Monster

Premise

Ever been scared of the dark? Whatever was hidden within the dark deep abyss? Ever wonder if there was something under your bed? Something sinister just waiting for you to fall asleep, waiting for that briefest moment before it devours you? Imagine becoming this very monster, this very beast. Become the Monster in the Dark.

Story

The entire game revolves around a certain monster, manifested from the intense fear of a particular boy. This fear created a monster which fundamentally consumes a person's life force by frightening them until they die. The monster however is extremely fragile, its connection to the world is held down by the boy's own belief and any harm that happens to the boy, harms itself too. Now it has to get strong, strong enough to break out of the shackles of the boy's mortality and finally become free.

Gameplay

Camera: Bird-Eyes View

Control: Either WASD or Mouse-Click

Game-Type: Action, Stealth, Puzzler

Time Frame: Renaissance age to the Modern age

Essentially the player will be only controlling the Monster.

The 'world' which the monster lives in will either range from a small village to a small town.

The monster can only exist in the dark, hence the game will be played mostly at night.

The Player will maneuver through the dark areas of the town, moving quickly between the shadows emitted by the torches/lights. By staying in the dark, the player becomes 'invisible' and will be able to move through the town safely. The player will then find a suitable house to enter and then begin siphoning the life force out of its inhabitants, therefore gaining more strength and power.

The method of doing this however hasn't exactly been decided. At one side it could be a chance system which is determined by how dark the place is, how many people are in the house etc. At the other hand, it could be a Quick-Time event where the player will have to press the right keys in order to break in the house perfectly, drain the inhabitants and leave without a sound. A suitable way will be decided.

As the player drains more energy, the monster itself will begin to evolve and become stronger. It hasn't been exactly decided if the evolution should be restricted or there should be some flexibility or the player has direct control of how to evolve the creature. The idea is that the Monster becomes stronger and more dangerous.

There will also be many ways for the monster to 'die'. The entire game will be based on how well the player can hide themselves from the public until the Monster has gathered enough strength to try to break its bond from the boy. Should the monster be revealed too early, the town may form mobs and eventually find and kill the Monster. There will be an 'awareness' meter which will inevitably rise but beating the meter is the goal. This meter however isn't limited to the Monster itself, the boy is just as important as the Monster itself and will strive to defeat the monster by trying to reveal it to the public during the day when he is safe.

This however will have a completely different effect than the boy expected. Instead of finding the Monster, they may suspect the boy of being the core of the Evil and may try to 'Purge' him in a religious, angry mob. Protecting the boy from such cases as this, by eliminating certain 'rallying' people will be another part of the game play. Any harm that happens to the boy will in turn damage the Player.

The game will span through 400 years which will fundamentally be in 4 different levels, each level will be in a different age of 'lighting'. So from before the light bulb was invented, where light was limited at night, to the very bright nights of the modern day. This will effectively be the difficulty system, the amount of lights and people that are around during the night. The security of houses and size of building will change too, making breaking into these houses more difficult as well.

Story Continued

Although the player will only control the Monster, the story-line of the game will revolve upon the relationship between the Monster and the boy. The idea was that the two character were bound to each other, whether they liked it or not. This created a link between the two allowing both to gain 'attributes' from each other. The Monster gained consciousness and the ability to reason while the boy gained the agelessness of the monster - gaining immortality.

The game will then span through the 400 years where the two have been shackled together where the Monster still strives to be set free and the boy strives to find a way to kill the monster.

Wreckless Conduct: Final Push

Well its the last push of the semester and really, all I'm doing now is enhancing or fixing all the stuff I've done. Videos will be uploaded, eventually. However there were several things that I created within the last 'three week sprint' that I didn't actually post up:

I created a market system - where the player buys and sells the parts they have

I created a save and load system

Now its just refining time... and adding stuff that needs to be there. In fact I have a few things I just created and refined:

A countdown timer which counts down in the beginning

Refined the damage indicator (shows you the health of crucial bits) to appear while you are playing and when you are in the pits. Also been refined more to show more bits than just the wheels and axles. Now it features health for the gas tank, transmission and engine.

Credits used to go count up from zero to whatever credits the player had. This was annoying and it made it look like the player was getting points for nothing. Now the credits are automatically incremented to an acceptable number and then its counts up. So if the player has 4000 credits, at the start of the game the player will see his credits counter start from 3800 credits and then count up to 4000.

Pedestrians were not running away properly, in fact they were doing something ridiculous. The best description of it was by Gordon Moyes. He said they pretty much 'break danced' on the spot. The probably was when they walk into certain area around the player they would get scared and run away - which would take them out of the 'fear zone' so they would walk back in. Added in a timer - now they just run.

More Updates along with videos coming soon.....

Three Week Sprint (again)

Now tasked with another 3 weeks of hellfire, the goal was pretty clear. We had to actually make what we have into a game, instead of just a showcase. So pretty much our goals are:

• Win and Lose Scenerios
• The Vehicle need to be textured
• A.I that is adequate
• Fix Pedestrian problems (importing models etc)
• Populating the level with props and proper collisions
• Create a decent HUD
• Hopefully some Optimisation

Thats our overall goals,

I have already created a basic Win/Lose scenerio which pretty much involves whether or not the player is dead or if the other competitors are dead. If you're dead, 'lose' screen appears but if you manage to kill them all, the 'win' screen appears which details how long it took, how many credits you managed to earn etc etc

Changed the HUD to use Text Meshes instead of the standard GUI. Been working on the Black Market GUI for a while now and got it to work basically now.

I know I promised videos and images. Sadly they'll have to wait.

Three Week Spring - Update

Just going to list what I did during the last three weeks:

Created the Car Customization -

• Car is now capable of having parts placed onto it, at any position upon the car
• After placing a part, the player is then capable of rotating and scaling its size
• Created a GUI system which displays an interactive hierarchy of all of the available equipment to the player
• Created a GUI window which displays the attributes and statistics of any part of the car, equipment included
• Created a quick repair system which involves the player to click and hold onto the desired part and pull the mouse away from the selected part. This will bring up a window which tracks how far the player has pulled the mouse to calculate how much the part is going to be repaired. When the player releases, the part is repaired. (Video Example coming soon)
• Upgraded quick repair system in form of a basic schematic located at the top right of the screen. This uses the same concepts as the original only it repairs parts that could have possibly fallen off or hard to click (wheels, windscreens, engine etc) Also is color coded to show how much damage the car has suffered. (Video Example coming soon)
• Added basic GUI system which displays credits and during quick repair displays the statistics of the part. Also the ability to, while looking at objects stats, to repair completely or even sell the part is possible.

Upgraded Working Build-

• Integrated and manipulated the Car Customization within the working game.
• Integrated version does not possess the ability to add in parts but quick repair (both types) is available.
• Created the Script which allows the ability to turn on and off the Machine Pits.

Thats all I could remember. The task now is refining things until the day to show this stuff off appears. As of now, working on the Pedestrians again - making them more refined.

Three Week Sprint Milestone "Theme"

A three week 'sprint' has been granted in order to achieve and show off the next step of our development. Our 'Theme' for the last time we presented a prototype was to show off some of the game play, the 'Theme' this time is to show off the game with hopefully most of the core and essential aspects of Wreckless Conduct.

As a group we agreed that the game mechanic of 'racing' was not what the game is about, instead we decided to focus on the destruction aspect of the game. With that in mind, certain aspects of the game were required and these three weeks hopefully we will accomplish those goals. The goals are as follows:

Yena: Environment design, level design and modelling/texturing

Bree: Pedestrian modelling and animating

Dominicus: Enemy A.I

Me: Car Customization

My Task, in detail, is allowing the player to customize their own unique vehicle by purchasing different weapons/devices within a 'Machine Shop'. My task is to also create the scripts involves with the 'pits' which allow the repair of their vehicles.

Images and whatnot will appear later

Wreckless Conduct: Week 3

Tasks Completed Week 2:

• Created very basic HUD system - Linked up all of the required variables to change with the HUD.
• Tweaked the Pedestrians so they now run way in fear on the paths unless the thing they are running from are awfully close.
• Tweaked the Pedestrians so they always spawn at a 'way point' this allows for an efficient method of spawning, especially in a city environment.
• Created the Speedometer which has a dial which detects the speed and a pip pattern which detects the RPM
• Created the Bonus Point system which allows the player to get extra points by achieving specific goals. ETC Killing 5 pedestrians in a small time frame grants the place a 'Penta Kill'

Below are a bunch of Videos Demonstrating these aspects:

HUD_System and Pedestrians:

Bonus Effects:

Wreckless Conduct: Week 1 + 2

Tasks of this week:

Refining A.I - Pathing, Fear Effect, Death Effect

HUD Objects: Setting up for HUD

Crucial Variables: Credits, Boost, Timer, Speedometer, Nanobots

Screen Shots:

The text above the pedestrians heads indicates their status and health. Should the pedestrian be shocked then they are shocked and so on. If there is no 'status' then it is going on with its normal business.

Video Example:

Below is an example of what the A.I looks like in Action. Pretty much the A.I chooses a route and when it reaches a 'Way point' it decides whether to turn or keep moving forward. Enjoy!

Later videos will include what it looks like when they are scared, shocked, know they are gonna die and when they actually do get run over.