Noroff University College Interactive Media Games Beak and Plunder Project Report Ole-Kristian Johannesson Andreas Nordbø IMG3 Studio 3 Bachelor Project Supervisors: Joshua Griffin & Filipe Pais Study year: 2018/19 1 Declaration Noroff University College Academic year 2018-2019 2 Abstract During the span of this project we have created a game called Beak and Plunder, the purpose of this project was to develop a game for our studio 3 course at Noroff University college, while also learning more about the process of making a game. We also wanted to work on something new, that we have not tried before. The project has gone through planning, research and conceptualization phases that are elaborated in this report. Development has consisted of programming, design, testing and distribution phases. Beak and Plunder is a Action Adventure Platformer Game where you play as a fat drunk pirate cat and his sidekick a robot parrot from the future, together these two characters are tasked with saving the world from the future and the past being merged together into one. The final product is a playable game demo of the game that can be found at www.tiny.cc/bnpdemo Acknowledgements Jani Juhani Mattinen Joshua Griffin Filipe Pais Nicolay Celius Gilgamesh Rugsveen Noroff University College Academic year 2018-2019 3 Index Introduction 4 Literature Review / Inspirations & References 5 Ratchet and Clank: 5 Jak and Daxter: 6 Boxi: 6 Spyro: 7 Game Story / Detailed description of project 7 Summarized Game Features: 8 Defining The Audience 8 The Team 8 Andreas Nordbø: 8 Ole-Kristian Johannesson: 9 Team Workload: 9 Project planning 10 Technical and Design Processes 10 Technical: 10 Climbing: 11 Jumping and Movement: 11 Level goals, levels and bonus objectives: 11 Artificial Intelligence: 12 Character Implementation: 12 Technical Summary: 12 Design: 13 Characters: 13 Plunder: 13 Beak: 14 The Evil Scientist: 14 3D Assets: 15 Sound and Music: 16 Learning Outcomes 16 Difficulties and Challenges: 16 Norwegian Game Awards: 17 Lessons Learned: 17 Interesting issues solved: 18 Noroff University College Academic year 2018-2019 4 Summary: 18 What could be improved? 18 What could we have done differently? 19 What would we like to add? 19 What are we most proud of? 19 Moving Forward: 19 References 20 Third party assets from: 21 Introduction Aims and objectives: Our goal while working on the studio project has been to develop a game while learning more about the progress of making games. This is a 2-man project where we have different tasks but work on the same project. We went from ideas, pitching and brainstorming into project planning then through development phases until we ended up with what is now ‘Beak and Plunder’. The reason for doing this project: We decided to make an action adventure platformer game because it was something new for both of us but not too far away from what we are used to making. We had a lot of ideas to start off with but a platformer game was the only game idea both had, so that is what we settled on. The initial idea for the game came from an article about wildlife crime, this is the foundation of the main story and gameplay elements. The article is about stopping the destruction of wildlife, this is a serious subject we would like to explore in a game format. We have tried to give the players a nostalgia effect, catering to fans of older games from the PS1/PS2 era, these are our main inspirations. An outline of the contents of further chapters in the project: Further in this report we will go through what inspired us, game story and features, the development process, challenges found, lessons learned and more. This document is made to give a clear explanation of the process from idea to a final product while iterating over choices made. A brief description of the team organisation and workloads: Noroff University College Academic year 2018-2019 5 On this project we have been working in a group with separate tasks, Ole-Kristian is behind the art, while Andreas has done the programming, both have done different variations of design. We have been using Discord for communication, GitHub for sharing code/assets, and Google Documents for documentation. Literature Review / Inspirations & References Ratchet and Clank: Ratchet and Clank is a game series developed by ​Insomniac games ​where The two main characters Ratchet and Clank travel through space to fight for the freedom of the galaxy. This game has been our main game for inspiration, we are most inspired by the theme, characters, mechanics, narrative and style of this game. The design and layout of our Menus and Interfaces comes from all the inspiration that we got from Ratchet and Clank, their Interfaces have a simplistic and futuristic design and experience. Noroff University College Academic year 2018-2019 6 Jak and Daxter: Jak and Daxter is a game series developed by ​Naughty Dog ​and published by ​Sony Interactive Entertainment ​where you travel around the world as Jak and Daxter collecting power cells in order to find a cure for Daxter which has been transformed from a human to an ottsel. This has been a great game for inspiration for us since the game has a lot of great gameplay mechanics we could take some inspiration from. We also really like the style of the game and the general level design that they have in the game which has helped us a lot during our development time of our own game. Boxi: Boxi is a game developed by a small indie team, Boxi is about a lonely cardboard robot in a world inhabited by robots, his mission is to explore the game world to upgrade his own body to be as technological advanced as the other robots. He finds himself with abilities the other robots does not have, he realizes being different is not a bad thing. We are inspired by the level design, world building and level design of this game, we used the demo level as a base for our tropical themed level. The narrative is very emotional and explores an important subject. Boxi is similar as it also takes inspiration from the same games that inspired Beak and Plunder, including Super Mario, Spyro and Crash Bandicoot. Noroff University College Academic year 2018-2019 7 Spyro: Spyro is a game series developed by ​Insomniac games ​where you play as a purple dragon called spyro, in the game you are set with the task of saving your fellow dragons from their crystal prisons. We have been using Spyro for inspiration for our level portals, level design, collectables, narrative and art-style. Spyro is a game we both enjoyed as children and we still enjoy the games today. Game Story / Detailed description of project Beak and Plunder is a Third person Action Adventure game developed by us (Andreas Nordbø & Ole-Kristian Johannesson) with some help from the teachers at Noroff University College. In Beak and Plunder you play mainly as the cat character Plunder where you solve different puzzles with the help of your companion character Beak (which you can also control), and defeat enemies sent from the future by the main protagonist in the game which is currently called The Evil Scientist. Beak and Plunders’ goal in the game is to collect time crystals in different locations to connect them to a device which can open a portal to the future where the main protagonist The Evil Scientist is hiding and then eventually defeat him and save the universe. Noroff University College Academic year 2018-2019 8 Summarized Game Features: - 8 different weapons and abilities (with ammo and levels) - 5 levels (lava, snow, desert, tropical) - 2 bosses (Kraken and The Evil Scientist) - World hub and tutorial areas - Various enemies - Dialogue system and cinematics to deliver narrative - 1 hour average playthrough time (more for 100% completion) - Support for Gamepad / Keyboard and Mouse - Shop (ammo and health refill, purchase abilities, unlocks etc.) - Maps and compass - Fully working menu system with system settings Plunders’ weapons/abilities are; Pistol, Bomb, Beer Burp, Air Stun, Barrel Bomb, Missiles, Rifle and Companion. These are unique, are unlocked throughout the game, has separate ammo types and can be leveled up. Defining The Audience In our Game Design Document we defined the target audience as everyone 7+ but after further development of the idea to an actual product we have decided to increase the age rating to 13+, this is due to certain themes introduced in the game. Themes include violence and use of substances. We think the style and gameplay fits for an universal audience. The target platform for the game is PC (Windows) with options of keyboard/mouse and gamepad input, if we continue working on this project after the school semester is over we would consider Nintendo Switch. The initial title of our game was “B.E.A.K. and Plunder - Operation Thunderstorm”, we decided to remove the “Operation Thunderstorm” part from the title to make it easier to read with an appeal to the audience. The Team Andreas Nordbø: I have a passion for creating games and tend to lean towards the technical aspects of game creation. I consider myself a game development generalist, I like to do a little bit of everything. Unreal Engine is my engine of choice but I have also used other engines and frameworks in the past. I like to work on mobile, 2D games and solo projects on the side of my studies. For this project I have continued to develop my skills, develop a personal portfolio and most importantly, I have had fun.