PR

Week Twelve

(or POSTER! poster poster poster)

Tonight our dev team, Violent Traversal, is showing some of the progress made on developing AIM< at UW Stout's Game Expo (SGX). SGX is a place for Stout student to show games they've made in classes or as independent projects. There's a large variety of different games genres, both digital and physical, on display. The students who've made each game are usually there to demo the games, show trailers, posters, etc., and answer questions. SGX signals the end of a semester and allows us to show our work to the public.

This week our whole team was getting ready to show off AIM< at SGX.16. One of my jobs besides Lead Game Designer, concept artist, and audio, is PR. I spent the past couple days putting together an advertisement poster, process poster, and sell sheet. I also did a quick update to the cannon concept. See the gallery below for an image.

The first poster is what you'd expect. I found a visual way to talk about the most important elements of the game and create some excitement for the final product. It's been a while since I took my graphics design courses but I really enjoyed them so working on this portion of the project was a lot of fun. One of the things that stuck with me from my coursework is that posters should have some levels of information. The audience gets the most important information from far away, so that info is the biggest. They get hooked and drawn in to find out more. Contact info, release dates and so on are then the smaller elements. Take a look at one of the final versions in the gallery below!

I designed our process poster to help save time in printing out a bunch of different sheets with concept and ideation art. The audience can take a look at one poster and see a bunch of the work leading up to the current version of the game.

The last PR item I designed is a sell sheet. Basically, a sell sheet or one sheet is an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper that contains all of the most important information about a game. It has to sell the person reading the information on the idea. It's important to make sure the language is concise and creative while maintaining integrity in expressing the final product goals. Sort of a balance between technical writing, creative writing, and graphic design. I put an image for one of the final versions in the gallery below.

Finally; I updated the Facebook page banner and profile pic. The profile picture now features our team's logo. Check it all out on our AIM< page! Either tonight or tomorrow I'll have some photos of the team at SGX.16 as well.

Have a great weekend! If you're up north like us; stay warm!

AIM< Process Poster by Aram Wahler

AIM< Poster by Aram Wahler

AIM< Sell Sheet by Aram Wahler

Updated Cannon Concept by Aram Wahler

More Concepts

Week Eleven

(or Skip Week)

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving! Although I didn't post here, I did get some work done since the last time I wrote.

The art lead finished the drone that will be playable in AIM<. You can read about the final texturing process here on his awesome blog. I took the render images he provided and put together an orthographic to highlight the design and details. You can see the ortho here on the game's Facebook page, or in the gallery below. Be sure to check out the rest of the page and look at the other concept art there! Also, follow the page if you want to be kept up-to-date with the game's development.

Our audio team finished recording, making, and mixing some new sounds as well. I made any necessary tweeks and mixed down the final versions of each sound. We now have audio for the cannon jet engines, drone jet hover engines, a low energy alarm for both drone and cannon, and a general "power-up" sound. There's a lot more audio work left to do but it's a good start. I'll go into more detail on the audio for AIM< in a later post.

Lastly, I've been working on more concepts for various parts to the game. The first one I made this week was for mine hazards that will be throughout the game. I came up with two ground variants and one airborne version. When I construct objects like the mines, I always use photographs and piece together the pieces that appeal to me. I usually come up with a sort of goal for each object as I work, often thinking about the different ways it could be used or how it will effect its environment. Pinterest is a valuable tool that I use to gather together different ideas to use for creating visual concepts. I was inspired by the mines on this board as well as sensors on this board. You can take a look at the final results in the gallery below.

I also drew up a quick concept for some monorails and started working on settlement buildings. I'll post the finished versions of the buildings and talk about the design direction more at that time.

That wraps things up for this weeks post. The team behind AIM<, Violent Traversal, will be showing a demo of the game at the Fall UW Stout Gaming Expo (SGX) on Friday, December 9th. IF you're in the area, come say "Hi" and check out the game! Be sure to follow the Facebook page for the time of the event.

Have a great weekend!

AIM< Drone Orthographic by Aram Wahler

Model and Textures by Daniel Bodunov

Mine Concepts by Aram Wahler

WIP Settlement Concepts by Aram Wahler

Elevated Rail Concept by Aram Wahler

Growth

Week Nine

(or The Week My Brain Didn't Wanna...But I Made It Work Anyway)

After I finished my blog post last week, I got to work wrapping up the narrative for AIM<. The lead artist and I had hashed out some details and written several drafts before we came to an accord on what the story should look like. I wrote an initial draft weeks ago but as a writer, I tend to go crazy creating strange places, characters, and stories. We had to find a good balance between different and relatable. The narrative will be revealed through the environment and collectibles scattered throughout the game.

After finishing the narrative, I finally started focusing on further world building and environment concept art. I panicked a bit when I realized not done a lot of world building had been done. We've done a little; like creating a cool cannon design and some drone concepts. The game design document reflects some scattered information and now we have a narrative. One of the earliest narrative drafts focused on Mars for a setting. As development progressed, though, we found Mars to be limiting for the sort of world we want to build. Beyond these steps we hadn't decided what this place we're creating looks like.

Lost.

My panic compounded when I realized a sketch wasn't going to convey all the information we'd need. Most of my experience as an artist has been heavily weighted towards characters, objects, and vehicles. I have only a little experience crafting visual environments. In the past, when I've hit an artistic roadblock, I've frozen up. This time I decided to try to find a way through right away instead of letting the roadblock get me all bound up.


 Hurdles always seem bigger if there isn't any hope. Sometimes, hope can be found by looking for inspiration. I dug around and found a couple of artists that provided some ideas for tackling the problems I was facing. There's a lot of misinformation disguised as advice or "tutorials" that only serve to make roadblocks more daunting. I've found that "tutorials" or skill demonstrations that look too good to be true, often are. None show an artist practicing. Practice is the key to skill. I realize that's obvious but when in a slump, it's hard to remember.

I learned two very important lessons this week. Finding a way through is key when dealing with roadblocks. Looking for a way around or trying to ignore them accomplishes nothing. Growth only happens by going through.

Secondly, and this is more focused on design, concept artist and teacher Feng Zhu said that there is no difference between a landscape, vehicles or a character. All are made out of the same four shapes; cylinders, squares, spheres, and cones.

I think he's absolutely right. I often find myself caught up in the "right" tool or technique and forget that good design is good design.

Thanks for reading all that! If you're reading this and want some helpful, healthy sources of inspiration and learning, check out the following links:

• Feng Zhu: Design Cinema (65! free videos - start with the first one)
• Matt Kohr: Ctrl+Paint (digital painting fundamentals - lots of free videos)
• Eddie Russel: 'Infiltrator' Production Pipeline Volume 1: Concept Design & Storyboarding (via Pluralsight)
• Lisa Liang: Conceptualizing Environments from the Imagination in Photoshop (via Pluralsight)

 Those are the best I've found so far. If I find more, I'll talk about them in a later post.

In the gallery below, I'll post some of what I did this week. Some of it's really rough and none is finished. All of it is a work in progress. I'll share the finished art as well in a later post so the most of the journey is visible.

Have an awesome Thanksgiving!

Elevated Train WIP by Aram Wahler

Crash Site WIP by Aram Wahler

Looming Wreck WIP by Aram Wahler

Train Wreck WIP by Aram Wahler

Talking

Week Eight

(or Do Not Panic: We are Training Professionals)

Last week I mentioned that I had to make big changes to the game design doc again following a longer pivot than expected. I spent the weekend following that post doing exactly that; adding in a handful of mechanics to help flesh out some thin areas in the games design. The most important flaw in the game's design was the heuristics.

Heuristics, when used in context of game design, is referring to how the game communicates with a player so they can learn how to play it. One of my professors, Jay Little, teaches that a good game needs "tell" the player 3 key things: who they are, what they do, how they win. So how does this apply to AIM<?

The previous AIM< build was a very bare-bones approach created with the goal of allowing the team and play testers to get a look at the key components without anything distracting from potential design flaws. Our initial approach was a solid start but I discovered via play tester feedback that the game was lacking anything that would communicate player progress. This is where heuristics come in. The AIM< prototype told the player who they were but left what they do, and how to win up to them to figure out. Letting players figure things out is a good thing but there should be a balance. Players need as much information as they need to have fun figuring out the rest of the game.

AIM< ver 0.1 - Drone Spatial Cue Issue

One example of confusion players experienced was while they were controlling a drone. Currently the placeholder drone is a simple sphere with a cylinder attached like a gun barrel. When players navigated into darker areas of the map, they had difficulty seeing the drone's orientation in the environment. Players experienced disorientation, which disconnected them from the game. It was a distracting enough issue that some play testers had difficulty looking beyond and giving feedback on other important mechanics.

A solution we are going to test is using some sort of underglow light effect that will reflect off of surfaces beneath the drone and tell the player where they are "sitting" in space. Eventually the effect will probably become the light from the drones thrusters. We will also be adding a head light mechanic that players can switch on and off at the cost of some energy.

This week wasn't all just game design document work. I mixed down a couple sounds created by our sound team. It was a nice change of pace that allowed me to focus on a different aspect of AIM< that hasn't seen much work yet. The two sounds we made were created to guide players to sources of energy and power-ups.

Lastly, I worked on a little bit more concept art. Our art lead asked for some complex pipe shapes so AIM< won't just be populated by a bunch of cylinders. I'll add the image to the gallery below. I should have some more images done this week after I brush up on my skills by watching some Pluralsight videos.

That's it for now. Have a happy, safe weekend!

Pipes by Aram Wahler

Deux

Week Seven

(or Pivot: The Sequel)

Well, we weren't quite done pivoting last week. We pivoted some more this week after meeting with a game designer that teaches at Stout. Finally, though, I feel like there aren't any large pieces missing from the design and we can go full steam on assets. I still have to update the game design doc with everything we discussed but we have a mission statement draft that will be finalized and we will be sticking to it. I'll go into specifics on some of the changes more next week once I'm finished updating everything.

One change I will mention, though, is the cannons design. The art lead and I decided to give it legs based on some of the feed-back we have received. I made a quick concept piece (see gallery below) just to get an idea of what that might look like and we will be continuing to re-design the cannon over the next week.

Last week I mentioned that audio for AIM< had begun and that some new members joined the team to work on sounds. Near the beginning of this week, I made some concept art (see gallery below) to show the sound team specific concepts that the art team had discussed. Some sounds have now been made and will be mixed this weekend for Monday.

That's all for this week. I'll right a little longer post next week and discuss some game design issues I encountered.

Have a great weekend!

Steam-Powered Gate and Generator by Aram Wahler

Power-Up Concepts by Aram Wahler

Main Cannon Re-Design by Aram Wahler

Pivot

Week Six

(You can pivot if you want too. You can leave your friends behind)

First off, check out the AIM< Facebook page if you haven't already. I just uploaded some awesome art by one of the concept artists working on our team. I will be updating the AIM< Facebook page weekly with something or other. As development gets farther along, there will be more frequent updates and I'll be building up a presence on other social media outlets as well.

This week my team and I focused on a process called "pivoting". To pivot in game design and development (GDD) means that aspects of the design is re-addressed while still staying true to the original concept. This means that as lead game designer, I re-work and re-write portions of the rules to better meet the audiences expectations for our game. Key mechanics, like movement and level progression, certainly need polish at this point, but pivoting addresses how fun the game is and what systems build up or tear down that fun experience. The mechanics have to be fun or basically we would just be polishing a piece of trash that no one wants to play.

After going through pivot this week, AIM< now has a clear win/loose structure and mechanics in place to enable us to create opportunities for drama and excitement. The feedback from the AIM< prototype playtesters showed that fun tools were in place but the players needed a motive to use them. They wanted to experience a sense of accomplishment. So, along with the teams feedback, I wrote some large additions to the AIM< rules. I also had to address the readability of the GDD document as by this time it had gotten hard to read.

Audio work for AIM< is beginning! Along with working on this senior capstone project, I'm enrolled in a digital sound studio. Some of my classmates agreed to work with me on AIM< audio the final for the course. I'll be managing the team, making sure we stay on track and produce quality work. I look forward to sharing some of our sounds!

I'll post an image of the result of  my last big task this week. I designed a tutorial level and visualized it through Adobe Illustrator. The concepts at work in AIM< are complex enough that it will take time for players to wrap their heads around. A tutorial is a lower risk, higher reward scenario that the player can feel safe experimenting in. A sense of mastery is important for many players and a tutorial is one step in that process.

As someone who plays a lot of games, I acknowledge the need to learn many games' mechanics. However, I really don't want to get bored during the tutorial. Unfortunately I often do. As I designed the first tutorial for AIM<, I tried to design the map with enough drama to keep gameplay interesting and teach the core mechanics of AIM<. I think that the process is similar to writing a story. Jumping right into the middle of a story is disorienting. Starting with a long conversation or description of characters and places the reader doesn't know is tedious. Why would a reader be motivated to finishing the book? Introduce the characters and start hinting at the peril or drama straight away.

Have an awesome weekend!

AIM< Tutorial Level Concept by Aram Wahler

Trial of Concepts

Week Five

(From 3D to In-Engine)

At the beginning of this week, I spent time making sure the level I wrote about last week was ready for our team's first play-test. Most of the work was just breaking up the map into appropriate pieces and learning how to get those into Unity. Once that was all finished, the map was turned into a play-test ready level in Unity. Check out the screenshots in the gallery below!

When the map was finished, I moved on to a quick 3D sketch of the main cannon model to use as a placeholder for the play-test. You can see some concept art for it here, a post from a couple weeks ago. We didn't end up needing this particular version of the model for the play-test, however.

After both of these projects I moved onto PR tasks. With regards to PR, our game finally has a Facebook page! Over the end of last week and weekend, we settled on the name "Aimless", stylized as AIM<. A logo and composite image was handed off to me and I was able to create a banner image and profile picture for Facebook. This page will serve as a websites of sorts for the immediate future. All of our teams dev blog links are there and we will be posting regular updates on the games progress. Check it out and follow AIM< from start to finish!

Finally, on Wednesday our team hosted the first closed play-test of AIM<. 16 individuals played the game and provided feedback. The players had a blast playing with the games mechanics and told us what they liked, what they didn't, and areas they felt needed improvement. This data was gathered through a post play-test survey. Overall, the players found the fun, which is awesome.

Last night and today I digitized all the feedback we received so that our team can refer to it throughout the next sprint. Not only did I learn a lot about the way players were approaching AIM<, I also figured out what sort of data would be good to gather in future play-tests. Using this information, I updated the post play-test survey and branded the form with with our games logo.

This weekend will be spent pouring over feedback and approaching the games design to enhance the aspects of fun.

Big stuff coming for AIM<. I hope you all have a great weekend!

Main Cannon 3D Sketch by Aram Wahler

AIM< Screenshots by Aram Wahler

AIM< ver 0.1.1 - Level 3

Map

Week Four

(From Drawing to 3D)

Just a short update this week. Our team is getting ready for our first play-test next week. I updated the game documents as usual but no big changes this week. We need to test what we have and see how the parts we've made work together before adding anything more.

Besides updating the design documents, I worked on white-boxing the level that I made a map for last week. You can check out the map here. I basically used the map as an underlay to guide my construction of the map in Maya. You can get an idea of how I used the map from the first image in the gallery below. The map was a huge help in keeping track of all the map's pieces. Adjustments will have to be made once we play the level and decide what works and what doesn't but the current model is a good start. I'm excited to have completed this level. This is the first level I've made from the ground up and it's been great to see the parts all come together. It's really rewarding to realize a design in 3D that was 2D illustration or drawing.

More soon to come! Have an awesome weekend!

Cannon Level White-Box by Aram Wahler

First Big Updates

Week Three

(or "The Week That Grew Wings")

I had a productive week with Cannons game design! It started last Saturday (9/30) with writing a short narrative for the game. I was inspired by all what I had heard in our team meetings up to that point and decided to try to get it down as a story. The story isn't meant to be shared with the audience. My hope was that the inspiration I experienced would be present in the narrative and be shared with the team as further inspiration for the design process. Kind of like a mood board but using a story instead. It isn't meant to be taken as a "be all, end all". I want to share my excitement for the awesome game we're creating.

I also made the final roughs of our main cannons design. The main cannon will be the "main character" if you will. The one players will be exploring our game as.The cannon is based on a fusion of concepts up to this point and personified to give the audience a relation point of entry into the game world we are creating. Our goal is to make a personable machine that players can identify with in some way.

The rest of the week was a flurry of leaps forward in overall game and level design. I had a huge update for the game design document I talked about last week. This week is the first week of work after we nailed down more concrete ideas and figured out more of what would and wouldn't work. Pieces of the design are starting to fall into place.

Because the rules are becoming more clear, we have had a better idea as to what levels are going to look like. This weekend will be spent implementing ideas from this past week through a process called "white-boxing". This means we are making levels out of simplified geometry and objects to create a sketch of the levels design for testing purposes. Our goal is to "find the fun" and make sure our game is as much fun to play as we think it will be. I took a rough sketch at made a map in illustrator to detail the layout and make the white-boxing process a little easier. Sketchbook sketches are often a bit messy and making a quick vector illustration provides clarity.

That's it for this week. Have an awesome weekend!

Final Cannon Concept by Aram Wahler

Level Overhead by Aram Wahler

Level Map by Aram Wahler

Initial Game Design and Ideation

Week Two 

(No, you're not missing any)

I'm currently enrolled in my senior year at UW Stout where I'm enrolled in the B.F.A. Game Design program. As part of the program, seniors develop and make a game from the ground up over the course of two semesters. Initially our class had to create pitch documents for core game-play ideas and we voted to narrow the possibilities. During the pitch process, I worked on initial game designs for "Cannons Shooting Cannons" and "Spirits". After the final games were picked and it came time to choose teams, I chose to work on the team developing "Cannons Shooting Cannons".

In "Cannons Shooting Cannons" players explore a post-apocalyptic waste influenced by steampunk, diesel punk, and cyber punk cultures. Players explore the environment through controlling a cannon that has the ability to navigate difficult terrain by shooting other cannons as projectiles. The game-play is a combination of third person shooting and platforming. Instead of platforming in the traditional sense however, the terrain requires navigation by shooting. I'll share more details on this concept as we develop the game.

My roles in making this game are varied. I'm part of a team of ten people evenly split between programmers and artists. Since the team is small, we all have to fulfill multiple roles. My roles include: Game designer, concept artist, writer, UI artist, and audio engineer. The work I do fulfilling each role varies throughout the games production. Currently I'm mostly focusing on game design, concept art, and a little writing.

As on of the game designers for this project I have to create and maintain a game design document, which is essentially like the rule book found in most tabletop or board games. Attention to detail, good organization and communication skills, as well as concise writing are key to developing this document. I enjoy the game design process because I'm able to communicate with people from all the disciplines required to make a digital game. It's a team effort. The design process also allows me to use the knowledge of games I study to find new and interesting ways for players to play games.

Concept art and writing go hand-in-hand for me. Often I find myself writing down world building and character details then realizing them visually through sketching and drawing. I see concept art as key to establishing communication between all members of the development team. Often ideas can seem immaterial or difficult to talk about until sketching and visuals bring everyone to the same page. I've found that game design ideas are easier to discuss when you can show someone what you're trying to tell them. Visuals provide clarity.

Well that wraps up my first ever game design blog post. I'll be writing one each week throughout the development of "Cannons Shooting Cannons". I hope you enjoyed this and have an awesome weekend!

Cannon Concepts by Aram Wahler