Production
This phase will involve developing the assets, implementing the level design, game mechanics, testing, and debugging. The deliverables for this phase will include a playable demo of the game which I will be having tested by gamers for bugs and improvements that I can make.
Project Development Timeline and Milestones
The pre-production phase took me a bit longer than I was expecting. I hadn't allowed enough time to research all the required images for the mood boards, do the sketches, figure out what assets to include etc. This impacted me starting my block outs of the game and allowing enough time for the production phase. The plan I created and have been updating along the way has helped me realise how long I'm taking on certain parts and see the number of weeks left to get everything completed on time. I will continue to keep this updated until the end.
Level Design
The level design will be an open-world environment with various buildings, streets, and alleys for the player to explore. The city will be designed to look like a post-apocalyptic wasteland with destroyed buildings, abandoned cars, and debris scattered throughout the environment.
When I first started making a block out for the game based on the drawing concepts I created, I was switching ideas around trying to figure out how I wanted the layout to be in order for it to play and look the best. It took me a while as whilst developing the map I came across a few problems like not realizing how big it actually is compared to the player, which would not work, so I tried to find a solution and adjusted the layout so it made much more sense.
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At this stage I spent a lot of time on the layout of the city which I liked and is much smaller than I originally thought I was going to make but this way I can make sure I get in as much detail as possible and make it enjoyable for the player.
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Here you can see I start adding in little details to the map, I have placed some cars around to help get a complete feeling that this is a city instead of just a few blocks around so it can start to feel more complete and this helps me get more ideas as well as I begin to grow the map.
I am now comfortable with the layout at this stage and will develop and pull together all the necessary assets I need for the game. I will be making the cars and trucks and one of the buildings and will be using some assets from Unreal Engine Marketplace also (which I will add the details into the research references).
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I spent some time creating a sewer in my map which would make the game more exciting and add more detail into the game. However, after spending some hours on it I realised that by doing this I would not be able to focus on the core layout of my map on what I intended to do and put the timing at risk in not being able to finish the project on time. For this reason, I decide to stop that but its an idea I have in my mind for future game development,
3D Modelling & Texturing
For my 3D modeling and texturing of my game's main assets, I'm using the reference images documented from my research to help provide inspiration and to use as guidance.
I modelled the abandoned cars, trucks and some of the buildings.
For the other assets I used Unreal Marketplace assets due to the time it would take me to build everything I needed for the game. Reference to these can be found at the bottom of the page in the research links.
Abandoned Cars & Trucks
The abandoned cars I have modelled in Maya are going to be stylised to match the environment of my game. There will be different colours to make them more appealing and just add some variety. So far I've not had any problems and are starting to look like how I want them to.
The cars and trucks will be stationary, some on all four wheels but some will be on their side as well, which helps to show how the city was once occupied and busy with lots of vehicles. As props, it adds to the feeling that there was once life here and gives a sense of the past.
The way I tackled wanting both cars and trucks is I designed the car first and then when happy with it tI hen used the design, and edited it to make the truck so by doing it this way I didn't need to start it again from scratch which saved me some time.
Buildings
I have built some buildings one of them is going to be made into a deserted restaurant.
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Signs / Lamposts
To be positioned around the city to help build the environment to make it look and feel like a deserted city.
Trees / Grass / Rocks / Lake (add image)
To be positioned around the city to help build the environment to make it look and feel like a deserted city.
I decided to change the colours of the trees, grass and vines in the coding to make it like it was dying off and deserted.
Trash Cans, Bus Stops, Fences, Petrol Station Pumps, Mail Box
To be positioned around the city to help build the environment to make it look and feel like a deserted city.
Detailing my Map
Here I have finally completed the layout of the map so i have started to go into detail. I have added a background that won't be accessible but will help to make the map feel bigger than it actually is by making hills and other buildings in the background. I have also made a little grass area which can be accessible so the whole thing isn't just buildings everywhere, this makes the map look a lot better and adds great detail.
As the style of my game is a mix between Dead Island and Fortnite with a stylized look, It I'm not looking to make it look totally real life, like you'd see in a game like The Las of Us. However, I've been playing around with he grass and the trees to try and give them more texture as opposed to just being green. This has take a while to keep adjusting settings until I felt it looked better and a little more realistic.
This is the top-down view of my map. I have continued to review my initial sketches to build it out as much as I feel possible as there are lots of aspects I need to consider such as time to complete the project, the asset development, then further out the pre-production stage where I start to do more of the mechanics and start pulling things together. I'm pleased with it so far.
I've added extra details to my buildings to fit the post-apocalyptic style of the game. I will be adding vines along the building.
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Since it took quite a lot of time just to do a few of the buildings I saved time by grouping some of the vines together. It seems to have worked by doing this now on other buildings by copying and pasting it over to save time, although I still have to change it up still and continue to improve how I want it to look.
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The background of the map at this stage feels very empty. To make it feel like you are actually inside a deserted huge city I need to add more buildings outside of the playable area to make it look and feel more natural to the player and even though the player cannot get to it it looks and feels like there is a huge world out there.
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I have now improved this and added a variety of buildings on the outside in different places. I have tested game play to see what difference it made, and it makes the game look and feel a lot nicer now so I'm please I took the time to make that change as it really makes the whole game feel a lot better.
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Main Menu and UI
I wanted to keep the main menu simple for the player to understand with just a few actions. I took time to review games such as The Last of Us and God of War and it made me think more and spend more time on first impressions of the game and trying to get across to the player what's in stall for them.
The title screen in the Last Of Us Part II reflects Ellie's journey and how she has grown throughout. At first, she is locked down on an old boat showing the tragedy she faces. After around a 10-hour campaign, the screen changes to a brighter image of the boat reaching its destination. This represents both Abby and Lev's journey and Ellie's mental recovery and progress. This idea was really interesting, and as you go through the journey there are some suttle changes to the menu along the way highlighting kind of where you are right now.
Also for the game Detroit: Become Human (another one of my all time favourite games), every time you revisit the game, you are greeted by Chloe, an AI cyborg. Her keen observational skills allow her to detect any unusual details. She may comment on the duration of our gameplay, suggesting breaks when necessary. Additionally, she may remark on the length of time since our last session or even discuss the choices we have made throughout the game.
When players first launch my game this is the first feel of it, so wanted to show them just a glimpse of the game environment in the background to tease them on what's to come. I included some low-level spooky music to add to the atmosphere in line with the type of game. As it's a recurring screen which players will frequently see, I didn't want to create something annoying regarding the background or some random music, I wanted it to fit the purpose of the game.
This project has made me think about the main menu much more and the importance of the build-up to the game when the player first loads it up. Mine is by no means perfect but it's highlighted a lot for me and will be looking to spend more time and improve this aspect in the future.
For menu the text I just went with a bold font with all capital letters.
There will be 3 options - Start, Options and Quit.
Start - starts the game
Options - brings you up a menu showing all settings including graphics and audio controls.
Quit - ends the game
The coding was straight forward and this is one of the videos I had used as a reference for creating my menu which helped. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1vVbwMJCTQ.
Game Controls - How To Play
The game will be keyboard-controlled, and I have tried to keep the controls as minimal as possible so it doesn't become confusing to the player. The keys need to be easy to use, and I took into consideration our hand limitations.
W = Walk forwards
S = Walk backwards
A = Walk Left
D = Walk Right
Shift = Run
E = Pick up
Tab - Inventory
Ctrl - Crouch
These are displayed within the Options menu for easy reference to the player with an explanation of what each key does. It's important that the player understands how to play the game and what keys should be used.
Music
I have coded music into my game to give it a feeling of suspense and a scary feel to it. It will play throughout the main menu and all the way through the gameplay. I spent some time searching online for a suitable sound that was free and matched the atmosphere I was looking for, then downloaded and imported it into my game.
I used the tutorials for guidance that I listed out in my research. These helped me a lot when doing this.
Implementing Game Mechanics in Unreal
The game mechanics will include combat and exploration. The player will have access to various weapons such as guns and melee weapons. The game now has the ability for the player to manage their resources (such as health, ammunition). If I had more time, I would add aspects such as hunger so you can also find and eat food to boost your health.
I’ve started adding the models in unreal and placing them on the landscape. My intention is to now work on a basic level with all my assets included, and over the next two weeks get my peers to try it out and playtest which will give me valuable feedback to further improve it. I'll create a new Survey for them to fill in so is easier to recall what they liked and didn't like so much.
Character Animation
Here is an image of my original zombie. It was plain and didn't reflect how a zombie would look so I made a lot of changes and spent time recoding to improve this part of it.
Here is the zombie walking animation.
In this game, they only have the ability to walk.
I spread them out into different areas on the map to make it feel random and give a feeling of not knowing where they will come from. There will be none at the start to give the player a chance to get familiar with the game, you will also have no weapons to begin with.
Once you pick up a weapon I decided to add more zombies at that location. I wanted to get the main functions working and the character looking more like an actual zombie as opposed to the red character imported. These were my main objectives, however, if I had more time I wanted to investigate how I could perhaps change the speed of some zombies versus others to make it a little more different, kind of making it so that different groups of zombies could have different strengths to make the game more interesting and hard.
Here is a final image of my complete zombie in the game environment. It's a huge difference and I'm really pleased with how this turned out. The zombies have now been coded to work properly and have been given and new look using a free zombie model that I found online.
Playable Prototype
This video shows where I have almost completed the environment. It's still a work in progress, as you can see there are still blockouts of buildings and empty areas that need to be filled in. I still have to add a building around the outside of the area that the player can go to, which will help make it feel like he's actually in a big city.
Along the way, I have changed things like the grass and the colour of it to a darker green to help match the idea of a post-apocalyptic city. I have tried to make the environment as large as possible in the time I have for the production stage as well as writing everything up on my website. You can see the level is fairly decent in size with lots of areas to explore.
As the environment is now ready for it's first playtesting I arranged for 2 gamers who are my target audience and enjoy playing these types of games to have a go and provide me feedback on what they think.
Player 1 Feedback
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Thought the size of the map was decent and provided lots of areas to explore.
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Liked the stylized graphics.
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Would like to see a main menu.
Player 2 Feedback
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Thought it would look better if the building had more overgrown weeds and bushes coming out of them.
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Liked the use fo the assets in trying to make the city feel deserted with the cars and trucks positioned in different locations.
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Would like to see how the final game looks with the zombies included and maybe some cut scenes.
Research Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org [Online]. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Island_2 [Accessed 4 April 2023]
https://www.unrealengine.com [Online]. Available at: https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/olbert-s-low-poly-post-apocalyptic-city
https://www.unrealengine.com [Online]. Available at: https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/stylized-pbr-nature-pack