SunFlower: Art Style

This is the background I created on Photoshop, inspired by Van Goghs Starry Night.

A Sunflower I created on Photoshop, I like how it looks, however, the flower head is too big.

Foxglove drawing I did on Photoshop

Sunflower: Setting

This is a background I did for my game on photoshop. The image on the left shows how the screen would scroll up as the flower grows, and the image below shows how it would look on the iphone/ipad.

I decided to have the game set in a rural village, in a field. I used Van Gogh pictures for reference to the cottage in the background to try and continue the oil pastel look of the game.

SunFlower: Flowers

Although I have decided to call my game SunFlower, I am unsure whether to actually use a sunflower in my game because they have large flowerheads, it may make the game too simple because there will not be much room for the flower to maneuver. Therefore I have been looking at other flowers which I could use.

These are some skeches I did of wall flowers, I liked the idea of the flower spreading in all directions as it grows, however, I need a prominant point so the player knows which part it of the flower would move first, otherwise it could become too complicated.

I really liked the Foxglove because its shape bends a tapers naturally.

SunFlower: Game Influences

Orsinal.com

 Flower
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Flower+for+PS3+gameplay&sk=&docid=287277843058&mid=D3748D59CCBDB10C3A79D3748D59CCBDB10C3A79&FORM=LKVR4#

Flower Chain
 
Pixel Junk: Eden

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Pixel+Junk%3A+Eden&sk=&sc=1-16&docid=289254998516&mid=C960D60C3366AAFC245FC960D60C3366AAFC245F&FORM=LKVR2#

SunFlower: Chosen Apple Idea

I have decided to develop my Flower game idea. I decided to change the control system where you control the sun directly with your thumb, to a pivot system because the sun is above the flower, which would mean the players hand/thumb would cover a lot of the screen. I still wanted the player to have control, so I decided to have a sun at the bottom of the screen which you would control with your thumb. How this smaller sun moves, would reflect on the main sun which the flower would follow.
The height of your flower,aka your score, would be shown in the top right, above your health bar, which shows how much longer your flower can grow.

I have also decided to add something the player has to collect to keep moving, such as water or plant food which will fill up the health bar.

The petals on your flower would reflect its health and how many lives you have left. A full flower would mean 3 lives, a few missing petals would mean 2 lives, and 3 or 4 petals would mean you only have one life left. Having the flower show the lives would mean less to cluter up the screen

Apple Ideas - Alice in Wonderland Croquet

This idea is inspired by Alison in Wonderland, and is more of a mini game. It would be first person and you control a Hedgehog which rolls. You control where it rolls by turning the screen.  The aim of the game is to see how far you can get, by picking up special bonus' that enable you to go further/faster, and avoid enemies which will slow you down/take away a life. You will also have croquet hoops to roll through which will give you points to go further.

Your character will be a small hedgehog, but at the start of the game, you would be hit by a flamingo, which you can control.

Apple Ideas - Umbrella

Umbrella and Rain - Tip screen left and right too blow the umbrella left and right. Help people cross the street below, get points for everyone you help - different speeds - slower people (old ladies) take longer but gets more points. 

The Teddy Bear hanging on to the umbrella would be something else you would have to protect from things flying through the sky such as birds. The size of the umbrella would depend on the difficulty setting the player choses, easy would be a bigger umbrella, harder levels would have a smaller umbrella.

Apple Ideas - Sun Flower

The idea for this game is that you control the sun with your thumb and have to guide a growing flower up the screen, avoiding objects and getting as high as you can before your 3 lives are up

The flower would grow towards the sun which you would control and move with your thumb. The game would be really simple with possibly just one level you play over again, trying to beat your previous score 

Enemies: There would be enemies in the game which would harm your flowers life such as bugs and shears
Bonus: There would be some items you could collect which would help your flower such as protect it from enemies or make it grow quicker. 

Moon - changes sun to a moon, slows ur growth down, makes it easier to manouver

Things I would change: The sun would only be able to move left and right in an arc motion and the thumb can be anywhere on screen, eg bottom, otherwise you cant see the screen because your hand would cover it.

Apple Ideas - An Idiot Abroad

Another idea I had was inspired by the sky 1 programme, An Idiot Abroad and Around the World in 80 Days.  This would be an education type game, teaching the player about different countries and cultures.

The basic setting for the game is you travel around the world searching for different "wonders" or landmarks across the world, such as the Eiffel Tower in France. You would have to collect objects representing that country, avoid enemies and reach a "wonder" (such as the pyramids in Egypt) inspired by each place visited in the show. The game play would be side scrolling with a simple background that would show which country/level you were playing. This is an example of the Egypt level.

Example, based on the Egypt episode of An Idiot Abroad.
The aim would be to get to the Pyramids, however, to get there you would have to collect so many objects, in this case, mummy heads.

Thinking about the controls, I looked at some other iphone apps like Dino App which has 2 arrows for control. I liked the idea of simple left and right arrows, but I wanted the player to move towards the screen and back as well, so i added 4 arrows, however, this looked a bit too complicated and it would be difficult to move forwards and towards the screen at the same time, to avoid enemies. I also looked at using an analog stick,  I think this would be the best way to move around,but all the different angles would not be necessary.

Apple Ideas - Car Park

This is an idea I had for a car parking game, where you have to park a car in a certain space within a time limit. The controls would be a steering wheel on the bottom right you could rotate with your thumb and then a gear stick on the left to move the car forward, backwards or to stop.

The game would have different levels with different difficulty settings, easy would mean you had to park something small like a mini, normal would be a regular sized car, then other vehicles such as limos and army tanks would be used for harder levels.

The view would be from a above and look something like this sketch. There would be different routes you could take to get to the space but have different things you could collect, such as a clock which would give you more time to complete the level, or a gas can which will allow you to move quicker. There would also be things to avoid such as oil spills which will make you slide and possible hits a parked car, thus making you lose points.

Things I would change

 I would flip the steering wheel/gear stick over - looking at console controllers/driving games, people are more used to controlling an analog stick with their left thumb and pressing buttons with the right.

Apple Ideas - Hosepipe

My first idea for an Interactive App is a simple game where you control a hosepipe and aim at things using your thumb
(need to upload sketches)
(tip phone up and down to view more, control pipe with thumb)

I liked this idea, but i wanted to make it more fun and challenging so I decided to make it into a puzzler inspired by a game i remember playing where you had stickmen and had to kill them all, but you had to do things in a certain order to complete the level and succesfully kill them all.

(show pics)

Flip the screen to change from birds-eye-view to first person/side scrolling

Show character ideas/story ideas

New Project - Apple Interactive Project

This week we started our new project, we must each research, conceptualize and design a game/interactive 'App' for an Apple Platform. Im excited about starting this project, but with so many different ideas and possibilities its been difficult to know where to start.

Research

Before making any decisions in what type of game I want to make, I first visited the Apple Store in the local Mall to look at some of the products, like the iphone and ipad, and play some of the "Apps".

Iphone as a Product: Functions and Design

Sensitive touch screen, light in weight/easy to handle, and reacts to how it is being handled/screen flips depending on angle.
When designing my game, I want to take these functions into consideration.

Angry Birds

This was the first game I played, I selected it from the iphone menu becuase I had heard the name a lot from this project. I played this game simply because I didnt need to read any instructions, which i found to be very important, as i then ignored other games that required me to read anything other than "play". The game play is simple, you fire birds from a slingshot (you control the strength and angle) towards towers and buildings of glass, wood and metal, to attack the green pigs hiding below. I enjoyed playing the game and it took me a while to stop playing, and I later found out that it is infact the top grossing "App" on the iphone. I think it has done so well becuase of these factors:

• Simple play - 
• Its not as easy as it looks - Its a puzzle game, you need to think about where to attack first and whether it will be a help or a hinderance in your next move. This also means its not as repetative as you would think because each level requires you to think differently.
• Short Levels - As addictive as it is, you can play it for as long or as short as you like, so its a perfect pass time if you only have 10 minutes to spare or a whole day. 

Other games: Orsinal.com

Lots of simple games, many one level, easy to waste a few minutes here and there.

Soundwave

 This is our final board for out board game created by Reese.

This is the Box design for our game, created by Phil

Our Board Game

As a group we decided our game needs to:

• Be simple and easy to play, but not mindless and boring.
• Have a lot of interaction - fast paced
• build pressure and anticipation as you play (random timer)

These were the initial ideas we came up with for our boardgame while researching other boardgames:

Initial Idea

• Game like Pass the Bomb where you have a timer to pass around and have to sing/hum the song or theme that is on your card.

Inspiration

• "Pass the Bomb" no board, just cards and timer to hold on to
• "Intros Round" from Never Mind The Buzzcocks a music based quiz show, where contestants have to sing the start of a song for their team mate to guess.
• Party Games - Play in Groups and involves Trivia

Things we could do to expand this game idea:

• Film theme tunes and songs (such as James Bond)
• Game theme tunes (such as Super Mario theme)
• Themes from television programmes/cartoons
• Music in General, look at different genres

What our Game will consist of:

• Cards - Showing song titles of themes
• Timer - Some sort of timer that will go off at random

Possible Titles for our Game

• Song Master
• Theme Quest

Time Line:

Week One

• Mon 27th Sept - Given Our Brief for this Board game project, researched other board games, started thinking about our game.
• Tues 28th - Our group met up and decided who was going to research what, split into pairs to focus on one question - Myself and Ryan looked at "What is Gameplay"
• Wed 29th - Everyone carried on with their research
• Thurs 30th - Met up again, showed each others research, started talking more about our game. Decided to add a board to our game
• Fri 1st Oct - Finalised the basic rules of our Game and how to play

Week 2

• Mon 4th - Made basic idea of what the board would look like, added dice to move around the board. Spoke about our boardgame idea with Nigel and talked about the use of dice, decided it would be ok for our game as its purely fun, not necessery to win to have fun.
• Tues 5th - Decided what equipment we needed and bought card to make a mock up board
• Wed 6th - I did some designs for the cards and board

• Thurs 7th - Made simple prototype of board and cards, decided what songs/lyrics we would use for each genre 
• Friday 8th - Finished off the cards and play tested. We found some problems and needed to change some things and add new rules. People were singing the song title which made it too easy to guess correctly - new rule - "Not allowed to sing the song title". Players would hit a wall if they didnt know the song, so decided to add lyrics to the cards as a clue so they have something to say/sing. Decided to make players complete at least one lap of the board before they could move into the middle circle, and they would also have to land on a main circle and answer correctly before they can move to the middle circle. found a problem with the die rules, had to Hum the song in reverse, so we changed the reverse rule to singing the song so that every letter starts with a "B". Overall we had lots of fun playing the game

Week 3

• Mon 11th -  Gave presentation on our game - asked people to play test it, everyone enjoyed it which was a good sign.
• Tues 12th - Officially resolved any problems we had with the game and decided who would design/make what for the final board. I was given the role of designing the cards
• Wed 13th - Made a few ideas of what the cards would look like.
• Thurs 14th - Met up and showed each others designs, Phil had designed what the box would look like and reece incorporated this into the board he had created by adding the box pattern to the board background.

Week 4

• Mon18th - We printed off the board
• Tues 19th - I sorted out the layout and sizes of the cards so that they would fit on the board, and typed up the songs and lyrics on the modern cards 
• Thurs 21st - Got all the the cards finished and typed up ready to print off. Jak will print off the cards and the rule book

Board Games

Monday 27th Sept

Today we were given our brief for the board games project, we will be working in our teams (Jak, Jake, Phil, Reece, Ryan and myself) to research design and create a prototype of our own boardgame. We spent the afternoon playing existing board games and deciding what made each game good or bad.

Pass the Bomb
The first game we played was called "Pass the Bomb" made by Gibson games and the game consisted of cards showing two or three letters and a "bomb" you could hold. It took everyone a little while to understand the game (the instructions had been lost!) however, we finally worked out how to play. One person started with the bomb and had to think of a word that used the letters on the card they had played, then the next person would think of a word and pass it on and so on. The bomb had a spontanious timer so whoever was holding the bomb when it "went off" (a rubbish sound effect that was difficult to hear) they would have to keep the card, and start a round again with a new card. The object of the game was to be the player with the least amount of cards.
We all enjoyed playing the game, even though we didnt win, and thats something we decided we wanted our game to be like. It was fast paced and you had to think on your toes so no one was waiting around for too long like some other board games. The random timer on the bomb was a good idea because we never knew when it was going to "go off" which built anticipation, and the cards had a good varitety of difficulty so it wasnt always too easy or too hard.

Blockus 3D
The next game we played was much easier to understand, however, only 4 of us could play. The aim of the game was too stack your coloured blocks and have the most blocks showing from a birds-eye-view. This was also fun to play and even though it looked like certain people would win, in the end, the underdog won, so there is never a clear winner. We played this game fairly casually, not thinking to much where we put our blocks, but it can be played with strategy so it would suit older age groups as well as children.

Evolutions
This was the next game we picked out, it was basically trivial pursuit but with extremely hard questions, we had a flick through the cards and couldn't find many that we would have known the answers to so we decided not to play. This would be good game for older generations or very clever people, like Stephen Fry, because they would find it challenging yet  have the abilty to answer some of the questions. This made us realise that we need to make our game easy enough to play, yet still be challenging.

Ghettopoly
When picking this game out, we chose it purely out of humour, and to see what this original monopoly had in comparison to the millions of other monopoly board games. We thought this would be a funny game to play as we fought over who would get the play as the "Pimp" and tryed to figure out what the "rock" was meant to be. However, the bombardment of steriotypical racism put us off the game quickly. As we tried to figure out who would want to play a game like this, we came to the conclusion that they probably wouldnt want to play monopoly in the first place, so we had to ask who was this game aimed at? This made us realise, when making our game, we really need to think about our target audience.

Steeple chase
This was the last game we played, it looked fairly old in comparison to the other games we had been playing. This was the most boring game we played, the object of the game was to roll the dice and move your horse around the board, shaped like a race track. The winner won purely on luck, so it didnt feel very satisfying to play.

The game we enjoyed most was Pass the Bomb, and the interactivity of it and so decided this was the way we wanted to go with our game. The other games also made us realise we must think about who our target audience will be and make this as wide as possible. We also want to make sure our game is enjoyable and not to hard to understand, without being dull and boring.

Our first idea for our game is similar to pass the bomb, however, rather than making words, you are given lyrics from songs on the cards and have to finish the lines.