand Theft Auto-esque, I guess we have to make it comical somehow). BUT, sometimes we have to slow down to see the game environment, so maybe if you are going too fast, you have a higher chance of missing important (quest items) and/or helpful (power-ups) things such as skateboards, keys, song verses, bonus items like a new guitar or flowers for the girl, or secret doors, or maybe even game clues. Or a combination: a key that opens a secret door that holds a new guitar or flowers (botany class); going too fast might make you miss out on the key and/or secret door. Or maybe some would like to go slow just to take the time to enjoy the game’s beautiful aesthetics :P

This idea of objects and people flying all over the place seems like it has the potential to be awesome and funny.

The best part, this whole game can be played with just the Guitar Hero guitar. Since you are mainly going forward linearly, you don't really need to dictate direction (left or right). The strum bar = jumping. Tilting the guitar = entering a secret door. Hitting a chord key = picking up an item.

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Here's an example of a “Battle of the Bands” stage.

The gauge represents your momentum and also the higher your gauge, the more you look like a rock star (game aesthetics). For example, green (nerdy/novice rock star); yellow (typical/intermediate rock star); red (hardcore/advanced rock star). Also, there is an incentive for maintaining a higher momentum gauge: you can knock over lower level guys instead of guitar battling them. So if you are at the red part of the gauge, you can knock over green (easiest) and yellow (medium) guys and only have to battle red (hardest) guys. Red guys are going to be key opponents/bosses (possibly storyline related), so you can’t skip over them, plus they might drop cool items (new guitar). Could add other colors (opponents varying in difficulty/ uniqueness/ randomly generated -> could be level specific): blue = rare special bonus opponents ("running into" celebrity (guest appearances) by chance); orange = rare/elite opponents. These special opponents might drop unique items: new guitars, song verses, pictures (item collecting). Also required to complete opponents bio notebook (Pokedex). Pokemon collecting-like + achievements appeal for level replay value.

Game economy: Money -> purchase things. GPA (find items that boost GPA) -> need certain GPA to access special levels/rooms. Item inventory -> guitars, skateboards, wardrobe, Guitar Hero star power (power-up), lives. Collecting song verses to complete a song (ex. 0/10) -> could be required for boss battles, level-completion, secret/bonus levels.

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Finally, maybe we don't have to take out the nerd. We'll just make it a simple story. Nerd gets heart transplant (rock star heart). Now he can win over the crush of his dreams with his newfound abilities (shredding the guitar instead of the keyboard). He rocks through obstacles to get to the girl. Main obstacle: Girl doesn't want a timid nerd or an obnoxious rock star, so he has to discover the best of both worlds and secure a balance (somewhat of a coming of age story). He gets the girl. The End.

Hero + Girl: Same major -> Computer Science. A nerdy guy in CS (typical), a hot + cool girl in CS (whoa!)

- a level where he is running over computer codes (editing/deleting) instead of objects and people? Jumping to pick up missing codes (items). Perhaps this is where we can have platforms where you have to jump across or else you will fall off the cliff (space between segments of codes). He ends up making something like this: valentine1.exe for the girl. As a side note, the application was done in C++.

Story Arc: Initially too nerdy (girl doesn't notice him). Breaks out of his shell at the rock concert (girl is there and notices him, they talk). They start hanging out (girl is starting to fall for him). Gets overconfident and becomes an obnoxious jackass (girl hates his guts and avoids him). Realizes the error of his ways and redefines himself into a charming guy (girl falls for him). The End.

=> =>

Character design in game play: Depending on what phase the hero is at, he'll start off the level with that look. So each level, you are playing the same character, but his style/fashion will be different. This allows for more game aesthetics.

Final Product:

Gluing the story together: I like how in Scott Pilgrim game, when you complete a level, you get a cool/cute single image scenes. Doing something like this can glue our storyline together. So perhaps our game would have a comic book story feel.

Idea for varying game play and developing story

There are a lot of awesome games out there that can excel purely on game play. There is not much of a story because there doesn’t have to be. The game is THAT good, it doesn’t require one because the game environment already put you into one. But I would like to create a game that has both exciting game play and a good story (charming and/or identifiable). And it is always cool to have the story develop game play and vice versa.

Here is a game that is quite basic, but also very awesome (thanks Ivone)

http://adamatomic.com/canabalt/mega/

-Why is he running away? I don't know and I don't really care, but it is sure an addicting game. Perhaps if this was in our game universe, our hero would be running away from bullies or trying to get to class on time.

Right now, I’m trying to push our game for a coming of age story. So here where I am at and what I have in mind:

For the first half of the game, you are either the nerd running away from bullies or you transform into the rock star to stand up and fight back against the bullies. At first, the nerd is very self-righteous and sees his rock star side as evil and undesirable. But eventually, the nerd starts to take a liking to the rock star because c’mon! who doesn’t want to live life in the fast lane as a rock star?

Developing the story…

Girl invites nerd to the big party (biggest one of the quarter). The nerd believes that he’ll be no fun unless he transforms into the rock star. At this point, he doesn’t find his rock star self to be so bad + he wants to impress the girl by being the life of the party.

The climax…

Nerd starts drinking (drinking alcohol turns you into a rock star, of course, right?). At some point, he thinks he turns into the rock star, but what?! He didn’t drink enough (b/c he pussies out?), and ends up not transforming and staying as the nerd. OH SHIT right? Not really because now the nerd can truly be himself (without anxiety) thanks to the alcohol and self-deception. For the rest of the night, he is the life of the party as an intelligently hilarious, ironic, and charming nerd; instead of a dumb obnoxious rock star (not all rock stars are like this, but you know what I mean).

Here’s a youtube video of something what the nerd would do at the party. Just a hilarious guy that makes people laugh :]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utaWZT5N-tQ (IT'S HILARIOUS, WATCH IT!)

Unlike Jeckle and Hyde & Bruce Banner and the Hulk. Sorry I don’t know too much about either, but my impression is that Jeckle and Bruce Banner always had to just deal with their dark side. But instead, in our story, the nerd eventually comes to appreciate his rock star side and wants to work together with him. At the start of the game, you are either the nerd running away from bullies or the rock star shredding his guitar and/or fighting through adversaries. But now, you two work together and get the best of both worlds. With these new abilities and advantages, the game has to become more difficult as well to compensate. Perhaps this is the point where there no longer needs to be a gauge or power-ups required to be a rock star, you can now change at will and choose what you think would be the best strategy for getting to the next stage.

The story is not over yet, although he was the life of the party, he thought he was well-received and liked only because he transformed into a rock star. So for the rest of the game, he still needs to find his voice. “Find his voice” -> game play options?

Basically at the start, we have opposite dual personalities working against each other, but eventually, they find it most beneficial to join forces and work on each other’s strengths and use their expertise to advise the other side. So now you have a nerd that can shred the guitar and a rock star that can solve puzzles (lol). The end product should be this great personality that is an intelligent, hilarious, charming, ironic nerd with a rock star mentality and attitude who wins over the girl. Hooray for self-acceptance, no more self-conscious nerd, you either love me or you don't, if no, you can shove it.

Nerd + Alcohol = Trumpets?! (watch video to understand context)

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Hey Ivone and Migdia,

I'm too fixated on nerd/rock star character and story development. I'm trying to incorporate too much Bruce Wayne (nerd), who probably doesn't have a good place in our game world. Ivone, your ideas rock, lets take out the nerd and do the -> typical (baseline) rock star and fired up hyper rock star dynamic. Game play wise, it seems most viable. I'm hopping onto Ivone's boat now :]

Week 5

Alright, after a week and a half of hiatus, our group managed to get in a room together again.

We have been closing in on our game play:
It's going to be a side scroller with what we can only describe as "Interactive Mazes". These are those tricky situations you come across in Pokémon, where you have to move a boulder or nine and perhaps use an item or two in order to navigate the environment. Alternatively, the entirety of Portal is what we have deemed an interactive maze, though I am currently s'posin' that our interactive mazes would be less....teleporty-apparitiony
more puzzle interaction is pending...

Also zeroed-in on our plot, I now present to you, the most distilled version possible (it's visual, you'll like it) :


We are next trying to establish an opening sequence on par with CSI: Miami
...
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YEEEEEEEAAAAAAHHH!
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...
But foreal:
Linking all of are pieces together (we have several subplots that will be developed or trashed asap), defining our worlds in our newly-decided-upon 2D format, and finding different puzzle types that fit with our existing puzzles/concept.

And now...a Canadian cat

We're on our way!

Team MIA (Migdia, Ivone, Art) have successfully come up with the nucleus of their idea:

Imagine that you're a shy, awkward straight A student in your second year of college. Your life oscillates between the dull and the mundane, and though you'd like to fight back when the jocks harass you, or smile when she walks past you in the hallway, you never do.

Imagine that you're a rock star with the world at your charred fingertips. You shred the melody of a thousand naked women and men hold your jacket with the kind of reverence reserved for kings. When you walk into a room, curtains that weren't there before suddenly billow and pull apart, allowing you the most radical entrance to any room you ever enter.

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Imagine you're a shy, awkward straight A student who gets driven off the road and ends up in the hospital battling for his life.

Imagine you're a rock star who plays his operatic masterpiece before the world, only to collapse from too much "rock" in his heart.

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Imagine a transplant.

We will be developing a 2D fighter/platformer following a shy, awkward college student who receives a heart transplant from a violent rock star. Suddenly, he finds himself with dual personalities, one in which he remains his same insecure self, and the other where he can suddenly grab his world by the balls.

We want the setting to be tangible and accessible, a college town. We've even been considering playing up rock star "achievements" around a city modeled after LA. The world will be stylized but modeled off of something we all know so we can "get in on the joke" of that place (West Los Angeles).

The world itself will model off the particular personality that the character embodies at that moment: When he is his former self, the world will be sterile, dry, and mundane, an anti-climax. When he is in rock star mode, his vision will change and it will match the volatility of his rock star self.

We are toying with the idea of 1) Seeing particular items/enemies when in the different worlds and 2) How to trigger/justify the switch from personality to personality

Our best frame of reference for what we're trying to do is modeled off of Scott Pilgrim. There's some sentiment and heart to who Pilgrim is, but the movie, comic, and especially the game don't take themselves all that seriously. It allows for a great deal of liberty and fun in approaching the "coming of age" or "getting the girl" story.

Our goal for next week is to have our arc figured out. We're wondering about a girl (of course) and if there needs to be an ultimate showdown, ultimate goal alongside the promise of winning the girl of his dreams.

Ultimately, we're wondering, as well, if getting the girl has more to do with his rock star persona or if it is ultimately his acceptance of himself that will lead to her.

See you Monday!

Whew. What to say?

We are deep in the throws of xmind brainmapping software and hunger. I suppose that's a natural by-product of working on a game about food. We're drawing our game play inspiration from sources like Hotel Dusk, Myst, Heavy Rain, and the sly sexy devil, Professor Layton. This leaves us squarely in the realm of puzzle and mystery games. Agatha Christie is now our chosen deity (see left, Ms. Christie from the stellar Doctor Who episode, "The Unicorn and the Wasp"), though we're steering clear of such unreliable characters as Dr. Sheppard in The Murder of Rodger Ackroyd and sticking more to the models of Detective Hercule Poirot and James Qwilleran and the Hardy Boys.


We're dealing with a lighter aesthetic for our game, possibly leaning towards kid-oriented. We're excited by strong visuals, as in Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, Fairly Odd Parents, and even Pushing Daisies. The joyful nature of our world is making it somewhat tricky to really infuse a nemesis that sets the stakes high enough. Sure, you could be out burnanating the countryside, but why should I care when there are puppies and rainbows right here in the town square? The offense has to be big and personal. We're working on our Big Bad.

Alright. Off to Portos for some totally-game-related pastries.

Raza - - Good work on the "Useful Things" section. A great idea. This is my first post on this blog.
Larry

Hello

Ahoy and welcome.


I've set up a page (see link on right) called Useful Things that attempts to collect resources that can help you maximize your time and get through the quarter with ease. Feel free to suggest more things we can put up in that page, or perhaps a whole 'nother page altogether.  


-raza