The official trailer for Sensory. Dive into a first-person, interactive narrative experience in which players explore the apocalypse & a strange world shroud...
XB3992 Honours Project - Sensory - Official Release Trailer:
Above you can find the official Youtube video for the official launch trailer for my honours project Sensory.
With one of my deliverables being an official launch trailer for Sensory to add an additional portfolio piece to my body of work but also present within a professional showreel for the Futureworks degree show.
Focusing on my specialism of game production I wanted to also add to my showcase of production knowledge that I can also prepare a piece of media for marketing purposes that could be used to release to target audiences and to the world as a whole.
I worked with freelance video editor Kieran Rogers to produce a trailer that would be fit for marketing purposes should this game be launched as an indie title, displaying the overall narrative of the game without revealing too much of the environment or overall narrative as a whole.
Overall I am extremely pleased with the trailer as it fits my stated deliverable as a game trailer and could be marketed as an official launch trailer for an indie game should I choose to develop Sensory further outside of my academic studies.
REFERENCES:
All editing in this trailer was performed by freelance video editor Kieran Rogers.
XB3001 Professional Game Practice group game trailer for team Cynical Hippo for our third year, game design group project No Renaissance for Robots.
XB3001 Professional Game Practice - Group Project - Cynical Hippo - No Renaissance for Robots Trailer - Group Game Officially Finished:
Above you can find a link to our the final variation of our group project trailer for our group project, No Renaissance for Robots.
Overall we believe the trailer manages to showcase the core gameplay, explain the core narrative pretext of the player’s purpose within the level, and showcase the game’s mechanics, environment and level design.
What went well?
Overall the team has managed to fully create what our original brief we set ourselves was, a fast-paced, first-person, arena-based shooter, based on the theme of Vulnerability, set within a Synth Wave/Futuristic Venice.
Our main design goal was to create an experience that at its basic core was fun and we have been able to craft an FPS experience, that manages to keep the player on a constant run & gun system throughout the level in an attempt to prolong their longevity, fighting upon wave upon wave of rogue AI enemies, through small open areas and tight Venetian alleyways, tying into the theme of Vulnerability.
On top of the gameplay aspect of the project, the team is also extremely pleased with the game from an audio standpoint, I have been working alongside and handling communication between the Cynical Hippo team and freelance audio team, and we have been able to produce game audio, ambient & musical scores we believe only help strengthen the immersion of the game itself and add to the fast-paced nature and flow of the gameplay.
Overall:
The team is happy with the final result of our trailer and has ceased all development on the game & is now shifting all of our primary focus towards preparing for our presentation pitch on hand in date.
Above you can find a complete walkthrough of my honours project for XB3992 Honours Project, Sensory a first-person, interactive narrative based experience.
From the initial concept idea for my honours project, I always set out to create a narrative focused experience based on a singular character’s experience with sensory overload and how the disorder affects the individual within the current situation they find themselves in.
The original concept from a narrative, gameplay and world-building aspect was always to create the story of a young woman who wakes up in the apocalypse to find everyone has vanished, and the shock of the reality sends her into sensory overload.
To save her from going into mental shutdown her mind mentally takes her to a place of comfort, a world where the noisiness and decay of the real world no longer exists and instead she is taken to a place of life, wonder, purity and calmness where she can be safe from the reality her mind is desperate to save her from.
Overview:
Overall I have been able to achieve, produce and develop more than I originally intended for Sensory, with the original environment only consisting of a single apocalyptic street, through constant feedback I have been able to develop the once planned street into a full section of a city & make the overall gameplay experience longer and more content packed for players as a result.
I am pleased with the voice acting, audio and music elements of the project also as they have been done to an excellent standard and have only helped me deliver the narrative of the world to the player even more as the audio/music really help immerse the player into the world.
I am also extremely pleased with how the art/visual elements of the project turned out as I have been able to create the visual style I originally aimed for with the game but also replicate concept artwork created by Naia Skrinjar for the project to help make the visual aesthetics of the sensory overload world even more appealing from an art style perspective.
Successes:
. All intended VO, audio and music was implemented into the project allowing for the narrative of the story to be told to the player
. I extremely happy with how the apocalyptic and sensory overload world have turned out from an art and level design perspective as they have not only matches what I set out to achieve but have surpassed their original concepts in terms of scope
. In terms of technical performance, I am pleased with how the project performs at a high framerate capacity and also has all planned mechanics/systems implemented into the final version of the game itself
What I would change:
. If I had realised how much artistic impact Naia Skrinjar’s concept art would be within the environmental structure/aesthetics of the sensory overload world, I would have brought Naia onto the project sooner when developing the apocalyptic city environment, to help increase my own understand of what other design routes I could have gone down with the environment
. Due to the audio team's personal project deadlines, I was forced to speed up development of the sensory overload world losing an additional week, in order to gain all ambient game audio within Sensory, this caused me to not be able to fully develop the autumn season section of the sensory overload world as much as I wanted, going back I would have allocated more contingency time to allow for more development
References:
All artwork produced in this post and throughout the project has been created by artist Naia Skrinjar and is of her own production and not by myself Simran Whitham.
XB3992 Honours Project Developer Diary. For my final year at university honours project, I undertook the process of creating a behind the scene's developer d...
Working alongside post-production student Lauren Georgia the final polished and deliverable developer diary documenting the development of my honours project Sensory has now been finalised and completed.
The developer diary showcases the entire production of my honours project from start to finish tieing into my specialism of production and showing how I can manage multiple aspects of game development and manage a team of specialists with multiple skill sets and specialisms to achieve an end result and final media product.
What went well?
From the initial research stages, production and final polishing stages of the project Lauren Georgia has been great to work with on the direction and visual communication elements of the dev diary and its overall purpose.
Every month I have recorded and labelled the weeks/purpose of each development video and met up with Lauren to pass the content on with constant communication and feedback on the editing of the developer diary being a constant direction between us both in terms of a final product.
Overall:
I am pleased with the outcome of the developer diary and how it visually communicates the entire production of a project from point A to B and my understanding of multiple design elements and specialisms within game design and management of a team from multiple skillsets and backgrounds and how I have applied their skillsets to the production of a product.
XB3001 Group Game - Cynical Hippo - First-year BAGD & Game Art Feedback Session:
On Friday the 6th of April I held a small feedback session to present the final build of No Renaissance for Robots to gain any additional feedback that could be implemented into the final polishing stages of the game.
The playtesting was undertaken by some first year BAGD students and third-year Game Art students which throughout their playtesting session I asked them to document their feedback into a document whilst playing.
The following feedback points were what was documented by the playtesters:
Signs could maybe be bigger to help navigation
Sprint speed could be default and walk optional - cutscenes?
Clouds
Duke Nukem style catchphrases - RELOADIN / DAMN ROBOTS
Heavy machine gun possibly obstructs vision
Shotgun knockback is cool
Size of level is 10/10
Art style works well
Enemy ragdoll is pretty funny when they fly off
FUTURE IDEAS:
Could shoot cash machines for upgrades after each play session
- Multiple levels could allow player progression and scoreboards
Online 64v64 multiplayer ... (;
Moving Forward?
On the 8th of April (today), I will be commencing the final polishing stages and elements to the level design and structure of the game before the team moves into the phase of closing down all polishing on the project completely.
XB3001 Group Game - Cynical Hippo - Game Audio/Music/Voice Acting Update - All Audio now in No Renaissance for Robots!:
After working alongside Futureworks Game Audio students Adam Whitehead, Alex Larumbe & Joshua Hindle we have been able to implement all of the game sounds, audio, voice acting and music into the final build of our group game No Renaissance for Robots.
I have been communicating back and forth with the audio team from the start of the development of the project to ensure all sounds, music and voice acting help serve the narrative, atmosphere and mechanical functions present within the game.
Music:
Working alongside game audio student Joshua Hindle we established that the soundtrack had to be something that from an audio sense provided an atmosphere of fast-paced gameplay, familiar synth wave tones present within the genre of music but also be a track that got more intense the more the match went on.
After performing feedback sessions at Manchester Gamers Unite and to a wide variety of Futureworks students the majority found the music really helped set the tone for the game’s genre and helped immerse them into the gunfight gameplay and synth wave aesthetic of the environment.
Voice Acting:
With the narrative premise of our game being simple as the player being a cleanup crew who have been sent into an anarchy Venice Plaza that’s been overtaken by robots and they have been sent in to exterminate them the team felt this needed to be communicated to the player via an audio sense as well as a visual UI feedback sense also.
As you can hear in the attached video above game audio student Adam Whitehead recorded a brief radio communication voice-over line that once the player walks into an unavoidable trigger box within the starting area, they will be briefed by the operator on the current situation.
Overall we believe as a team from feedback sessions that this communicates the simple narrative premise of the game to the player and what their immediate objective from the level starting point is.
Game Ambient Audio:
With Alex Larumbe and Adam Whitehead taking up the duties of recording and mixing the in-game ambient noise and sounds I have communicated back and forth working with both of them to implement the sounds into the final build of the game, providing feedback on the development of the sounds throughout the project’s development.
From here we have managed to gain a good understanding on both sides on making the sounds that are present in the final build of No Renaissance for Robots feel organic and suit the overall art style and genre of the game from a gameplay perspective as well as an audio design perspective.
What went well?
Communication and development between myself and the audio team has gone well throughout the project and I have been able to provide feedback and produce an asset library of sounds/music that we have been able to develop to suit the game’s art style, the theme of vulnerability and genre of Synthwave.
The implementation of the sounds also went well with the assistance of group game designer Maksym Grant allowing to have the sounds/music present throughout the game with very few errors during the implementation phase of development.
XB3001 Group Game - Cynical Hippo - Level Design Update - Modular Scaffolding Kit placement:
Upon receiving the final sets of modular kit models from group 3D prop artist Aaron Costello I have placed the sci-fi scaffolding building kit around the renovated sections of the Venice city level.
As you can see I have placed the scaffolding kit to allow players to access more vertical areas of the game map allowing players to utilise both the zip line mechanic and vertical aspects of the level design to reach rooftops and use the Venetian building rooftops to reach other sections of the map such as the back alleys and waterfronts.
To also add some additional environmental storytelling aspects to game world itself I placed small scaffolding floor panels and railings on the floor below rooftop scaffolding locations & altered certain panels to either look like they are on the verge of falling off or have fallen off a scaffolding kit and onto the lower street floors.
Moving Forward?
I have placed Aaron’s kit throughout the whole level and am now in the final stages of adding any additional environmental storytelling and organic life into the environment of the level itself using props provided by Callum and Aaron.
Working alongside group environment artist Callum Reyes we decided that to that to add some more additional environmental characteristics to the windows of the modular kits throughout the environment that we would create some potted plants to be placed as hanging baskets for the windows of the modular kit.
Using a potted plant basket created by Callum as a reference I then used SpeedTree to create a variety of different potted plants of shapes and sizes that could be placed inside Callum’s pot with some SpeedTree wind functions applied to the potted plant meshes upon import into Unreal Engine to add some organic life to tree’s to make it look like they are being blown by a small breezy wind in the environment.
Upon importation, I created a series of actor blueprints each containing the flower basket static mesh and from there imported four variations of SpeedTree models into the four actors creating four variations of flower baskets whilst also saving on Unreal Engine processing power within the game.
This same process has also been repeated for some SpeedTree Vines that I have created and placed throughout the backstreets and waterfronts of the Venetian streets to replicate that of the actual streets of Venice I captured in my references images whilst in the country, aesthetically following the rules and regulations of Venice’s architectural structure within it’s environments.
What went well?
Creating the tree’s/plants was a simple enough process in SpeedTree as you can see in the video above and because of the number of mesh properties and functions SpeedTree presents I was able to create a wide variety of potted plants to add some visual variety to the baskets when placed throughout the level.
Moving Forward?
I have placed the SpeedTree flower baskets around the environment on a number of buildings and will continue to place them in areas I believe they will add additional characteristics to the environment.
XB3001 - Group Project - Cynical Hippo - Level Design Update - Gondola movement and player usability:
With the team in the final polishing stages for our group project game, No Renaissance for Robots one additional level design bit of polishing I have implemented into the final state of the game is to have the gondola models produced by group environment artist Aaron Costello perform rowing animations through the waterfronts and alleyway back streets of Venice, for the player to use to their gameplay advantage.
As you can see in the screenshots above the gondola’s move on an animation timeline up and down the waterfront/alleyways, and now that the collisions have been modified on the gondola models players can now jump onto the gondola’s from the bridges and use them as a transportation method should they choose throughout the level.
I chose to use the gondolas as a method of transportation throughout the level design to offer the player’s choice within how they approach the design of the level and escaping the robots itself to collaborate with the theme of vulnerability.
Vulnerability:
If players find themselves cornered on a bridge and in a vulnerable situation they can risk jumping into the lethal immediate death water and landing onto a gondola and using it to traverse the level design as an escape method to prolonge their longevity until they either are killed or complete the objective of clearing out the robots.
XB3992 Honours Project - Sensory third island & entire world’s finished:
Last week I finalised and finished off the remaining polishing of the third island within the sensory overload world of my honours project marking the end of the all the 3D modelling, world building, environment art and aesthetic elements of the project and resulting in Sensory being officially remaining now that all audio/music and blueprinting elements within the project are finished.
All that remains now is to polish some blueprinting elements of the project & potentially package the project which will then result in Sensory being officially ready for hand in date alongside my other project deliverables.
References:
All artwork produced in this post and throughout the project has been created by artist Naia Skrinjar and is of her own production and not by myself Simran Whitham.
XB3001 - Group Project - Cynical Hippo - Level Design Update - Creating environmental characteristics and storytelling:
With the lighting now placed throughout the level, I focused on applying additional meshes produced by group environment artists Callum Reyes and Aaron Costello throughout the level to start adding street props and more environmental storytelling and characteristics throughout the level.
Callum provided assets such as street cones, dumpsters, bins, supply crates, and additional assets and Aaron provided assets such as bullets, and the neon signs, which I have placed throughout the level.
By placing these assets and animating Aaron’s Gondola models to slightly float in the waters of Venice, I have been able to create visual environmental storytelling as you can see in the screenshots above.
By placing traffic cones, crates and bullets on the streets and waterfronts I have been able to make it look like visual chaos has taken place throughout the city of Venice.
Moving Forward?
With us entering the final stages of polish I will continue to populate the world best I can before the team works on creating our final game trailer to display the gameplay and essence of the game.
XB3992 Honours Project - Sensory Audio Update - All VO and sensory overload world sounds/music implemented & finished!
Working alongside Futureworks game audio students Joe Foulds and Tom Bennett we have now managed to implement all the narrative voice acting & ambient sensory overload sounds into the whole project.
With Tom Bennett just adding some additional polish to the now complete game sounds we can say that all the voice acting/game audio has now been implemented into Sensory and all that remains for the project is some blueprinting polish.
What went well?
From the moment of the project’s production, the production pipeline of the sound’s production has been at a very high quality with Tom and Joe working to an Excel sheet list of sounds displayed at all times.
We have been able to implement all the audio, Kym Veldman’s voice acting and Martyn Stonehouse’s music soundtracks into the game with no issues or errors surfacing making the entire audio elements of the project a smooth operation and not holting development of the project much.
What could have gone better?
Due to Joe and Tom not being able to work on the same project as me at all times due to the technical complications of installing Sourc Control into Unreal Engine, we we’re forced to pass the project back and forth between one another whilst the audio team implemented their audio/Martyn’s music into the core build of Sensory.
This at times halted my development by a maximum of 3 days twice whilst Tom and Joe made sure all the audio was in a quality state.
Overall?
In terms of quality and functionality I am very pleased with the final outcome of all the musical, voice acting and game audio aspects of the project as they really help bring both enviroments to life and make them feel more organic and like a game world that player’s can explore.
XB3001 - Group Project - Cynical Hippo - Level Design Update - Lighting placement and adjustment:
After being provided with the lighting static Unreal set lights and lampost/wall light meshes by group environment artist Callum Reyes I have now placed all the environmental lighting throughout the game world and level from both a street and vertical rooftop standpoint.
Based on the player feedback from playtesting events such as Manchester Gamers Unite and first-year/class playtesting sessions one of the biggest criticisms was that the game was aesthetically too dark and players had trouble navigating the map as a whole due to the lack of lighting.
After slightly increasing the skylights intensity & placing Callum’s lights throughout the level as you can now see in the screenshots above it is easier to navigate the whole map as the whole environment now has lights both street and wall mounted present in every street, corner, waterway and alleyway.
Moving Forward?
With the majority of the level completed now from a level design and environment art perspective, we are now waiting for group programmer Maksym Grant to refine any blueprinting elements of the project and for the audio team to begin implementation of any additional game sounds on the 27/03/2018.
Once these elements are produced the project will be passed onto Maksym for him to begin the final process of packaging the UE4 project.
At the beginning of the academic year (September 2017), I invited Barry Bennett, autism nurse Jeanette Donnelley to Futureworks to provide me with some suggestions on how I would originally go about communicating the sensory overload narrative to players of the game and how to go about developing it into the game from a visual standpoint and how the condition affects individuals on an individual basis.
On the 20th of March 2018, I invited Jeanette back to Futureworks to get her opinion on how the project has developed and what her opinion on the final production stage of the project does for communicating sensory overload to players.
Feedback:
Jeanett’s feedback on the overall project in it’s current stages were as follows:
. Overall she loved the visual style of the game, and from her many years of experience of dealing with patience who have suffered from sensory overload feels like this world does an excellent job of community the safety mechanism a lot of autistic individuals brain’s lock their hosts into to stop the body from going into physical shock
. From an audio standpoint she thought the white noise was a very good audio signifyer to indicate how an individual suffering from sensory overload would slowly sink into a state of overbearing and unbearable phycological shock and that the noise is progressive is a good element of the audio feedback
. Due to her lack of knowledge of video game systems or functions Jeanette was not able to give much feedback in terms of how to better develop the narrative from a mechanical standpoint, level design or narrative design standpoint however did say that from a visual standpoint she was very impressed with the project
Moving Forward?
With the main project now being passed onto the audio team Joe Foulds & Tom Bennett all the audio elements of the project are now being implimented into the main build of Sensory and my hope to begin final polish for the project next week.
XB3992 Honours Project - Foundry 42 - Cloud Imperium Games - Star Citizen - Vehicle Artist Joe Neville & Environment Artist Chris Reid - Sensory feedback and critique session:
On the 22nd of March 2018, we received a guest lecture from Foundry 42, Star Citizen environment artist Chris Reid and Senior Vehicle Artist Joe Neville, in which after the lecture they performed a critique of people’s honours project to provide creative input.
From both individuals, the response was massively positive on the project as a whole and much creative input was provided and slight touches that could be added now that the project has exited it’s production stages and into the final polishing stages.
Joe Neville Feedback:
. The overall art style is extremely beautiful and contrasts very well with both environments and is visually very pleasing
. Whilst the game is an FP, interactive narrative based experience Joe really focused a lot of emphasis on how the art style I have created for Sensory could best be implemented into a platformer type game and think’s that’s where the game’s art style truly lies in terms of gaming experience
. The low poly water present in both environments is extremely visually pleasing to both Joe and Chris and feels like blue water in the sensory overload world really helps sell the tranquil atmosphere I have been trying to build with the environment
. Joe was also extremely impressed with the concept art behind the project produced by Naia Skrinjar and liked how I have been able to take her concept designs and manifest them into a game world and believes the project should be continued after university with us both working on it
Chris Reid Feedback:
. Without the VO implemented throughout the whole experience, Chris struggled to understand the overarching narrative of the project.
To counteract this issue I have now passed on Sensory to the audio team Joe Foulds & Tom Bennett to implement the remaining VO, game audio and musical scores to the project to better communicate the narrative of the game
. The snow placed on the floor of the cave exit leading into the sensory overload world environment needs to be removed as this is a world that is meant to be pure and clear of the busyness of the previous apocalyptic world in terms of environmental asset placement, and having the snow clutter the floor of the cave entrance contrasts with the overall narrative theme of this world, I have since after receiving this feedback removed the snow from the cave exit floor
. Like Joe, Chris stated the overall art style of the game works very well and thinks I have done very well with the colour palette selection and the game is very strong in terms of visual development as the transition between environments is beautiful as the whole world changes but the style of environments remain consist and consistent throughout the game
Moving Forward?
With the final production build of Sensory now being passed onto game audio students Joe Foulds & Tom Bennett, now the final audio aspects of the project are being finalised and implemented which from there will begin polishing any remaining blueprint/art aspects of the project.
XB3992 Honours Project - Developer Diary Update - One week to go!! (Music not sticking...obviously :P)
Here is the latest update on the academic year-long production developer diary I am working with post-production student Lauren Georgia of Wider Focus Productions to produce to document the entire development process of my honours project.
All the production/development that has been recorded has been edited for the month’s of January and February now by Lauren and the dev diary is in its final stages now.
The deadline for the diary is the 27th of March and as of now, I am recording as much content between now and then to showcase as much of my development process, design workflow and as much of the project as possible.
Above you can also see the intro developer diary screens and credits scene’s that will be present in the dev diary showing all the software internal and external used within the project by myself or the audio team & credits scene for all those involved in the project.
REFERENCES:
All filming and editing for the developer diary for XB3992 Honours Project Sensory was created by Futureworks pre-production student Lauren Georgia and not myself Simran Whitham.
XB3001 Group Project - Cynical Hippo - Level Design Update - Creating Materials for weapons & props:
After finally receiving the weapon models and some additional prop models from team environment artist Aaron Costello I have begun the process of hooking up some of his materials in the engine that can now be applied to the weapon models themselves.
Moving Forward?
Now that Aaron has provided me with the models and textures I can now begin the process of placing the assets he has created in the game and hooking up the rest of the provided materials to work alongside the other team environment artist Callum Reye’s modular kits and assets.
