Boss Design Final

This is the finished painting of my boss that I created for drawing for game art class.

HE WAS SO MUCH FUN TO WORK ON! I can't wait to model him next semester.

Camera moves

There are two shots of interest:

They start at 2:25.

The slow pan across the bridge, and the shot where Legolas enters the gates.

Boss Process

The liquify tool is fun!

Here is just a preview of what I'm working on:

Boss Battle Analysis

From one of my favorite games of all time, I'm choosing the boss fight from Darksiders 2 when Death has to fight Samael. Not only is it one of the absolute coolest fights, but it has some interesting "BADASS" things that happen.

The Player is first introduced to the room with Samael sitting on his throne. After a long cutscene, the fight ensues.

The room itself is pretty neat. It's Samael's throne room, which is a pit of flame, lava, and the demonic architecture that is present in Darksiders 2. It's divided into two areas: a medium sized open Platform for the initial fight and the player, and the Throne platform. A retractable bridge connects the two, but is only present at certain times during the fight.

How does this fight integrate the mechanics?

I feel as though this fight addresses Darksiders 2's most valued mechanic directly: dodging.

Samael has many abilities that require the player to dodge-roll at the right time. If they mess up on the timing, they take heavy punishment. It's tricky to get it right in this fight, but challenging and fun!

There is a certain feeling of flow in this fight, that once the player gets his dodging and knowing when to attack right, you feel rewarded.

VIDEO:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37rR4gi3bVc

The Lord of the Black Stone: Samael

Phase 1:

-Samael teleports on top of or near the player, doing various combos.

-He often teleports back to his throne and summons giant fireballs, which he then throws at the player.

Phase 1 ends when Samael's health reaches a certain point. After a small cutscene, the bridge is raised and you can walk up and attack Samael directly. He then casts you off and the coolest part of this entire fight happens...

HE PULLS THE FIRST PLATFORM INTO THE THRONE PLATFORM. BOOM. JUST LIKE THAT.

Phase 2:

-Samael continues teleporting and his combos (but with a few extra stronger attacks).

- He teleports to his throne, then he spawns explosions underneath the player. To avoid dieing, the player must keep moving using the dodge mechanic.

Then cue awesome cutscene.

The entire level layout helps enhance the whole "limited but open space" dodging mechanic. It also gives a clear separation for the player and Samael when he throws his fireballs.


ISOMETRIC LAYOUT:

Star-Crossed

Hey guys! This is a concept I'm pitching for my game design class.

Star-Crossed

-A game by Walker Paulsen

A jump across the stars to reunite the two lovers!

A long time ago, there existed two ethereal beings named Mharko and Khael, who drifted through the cosmos together. Every day their love for each other would grow stronger, and they lived a happy existence in each other's arms. One day, however, a pink wormhole appeared out of the darkness and dragged the lovers into it's depths. Once inside they became separated and ended up on far sides of a star nebula. Mharko immediately tried to reach out to Khael, but noticed that the gravity on this side of the wormhole was much denser, causing him to remain grounded. In his moment of despair, a blue star fell upon him, lifting him from the ground. With lifted spirits, Mharko jumps across the nebula clouds, collecting the blue stars to keep him afloat until he finally reaches his lover. Once reunited, they will finally be together forever and nothing will separate them again.

A bit about Mharko:

- He's an Ethereal being, an entity made up of the energy of the stars.

- He is in the shape of a full grown man.

- He glows blues and whites like the stars do.

- He will do anything to reach Khael, the one he loves.

• Star-Crossed is a bittersweet side-scroller set in a nebula cloud, where you play as an ethereal being named Mharko trying to find his long lost lover whom he was separated from in the vastness of space. The only way to reach him is through the energy of the small stars that are left in the cloud that propel him forward. Will Mharko be reunited with his lost love Khael

• Mharko and Khael are both ethereal beings of the cosmos. This means that they are able to move through space with the power of their will. However, the zone that Khael and Mharko were trapped in has a much denser gravity, making it nearly impossible to traverse the cloud. Inside this cloud, there exists blue stars which are made up of the nebula's energies. These stars have the power to lighten any who touch them. Mharko must use these to move across to Khael.

1. Mharko's ability to stay afloat is powered by the floating blue stars.

2. Red stars increase gravity and take away Mharko's ability to fly.

3. Towards the end of the level, the gas cloud columns slam shut every once in a while, forcing the player to make a choice of when to move.

Quick obstacle sheet:

Toy Ideas

In game design we are going to make a "toy" of sorts with UE4's blueprint system. Here are a few ideas!

1. Gravity Boots

2. Hoverpad

3. Magic light spell

4. Turret-statue (like league's towers)

5. Jetpack

6. Throwable bombs

7. Size-increasing Cookie (increases the player's size)

8. Whack-a-mole-contraption

9. Grappling Hook

10. Force Gun (pushes players back)

EDIT:

I'm thinking about going with the gravity boots idea. I could turn it into a 2D sidescroller game mode and adjust the model's jump velocity and speeds. I could also hook up a cool looking particle effect to the bottom of the player's feet when they jump. A cool level objective would be a slowly rising lava (could be represented by a kill Z volume) and the player must climb towards the top in order to live.

Either that or I could make a pretty nifty skate park out of the boots, where the player could somehow choose between a board or boots, each with different modes of play.

Multiplayer Level

And for the Multiplayer level we're designing I present...

Tech Elf Training

Where you are one of the many elves of the twisted lands of Rivetdell who are undergoing training under their elite training ground for their armada. It's known to be one of the most dangerous trials and not everyone makes it out alive. Those with the highest scores live!

I basically want the players to go head on in the middle of the map. I want to push the players closer together for more of a direct confrontation, so I made a high rise with a bunch of stuff on the top. Think of king of the hill!

I also have the spawn points below the map. When the player spawns, they take an elevator of sorts up into the level. Locations are set at random. This prevents players from dieing as soon as they spawn as well as preventing spawn camping.

Finally, I made sniper platforms at the ends of the lowest level. The elevators lead to rocket ammo at the top, so players can use their rocket guns (since the engine is built off of UE4). This only gives them three shots though, so make them count!

Setting? Rivetdell! During the late afternoon whilst the sun is slowly sinking.

• What time of year is it?

THIS IS THE WAY OF THE FUTURE. THE ELVES HAVE FINALLY PICKED UP TECHNOLOGY.

• Who else lives here?

JUST ELVES. EVERYTHING ELSE IS DEAD.

• What does the architecture look like?

THIS:

MEETS THIS:

• What major event happened prior to the player getting there?

ELVES BUILT THE PLACE IN PREPARATION FOR WAR.

.

FPS Multiplayer Analysis (Halo 3)

Halo 3 has probably been one of my favorite FPS games of all time. My favorite map that I played endlessly was Valhalla in multiplayer. My friends and I would stay up all night in online matchmaking and we'd cheer when we got this map every time.

But what is Valhalla?

It was a spinoff of Blood Gulch in the original Halo. However, Valhalla is a forest-y valley nestled into the base of two giant mountain cliffs, with large hills, and a waterfall that leads to a River that runs down the center of the map and into the ocean on one side of the map. One side of the map has the ocean and the other side has a cliffside. The setting seems to be mid-day and has a very free, open feel. Each side of the map has a base that each player team starts from.

Inside this base there are several guns, lift pads that launch players out into the valleys, and vehicles such as the Mongoose, Warthog, Wraith and the Banshee. 

There are also other power-ups available such as the Bubble-Shield, and power drain.

Players can snake through their bases, or they can rush head first into combat via the gravity lifts present in the area where they spawn in their bases:

What I like about this level is that it gives players a choice: Meet head on in the center, or pick up a long range weapon like the battle rifle or the Sniper rifle (or spartan lazer!) and pick people off. Strategies revolve often around the vehicles, whatever power-ups are available, and what weapons you pick up. Game modes range from capture and hold to juggernaut to team deathmatch.

And here is my analysis of it!

2D Platformer Plan

Jim the Reaper

Follow the dark hero, Jim the Reaper, as he traverses the haunted labs in order to save the students' trapped souls from the tyranny of the computers! Only he is able to set them free by stepping on the not-so-precious evil lab equipment! But what horrifying tech waits him at the end?

This was my first pass:

And refined...

About:
I plan on having the enemies die by stepping on top of them. When they die, they drop a soul. There are also spikes that drop from the ceiling that inhibit the player, as well as the many gaps and enemies placed throughout the level. At the end, there is a "final boss fight" where you have to step on top of the computer twice in order to kill it. It's stationary and throws things at you. You should be able to reach it via the rotating platforms. How many souls can you collect?

Conflict:
The students' souls have been trapped inside the computers for all eternity!

Twist:
Jim is a reaper, but he saves souls, not take them.

Where is it?
In the haunted recesses of the labs! Think of a computer graveyard with blue backlight:

Time of day?

Nighttime!

What does the architecture look like?

Tombstones and gothic stuff. Oh and computer desks of ages past! Spoopy!

Who else lives here?:

COMPUTERS. EVIL. COMPUTERS.

Kirby and the Amazing Mirror Platformer Analysis!

Yo this game is rad.

(But on a serious note...)

Kirby and the Amazing Mirror is not only part of my childhood, but an amazing game itself. In my class for game design we were given the chance to analyze a 2D platformer game's first level, or the "tutorial level."

This is me playing the actual game. I apologize for the horrendous sound and the lagg! Fraps wasn't being nice to me:

This is the map I made in Illustrator:

About the layout:

- The level's layout itself first presents the player with the challenge of movement (i.e. Jumping). The clouds pile up to create the first obstacle that player must maneuver over.

- It then throws one enemy at a time towards the player, starting off with very few towards the beginning in the first "act," and then a lot more in the last "act" of the level.

-It introduces platforms and how they can assist the player in getting across areas.

-Once the player reaches the pillars, they're challenged with yellow-stared boxes. The player then finds out how to eat things such as these boxes, and what they can do once they've eaten something. Kirby is famous for his ability to eat enemies and use their abilities. The player can push the down key once they've eaten an enemy and learn what they can do.

-Upon reaching the end of an "act," a player must travel through a door that leads to the next part of the level.

-Switches are then introduced, and so is the mechanic of using your other NPC kirbys following you.

-The last "act" is the hardest part of the level. It provides many more opportunities for the player to engage with the enemies.

-Along the way, Players find food and other items to restore Kirby's health.

-Once they've reached the end, they grab a chest and enter the final door to complete the level.

The pacing is pretty quick. It's a short level. It starts easy but picks up in pace.

Not much is actually told to the player except for the controls. The player must figure things out on their own.

Before this level begins, the player sees Meta Knight fly away, starting up the story that Kirby must chase him down!

Lava Texture!

It started from a zbrush sculpt, then I compiled it using tons of BPR renders.

Small Thank You

A small thank you to my friend!

Small Desert Biome

A little something I made as a small personal project.

The goals were to better learn baking from high to low and the creation of a vertex paint material for the ground with a clean transition between the textures.