Nothing interesting has been happening lately because our current top priority is to patch up our grades and such. As a lame compensation, I'll provide some links to places you can contact/spam/stalk/harass us online in case you want to see some more activity from us and are interested in what we do outside the world of Polyboy (it's not a whole lot so don't get too excited).
Carcity's e-mail: carcity_h@hotmail.com
Carcity's deviantArt account: http://carcity.deviantart.com/
OneHand's e-mail: rasmus.karicka@gmail.com
Michaedee's deviantArt account: http://michaedee.deviantart.com/
Wasp's e-mail: ragingteenager@gmail.com
WARNING! The following links may contain harsh language and otherwise inappropriate and immature content because Wasp does not understand the concept of being a professional, decent human being. Enter at your own risk!
Wasp's deviantArt account: http://lionsharkalligator.deviantart.com/
Wasp's YouTube account: http://www.youtube.com/user/WaspCarcass
Wasp's Twitter account: https://twitter.com/#!/WaspCarcass
So that's about it for now, as soon as school is over in a few weeks we'll have a lot more time to continue working on Polyboy. Unless we're busy with our vacations and personal lives, which is most likely the case but we'll still have more opportunities to work than we have right now. Stay tuned! Or not, whichever you prefer.
/Wasp
Wednesday 30 May 2012
Friday 4 May 2012
Roll the end credits!
Except it's not over yet. So, today we gotta turn this project in. We decided to not partake in the LBS Game Awards because I'm a terrible graphics artist who can't keep up with the schedules, therefore the game looks like crap and we'd just be embarrassing ourselves. BUT there's always next year, eh? And by then I probably won't get all tangled up because AUGH HOW DOES ONE MODEL A SCARF? (Note to self: don't start modeling a scarf BEFORE you're done with the rest of the body)
To my everlasting shame, I never got around rigging, animating or texturing our hero, but at least he no longer looks like a drunk ReDead with a nasty case of throat cancer. The proportions seem to add up but Unity is being it's usual jerk self and for some reason refuses to show half of Polyboy's head. We tried reversing the normals and changing the materials (so now he's pitch black) but nothing seems to work.
On a more positive note, Carcity has added little text blurbs strewn across the stages to give the player hints on the objective and controls (filled with movie references and terrible puns, of course). Most bugs have also been worked out, it sortof feels like playing a game. Now if we just had some interesting visuals...
Like I mentioned before, this project is far from done. We will keep tinkering with it until it becomes a glorious finished game that people can actually enjoy playing in a totally unironic way. And if things go well, we might even do a super clichéd sequel, but that's a bit of a stretch for the moment being.
It's been a fun (and frustrating) ride, we'll see ya all later around summer!
Over and out. We'll be back.
To my everlasting shame, I never got around rigging, animating or texturing our hero, but at least he no longer looks like a drunk ReDead with a nasty case of throat cancer. The proportions seem to add up but Unity is being it's usual jerk self and for some reason refuses to show half of Polyboy's head. We tried reversing the normals and changing the materials (so now he's pitch black) but nothing seems to work.
On a more positive note, Carcity has added little text blurbs strewn across the stages to give the player hints on the objective and controls (filled with movie references and terrible puns, of course). Most bugs have also been worked out, it sortof feels like playing a game. Now if we just had some interesting visuals...
Like I mentioned before, this project is far from done. We will keep tinkering with it until it becomes a glorious finished game that people can actually enjoy playing in a totally unironic way. And if things go well, we might even do a super clichéd sequel, but that's a bit of a stretch for the moment being.
It's been a fun (and frustrating) ride, we'll see ya all later around summer!
Over and out. We'll be back.
Tuesday 24 April 2012
Test results and future plans
We had another game testing session last Friday and this time we weren't chased by an angry mob with torches and pitchforks! In other words, Carcity worked out most of the control bugs/issues and the wall jumping sortof works like we intended it to.
OneHand finished the first stage with some minor alterations and we also tweaked the first version of the stage as well, making a slight increase in the difficulty level. I finished the plans for the next stage and if I'm not mistaken both Carcity and OneHand are adding the finishing touches right now. Because of time restraints (and general laziness) we're going to use the tweaked tutorial stage as stage 2 instead. Carcity has also fixed an intro screen/menu of sorts that you return to when you die. You'll have the option to either have a look at the controls or to start the game.
Now, I bring both bad and good news. The bad news are that we have less than 2 weeks left until our deadline for the LBS game awards (yeah, fat chance) and I'm making very little progress with the graphics so our game will most likely be butt-ugly and unfinished.
The good news however, is that we intend to continue working on this game after the deadline, except OneHand, who will work with HB (from the Heroes of Armarond dev team) on an older Flash based platformer we worked on a year ago. I have agreed to chip in with some 2D graphics and level designs for that game as well since I too was a part of the original dev team on that project.
We have run into some problems regarding the continued development of Polyboy though: we have to turn in our laptops at the beginning of summer and I'll only have my ancient Sony Vaio to work on and I'm not sure if it can run Maya properly because of it's severely outdated hardware and lack of space. Same goes for Carcity. His computer at home is known for being unreliable with all the crashes and slowdowns it frequently suffers from, and Michaedee (being the only member responsible enough to have a real job) will most likely have to spend a lot of time working.
I know my laptop once had the power to run Unity and I have an old copy of Photoshop at home in case SAI would fail me. If I remove all my games I might have enough space to continue working this summer, you don't need anything more complex than a pen and paper to plan stage layouts, enemy placements, concept art, themes, backdrops and storylines. It's the more advanced graphics that worry me.
So yeah, that's pretty much it for now. Although our deadline is closing in, that doesn't mean it's the end of the project. We've had too much fun so far and there are still a ton of bad puns that we haven't used yet. It would be a shame to have it all go to waste.
Until next time!
/Wasp
OneHand finished the first stage with some minor alterations and we also tweaked the first version of the stage as well, making a slight increase in the difficulty level. I finished the plans for the next stage and if I'm not mistaken both Carcity and OneHand are adding the finishing touches right now. Because of time restraints (and general laziness) we're going to use the tweaked tutorial stage as stage 2 instead. Carcity has also fixed an intro screen/menu of sorts that you return to when you die. You'll have the option to either have a look at the controls or to start the game.
Now, I bring both bad and good news. The bad news are that we have less than 2 weeks left until our deadline for the LBS game awards (yeah, fat chance) and I'm making very little progress with the graphics so our game will most likely be butt-ugly and unfinished.
The good news however, is that we intend to continue working on this game after the deadline, except OneHand, who will work with HB (from the Heroes of Armarond dev team) on an older Flash based platformer we worked on a year ago. I have agreed to chip in with some 2D graphics and level designs for that game as well since I too was a part of the original dev team on that project.
We have run into some problems regarding the continued development of Polyboy though: we have to turn in our laptops at the beginning of summer and I'll only have my ancient Sony Vaio to work on and I'm not sure if it can run Maya properly because of it's severely outdated hardware and lack of space. Same goes for Carcity. His computer at home is known for being unreliable with all the crashes and slowdowns it frequently suffers from, and Michaedee (being the only member responsible enough to have a real job) will most likely have to spend a lot of time working.
I know my laptop once had the power to run Unity and I have an old copy of Photoshop at home in case SAI would fail me. If I remove all my games I might have enough space to continue working this summer, you don't need anything more complex than a pen and paper to plan stage layouts, enemy placements, concept art, themes, backdrops and storylines. It's the more advanced graphics that worry me.
So yeah, that's pretty much it for now. Although our deadline is closing in, that doesn't mean it's the end of the project. We've had too much fun so far and there are still a ton of bad puns that we haven't used yet. It would be a shame to have it all go to waste.
Until next time!
/Wasp
Thursday 19 April 2012
Look out for the trojan!
Well, not exactly..
I've picked up some modelling for the sake of getting some things done so we actually have a finished level to show. I approached probably one of the most stupid enemies we wanted to implement in our game, a Trojan horse.
However, currently it just looks like Batman's lost steed. And at one point it looked like Moomin.
- michaedee
I've picked up some modelling for the sake of getting some things done so we actually have a finished level to show. I approached probably one of the most stupid enemies we wanted to implement in our game, a Trojan horse.
However, currently it just looks like Batman's lost steed. And at one point it looked like Moomin.
- michaedee
Monday 16 April 2012
Happy gamers
A tad bit late, but here are the pictures I took from the game test just before our Easter holiday.
We all had a pleasant day, part from some laptops shutting down on us and Unity being it's usual silly self. Make sure to check out our fellow classmates' blogs as well and their game projects.
- michaedee
POLYBOY TESTERS
HEROES OF ARMANOND TESTERS
ANCIENT MAGICKS TESTERS
PAM TESTERS
"VILSE I ÖKNEN" TESTERS
We all had a pleasant day, part from some laptops shutting down on us and Unity being it's usual silly self. Make sure to check out our fellow classmates' blogs as well and their game projects.
- michaedee
Friday 13 April 2012
Enter Vertexboy
I don't think enough people appreciate the kind of sacrifices I make for this game, because the picture you're about to see mortally crippled my dignity. It also pushed me to the limit as an artist, but in the wrong way. It was hard to ignore everything I know about anatomy and muscles to draw what is basically a stick figure. So prepare to shield your eyes everyone, we're about to reveal the face of the infamous impostor and Polyboy's arch nemesis, Vertexboy!
He's not exactly finished yet, I mean, for something that's supposed to be a Square Enix/shitty fanart by talentless animu fangirls parody he doesn't have nearly enough belts, weird hair, chains, rainbows, mismatching clothes etc., but this will have to do for now. I won't have the time required to fully include all details in the finished model anyway (not to mention that mapping it will be worse than death itself). He was also supposed to be leaning on his weapon of choice, the mighty sword VertExcalibur (Carcity deserves a medal for coming up with such a cheesy name), but I forgot how to draw swords the size of a truck.
The general thoughts behind Vertexboy and his designs is mainly to contrast Polyboy, but also to make fun of all the horrible, twisted fanart of pretty much everything in existence. Just go to deviantArt and search for any franchise that comes to mind, like South Park and you'll see that 99% of the most popular images are bastardized manga versions of the characters that are so different from their original designs that they no longer even resemble what they are supposed to be (ESPECIALLY male characters).
Maybe it's just my personal distaste for incredibly inconvenient clothing, but this whole "bishiefication" deal is just as offensive to me as plastering shamelessly giant cleavages on female characters. You're not really creating interesting or sympathetic characters, you're just catering to the most shallow groups of fans (in this case, to 13 years old girls), adding more to the already bloated sea of dull and uninteresting carbon copy designs *cough*FinalFantasy*cough*. And when you design a character like Vertexboy, can you imagine him having any kind of likeable non-stereotyped personality? What really breaks my heart is that if we were a recognised studio we'd get a crapload of requests from hormonal fangirls demanding that we make Vertexboy the main protagonist instead. Or maybe they wouldn't, maybe, by the time we're ready to hit the REAL gaming industry the world magically stops being stupid.
Anyway, here is something else that I mainly drew to boost my injured ego but aslo because it greatly amuses me. Hopefully you find it as funny as I do (I know the hands are messed up, I will fix them later when I have less pressing matters to deal with).
I'll try to finish Polyboy's model and textures by Monday. As far as I know, Carcity also fixed up the momentum issues with the controls and the wall jumping. We might also scrap the dashing/sliding, it isn't that vital to the game. Have a great weekend, y'all!
/Wasp
Monday 9 April 2012
Still Alive
So uh, delays, anyone? Yeah, as you might have guessed, the game tests didn't go as well as we had hoped. BUT, we still got some pretty neat feedback!
We have to get those graphics ready pronto, and the physics are more than just a tad broken at the moment. The player keeps sliding around and there's way too much momentum, giving it a reverse Action 52 feeling in all the wrong way (if you don't know what Action 52 is then I'm sorely disappointed in you). We also had OneHand redo the tutorial stage in the last minute so it would match the (scrapped) motherboard backdrop, but because of the lack of proper visual cues most people got disoriented.
Needless to say, we're going back to using the old design. From this, we learned that changing the layout of a stage for the sake of potential aesthetics is a VERY BAD idea, and from now on I'll be fully in charge of designing the stages while OneHand puts them together.
The wall jumping and sliding don't work as they should, and switching weapons with 1, 2 and 3 is very cumbersome with the current controls. The main purpose of dashing is to slide over gaps that have obstacles blocking Polyboy from jumping over them, or to have as a substitute for crawling under tight spaces, but since the player moves like Sonic the Hedgehog it renders dashing obsolete.
We also got a suggestion claiming that we should (I'm not even joking) add a Portal gun for puzzle elements. After we were done marveling over our classmates's remarkable (in)ability to spell, our one week school break started which explains our inactivity. During this time period, we continued to tinker with ideas for the game and decided to add a new element to flesh out the stages a bit: collectibles.
Collectibles will, aside from providing guidance for the player also change the way the game is played to somewhat relate to the story. The objective is to collect Cookies containing information that the fake Polyboy drops to prove the innocense of the real Polyboy so he can regain his reputation.
You can complete a stage without collecting all the Cookies, but similar to the Special Hearts in Yoshi's Story played in Story Mode, you won't be able to open new worlds without collecting a set amount. This will require more exploration but will also allow the stages to be a little shorter as I don't think that either of us will have the time to design and build stages of the Super Mario World calibre.
There will also be a sub-collectible that mostly serves as bait or a sort of subconscious guide to the player, much like the bananas in Donkey Kong Country. Their exact role in the game is uncertain at the moment, they could be used as currency in a shop where you can purchase temporary boosts and upgrades to your health and equipment, but can also be used like coins in Super Mario where you gain an extra life for every X amount of coin.
Regardless of their role, a platformer NEEDS collectibles, because if there's something I learned from playing that abomination known as Metroid: Other M, a game becomes boring and monotone very fast if you don't have some kind of object to casually collect or pick up at regular intervals, even if it's just health packs or ammo.
Right now we're thinking of having Microchips as sub-collectibles, small sparkling potato chips. It would go with the food theme. Now we just need a terrible pun for the health and ammo items and we're all set.
Oh right, and before I forget! We had a bunch of photos taken during the game test, but a lot of people didn't want their faces to be seen on the blog (I don't blame them) and since it already took me half an eternity to convert the 75 pictures to JPEG from NEF one by one I don't feel like spending the other half on coming up with a clever way to censor every single one.
None of the pictures show anything from the game itself anyway (don't look at me, I'm not the photographer) and the quality is really meh. You'd think that a camera that saves all the pictures as NEF-files would at least have the courtesy to make them look halfway decent to spare us the trouble. The nerve of technology these days.
Alright, that's it from us for now. We've sparked some fresh ideas so if everything goes right we should have a new update in a few days covering other topics (looking back at our records I wouldn't count on it though).
/Wasp
We have to get those graphics ready pronto, and the physics are more than just a tad broken at the moment. The player keeps sliding around and there's way too much momentum, giving it a reverse Action 52 feeling in all the wrong way (if you don't know what Action 52 is then I'm sorely disappointed in you). We also had OneHand redo the tutorial stage in the last minute so it would match the (scrapped) motherboard backdrop, but because of the lack of proper visual cues most people got disoriented.
Needless to say, we're going back to using the old design. From this, we learned that changing the layout of a stage for the sake of potential aesthetics is a VERY BAD idea, and from now on I'll be fully in charge of designing the stages while OneHand puts them together.
The wall jumping and sliding don't work as they should, and switching weapons with 1, 2 and 3 is very cumbersome with the current controls. The main purpose of dashing is to slide over gaps that have obstacles blocking Polyboy from jumping over them, or to have as a substitute for crawling under tight spaces, but since the player moves like Sonic the Hedgehog it renders dashing obsolete.
We also got a suggestion claiming that we should (I'm not even joking) add a Portal gun for puzzle elements. After we were done marveling over our classmates's remarkable (in)ability to spell, our one week school break started which explains our inactivity. During this time period, we continued to tinker with ideas for the game and decided to add a new element to flesh out the stages a bit: collectibles.
Collectibles will, aside from providing guidance for the player also change the way the game is played to somewhat relate to the story. The objective is to collect Cookies containing information that the fake Polyboy drops to prove the innocense of the real Polyboy so he can regain his reputation.
You can complete a stage without collecting all the Cookies, but similar to the Special Hearts in Yoshi's Story played in Story Mode, you won't be able to open new worlds without collecting a set amount. This will require more exploration but will also allow the stages to be a little shorter as I don't think that either of us will have the time to design and build stages of the Super Mario World calibre.
There will also be a sub-collectible that mostly serves as bait or a sort of subconscious guide to the player, much like the bananas in Donkey Kong Country. Their exact role in the game is uncertain at the moment, they could be used as currency in a shop where you can purchase temporary boosts and upgrades to your health and equipment, but can also be used like coins in Super Mario where you gain an extra life for every X amount of coin.
Regardless of their role, a platformer NEEDS collectibles, because if there's something I learned from playing that abomination known as Metroid: Other M, a game becomes boring and monotone very fast if you don't have some kind of object to casually collect or pick up at regular intervals, even if it's just health packs or ammo.
Right now we're thinking of having Microchips as sub-collectibles, small sparkling potato chips. It would go with the food theme. Now we just need a terrible pun for the health and ammo items and we're all set.
Oh right, and before I forget! We had a bunch of photos taken during the game test, but a lot of people didn't want their faces to be seen on the blog (I don't blame them) and since it already took me half an eternity to convert the 75 pictures to JPEG from NEF one by one I don't feel like spending the other half on coming up with a clever way to censor every single one.
None of the pictures show anything from the game itself anyway (don't look at me, I'm not the photographer) and the quality is really meh. You'd think that a camera that saves all the pictures as NEF-files would at least have the courtesy to make them look halfway decent to spare us the trouble. The nerve of technology these days.
Alright, that's it from us for now. We've sparked some fresh ideas so if everything goes right we should have a new update in a few days covering other topics (looking back at our records I wouldn't count on it though).
/Wasp
Friday 30 March 2012
Counting down
After a few hours on Skype and raging whenever Maya or Unity decided to crash last night we feel ready for the game test later today. We've added music and a basic model for Polyboy to test out our first level, the tutorial stage. Despite the controls still being slightly difficult we hope to get some nice feedback as well as critique on what to improve.
We will post pictures, comments and results once we've summed it all up.
- Polyboy DevTeam
We will post pictures, comments and results once we've summed it all up.
- Polyboy DevTeam
Tuesday 27 March 2012
Preparations
Coming up at the end of this week there's a scheduled game test. Of course, we're all looking forward to let our other classmates give our game a try and hope to gather some valuable pointers in how to improve Polyboy. However this also means a lot of work from the team's side to get our first level, the tutorial stage ready for testing. Despite having quite a bit left to sort out before Friday, we're staying positive and think we'll be able to present a beta version of the first level with enemies, background, music and sound effects, you name it.
A scheduled game test doesn't only mean we'll have others try our game out, but we'll also be able to see what our classmates have done and play their games. An excellent opportunity to have some fun and relax, for a minute or two.
To tease your braincells, I've come halfway through with composing some music that will be placed somewhere secret in our game for you guys to find. However, I'll be nice and give you a taste just now.
Aggression
Keep an eye out for new posts as we'll be updating before the game test as well as after to let you, our beloved readers know what our beta-testers thought about the game so far.
- michaedee
A scheduled game test doesn't only mean we'll have others try our game out, but we'll also be able to see what our classmates have done and play their games. An excellent opportunity to have some fun and relax, for a minute or two.
To tease your braincells, I've come halfway through with composing some music that will be placed somewhere secret in our game for you guys to find. However, I'll be nice and give you a taste just now.
Aggression
Keep an eye out for new posts as we'll be updating before the game test as well as after to let you, our beloved readers know what our beta-testers thought about the game so far.
- michaedee
Friday 23 March 2012
I Know
The quality however, is absolute crap. Sorry about that, the only equipment we have available is the stuff our school can provide us with.
Anyway, enjoy listening to me turning into, you know, Alexi Laiho in a, you know, interview. You know.
/Wasp
Wednesday 21 March 2012
An introduction and a beginning
So,
since we've worked hard for 2 days now we thought we'd give our
followers a little treat. Introducing the man himself, Polyboy and
his story:
"Polyboy,
a legendary internet hero who throughout the years have fought
dangerous computer viruses and bad memes to keep the internet safe
from hackers. Despite his sacrifices and efforts, the internet is
still not safe and now a new enemy is approaching.
One
day Polyboy discovers a bunch of scandalous pictures and videos of
himself out on the internet. However, it couldn't possibly be him,
something is very wrong. It'll later show that it's someone else
pretending to be Polyboy and is trying their very best to soil
Polyboy's reputation. At the same time, old viruses seem to have been
resurrected and improved and is now terrorising all the internet
users.
The
future is now, and this problem is spreading faster by the minute.
It's you, Polyboy, who must save and protect the internet once and
for all."
-
michaedee
Sunday 18 March 2012
Joystick 4.0
- It's late and I'm tired but DAMN I had a great time tonight!
OneHand and michaedee were lucky to be able to attend Joystick 4.0 with a few others from Ljud & Bildskolan and listen to Malmö Symfoniorkester (Malmö's Symphony orchestra) preform music from games like Killzone 3, Final Fantasy IX, The Legend of Zelda and of course, the one we came for: Assassin's Creed Revelations. A truly amazing experience that we'll be sure to attend again next time.
Joystick 4.0 (Gamereactor)
Joystick 4.0 (Malmö Konserthus)
To me, this visit gave me plenty of ideas and inspiration for the music I want to add to our game and frankly, I can't wait to get started again on monday.
(And we're soooo sorry for not putting up a vlog episode this week but we'll compensate for that on monday as well!)
- michaedee
OneHand and michaedee were lucky to be able to attend Joystick 4.0 with a few others from Ljud & Bildskolan and listen to Malmö Symfoniorkester (Malmö's Symphony orchestra) preform music from games like Killzone 3, Final Fantasy IX, The Legend of Zelda and of course, the one we came for: Assassin's Creed Revelations. A truly amazing experience that we'll be sure to attend again next time.
Joystick 4.0 (Gamereactor)
Joystick 4.0 (Malmö Konserthus)
To me, this visit gave me plenty of ideas and inspiration for the music I want to add to our game and frankly, I can't wait to get started again on monday.
(And we're soooo sorry for not putting up a vlog episode this week but we'll compensate for that on monday as well!)
- michaedee
Friday 16 March 2012
Slow week
On behalf of the dev team, I apologise for the lack of frequent updates this week. Progress has been painfully slow and we're already starting to hit bumps in the road (at least, I am). The promised wall of text about the level designs will be halted until further notice, possibly next Monday.
My brain is on a bit of a drought when it comes to creativity as I'm trying to bounce a million ideas and projects around at once, it's hard to stick to the schedule like this. The excessive difficulty I'm having with drawing Polyboy from different angles is not helping at all. I'd really need a muse or something because my grasp on human anatomy is still not as firm as it should be, but neither Carcity nor OneHand have the right body type and even if they did I doubt that they'd be willing to stand around in their underpants for an hour or two.
Thankfully I can still resort to carefully studying Marvel comic pages but the exaggerated physiques of most superheroes are both helping and hindering my progress. You see, it gives you a better idea of exactly WHICH muscle groups you have to work with, but it also makes it difficult to balance out the proportions of the character you intend to draw.
Remember my former dilemma with Polyboy's design a few posts ago? I intend to solve it by giving him a sleeker body type with less prominent muscles and instead make muscle patterns on his suit so he'll keep his youthful look but still looks strong. The new problem I'm facing now is that I'm not sure how much muscle mass I can add before it starts to look weird, and I have a real hard time to tone down the musculature. With all that said, let's take a look at what I have so far:
I decided to beef up the pectoral girth a bit, but the ribs might be too thick and I'll probably reduce them somewhat in the future to make him less top heavy. I removed the kneecaps from the front view as they were too high up. This will be fixed. I'm also considering removing the turtle neck, not sure if it's really necessary. The rocket launcher will be a separate model altogether and will be added later because I'd like to keep a symmetrical design on Polyboy as it's easier to model and texture.
As a last note, I'd also like to add that Michaedee has begun translating the design document and that it has much more content now as well.
This is Wasp signing off, have a nice weekend y'all!
*EDIT: Oh snap, I also wanted to share a very useful page that I frequently use when searching for references: http://marvel.wikia.com/Deadpool_(Wade_Wilson)/Gallery Trust me, nothing helps with anatomy issues as much as muscular Marvel superheroes in tight spandex. Especially Deadpool. Because Deadpool is awesome. Although I probably should have used Spider-Man as he has a much slimmer body. Oh well.
*EDIT: Oh snap, I also wanted to share a very useful page that I frequently use when searching for references: http://marvel.wikia.com/Deadpool_(Wade_Wilson)/Gallery Trust me, nothing helps with anatomy issues as much as muscular Marvel superheroes in tight spandex. Especially Deadpool. Because Deadpool is awesome. Although I probably should have used Spider-Man as he has a much slimmer body. Oh well.
Monday 12 March 2012
Weekly Update: Vlog Episode 1
WEEKLY UPDATE: VLOG EPISODE
These vlog episodes are meant to be out every friday but we were a bit tight on time last week so here it is now! This week the vlog episode features Carcity and Wasp with michaedee holding the camera. (NOT like a boss)
- Polyboy DevTeam
Friday 9 March 2012
"it doesn't sound like much"
After a good few hours of raging at my dentist and MadTracker2, I
decided to ditch it and find another software to use. I found the
almighty: FL Studio.
So sitting there messing with the different instruments and sounds I started to put together a beat and added some strings for THE EPIC effect. Of course, the result is no where near THE EPIC effect, but one can I try, right? I named it Heat after my raging session and the fact that this song builds up for the rest of the story. The link below forwards you to my SoundCloud page where you can listen to it.
Enjoy the lameness!
Heat
- michaedee
So sitting there messing with the different instruments and sounds I started to put together a beat and added some strings for THE EPIC effect. Of course, the result is no where near THE EPIC effect, but one can I try, right? I named it Heat after my raging session and the fact that this song builds up for the rest of the story. The link below forwards you to my SoundCloud page where you can listen to it.
Enjoy the lameness!
Heat
- michaedee
Thursday 8 March 2012
Introducing the Power Rangers
So today has been a very productive day for everyone, you tend to get shit done when you have a three hour work session (you should all assume we were working all the time, 'cause we totally were). Anyway! Since I noticed that we haven't had a post talking about exactly what we'll be doing, I figured I could fill in some blanks.
First of all, there's me. I'm Albin, known on the international web as Carcity. I do programming, which, if you have no idea how developing things on the computer work, is writing codes. Basically, while Wasp and Michaedee get to do fun stuff like drawing stuff and making music, I write. I write complicated codes that do little to nothing, but are needed for everything to work.
The second person to join this project, before we became our official group, is Wasp, also known by humans as Regina. She is the artist of us. She gets to flood PhotoShop (or whatever program she's using) (it's Paint Tool SAI) with images and drawings of basically anything she likes, which is mostly abs, but anyway. She's also the one handling the 3D modeling, meaning she gets to draw in THREE DIMENSIONS! Also, she has to texturize all of her models, a work I'm glad not having to do.
Then we have our Sound Manager, Michaedee, also known as Angelika. She's in charge of creating all the sound and music in the game, which may not sound like much (har har, I see what you did there), but is actually harder than it seems. She's also unofficially become the organizer of the team, the one who more or less tells us what to do when we don't know ourselves.
Last, but not least is OneHand, or as we call him, Rasmus. He is, like me, doing the programming. He's mainly working on our enemies, and creating an AI for them more advanced than flying into random walls, which he's actually doing a pretty good job at. He's also doing the level designing with Wasp, which is the most important job there is, because without good level design, the game is just going to be a cluster of nonsense.
This is our small but strong development team, we don't have an official name yet, but me and Wasp have unofficially settled for "Angry Video Game Developers".
Also, Wasp loves drawing small boys, but don't tell her I said that. (I'm going to punch you for that one. Really hard. Right in the solar plexus. You just wait. Also, spellcheck your stuff. I've had to correct like 7 words or so by now.)
- Carcity
First of all, there's me. I'm Albin, known on the international web as Carcity. I do programming, which, if you have no idea how developing things on the computer work, is writing codes. Basically, while Wasp and Michaedee get to do fun stuff like drawing stuff and making music, I write. I write complicated codes that do little to nothing, but are needed for everything to work.
The second person to join this project, before we became our official group, is Wasp, also known by humans as Regina. She is the artist of us. She gets to flood PhotoShop (or whatever program she's using) (it's Paint Tool SAI) with images and drawings of basically anything she likes, which is mostly abs, but anyway. She's also the one handling the 3D modeling, meaning she gets to draw in THREE DIMENSIONS! Also, she has to texturize all of her models, a work I'm glad not having to do.
Then we have our Sound Manager, Michaedee, also known as Angelika. She's in charge of creating all the sound and music in the game, which may not sound like much (har har, I see what you did there), but is actually harder than it seems. She's also unofficially become the organizer of the team, the one who more or less tells us what to do when we don't know ourselves.
Last, but not least is OneHand, or as we call him, Rasmus. He is, like me, doing the programming. He's mainly working on our enemies, and creating an AI for them more advanced than flying into random walls, which he's actually doing a pretty good job at. He's also doing the level designing with Wasp, which is the most important job there is, because without good level design, the game is just going to be a cluster of nonsense.
This is our small but strong development team, we don't have an official name yet, but me and Wasp have unofficially settled for "Angry Video Game Developers".
Also, Wasp loves drawing small boys, but don't tell her I said that. (I'm going to punch you for that one. Really hard. Right in the solar plexus. You just wait. Also, spellcheck your stuff. I've had to correct like 7 words or so by now.)
- Carcity
Some WIP concept art
I am finally getting somewhere with the designs of our main character. I've had my fair share of trouble, but here's some history on the progress:
This would be the very first sketch-ish thing we could come up with six hundred centuries ago before the project was officially started. At the time we didn't really have a solid image for what Polyboy looked like and we just went with a bad Megaman ripoff with a crappy turtleneck and snowboard goggles. I dunno, it was cold and I had just ordered my new cargos at Junkyard which is chock-full of snowboarding and skating equipment. Polyboy is also supposed to carry a huge shoulder-mounted rocket launcher, but I'll deal with that later.
Then we have the next piece, where I wanted to get a slightly better idea of exactly what body type/shape I should go with, but I ended up doodling muscles (ignore the right arm, the brachioradialis is supposed to go under the arm and wrap around the wrist, not connect to the hand) instead. Oops. But at least I had a somewhat solid (but incorrect) base to continue working on.
One tracing session later, we have a much more simplified (but still incorrect) frame. Believe it or not but this is the part that took me forever because I'm not that familiar with how leg muscles interact and wrap around each other, or how I should draw the knee between the quads and calves. Anatomy is tricky, guys. I'm still pretty happy with how the quads turned out, however. It's rare for me to make legs, especially thighs and knees look okay.
The legs are still way too short, but I've mirrored the picture for the sake of symmetry so I can get a better idea of how the body would look from the front. The hands are also somewhat dodgy looking but trust me I didn't draw them that way for the sake of aesthetics. It's a lot easier to model them if you can, you know, actually SEE the fingers in Maya. Though it really bothers me how the fingers stick out, it looks so flamboyant. All it needs now is a cloud of sparkles and the image is complete.
Aaaand, we have the almost finished base-sketch! The turtleneck returns while the hair and goggles are replaced by a helmet with a visor, as the hair was making the character trail into bishie-territory. A lot of crucial details still need to get in place, like the gloves and boots so the hands won't look so humongous in comparison. I don't know what happened to the pectorals though, they look a little... saggy. This must be remedied. Anyway, the legs are longer and Polyboy looks a little less like an ape and has gone from being a bad Megaman ripoff to a bad Captain Falcon/Robocop hybrid. Hooray!
The problem I'm facing now is that the visor and the muscles take away the boyish look that Polyboy had, and Polyman doesn't have the same ring to it. Either we'll change the name of the blog and everything related to the project (which is NOT GOING TO HAPPEN), or I'll have to somehow give Polyboy a more youthful appearance so he doesn't look like a fully grown man running around playing superhero in his pajamas or something. Because that would be pretty pathetic. I just don't want to end up creating something that looks like a rejected Final Fantasy character from space. Because that would be even worse.
Okay, that's enough from me for now. There's another upcoming wall of text for your viewing pleasure covering some of the level design plans and themes.
/Wasp
P.S. CARCITY SHUT THE HELL UP I DRAW WHATEVER I WANT!
This would be the very first sketch-ish thing we could come up with six hundred centuries ago before the project was officially started. At the time we didn't really have a solid image for what Polyboy looked like and we just went with a bad Megaman ripoff with a crappy turtleneck and snowboard goggles. I dunno, it was cold and I had just ordered my new cargos at Junkyard which is chock-full of snowboarding and skating equipment. Polyboy is also supposed to carry a huge shoulder-mounted rocket launcher, but I'll deal with that later.
The problem I'm facing now is that the visor and the muscles take away the boyish look that Polyboy had, and Polyman doesn't have the same ring to it. Either we'll change the name of the blog and everything related to the project (which is NOT GOING TO HAPPEN), or I'll have to somehow give Polyboy a more youthful appearance so he doesn't look like a fully grown man running around playing superhero in his pajamas or something. Because that would be pretty pathetic. I just don't want to end up creating something that looks like a rejected Final Fantasy character from space. Because that would be even worse.
Okay, that's enough from me for now. There's another upcoming wall of text for your viewing pleasure covering some of the level design plans and themes.
/Wasp
P.S. CARCITY SHUT THE HELL UP I DRAW WHATEVER I WANT!
Monday 5 March 2012
The player can jump!
I have, after struggles, managed to create the basis of a jumping script that not only allows the player to take of from the ground, but can also be used to jump from walls! Our player is now halfway to becoming Spiderman!
- Carcity
- Carcity
Friday 2 March 2012
Design document sneak-peek
The time has come for us to post a most magnificent piece of beta content: the unfinished design document! However, it's written in Swedish and that limits a great deal of our potential audiences, but if I get any requests I might take the time and translate the whole thing into English instead. Alright? Here goes:
Chronicles of Polyboy
Introduktion och exempel
It’s basically really epic. Except when it’s not (which is most of the time).
Målet med spelet
Att ta sig från punkt A till punkt B helskinnad. Ibland får man slåss med bossar.
Spelmekanik, styrning och spelaren
Spelet är ett 2D-sidescroller shooter, där spelaren skjuter åt den sidan han är riktad mot. Man kan röra sig fram och tillbaka samt hoppa (hopphöjden är ca. spelarens höjd). Spelaren kommer ha tillgång till olika vapen som alla fyller olika funktioner och har speciella användningsområden.
Beskrivning av spelmiljön
The part of cyberspace where memes go to die.
Banorna
Banorna är utformade så att spelaren för det mesta rör sig från vänster till höger i stil med klassiska 2D-shooters och plattformers, men ibland kan man bli tvungen att ta alternativa vägar för att ha med vissa utforskningselement. Vissa banor har även dolda utgångar som leder till bonusbanor. Hittar man utgångarna till bonusbanorna teleporteras man och banan anses automatiskt vara avklarad. Checkpoints kommer även att finnas med så man inte behöver spela om hela banan ifall man dör. Får man slut på extraliv räknas det som en Game Over och DÅ får man spela om banan. Om man lämnar banan för att sedan gå tillbaka får man också börja om.
Bonusar/objekt
Health packs och ammunition är de mest grundläggande objekten som måste finnas med i spelet. Extraliv och mindre trinkets kan man också samla på för att öka sina chanser på att lyckas ta sig i mål. Samlar man ihop tillräckligt många trinkets får man ett extraliv. Trinkets finns utspridda på banorna men de flesta gömmer sig på bonusbanorna.
Dialoger/story
Polyboy är en legendarisk internethjälte som har genom åren slagits mot farliga virus och dåliga memes för att hålla internet säkert från hackers, politiker och idioter. Trots hans uppoffringar är internet fortfarande inte säkert och en ny antagonist har visat sig...
En dag upptäcker Polyboy ett gäng skandalösa bilder och videor på sig själv ute på internet, men det kan omöjligt vara Polyboy. Något är väldigt fel. Han ser annorlunda ut. Det visar sig att någon låtsas vara Polyboy och gör allt i sin makt för att förstöra hans rykte och trovärdighet på internet samtidigt som gamla virus börjar återuppstå och mutera för att terrorisera alla internetanvändare (it’s cyberspace, we don’t need no logic).
GUI
På skärmen kommer spelarens status att visas. Högst uppe till vänster finns spelets liv- och ammunitionmätare. På botten av skärmen kommer ens tillgängliga vapen att visas, det aktiva vapnet kommer att vara markerat.
Alright, that would be it. The text marked in red is wishlist content (stuff that might not make it into the game as it's not crucial for it to work). Again, this document needs some serious tweaking and fleshing out and maybe a translating session or two if anyone's interested.
This update was brought to you by Regina K, a.k.a. Wasp.
Chronicles of Polyboy
Revenge of the Plot Device
Designdokument
av
Albin Hermansson
Rasmus Karicka
Regina Kovacs
Angelika Johansson
Innehållsförteckning
Introduktion och exempel
It’s basically really epic. Except when it’s not (which is most of the time).
Målet med spelet
Att ta sig från punkt A till punkt B helskinnad. Ibland får man slåss med bossar.
Spelmekanik, styrning och spelaren
Spelet är ett 2D-sidescroller shooter, där spelaren skjuter åt den sidan han är riktad mot. Man kan röra sig fram och tillbaka samt hoppa (hopphöjden är ca. spelarens höjd). Spelaren kommer ha tillgång till olika vapen som alla fyller olika funktioner och har speciella användningsområden.
Beskrivning av spelmiljön
The part of cyberspace where memes go to die.
Banorna
Banorna är utformade så att spelaren för det mesta rör sig från vänster till höger i stil med klassiska 2D-shooters och plattformers, men ibland kan man bli tvungen att ta alternativa vägar för att ha med vissa utforskningselement. Vissa banor har även dolda utgångar som leder till bonusbanor. Hittar man utgångarna till bonusbanorna teleporteras man och banan anses automatiskt vara avklarad. Checkpoints kommer även att finnas med så man inte behöver spela om hela banan ifall man dör. Får man slut på extraliv räknas det som en Game Over och DÅ får man spela om banan. Om man lämnar banan för att sedan gå tillbaka får man också börja om.
Bonusar/objekt
Health packs och ammunition är de mest grundläggande objekten som måste finnas med i spelet. Extraliv och mindre trinkets kan man också samla på för att öka sina chanser på att lyckas ta sig i mål. Samlar man ihop tillräckligt många trinkets får man ett extraliv. Trinkets finns utspridda på banorna men de flesta gömmer sig på bonusbanorna.
Dialoger/story
Polyboy är en legendarisk internethjälte som har genom åren slagits mot farliga virus och dåliga memes för att hålla internet säkert från hackers, politiker och idioter. Trots hans uppoffringar är internet fortfarande inte säkert och en ny antagonist har visat sig...
En dag upptäcker Polyboy ett gäng skandalösa bilder och videor på sig själv ute på internet, men det kan omöjligt vara Polyboy. Något är väldigt fel. Han ser annorlunda ut. Det visar sig att någon låtsas vara Polyboy och gör allt i sin makt för att förstöra hans rykte och trovärdighet på internet samtidigt som gamla virus börjar återuppstå och mutera för att terrorisera alla internetanvändare (it’s cyberspace, we don’t need no logic).
GUI
På skärmen kommer spelarens status att visas. Högst uppe till vänster finns spelets liv- och ammunitionmätare. På botten av skärmen kommer ens tillgängliga vapen att visas, det aktiva vapnet kommer att vara markerat.
Alright, that would be it. The text marked in red is wishlist content (stuff that might not make it into the game as it's not crucial for it to work). Again, this document needs some serious tweaking and fleshing out and maybe a translating session or two if anyone's interested.
This update was brought to you by Regina K, a.k.a. Wasp.
Thursday 1 March 2012
- We have a blog!
So yeah, we created a blog for documentation purposes of our new game project Polyboy. We're quite excited to get this show on the road and hope to achieve at least a playable game with an epic story behind it and a working concept.
Working on this project will be: Carcity, OneHand, Wasp & Michaedee
- Polyboy DevTeam
Working on this project will be: Carcity, OneHand, Wasp & Michaedee
- Polyboy DevTeam
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