coleycaves

Game Designer in Toronto, Canada

[coleyplays]

Designing playable beasts for our body stealing game, Godsend, is a total blast! Here are a few from yesterday.

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Playing through one of the inspirations for our game dev project as a team, Dan discovered this neat little trick that he calls Dolphin Dan in Prototype 2.

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Our team Producer, John Krent picked us all up some bullet journals so we can keep daily logs on how development is going. This is our one chance to work on a passion project game for a year with no consequences, so documenting and keeping a project 'diary' is a fantastic idea! ☺️ And bullet journals will help us create our own format.

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We decided on a team name for this coming capstone year! PATCHWORK

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Boots wishing me good luck on my first day of school! I cant believe I'm in my 4th (& final) year of Bachelor of Game Design... Starting today is an 8 month long game development 😅

[longbowgames-blog]

@LongbowGames is announcing their all-new puzzle-adventure game #Golem with our first teaser trailer!

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This was the game I was working on during my internship at Longbow Games as a Level Designer! I’ll post some process work from this project soon! :) Please go wishlist this on Steam and follow updates at https://twitter.com/longbowgolem

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User Interface Comparison

User Interface Comparison Nicole Caverley and both have crafting survival modes where you as a player are dropped into a randomly generated world with ...

Hey Guys! For my midterm exam, I had to compare the UI of two games I love. I decided to compare the user interface of the crafting menus in Minecraft (which I’ve played for 3 years) and Don’t Starve (which I’ve played for 2 years).

[coleyplays]

Ice Ball ended up winning 1st place out of 20 games submitted to the Tournament of Champions for Sheridan Fall Sprint Week 2016! I’m so proud of my team, Banana Squid! <3  Play it for free here: https://coleycaverley.itch.io/ice-ball

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Ice Ball by Coley

Local multiplayer game designed by Banana Squid inspired by Dodgeball and Ice Ice Water.

Hello! Sprint Week was awesome and our team Banana Squid worked really hard to create this local multiplayer game called 'Ice Ball' in 5 days! Using USB controllers, up to 6 players can play it here : https://coleycaverley.itch.io/ice-ball or at the Sheridan College game labs tomorrow afternoon (PM me for details)! We love this game! If you get a chance to play it, any feedback is welcome to improve the game!  Thank you,

Banana Squid

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Cube Samurai: RUN! by Red Meat Games

I received a Steam Key to playtest Red Meat Games’ Cube Samurai: RUN! I decided to play 100 minutes of the infinite runner game and write a review that covers my first impressions, feedback and ideas to improve the game. The good thing about playtesting Cube Samurai: RUN! is that it’s pretty addicting and has replayability value. This is a summary of the feedback report sent to Red Meat Games. UI:

1. Fullscreen Option: Allowing the player to drag the game window to the top of their screen to make the game fullscreen or adding a toggle option in the Settings menu would accommodate to PC player’s preferences. 2. Instruction Page: Instead of using poorly cropped and confusing gameplay screenshots to demonstrate the controls, use an animated image or GIF that would show the player what the inputs will look like in the game. 3. Results: After the player has died the Results screen shows the player Distance Travelled, Personal Best, Coins Collected, and Total Coins. Making the score values stand out by using a contrasting color and/or animating the score value will draw the player’s attention, make them feel rewarded, and encourage them to play more. 4. Shop: Allowing the player to unlock different models is great for replayability. 5. Leaderboard: A leaderboard for the farthest run is great for an infinite runner. Gameplay:

1. Audio Que: Having an audio que play when the enemies are powering up their attack works for infinite runners because in a fast paced impulse-based game, it alerts the player to enemies oncoming attacks even if they haven’t appeared on screen yet. 2. Magnet Bug: When the player has a magnet and attracts coins, the coins that have already started moving toward the player position stay where they are when the magnet runs out. It would make more sense to allow that attracted coin to reach it’s destination even if the magnet has run out. 3. Bosses: Having bosses throw obstacles is an appropriate challenge for this type of game but an idea to improve the boss battle is allowing the player to deflect projectiles toward the boss. Marketing:

1. Narrative: Cube Samurai: RUN! is marketed as an ‘original story-based endless runner’ but there is no narrative in the game other than visual assumptions. Using the marketed narrative in a visual/auditory way wouldn’t interrupt gameplay sessions and would set this game apart from other infinite runners. It would work well with the randomly generated maps also because the more the player retries a run, the more they can learn about the story. Red Meat Games: http://redmeatgames.ca/index.php Cube Samurai: RUN!: http://redmeatgames.ca/products/title/cube-samurai-run/id/73

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This is an interesting TedTalks video my Interface Design teacher recommended, worth checking out! :)

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Persona manipulation

Perception isn’t just about the physicality of what is happening. It can also include being perceptive towards people; body language, reactions, phrasing, etc. In games like Oblivion (2006), you can use Speechcraft to sway how characters feel about you, giving you an advantage/disadvantage depending on what the characters have to offer. I think having an ability to see into a characters persona could be helpful in gaining important characters favour. Much like Batman’s ‘detective mode’ in Batman: Arkham Asylum (2009) or even Aiden Pearce’s phone hacks in Watch Dogs (2014), having this ability could help you learn a characters likes/dislikes, weaknesses, alliances, strengths, and other information that you could use to manipulate them. 

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Vibration Sensation

I think a variation of this mechanic that would work is to take advantage of other senses. As the player you can share sight, sound and feel (depending on which platform you are using). Typically, games have sight and sound sense enhancing abilities but I think it would be interesting to develop more on the touch sensation.

Animals that live underground like the Middle East blind mole-rat use intra-specific communication; this means they use vibrations to communicate, predator warning and avoidance, herd or group maintenance, and courtship. It would be interesting to see this ability applied to a playable character in-game. By touching the ground and dulling other senses, I could see this ability making the player vulnerable for a period of time. This suits the mechanic because I’ve been considering it within a stealth game. But while the player focuses the ability, an abstract vibration indicator-not too obvious-will allow the player to shift around the environment to try and locate the origin, without completely giving the location away. You could try to decipher the indications and develop an idea of the path movement of the creature. This could be used for more than to find enemies based on their vibrations. You could also create your own vibrations and see how they affect the environment around you. This means you can locate any interactive vulnerabilities which could be a breakable wall or a weak platform, etc.

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What are thoooose?

In older games important items usually visually stand out by being in contrast to the environment (color, art style, detail) in a very obvious way. You could even find breakable walls or hidden paths by the texture, showing that this wall seems to be able to animate whereas the other walls are stagnant. Some games highlight important items/paths with a ring of light surrounding it or some other indicating factor. I think the use of the characters perception to distinguish important items or hidden paths is more interesting because instead of having the item or path tell you that it is important, your character uses its own investigative instinct to determine what should be given more attention. Especially with the graphics on some more current games, its hard to distinguish importance when, at times, everything is interesting looking. 

To show how the interactive elements are only shows with heightened perception, look at Tomb Raider (2013) “survival instinct” vision.

https://youtu.be/lekgyVniChc

[coleyplays]

“The challenge type of stealth centric games is to avoid being seen”. (Adams, Rollings, 2007)

These enhanced senses abilities are particularly useful in stealth games. When the player is faced with multiple enemies that cannot see them, they are most likely not able to see all the enemies at all times because of walls, obstacles and the players hiding position. If you dont have a camera to slip under doors or around corners like in Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell (2002), you’re at risk of getting caught. Some games have mini-maps that show enemy location and even direction of sight but these can sometimes break emergence within a game and seem unrealistic. But allowing the player to have items or abilities that allow them to sense enemy behavior levels the playing field. Plainly its like having many sensors vs a better quality sensor. 

An interesting feature that I saw in Batman: Arkham Asylum is that using Detective Mode, you can not only locate enemy positions but also indicate whether the enemy is armed or not by colour, the rate of each enemy’s heartbeat, and also investigate finger prints and DNA on surfaces. This gives the player a huge advantage when stradegizing how(/whether) to approach a group of enemies. Because of Batman’s capabilities, being stealthy can be very versatile, because the player can approach or avoid enemies from the ground, through walls, from perches and even the sky. https://youtu.be/Klo6xyC01iA

The “listening mode” is very important when playing The Last of Us (2013). A lot of the time your player cannot take on a group of infected, especially if there are clickers, which are one-hit-kill type of enemies that rely on sound to find you. Because the enemies are so dangerous, knowing their location and path is very important if you want to avoid them; also if you are trying to distract them while hiding, listening mode can help you watch how your distractions affect the enemies behavior.

https://youtu.be/tDA9ak-I3Ok

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Perception altering mechanic

In earlier games like Metal Gear Solid (1998), altering the players perception came in an item, the infrared goggles. Also in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998), you can acquire an item called the Lens of Truth which allows the player to see fake walls and other hidden paths.

In later games like The Last of Us (2013) and Batman: Arkham Asylum (2009), the perception alteration comes in different forms but mainly a “mode” that is activated by the player to reveal more or hidden information in the surrounding environment. While unrelated information fades, enemies, items, paths and other information are highlighted. Having this ability means you can play the game more methodically and stealthily. By activating from a vantage point, the player can assess the relevant information and develop a plan of action; whether is means fighting or evading enemies, problem solving when given pieces to a puzzle, or unveiling path options, these modes are a helpful mechanic to give the player an option when the method of progression isn’t clear.