Sea of the Falling Sun Post Mortem
http://gamejolt.com/games/SeaFallGame/264860
Sea of the Falling Sun is a 3D Missile Command clone. The game puts the player as American submarines having to protect their aircraft carriers from the Kamikaze pilots. The player places points to shoot the missiles at and the explosion is what damages the planes. Players have a set amount of missiles in each submarine. The game is essentially an endless runner, the game only ending if the player loses all of their carriers. The game is made to be a bit comedic due to it's more darker WW2 setting.
The members of our team and the work each individual did was;
Thau Shien Hsu
(http://shienpsn.wix.com/shienxiii)
- Team leader
- Player control programming
- 3D artist(carrier)
- 2D artist(Player reticle, keyboard icon)
- Sound Effects: Player start confirmation(Replaced by Roman’s version), vocals (enemy death quotes)
(Roman) Lucky Hawton
(https://romansedition.wordpress.com/)
(http://gamejolt.com/games/SeaFallGame/264860)
(https://twitter.com/WizardsOfScript)
(https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNYm02kMlsf3iSJ79bpxzrg)
- Gameplay programming, UI programming
- 3D modeling (Submarine, Missile)
- Music created with Famitracker(JSR, 2005), Rockin Nippon, Battle Ready, Victory Fanfare, Game Over
- Sound Effects (sourced) Missile Explosion, Missile woosh, (created with Famitracker) Player start confirmation, Bonus points affirmation sound, Out of Missiles sound, Pause Screen sound, vocals (enemy death quotes)
- 2D UI art; Carrier HP, Missile Count, Missile Lock-On reticule
Justina Mil
(http://jillmccloudart.wixsite.com/wrennpennart/blog)
(https://www.facebook.com/JillMccloudArt/)
(https://twitter.com/wrennpenn)
- 2D artist(menu background image, start button)
- 3D artist(aircraft)
- Menu programming
- vocals (enemy death quotes)
Roman and Shien each have an expansive knowledge of programming while I myself have experience with creating art assets. Shien also has knowledge of 3D modelling, so does Roman and he also has knowledge of audio creation. I had no prior knowledge of 3D modelling and only basic knowledge of audio creation, mostly with voice work. I was seeking mostly to expand on my non-existent knowledge of 3D modelling. Roman wanted to expand his knowledge in creating chip tunes with FamiTracker and Shien was wanting to expand his knowledge with getting the Xbox controllers working.
The tools we used to create this game are;
-Unity
-Autodesk Maya
-Blender
-Adobe Photoshop
-CLIP Studio Paint
-FamiTracker
-Audacity
Unity was our choice for the game engine as all three of the members are well versed in the engine compared to other engines. Roman used Blender to create his model as he is more versed in Blender than Maya, however Shien and I ended up using Autodesk Maya to create our 3D models as Shien has worked in Maya a lot and for me Maya was easier to understand as we had been learning to use it in class. I used Photoshop mainly for the buttons, model UV's and the pilot pop up images as Photoshop is good at being able to create textures and art, the others used Photoshop for their model UV's as well. I used CLIP to create the main menu screen as the colour blending in CLIP tends to be easier than it is in Photoshop.
There were two different ideas we had come up with for pitches for the game brief. We had two different games that we wanted to reimagine and they are;
Dig Gud: This game was based on the game Dig Dug. The original game follows a miner who digs his way through the underground and kill all the enemies. The enemies can only be killed via inflation or having a rock fall down on them. Our recreation would be set in a gardeners nightmare. The gardener would have to kill slugs and moles using salt to kill the slugs and a gun to kill the moles. This game idea works well as a single player game however we were having some trouble figuring out how to create the multiplayer aspect to the game, would players work together or work against each other? This is an interesting idea we had however would be incredibly hard to create in the three weeks we have to create this.
Sea of the Falling Sky: This is the game that our lecturers believed we would be able to achieve in the three weeks. This game is based on Missile Command. The game is set in the WW2 era, the players are playing as the American submarine fleet protecting their carriers against the Kamikaze planes coming to destroy the carriers. The players will control several submarines in order to protect each of the carriers. This game will also be able to be played in single player and local co-op as stated by the brief. In multiplayer the players will have to work together in order to protect the carriers, while in single player the player has to protect them by themselves.
Our lecturers listened to both pitches and ended up telling us to create Sea of the Falling Sun as it'd be easier for us to create in the time we had, three weeks, to create this prototype. I agree with their decision, the pitch for Dig Gud wasn't as in depth or precise as our pitch for Sea of the Falling Sun. We had already known which pitch would be chosen and we understand and agree with the reasons as to why it was chosen above the other. We had a much clearer understand of what to create for Sea of the Falling Sun rather than for Dig Gud even though we preferred the concept of Dig Gud better.
We didn't have any precise methodology for the creation process for the project. However Shien was the team leader and gave each member a list of goals and objectives to complete within a time frame but also gave a little leeway on the exact due date of the objectives. Once we had brainstormed the pitches and got our game pitch chosen, Shien wanted us to get the 3D models completed by the end of the first week. We all ended up getting the models completed by the working week and just took a bit longer to get our UV's completed for the models. We had also created the Unity project quite early on in the week. Roman ended up getting the core game mechanics completed early in the second week of the project and Shien got the player controller assignments and system completed. I had gotten the menu completed early on in the second week as well. In the last week we spent the time polishing the game and adding some extra aspects into the game to show some more feedback and entertain the player more. Shien got us the write the game document in the third week once we had completed the core mechanics of the game.
One of the aspects that I think went really well for the team was the 3D models that we had created. Using reference images we had created models for the airship carriers, the submarines and the kamikaze planes. For Shien and Roman it wasn't their first times modelling and they created some amazing looking models, for me however it was my first time creating a 3D model and I'm pretty happy with how the kamikaze plane ended up turning out. The models look good in the gameplay scene and they tend to work well together. I also ended up getting some tips from Shien on how to create the model and how to make it easier on myself to create it.
The controller system was also a very good part of the project. Shien was the one working on it and he helped me to implement it into the main menu. He created a system that allocates controllers to players. So that if only one controller has been allocated, the single player mode will be played, however if two controllers have been allocated then the local co-op mode will be played. All of these modes are set up in one scene so we didn't need to make the game bigger by creating more of the same scenes just with minor changes. Shien and I also implemented the player allocation into the main menu so that when one player has been allocated, the player one image becomes available on screen and when two players have been allocated then the player one and player two icons get displayed on the main menu screen.
Another aspect that I really feel went well for the game are the little aspects of player feedback. These are like the bonus points that pop up on the screen as well as the occasional kamikaze pop up image with the swearing sound effects. It's a bit of a comedic aspect to the game however it makes the actual gameplay just a bit more entertaining. Sometimes these little bits of player feedback can make the game more interesting for the player. I think the way that we implemented it into our game has made some things a bit more clearer for the player as well as possibly entertaining them in order to allow replayablility or making them laugh.
There wasn't much that didn't go too well for us. However getting the controller system set up took us a lot longer than we had hoped, leading to Roman having to create all of the core game mechanics. While once they were fully implemented they worked really well with the project, because we had to make them easy and make them shorter while still performing the tasks they needed to it took a long time to get them working efficiently.
Another issue we had which wasn't a super major issue however this wasn't a game that all of our team members wanted to play, and we weren't allowed to really mess with the core game mechanics or add too much stuff to make it different, it was a bit hard for us to come up with something that we'd actively have more fun or an interest in creating. It was still fun to make however there were a lot of restrictions to what we could do with it. I think the team would of loved to have added a lot more things just to make the game mechanics a bit more interesting and different from the game we were trying to clone, Missile Command.
Currently I don't believe we have much more plans for this game, we may possibly work on it a bit more in our spare time to improve on it, however we have learnt some things in this project that would be helpful later on in other projects. Things such has how to create 3D models, texture them and implement them into Unity projects, and even on how to create animations for them in Maya and bring them into Unity. We can also learn from the controller allocation system that Shien had created and seeing how it was implemented for this, we could possibly use it for other games that we create. We also ended up completing the game mechanics earlier, so I feel like our time management has improved and we could implement similar time management strategies into our next group projects.
Finally I'd like to take a chance to discuss the team members and just discuss things that went well and things that could be improved. This section is in no way meant to bash anyone or be rude. I'll start off with myself;
Justina Mil
Things that went well for me were mostly the art aspects of the project. I was able to create a decent looking plane model for the game as well as creating buttons, menu background and the pop up kamikaze images. These are the things that I am most comfortable creating because I have a lot of confidence in my art. However there are things I clearly and obviously need to improve on. Things such as my scripting, while I can create a basic menu I am overall very lacking in other aspects of scripting, I can create some simple scripts however I need to work on my scripting so that I can be of more of a help to my team and gain more confidence in my scripting. I don't want to be a dead weight in terms of my scripting and actually actively help my team with scripting in cases such as a large amount of scripting being piled on one member. I also feel like I need to improve on my audio creation knowledge.
Thau Shien Hsu
Shien is very good when it comes to both scripting and 3D modelling. He was also a very effective leader, allowing us to make decisions as well and giving us goals and tasks to complete. He also gave us some freedom of whether we worked at University or from home. Shien did an amazing job with getting the controller allocation and controls completed for the game, and working with me to implement those into the menu as well. He also has a lot of experience with creating 3D models and gave us, predominantly me, tips on how to use Maya effectively to create the models for the game. The only thing that didn't go too well was how time consuming the control system took to get done however he did an amazing job with it, and the only other thing would be with the audio creation, it would be good if he had got some experience editing the vocals that he created.
(Roman) Lucky Hawton
Roman did a lot of amazing work for the project. He made really great chip tunes for the main menu, gameplay scene music and the victory fanfare audio. All of which he created in FamiTracker. They all went really well with the theme of the game and helped to enhance it. Roman also did great work creating both of the submarine model as well as the missile model. Roman also did a lot of amazing work with creating the core game mechanics and then also adding more aspects to the game such as the bonus points, the point scoring between each wave of enemies as well as creating the random enemy pilot pop ups. He did a large amount of the scripting work and the audio and each of his works is to a high standard. There's not much really that Roman didn't do well, I can't really fault anything he's done, if I had had to be really picky all I would say is to not take on so much extra work however that's being very picky.
Overall the project went well and I believe we have done well to clone Missile Command. I feel like even though the game isn't something that I'd personally choose to play, I do believe it's a fun game that you can play by yourself or with a friend in your spare time.
