BA Games Design Adventures

Hi, my sweet summer childs. How was your vacation? Mine was not as good as last year (because of different reasons), but still enjoyable. I was working at an Hotel near the beach and god I was busy. Had to clean nearly 20 rooms each day. That was sick. Not a joke, seriously.

After this experience I have to ask all of you mighty travelers who recharge your HP at these inns to please be considerate. I have had to clean some rooms that were beyond salvation. Some clients had no respect and even made our work harder by messing the rooms to their best extent. And that’s shameful. 

Of course, there were also some nice people. Two of the best gestures I received were a note just saying thank you, and a client that took the covers off the bed in advance for us so that we could clean faster. It was really cute. Yes, as simple as it gets, that was the best me and my co-workers received. And let me tell you that only with that the day gets a little bit easier. Treat your maids with respect guys.

Having said that, I’m back here in the Northern Lands and nothing has changed. Pure air, lower temperatures and rainy mornings. I have a vague idea of what I want to do for my final projects this year but nothing really elaborate. We’ll see.

I have a lot of explaining to do, but first things first: ANOTHER YEAR FINISHED, YAAAAAYY! Finally! I can breathe. I am free.

Now, let’s get to the point: You may have seen that entries are now “data recovered” or “data loss”, and the later category are entries withouth a body, os “ghost projects” so to speak. This is because around Octuber I started to have personal issues that affected my work and attendance, the so called “virus”.

This virus infected me for 4 whole months, so I was recommended to forget about some projects and only focus on the most important, and the result was what you have already seen.

This is not something that I am proud of but I have to say that I managed it quite better than the last time something like this happened to me; in part because I had a lot of antivirus support from a lot of people that worried about me. And I’m trully grateful about that.

Following the former challenge, now we were tasked with a cannon fodder character. You know, those little fellows. Those who get totally forgotten the second they disappear and aren’t taken seriously. Because. You have fought against the seven kingdoms and defeated powerful beasts that spat fire and ate children alive, why should you bother with a slime? Or a Koopa? No biggie’. You shouldn’t.

Look at him, he doesn’t seem like a bad guy. More like he tries really hard to be a bad guy. He’s even kind of cute.

It ended up being generic. But most of the cannon fodders are generics I guess. That’s why I’m not entirely disappointed with my work.  

Last year, we did a project touching a bit of character design, but this year we actually have a module of character design. And of course, what else but to start with a main character?

I spent a fair amount of time researching and thinking about this project. I just couldn’t come up with an idea enough satisfying. Until I remembered a friend who usually personalizes himself as a guy with a chicken head and something clicked inside my head.

I liked the concept of a character who had three different pieces of three different animals to gain their abilities and change it. Much like Kirby who swallows enemies to acquire their power. Then, Poio was born: Chicken head, tiger body, and dragon tail. He unsews and sews (or attach) other animal body parts when he needs other powers. He’s a little cheeky and cheerful guy.

Here is my first sketch of him. I also tried sketching him in some other animal parts to give an idea of his multiple possible outfits (and just for fun):

Some color palettes:

And here you have the final result!:

Aaaaand, this is the project from this module I enjoyed the most. We had to design two characters that were obviously related in some way. Like their silhouette, their color or their visual style. Like the Powerpuff girls. They have the same visual style. But if you are not convinced, what about two from different sagas? What about R2-D2 and the Daleks? They have pretty much the same silhouette and they are really much alike. You could think of them as family.

Well, that’s that. Then we were told to do one representing a warrior, and the other a tank. Easy.

For my project, for some strange reason I can’t comprehend, I wanted to draw something green. Some plants. I needed it. So I started sketching lots of different flora. Some inspired by real ones, some not.

In the end, I started mixing animals with plants and got some weird results. Nevertheless, I got various characters that I really liked. Hard time picking. I ended up choosing to do the Mandragora as the tank, and the mushrooms as the warrior. I would have like to do the fungus too, but it has this “poisonous/suicide bomb” vibe, rather than warrior or tank, so... And the little one with the tree bark mask? He would make a perfect cannon fodder.

SO this was the final result:

Hi, all. Let me say this first: ZBrush can do amazing things, that’s true, but that’s because the person behind it has suffered uncountable hours trying to understand this damned program.

I hate ZBrush. I hate it with all my heart. It’s the most unintuitive software that exists on Earth. It’s confusing and stressing. It’s almost like a beast you have to tame with years of training, and it makes no sense whatsoever. I have no clue how anyone can find this program logical.

And I had to redo this project. I already had an idea, several sketches, I had half of the sculpting done already, and then I had to start again. From scratch.

Nevertheless, I survived the project. I learned to approach ZBrush (no saddle yet), and I learned how to retopologize a bust with Maya. It’s easy yet laborious and time-consuming. 

Did you know that the fear of the dark is one of the most common fears in the world, and not just for children? Also, did you know that if you search on google ‘fear of the dark’ it’s almost impossible to find the mental illness because you are overwhelmed by the Iron Maiden song/album? Stunning.

Well, me myself I experienced as a child this unreasonable fear and, while it’s true that I don’t have that same distrust nor the same problems (I couldn’t sleep without lights on), I still experience some moments of anxiety or insecurity sometimes. Years have brought me, as Wikipedia describes, mental and psychological weapons to combat these fears: rationality.

When I’m having a bit of a chill down my spine, I just tell myself it’s all in my head, it’s stupid, and it’s not going to happen anything. And most of the time, that kind of works.

For the protagonist of my game, it doesn’t. His fear has reached the point of no return. He has an extreme phobia and panic, anxiety and dizziness overwhelms him when confronted with the night.

My horror game, Lights Out, is his worst nightmare. A game where lights keep you safe, but either way, you can’t trust them too much, because they will turn off or extinguish the second you overuse them. The game is, then, constantly forcing the player to move forward to the unknown. No weapons, no armor.

From the producers of: ‘PBR SP, Substance Painter is an amazing software’, comes: ‘PBR SD, we only have amazing softwares’.

Substance Designer, guys. Here it comes. I found this another fascinating invention. Creating realistic materials in real-time, being able to change its characteristics at any time without losing your progress? Wow. That’s powerful.

If you know the program, you know what I’m talking about. For those who don’t:

Let’s say you want to create cheese. Like I did. You finish it, and you don’t like the position of the holes or the shape, or the mold is too thick. No worries, you can acces that part of the information, and change that and only that. The program will do the rest. This is not like a painting. You don’t have to erase everything. Each detail is separate and can be accessed and edited at any time.

That’s why the aspect of the software is something like this:

A big chart of squares, each of them containing a part of your design: the color, the texture, the noise, the normals, the roughness, the highlights, the shadows...

It’s a bit confusing when you first use it. Especially because, like in SP, you aren’t aware of its potential and tools. And practice is the one who teaches you how to mix those modules to make amazing stuff. Just this simple rock needed a hell of a lot of squares to do.

For my project, I wanted to innovate a little, like always, and wanted to do some cheese and jello. However, they were so simple that they were a joke. In the end, I gave up with jello and changed to ice, but I couldn’t forget about the cheese.

Obviously, my cheese material ended being too bland. But I think it’s not so bad for the first time with this software. And the ice turned out well. Thanks, internet tutorials!

Turns out, pretty often, the things you thought would be easy, turn to be difficult, and the ones supposed to suck out your soul, are as easy as breathing.

That’s the facts I took from this project as I was rushing like that stickman to the deadline. I lost so much time in Unreal trying to open a door (which I had done before SEVERAL times in other projects and I should have memorized how to do it already), that I couldn’t believe that it took me literally 5 minutes to make a properly functioning AI that follows the player upon seeing him. I was astonished.

Best of it? I remember I wanted to do the same AI last year and I was completely unable to. And I don’t even know why, because it was so simple that I could feel my mind taking his luggage and going on a vacation resort called: ‘The ease and relieve paradise’ when I knew I just saved myself hours of worry (because that’s what I was expecting).

Whatever.

I’m not the only one rushing. This project was about chasing. Design a chasing scene with some requisites. Like a change of route, a small puzzle, etc.

I believe this project took a huge hit the moment I had to do most of it past midnight, no sleeping. My brain melted at some point.

My brain is still melted right now. So I don’t know if I can even explain my level. Lucky I had to record a gameplay with commentary, right? (Not reaaaallly).

Danny salutes you. Do you like Danny? He’s a cheeky bastard. He should go to jail already :)