Everything I've done untill now!

Tuesday 16th
I completed the Jungle background, I was very happy at how the leaves turned out but when I put the leaf platforms on it to create the layout the leaves blended into the background and you couldnt really tell which leaves were the platforms so I'm going to adjust the platforms and make them less detailed and more bold.

Monday 15th
I saw Arjun's background and wasn't very happy with mine I thought it looked too basic compared to his, so i combined photos and drawings like he had done and made it more detailed, it looked a lot better than the previous one and work well with Arjun's too. I also started my jungle background and I wanted the drawn leaves on this one to be very detailed.

Saturday 13th

I scanned in my cloud background and added colour I also added the platforms to it to see what it would look like.

Wednesday 10th

Met up with the group and we agreed that there should be some information about the museum in the game somewhere so we decided to have a button on the menu screen so you can get to the information about the museum from there, we assigned this job to Guy because he wanted more to do. We also decided how the game would look and added some more stuff to the credits. We decided that you could collect bonus items in the game and they would be the body parts of the giraffe and you have to collect all four to rebuild and save the giraffe. In the credits we would then have the giraffe being rebuilt. We also decided what order the levels would go in. We are having four levels Sky, Jungle, Fire and Water. We decided to part the levels in order of hardness Sky first, then Jungle then water and then fire. We also decided to make the turtle rust if he touches the water.

I did some more sketches of the backgrounds and drew out some level images that would be turned into sprites so the turtle can jump on them. We also decided in our group that if the turtle fell into the water on the water level he would rust so I also did six more images of stages of the turtle rusting.

Tuesday 9th

I read half of the museums guide lines and got the impression that they would like a little bit of information about the museum in the game so I decided to bring this up with my group in the next meeting. I also read about what colours they like to be used and about there logo's, I would also bring this up with my group in the next meeting.

Monday 8th

I carried on with my turtle image I need to make 6 images that could be turned into sprite's, 3 forward and 3 backward. I twisted the legs round to make them look like they've come forward part of the way and filled in the gaps. I also started the last forward sprite but decided to take a short break.

I finished my turtle images but was a little curious on how it would look when it moved so I decided to put the images into flash and make them move. It looked pretty coll and was happy on how it would move so I decided to finish there and keep the turtle as it was.

Sunday 7th

I scanned in my image of the turtle so I could put it onto photo shop and add colour i also needed to make the turtle look like it moving, by having another turtle image and moving his legs forward a bit. I first added colour to the main image, I didn't want the colour to be too bold because I still wanted it to look like it would be made of metal. I also cut out the body and legs of the turtle so I could make it move. I started to rearrange the legs so they would look like they've gone forward a bit. I decided to leave it there and finish it later on.


Wednesday 3rd
I did some quick drawings at the museum before I met my group for the second time. I did a tonal drawing of the turtle so if the group liked the idea of using the turtle in the main game I could use it as a base and design my character from it. I also drew some sketches of the giraffe and some possible items that could be stolen from the metal men.

I met up with my group for the second time and discussed all of our ideas for the game. We combined all of our ideas for the story of the game, we decided instead of having the metal men as the evil, but characterising ourselves into evil metal people. We also decided to make it on game maker and to do it in the style of Mario where its 2D and you jump up to separate levels. We decided to combine 3 programmes, Flash, Game Maker and After Effects. The Flash would be used for the introduction and explaining the story line of the game but also making the menu screen for our game, the game Maker was for the game and the After Effects was to make the credits. We also assigned each other jobs. Guy was our team leader and was to make the menu screen for the game. Duane was making the game on game maker, Arjun was to make the credits and i was to do the drawings for the characters and make the introduction for the game. The credits are going to be very interesting with animated spoons and forks flying around and spelling out our names.

I started my character design for the turtle, I thought the turtle looked a bit unhappy so I decided to give him googly eyes and a smile. My first design didn't look that great he looked more like a sea lion than a turtle so I decided to go back to the drawing board and to keep the original turtle image that I did in the museum and to just change his eye and mouth. This worked well so I decided to add shading to make him look more metal like.
For my introduction I decided to do the first frame to show my group what I was thinking of doing and to get the go ahead from them to carry on with it. I wanted it to be very detailed.

Monday 1st

I did some quick storyboarding to show how my preferred idea could work on flash, if we couldn't use game maker, it was just to give my group a visual aid of my idea and help me to explain it.

Thursday 28th

After meeting my group for the first time, I decided to start brainstorming ideas for the game project. I came up with either making a type of walk through around the museum or a game in the style of Mario where it is based in a made up world. I didn't really like the idea of the walk through because I didn't think it would be very interesting and if it was actually put in the museum you wouldn't need a walk through because your already in the museum. I really liked the idea of creating a separate world because it would have a story line to it and it would be learning about the objects but learning in a fun way. The story line I came up with was to turn the characters in the museum into character's in the game. For example the giraffe with three heads would be the guard to all the treasures in the metal world and the turtle would be the main character. i would also have two evil characters in the game which are the metal men and they original sit in the garden outside the museum. I would play on this by saying they were banished to the forest but one day got up and attack the guard and stole some of the metal objects in the museum, the turtle would then have to retrieve them, but the only way to get them back would be by answering specific questions on those objects. the questions themselves wouldn't be that hard the idea of the game would be to find the object in the museum and answer the question this would have made it more interactive and more fun for who ever is playing it.

Posted by Emily Cox