Travis Posted June 1, 2017 Suddenly, the King of France! Hello! This will be my third Wizard Jam and I am stoked to get started! If you want to see my previous WJ games, I was pretty happy with Cool Blob Future and sort of like a few things I did in Devil’s Snuff Box (but not many things). For Wizard Jam 5, I am taking on Idle Thumbs 241: Suddenly the King of France. This will be my first jam game where I go all 3D, so I am going to try and push myself within reason and within the two week time limits. The Pitch: Suddenly the King of France is a puzzle shooter that puts you in shoes of the King of France at the time of the French Revolution. Your goal is to save your hide from the angry masses and earn tons of points while doing so. If you are wondering how the lengthy imprisonment, trial, and sentencing of King Louis XVI will make a fun game, it won’t. So, I’m just mashing a bunch of historical events, stereotypes, and misunderstandings into a scenario that will hopefully be fun! Perched on the top of your castle tower, you must distract and destroy the charging citizens by making them turn their lust for the king’s blood on each other. You’re equipped with a special cannon, precisely firing king accoutrements onto individuals, causing their fellow citizens to toss them onto the guillotines they intended to use to lop off your regal head. Once you tag a citizen with all three pieces of the king’s regalia, the citizenry will turn on that poor plebeian and you’ll earn points. If you shoot the same citizen with the same piece of king equipment, it will destroy both of them and act as a setback. As the citizens continue to flood into the court, they will slowly chip away at your tower, bringing you ever closer to your death and the end of the game. The Mockup: This picture is pretty bad, but it gives an idea of the layout. You are shooting down from a high tower as citizens pour through several doorways, coming to get you! The perspective on this mockup is all off, but I decided to save my energy for really making the game instead of this mockup. Hopefully it’s good enough to give you the idea! Since I am no artist and no modeler, my characters and props are going to be very basic and cartoony, but I think I can create a consistent and fun look that should work. I hope so anyway. The Team: Game design, programming, and bad 3D modeling: Me Voiceover work: Jon Coughlin & YOU?? Music: Joel Whitaker Personal Learning/Stretch Goals for this Jam: · Create all simple 3D models with Blender and ProBuilder · Make basic AI for citizens that complements the “puzzle” elements · Create an online leaderboard? This is a stretch. Want to help out with a game and do it in less than ten minutes? Great! Just send me a quality recording of you yelling some sort of charging growl or grunt sound that you would imagine an angry Frenchman making as he passionately charges into a castle. Send me a link or a file through the forum PMs along with the name you want in the credits! I will try to update this log as best I can, especially with juicy gifs! Thanks for reading! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Travis Posted June 2, 2017 All of my 3D modeling experience has been for engineering work, so dipping into Blender will be a big hurdle. I will admit that while I was learning Blender last week, I made several rough prototypes of my little revolutionaries, and on this first night I tried to get one into functional shape. We're going with a Weeble Wobble character shape to not only make my modeling tasks feasible, but also because it will complement the gameplay. I need big, obvious targets, and they better not be realistic because this game is going to be anything but. I also have always liked early Nintendo arcade art (particularly the teeth), so I tried to emulate that style as best as I can for the face. I'm using built-in Unity toon shading with a Team Fortress 2 toon ramp texture I grabbed online for everything but the face. At least this is what I have going on right now. I will keep considering the style as I go, but I think this will work. Ideally, there will be a few different pieces of the citizens that can be swapped around to keep things interesting during the game. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Vasari Posted June 2, 2017 With apologies to the good people of France. regicide.mp3 suddenly.mp3 svp.mp3 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SharedControl Posted June 2, 2017 hahaha i love this Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Travis Posted June 2, 2017 On 6/2/2017 at 9:44 PM, Vasari said: With apologies to the good people of France. regicide.mp3 suddenly.mp3 svp.mp3 Very nice! The last one is my fave. If anyone else is curious, I will also accept just guttural battle yelling and what not. Whatever seems appropriate to you! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mastersmith98 Posted June 3, 2017 I will definitely try to supply you with some ridiculous VO samples tomorrow! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Travis Posted June 3, 2017 On 6/3/2017 at 4:29 AM, mastersmith98 said: I will definitely try to supply you with some ridiculous VO samples tomorrow! Hooray!! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
coughlinjon Posted June 3, 2017 lol I wanted to record right now but my audio setup has some feedback. I'll reset everything tomorrow morning and start. I'm really excited Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
coughlinjon Posted June 3, 2017 nvm. I got some awful takes done. I clearly need direction king_badFirstTake.ogg Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Travis Posted June 3, 2017 On 6/3/2017 at 5:44 AM, coughlinjon said: nvm. I got some awful takes done. I clearly need direction king_badFirstTake.ogg Ha! There's some funny stuff in there and some stuff that is in the right direction. I'll find some reference material to give you an idea of what I was thinking and we'll see what works best. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Travis Posted June 3, 2017 Spent too long figuring out some rotation stuff on this walking motion, but I finally got it, so without any more boring words, here is a gif: Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
nkornek Posted June 5, 2017 This sounds great! I'll try to record some french shouting for you. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Travis Posted June 6, 2017 On 6/5/2017 at 2:49 PM, nkornek said: This sounds great! I'll try to record some french shouting for you. Awesome! I only have the one entry so far, so I need lots!! Spent yesterday learning and struggling w/ animating a simple cannon in blender. After a lot of help from @infamous space turtle, we were able to figure out my problem (don't use modifiers in blender if you're going to do keyframe animations). Today, I busted out the cannon animation and made this video of test firing some plain old cannonballs into an empty environment. Also, @JoelWmusic created a great French accordian tune that you can hear in the video. He might be tweaking it some more before the end of the jam, but I'm very happy with it already! Tomorrow, I will return to either working on the revolutionaries and their A.I. or building up the environment. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Travis Posted June 9, 2017 I am probably too tired to be writing in this devlog, but I want to be sure and update periodically. I've been working on roughing out the environment and getting a few foundational systems in place. This should all help me to revise and refine as I get through the weekend. There is a chance that my assets won't look much better than they do right now if I run out of time, and I think I'm OK with that. I still need to add more geometry, though, and will likely change up the window/door spacing to make them more varied. I have been mainly inspired by the Versailles as a basis for my palette and structural layout where the revolutionaries will be charging in. I created a potentially eye-boggling imitation of the Versailles tile floor that I have grown to really like in this situation. I may need to tone it down. Here is a huge gif showing the current environment and then the simultaneous charge of very un-smart revolutionaries. This won't happen in this way, but it is fun to see. You can also see them start to damage the tower, which is one of the systems I now have ready for tuning. Since my AI is very rudimentary, the weebles often get stuck in places, but sometimes it looks intentional and kind of awesome! And here's just a bonus of a guy busting through a window. The camera won't be down at these levels, but it's fun. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Bolt Posted June 9, 2017 good work and get to sleep Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
infamous space turtle Posted June 9, 2017 hahaha I love the window busting. Honestly these egg cretins are terrifying. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Travis Posted June 11, 2017 I have completed my first pass at all the models I think I will need. I was also able to start wiring a few things together, including silly stuff to put at the start of the game. Here is a revolutionary after being stuck in all of the king's accouterments! He is not long for this world. Here is an animated gif of the guillotine dropping into place, as they are wont to do. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Travis Posted June 12, 2017 Tonight I was able to work through shooting the actual accoutrements and getting this system in place. Now that this basic mechanic is working, I now see how much tuning this is going to take! That's part of the fun. Tomorrow I will work on the sequence for when you get one of these guys all dressed up and they actually give you points! Enjoy this gif of shooting a revolutionary: Here is a close up of some test footage: Remember that if you shoot a revolutionary with a piece of king regalia he already has on, it destroys the old and new piece. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Travis Posted June 13, 2017 Got the death sequence roughed out. It isn't robust at all yet, so tomorrow I will add adjustments that can be made in game. I hope you can tell what's going on in this gif, and I hope you can stomach the grisly sight! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Travis Posted June 16, 2017 I haven't had a whole lot of nifty gifs to share lately, but progress is ongoing! I am hoping to get the revolutionary spawning routine complete tonight or tomorrow... which means I NEED YOUR BARKS! I've only gotten a couple entries so far, so I will take any growls, grunts or good/bad French angry sayings you can muster. Thanks! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Travis Posted June 18, 2017 Crunch time and some last minute mistakes are worth sharing. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
One8Two8 Posted June 19, 2017 Very nice game. I love the aesthetic (and the game over sequence is a nice touch). I found a small bug: the cursor does not reappear when the player reaches the game over screen (but the player is still able to control it). Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Travis Posted June 19, 2017 On 6/19/2017 at 8:33 AM, One8Two8 said: Very nice game. I love the aesthetic (and the game over sequence is a nice touch). I found a small bug: the cursor does not reappear when the player reaches the game over screen (but the player is still able to control it). Oh yeah, I missed that one! Thanks! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
