Tag Archives: Game

Angle Jungle – Privacy Policy

Jibran Khan built the Angle Jungle game as a Free game. This SERVICE is provided by Jibran Khan at no cost and is intended for use as is.

This page is used to inform visitors regarding my policies with the collection, use, and disclosure of Personal Information if anyone decided to use my Service.

If you choose to use my Service, then you agree to the collection and use of information in relation to this policy. The Personal Information that I collect is used for providing and improving the Service. I will not use or share your information with anyone except as described in this Privacy Policy.

The terms used in this Privacy Policy have the same meanings as in our Terms and Conditions, which is accessible at Angle Jungle unless otherwise defined in this Privacy Policy.

Information Collection and Use

For a better experience, while using our Service, I may require you to provide us with certain personally identifiable information. The information that I request will be retained on your device and is not collected by me in any way.

The game does use third party services that may collect information used to identify you.

Link to privacy policy of third party service providers used by the game

Log Data

I want to inform you that whenever you use my Service, in a case of an error in the game I collect data and information (through third party products) on your phone called Log Data. This Log Data may include information such as your device Internet Protocol (“IP”) address, device name, operating system version, the configuration of the game when utilizing my Service, the time and date of your use of the Service, and other statistics.

Cookies

Cookies are files with a small amount of data that are commonly used as anonymous unique identifiers. These are sent to your browser from the websites that you visit and are stored on your device’s internal memory.

This Service does not use these “cookies” explicitly. However, the game may use third party code and libraries that use “cookies” to collect information and improve their services. You have the option to either accept or refuse these cookies and know when a cookie is being sent to your device. If you choose to refuse our cookies, you may not be able to use some portions of this Service.

Service Providers

I may employ third-party companies and individuals due to the following reasons:

  • To facilitate our Service;
  • To provide the Service on our behalf;
  • To perform Service-related services; or
  • To assist us in analyzing how our Service is used.

I want to inform users of this Service that these third parties have access to your Personal Information. The reason is to perform the tasks assigned to them on our behalf. However, they are obligated not to disclose or use the information for any other purpose.

Security

I value your trust in providing us your Personal Information, thus we are striving to use commercially acceptable means of protecting it. But remember that no method of transmission over the internet, or method of electronic storage is 100% secure and reliable, and I cannot guarantee its absolute security.

Continue reading Angle Jungle – Privacy Policy

WIT – Stubbs Rebel Without a Pulse

Preface: Making games is hard. So any endeavor I applaud. The game I will be writing a few notes on is Stubbs Rebel Without a Pulse.

Boundary Signaling

A simplistic means to convey blocked off area which uses police barriers, and invisible collision heavily in a manner that is immersion breaking.

Modes

Stubb’s showcases a number of modes fairly early to keep things interesting.

Vehicle

An mode where players pilot a vehicle.

Dancing

A minigame where the player engages in a dance office with a boss.

The game begins with simplistic patterns that go around the gamepad. Patterns such as:

  • 2 lefts then 2 ups.
  • 2 downs then 2 rights.
Speed Increase

To increase difficulty the mini game increases the speed of input.

I have mixed feeling about this minigame. It’s very unforgiving. One has to memorize the pattern, and I had great difficulty if I didn’t have the pattern in mind.

To improve this section the game could increase the time for input or better foreshadow the next button press. Other games have done this with visualizing future button presses.

Additionally the mini-game has an unclear end state. When do I know when I win or lose? How many rounds left?

Hand

An alternate mode where the player controls Stubb’s hand. This mode is interesting in that the players:

  • Scale is changed.
  • Has a new means to navigate being able to crawl along surfaces.
  • Is able to mind control enemies

One improvement I would make here is having the surface crawling be connected to a player input rather than automatically occur when approaching a surface.

Continue reading WIT – Stubbs Rebel Without a Pulse

WIT – Scratch X RPG Battle 2

Preface: Making a game is hard, so any endeavor I applaud. Additionally the time and Skill Level of Developer is Unknown. The game I will be writing some notes on is Scratch X RPG Battle 2 and can be played here.

Here are some notes on the experience:

  • Enjoyed the meteorite special ability, appreciate the effort in terms of attack animations.
  • Expected ultimate to be something different from meteor.
  • Classic JRPG style action menu.
  • Like how the background is akin to some of the special moves. Helps to create a sense of a larger environment.
  • Would have like a progression of enemies, boss super powerness reduce from the impact of abilities + not sure if the enemy can be beaten.
  • Some initial backstory might be cool to setup why I’m this character, what brings me to this place.
  • Some options not functional e.g. Items – likely scope related.
  • Health and mana could be different colors instead of different shades of blue to visually show their difference in function..
  • I’d consider making the ultimate ring an inner part of the three stats ring to show association between the two.
  • Unclear how to back out of current option, could use standard key like escape, since no ability to go back in menu and was out of menu got stuck and had to quit.
  • Reminds me of Dragon Ballz for some reason.
  • Boss projecting a power attack coming is good. Dark Souls does this well for attacks in general.
  • After a couple of tries I did win. It was hard, more playtesting and tuning seem to be in-order.

Octopath Traveller

Played Octopath Traveller.

Save 50% on OCTOPATH TRAVELER™ on Steam

Here is some thoughts:

Brave Narrative design

It takes courage to tell stories in such a manner that Octopath Traveller does. I suppose the cost of the permutations of these stories is many, and that comes with certain implications. From my sense playing so far (12 hours in only). It seems these stories will be told in parallel with not too much cross over. Regardless I maintain its brave to take on such a challenge at all. Good for them. 

Amazing Sound Track

Sunlands, Primrose the Dancer, amazing. Nothing left to say. Do checkout these tracks if you haven’t heard them awesome stuff. As well as these the game has even more to offer!

Endearing Art Style

The pixelated art style reminds me of JRPG’s of old. I happily reminisce once in awhile playing this game. 

Octopath Traveller PC review | Rock Paper Shotgun

Heart of The Swarm, Impressions

Recently I’ve been playing Starcraft 2 Heart of The Swarm, a military science fiction real-time strategy video game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment. The following are my notes:

There be spoilers ahead, read at your own peril!

Like

  • The Hyperion mission! Having to manage one unit with a continuous stream of battling non playable characters takes away the added task of micro management and lets me enjoy a feeling of ‘distinctiveness’

  • How ‘cutscenes’ meld into gameplay e.g when saving Raynor, Kerrigan’s Leviathan arms smash into the prison ship which then transitions into the game level

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  • Evolution missions really helps players understand how an evolution works and how to use it

Dislike

  • After Kerrigan’s battle with Narud, I felt she recovered too quickly. It drew from the gravity of the fight. She should have been in an injured state for the Leviathan section where characters could comment on her fight. Then by the next mission having recovered, there would be a contextual piece of dialog about it

Continue reading Heart of The Swarm, Impressions

Dyscourse, Impressions

Recently I’ve been playing Dyscourse, a survival adventure video game developed and published by Owlchemy. The following are my notes:

There be spoilers ahead, read at your own peril!

Like

  • Effective non playable character ‘humanization’
    • Text – One character makes a reference to the main players clothes
    • Actions – Passing around of water bottles scene

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  • Warm colorful storybook art style
  • Characters reflect ‘character’ through facial expressions, walking style, and speech which conveys the characters emotion
  • ‘Torchlight Talk’ mechanic, it makes sense that the fire goes out over time making talking limited

  • Time based events with clearly conveyed state e.g combo sequence required to defeat boar

  • Color coding for character dialog messages

  • Slight shine on wooden planks to attract players attention

  • Choice confirmation points that give a player a chance to again consider

  • Rewind feature, which allows player to go through the story again and try get the outcome they actually desire

Continue reading Dyscourse, Impressions

DinoRancher – Build Virtual Worlds, Round 5

Introduction: Developed on the Oculus Rift with PS Move, DinoRancher had guests play atop a Triceratops armed with an electric lasso. The goal of the guest was to shepherd a herd of Stegosaurus to safety, protecting them from danger.

Platform: Oculus & PS Move | Time: 2 weeks | Role: Programmer – Designer – Producer | Team Size: 5

Story:  You are a DinoRancher armed with your electro lasso and trusty trike. Travel across the desolate wasteland, and protect your herd from those nasty predators!

Design Challenges:

  • Herd behavior
  • Enemy types
  • Environment design
  • Integration of the PS move into Virtual Reality
  • Trike movement system

Design Goal: To create an experience that made the guest feel like a cowboy travelling through the desert protecting a herd of dinosaur from predators.

My Contributions: As producer I arranged meetings, delegated pending tasks, and contributed creatively. In addition as a programmer I was responsible for setting up the games environment which included, asset preparation, level design and developing agent behavior.

DinoRancher was featured at The Forbidden Forest in The Entertainment Technology Centers end of semester festival!

Festival Footage

NoseDive – Building Virtual Worlds, Round 4

Introduction: Developed on the CAVE with Makey Makey, NoseDive had guests play in the CAVE environment using airplane controls we constructed using Makey Makey.

Platform: CAVE, and Makey Makey in Unity 3D | Time: 2 weeks | Roles: Programmer – Game Designer – Producer | Team Size: 5

Story: Our game had our guests take the role of make shift pilots thrust into having to fly a plane to safety through a terrible storm when the captain has become incapacitated.

Design Challenges:

  • Adapting to the CAVE environment.
  • Creating an authentic flight simulator experience with an easily understand story.

Design Goal: To create an authentic story of saving the day through the game we created.

My Contributions: For NoseDive I was producer, designer and programmer. Being producer involved scheduling and coordination of our teams artist, programmer and sound designer. In addition I assisted my fellow programmer with environment and Unity prop setup.

Continue reading NoseDive – Building Virtual Worlds, Round 4

A Playroom – Building Virtual Worlds, Round 2

Introduction: A Playroom was a developed on the HTC Vive. A virtual reality device that allows a guest to walk around a calibrated virtual reality space with hand held controls.

Platform: HTC Vive in Unity 3D | Time: 2 weeks | Roles: Designer – Producer | Team Size: 5

Story: The setting of the game is in a play room where the guest encounters a ghost boy who needs help in-order to ‘move on’.

Design Challenge: To design a game for naive guests, conduct play tests, and make three predictions of what the guest will do all whilst having the guest ‘feel free’.

Design Goal: Round 2 of Building Virtual Worlds was indirect control round. This required we build an experience that felt free, and was intuitive enough for a guest to play from start to finish without any instruction or guidelines.

My Contributions: I analyzed, and designed the guests interactions as well as wrote our main non playable characters dialogue. In addition I conducted play tests which gave us invaluable feedback which we used to further develop the experience.

Development

Interaction Design


I focused on interaction development by first analyzing what we currently had. From that I wrote a draft story design which was a rough version of what we would aim for. Our current gameplay was clearly a linear story experience, and I believed we could achieve a greater sense of freedom by allowing a player a choice of what game to play.

From this notion I created two different interaction models.

a-playroom-interaction-general
Interaction Analysis – Development Diagram

I then met with the team, presented my two plans. We choose plan 2 which I further developed into a more detailed version.

a-playroom-interaction-map-detailed
Interaction Analysis – Component Breakdown

Audio would play a vital aspect in driving this interaction model therefore I worked with our sound designer on a script for the game which we iterated over based on feedback (script documents).


Playtesting


Once the various audio cues, and interaction model was implemented we went about play testing the game. I conducted play tests with over fifteen naive guests which included an audience of fellow students, professors and non-students. This feedback was then used to polish elements of our experience.

a-playroom-playtesting-form
Sample Play Test Feedback Form

In conclusion we correctly predicted each of the three interactions, and the guest understood our story, all with no guidelines or instruction from us.

Full Story

We began our project with brain storming, and research into the platform on which we were developing. We came up with several ideas including:

  1. Darkness Use light to guide the guest through a street.
  2. Space Exploration Explore the universe, and pick a planet to colonize.
  3. Dreaming – Flying a plane, flying elephants, flowers turn to buildings (freedom from constraints).
  4. Empty Room – Furniture place (guide them to a correct place).

Having difficulty grappling with the concept of ‘freedom’ we spoke to a member of The Entertainment Technology Faculty Jesse Schell. After meeting with Jesse Schell we honed in on an idea of a ghost boy which we would help in some manner through objects around him.

Next we thought about location, which was first a storage room due to it making sense to have many object, we then changed to a play room as it offer the potential for a ‘warmer’ environment for guests to feel comfortable.

After creating a basic room with a simple number of interactions which included:

  • Playing catch.
  • Place a train on the train track.
  • Hide & Seek.
  • Give a hug.

We had a prototype ready for interim.

Interim

After interim our two main points of feedback were

  1. Make the boy and game generally less ‘creepy’.
  2. To develop our interactions.

Less ‘Creepy’

Point 1 was a significant design challenge which we tackled by investing time into solving by:

  • Making our main game character look more human like.
  • Soothing music.
  • A warm game atmosphere.
  • A friendly, light and clear character voice.

Interaction Design

I decided to tackle point 2 by first analyzing what we currently had, then writing a draft story design which was a rough version of what we would aim for. Our current game play was clearly a linear story experience, and I believed we could greater the sense of freedom by allowing a player a choice of what game to play.

From this notion I created two different interaction models.

Interaction Analysis – Development Diagram

After meeting with the team, presenting the two plans and convincing them of the need to carefully design the experience, we choose plan 2 which I then further developed into a more detailed version.

Interaction Analysis – Component Breakdown

Implementation

Audio played a vital aspect in our experience so I worked with our sound designer on a script for the game which we iterated over three times based on feedback (script documents). In addition to audio we used a number of other techniques including:

  • Lighting – To direct the players focus.

Meeting the Boy

  • Color – Brightly contrasting objects such as with the yellow train on a blue chair, and a red book on a beige floor caught the players attention.

Train & Puzzle

  • Uniformity – A suggestive picture fragment was placed in the frame, and other similar looking puzzle pieces were placed around the level.

Puzzle Placed

After implementing these features with a new interaction model we went about play testing the game. We conducted play tests with over fifteen naive guests which included an audience of fellow students, professors and non-students.

Based on the feedback we received we continued to polish elements of the game. The end result of our work was that not only did we accurately predict each of the three interactions, but the guest completely understood the story behind our world all with no guidelines or instruction from us.

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Multi

Introduction: Multi is a game built on Game Maker for Windows using Game Makers scripting language. Players control a character who traverses a series of levels in a platformer style game play.

Platform: Windows | Time: 3 weeks |  RolesProgrammerGame Designer – Artist – Sound DesignerTeam Size: 1

Design Goal: The primary ‘design goal’ with this project was to further my design skills whilst practicing level and mechanic design.

Design Challenges:

  • Creating levels that were interesting to play with the mechanics I created.
  • Difficulty design.
  • Teaching players how to play.
  • Audio which included, character, and environment sound design.

My Contributions:

  • Programmed the code of the game (adapting some freely available physics code). I completely designed the game.
  • Made the majority of art assets (character art and animation taken from a game maker tutorial)
  • Collected audio that suited the game play from free sources (credits bundled with Multi).
  • Conducted play testing with younger audiences which I believed would be interested in the game.

Download:

Follow the link below to download a .zip file containing the game. When the download is complete, unzip the file then have a look the read-me and, then run the .exe file to play the game.

 Download Multi!

Continue reading Multi

Jam-O-Draw – Building Virtual Worlds, Round 3

Introduction: Jam-O-Draw is a game we created in the lightning round (single week round) of Building Virtual Worlds.

Platform: Jam-O-Drum | Time: 1 week | Roles: Producer – Game Designer – Programmer

Story: Jam-O-Draw was inspired by the classic etch-a-sketch game.

Design Goal: We wanted to create a multiplayer artistic experience with a fascinating reveal.

Design Challenges:

  • Adapting to an unfamiliar platform.
  • Creating an aesthetically pleasing experience using visuals and audio
  • Having the user interface during the experience be responsive and informative.

My contributions: My primary role on this project was as producer which involved making creative contributions, arranging meetings, coordinating our artists, programmers and sound designer to create the game in a timely manner. My programming responsibilities included assisting my fellow programmer with development, and preparing the game environment and assets.

Jam-O-Draw was featured at The Forbidden Forest in The Entertainment Technology Centers end of semester festival!

Festival Footage

Seize the Sky – Building Virtual Worlds, Round 1

Introduction: Seize the Sky was built during Building Virtual Worlds at Carnegie Mellons Entertainment Technology Center. The world was constructed using Oculus Rift, and Leap Motion. Using these technologies we put our guest into a virtual reality space with an ability to use a natural interface in our world.

Story: A mighty giant heads towards a town with murderous intent. A country side boy notices, and cries to Zeus for help to defeat the giant to save the city. You are Zeus, save them all!

Platform: Oculus Rift + Leap Motion in Unity 3D | Time: 2 weeks |  RolesProgrammer – Game Designer

Design Goal: Our design goal with Seize The Sky was help character A (the boy) who is afraid of character B (the giant).

Design Challenges:

  • Incorporating a satisfactory use of Leap motion.
  • Achieving our a sense of character A is afraid of character B.
  • Level design.
  • Game-play design.

My Contributions: As the lead programmer on Seize The Sky I made large contributions to the code base for this project. I also took an active part in the design process with working with the team to develop various aspects including game play, and level design.

Development

Iteration 1


The development process started with being assigned teams. In our first team meeting we made clear our skills, started brainstorming ideas, and kept good development processes in mind.

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During brainstorming we tried using several appropriate methods, such as gesture centered brainstorming (due to our use of Leap Motion). Finally we had five initial ideas:

  1. Help mend relationship between characters.
  2. Play piano to make baby sleep.
  3. Use light to guide a character home.
  4. Keep animal safe growing to adulthood.
  5. Hold characters hand to guide them.

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With our initial ideas we further boiled them down to three concepts with the following reasoning:

  • Concept one was hard to conceptualize compared to our other ideas which seemed simpler and more clear.
  • Concept five could be incorporated into concept three.

Creating sketches of each concept we then sought out the advice of our professor Jesse Schell.

bvw_round_1_initial_three_concepts

With Jesse Schells feedback we went with concept C, because we wanted to explore squeezing in Leap Motion.

bvw_round_1_post_meeting_notes

We then began further conceptualizing the idea with sketches, and research into the capabilities of Leap motion and Oculus.

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With this in mind we began assigning tasks to complete, considering game play, and used a scrum board to assist us in tracking tasks.

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On the technical side we used a NavMesh, and simple A.I. to run the behavior of the Hunter and Deer. The behaviors of the two agents were essentially:

  • The deer always moved to nearest tree that has an apple.
  • The Hunter patrolled around fixed points, and if it came close enough to the deer it began chasing it.

The result of our hard work was the following.

We then received feedback at interim, which sadly wasn’t good…

Iteration 2

Continue reading Seize the Sky – Building Virtual Worlds, Round 1

Building Virtual Worlds – Round 0

Building Virtual Worlds at Carnegie Mellon University starts with each student being assigned a role in Round 0. Since I have a Computer Science background, my role was that of programmer; this entailed I build a world that employed a number of basic features in Unity, such as:

  • Loads models and textures.
  • Play animations.
  • Use intervals, lighting, collisions, and multiple scenes.

The world can be downloaded here.

Concept

When considering the world, what I noticed was the amazing talent of the artists and musicians around me. It occurred to me what a shame it would be for their work not to be seen. I decided then that my virtual world would be a gallery of other peoples work. My first task was then to coordinate of assets with artists, and sound designers.

Creation

Artists were initially required to create animated lunchboxes, then dragons, and sound designers were required to create music for a clip of game play from a previously made world. I decided to meld the two by attaching audio sources to several of the artists assets that would constantly play music made by our sound designers.

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Continue reading Building Virtual Worlds – Round 0

Masochisia – Games Testing Project

Browsing Reddit’s PlayMyGame subreddit I found a post by Jon Oldblood asking for QA testers for his upcoming game Masochisia. Wanting some experience having a look at game analytically I volunteered to help out,  and ultimately performed two rounds of testing.

My first round of feedback was based on my first impressions of the game. While playing I took notes on noticeable details that jumped out at me in areas like:

  • Technical issues.
  • Game Aesthetics.
  • Game Audio.
  • Game Story.

masochisia_screenshot

Continue reading Masochisia – Games Testing Project

FEAR’s NPC A.I.

FEAR has been cited as one of the most influential A.I. games. FEAR’s claim to fame was its implementation of NPC A.I. using a system called Goal Oriented Action Planning.

Since I have some experience with planning in games, I wanted to have a look at the techniques used. After some digging I thought I’d put together a brief summary of what I learnt.

fear_logo

Continue reading FEAR’s NPC A.I.

Hero of Allacrost

Reddit is where this story begins. Trawling around I joined the /r/gameDevClassifieds sub-reddit. A place of gathering for game developers advertising paid, and un-paid game project work.

By chance I came across a post asking for a game designer, to which I replied. Unfortunately the position had already been filled though fortunately additional help was happily welcomed.

allacrost_logo_medium

The project in question is Hero of Allacrost. Its an ‘open source single player 2D role-playing game inspired by classic console RPG’s, and I’m thoroughly impressed with the standard of this project. It’s use of BitBucket for source control, a Wiki containing lots of information/documentation, a forum, and welcoming project members! I’ve worked on this project for approximately a month, and my contributions to this project have been enhancements to the battle code.

Here’s the latest Hero of Allacrost gameplay footage.  Check it out!

Shogun 2 Total War – A Recommendation

I remember nearly not buying the first Shogun Total War since it required four CD’s, which meant three other games I couldn’t have.

I remember sitting infront of my desktop impatiently. Expectantly flicking through the manual while the game installed, CD to CD.

shogun-2

I remember a journey. Fighting alongside the Shimazu, rising from Kyushu, besting the great clans of Japan to ultimately ascend as Shogun.

I remember years of waiting for a worthy successor to one of my life’s best games.

In 2011. I found Shogun 2.

I’ve been looking at Shogun 2s Campaign Map UI. Check it out here!

Game Maker – Dynamic Teleport

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