Students Blog

Research and Inspiration for Final Projects by Justin Lin and Logan Olson

While searching for a game to create, we took various game elements that seemed innovative and interesting to us and combined them to form the game we wanted. One of the goals we wanted to accomplish was to create a visceral high-intensity action packed game that was innovative, and possessed qualities that could appeal to different audiences. We tried to search for simplicity, and allow complexity to spawn from that simplicity. We wanted something that was an organic experience, where the player would not be frustrated, but rather enticed by the mysterious possibilities of his mistakes or frustrations. One of our basic ideas was going to be about this "ribbon-like" innocent and lively character that would go about a dystopian surreal world, defeating various enemies with his powers. His powers would essentially consist of him moving his entire ribbon body to slash, kill, wrap, twirl, transform, mutate, etc. in order to overcome his obstacles. A story would eventually follow what we created for the basic gameplay sceme. Though the idea is still rough, we decided to research the elements we thought we wanted in a game:

1. Unconventional games
While "Ico" was commercially unsuccessful, it was a critical hit (91% on gamerankings.com).
More recently, Katamari Damacy, has been successful critically and financially. A sequel was just published, and immediately sold out due to underestimation of sales.
Okami has yet to be released, but is greatly anticipated by the video game media.
All three games feature unconventional play features or narratives. Ico takes place in a dream-like state, with no clear conflict established at the outset and a lemming-like feature to the gameplay in guiding a princess around the world. Katamari Damacy solely consists of rolling up the world into a ball. Okami takes place in a wood-block painting which the player, as a wolf, must bring back to life.

The concept of cel-shading also appealed to us. Looking toward games such as The Legend of Zelda: The Windwalker, Viewtiful Joe, Dark Cloud 2, and Zone of the Enders 1 and 2. The cel-shading effect according to various people makes the experience more accessible, especially to younger aged kids, but not so that the adult players would be scared away from it.While we hoped for a protagonist design to be a very solid colored design, we still wanted an edgy look to it, very streamlined and organic, but still technological, achieving in essence a sort of design balance for adults and kids. The background with all it's dark shadows and odd worlds would help to contrast our character providing the clear distinction between good, evil, and the not-so-normal.. We thought various elements of cel-shading (the cartoony look of texturing) could be used to create the character, that totally contrasted the dystopia world of the noir realist/surrealist background.

Movie/Anime influences: Evangelion, The Matrix, Aliens (a fusion of organic and technological).

2. Control schemes
Katamari Damacy is controlled using the two analog sticks to move and face all possibilities on a 2D plane.
Zone of Enders and ZOE 2 use the control sticks to control movement on a 2D plane and camera. Two buttons are used for the 3rd plane (up and down). This is all supplemented with auto-targetting.
Rise to Honor (Jet Li's game) uses one stick to control movement and the other to attack.
The face buttons in these games are mainly there to serve as triggers for special moves or to manipulate the environment (an action button, etc.)
Fight Night 1 and 2 uses dual stick controls to give an organic feel to controlling a boxer in the ring. There are no jagged moves, and it feels like you are controlling all aspects of what a boxer can do, from dodging to punching to countering.
In terms of creating a ribbon character that was fluid in motion, as well as simple in operation, we looked at games that had similarities in simplicity. We wanted to create the fluid use of Katamari Damacy's dual stick control, with the quick auto targetting of Zone of the Enders. The reason for this is because, in Katamari Damacy, whenever the action slowed down, the player would feel tired and frustrated. But with ZOE 2, there is always this non-stop feeling of visceral action that gripped you to your seat because you displayed a ballet of destruction before you. This made your actions feel cool because you can auto target your enemies, and yet it was still challenging because of the sheer number of things you could use and destroy.

3. Artistic research:
For cyberpunk backgrounds: H.R. Giger - http://www.hrgiger.com/ The designer incorporates organic objects into this technological feel. Similar to Aliens and The Matrix designs.
For protagonist design: Look at gymnastic streamer performances and "Legend of Zu."
Make the character simple in design, while making him elaborate in transformation. A sort of multi-purpose design, where each of it's design elements, however simple it maybe, could transform into something totally complex when needed for attack or for actions.
We did not want the character to be anthropomorphic nor anywhere near the uncanny valley. We wanted something more iconic and simple in graphics, so that people can view it simply and understand it easily.

4. Special moves:
"Legend of Zu" is a film that incorporates fantastic, sentient, malliable weapons. It is choreographed by Yuen Wo-Ping so it is aesthetically pleasing and satisfyingly violent.
Other ideas might come from "Red Ninja" (lackluster PS2 game) and chain-whip wushu routines (all the materials referenced are on hand, except Red Ninja)
Moves can become emergent like through a combo system. Whereas, when we attack an enemy a certain way, and create new moves from the system. However, we strive not to make these combos and special moves seem repetitive. (aka Megaman, Fighting games like Tekken or Street Fighter).

5. Camera Angles:
While looking through the previously mentioned games, we hoped for a perspective camera that would not distort, bore, or confuse the reader.
Since the games we were looking at were mostly third person, we thought of various third person ideas. There were games like Katamari, where the camera changes according to your ball, and ZOE2, where the camera is fixed according to your robot. Games like Resident Evil 4, fixed your 3rd person view, unless you turned around. Then there were games where the camera is fully adjustable. We wanted a camera angle that was both intuitive and fun in an all 3d world.

6. Story:
There would be a pre-set narrative story where we would create an outlining 3-act structure, where the character has a goal, goes through various obstacles to get to his goal, and obtain it. Since our character design has been more toward the abstract and iconic, we wanted to make people identify with the character's simplicity. There would be a story that would have emotional intensity in it, but not to the point where the story dictates the game play too much. This would provide a more detached feeling toward the character, but we wanted our focus to be more on the game than the story. Katamari is a good example of this. We want this to be a game that is accessible to both the hardcore and casual gamer.