COMPUTER GAMES ARTS: FCGM4011 GAMEPLAY & INTERACTIVITY WINTER SUBMISSION: CREATING ATMOSPHERE

One Time Sheet: (Week 1 - 2)

The purpose of a one time sheet is so that I can easily distinguish between different elements of the game as well as getting a good overall idea in general and not forgetting anything important.

Storyboard:

The Storyboard is to show a rough idea of the path I would ideally like  the player to take as they adventure through the first part of the level.

Map:

The map demonstrates a rough idea of the level layout as well as annotations of different rooms and directions where the player would go, as shown in the storyboard.

I also created a feedback sheet and allowed others to test the first prototype of my game, it helped me identify possible problems, such as the hallways being dull and empty, so i decided to put in objects i had created to make it more detailed.

Modelling the greybox in Maya: (Week 3 - 15)

Firstly, I created my level in Maya, it consisted of making all the objects separately, this included beds, sofas, cupboards, lamps, bookshelves, coat hangers and drawers, all in which you'd find inside a house as this is where my level is based. For the layout, which was the floors, walls and ceiling, I had precisely measured how much if the walls to cut out for the doors as well as measure the doors, so they'd fit. I then duplicated these for however many doors that were in my level and if the walls were longer or shorter in length then i just extruded each or one side to get the right fit for all the rooms. With walls without doors it was easy to model, I simply manipulated a cube whilst measuring to get them the same thickness and length as the walls with doors.

Once the layout was created, I placed all objects accordingly to each room. I then selected the level with all objects and exported it as an FBX file. 

Unity: (Week 16 - 30)

I then imported the modelled greybox into Unity and the first thing I did was to import standard assets from the asset store in order to be able to have a first person controller. 

The next thing i did was to rotate the directional light which acted either as day time or night time, I changed the rotation of the directional light so that it would be night time, the reason for this was because the genre of the game is based on being a thriller/horror and it is typical for these games to be based at night. I only wanted light because there is a balcony in the level where the player can go outside. I wanted the player to further feel an eerie atmosphere as they will be continue to be in the dark, as the level will be in the dark, I also put box colliders around the balcony and unticked the box so that it would act as an invisible wall so the player could not jump off and escape the level. 

I then went on to add the first person controller so that the level can be played but most importantly to be able to test all elements of the game before moving onto scripting something new. 

I grouped together all objects i needed to script to keep organised and easier to find. Such as the doors. I had two types of doors, one that the player can open and the other than is locked until the player has a key to open it with. The doors that the player could open i scripted first as i thought it would be easier to do, I wanted them to rotate, open and close whenever the player decides to left click on the mouse as well as have a door creaking sound playing when the player does open the door, these were the majority of the doors and i found this relatively easy to do.

In my level i have two locked doors, these had to scripted differently from the other doors. Without the keys the player can not open them. I found it difficult to script the keys as they did not work at first, and i needed to alter the scripts several times. Once one key worked i duplicated the first key and changed the object instances for the second in order for the second key to unlock the second locked door. 

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For both doors i had to add a script for the player so that they were able to interact and click on doors as well as the keys and an inventory for the keys to say that the player had them.

The next trigger was to have text triggers throughout the level. I found this e
xtremely difficult to script, as i wanted the text to be triggered when the player walked into a box collider.  I wanted multiple triggers 

As my level is meant to be a thriller/horror i wanted there to be flickering lights to make the player feel uneasy as they walk around the level. I originally wanted to add audio so that when the player is close to the light they will be able to hear low flickering light bulb noises, but i could not figure out how to do this. 

When developing the game i choose to add in some horrifying and loud music so that the player would feel uncomfortable and slightly panic as they played the game.

If i were to make the game again, i would definitely improve all aspects, for example, I underestimated how long the coding would take and as a result i wasn't able to find out or learn how to code certain things, such as add in audio to the lights as well as the text appearing multiple times instead of once and also when you clicked on a book which was one of my original ideas that i could not do. I felt that because of this, I was unable to tell a successful story.

Once all the scripts were right i clicked file, then build and run to get a playable level.