Side Scroller Concepts (Part 3)

Our new idea for a side scrolling shooter comes in the form of a mall cop as he makes his way to number one bad ass mall cop.

We have ideas for multiple level designs, but we will show off only one.  The Mall level.  This is a rough concept which will be updated with colors by another artist.

It's pretty self explanatory.  He travels across many different shops on his way to the final end boss.  Things added will be a HUD which will display his weapon and health.

Next up, though, is the design I have for a regular zombie and the boss zombie.

What's the worst enemy of the mall cop?  Punk teenagers.  So the obvious zombie?  Punk teenager zombie!  He has the notable spikes, mohawk, skateboard, and tattoos, but now with an insatiable appetite for flesh and brains!

And here is the boss design.  Something huge and menacing...and a little bad on hygiene...

Side Scroller Concepts (Part 2)

Here is included the designs I came up with to show off in our one page document.  They are initial designs for the playable character if we decide to go down this route for our game.

The first design is a cute version -

Along with the character is what could be a walk and flight animation, as well as weapons the character would utilize, and any animal friends who could help him along the way.

The second version is more gritty -

This is a more unconventional method to a furry animal, utilizing man-made weapons for survival.  The walking animation from the cute form would still play out, but the flight and possibilities of friends/enemies are a different design.

Side Scroller Concepts (Part 1)

I was able to find time today to put up my initial ideas for our scrolling shooter.

First I want to show the list of what I thought makes a good and a bad scrolling shooter.  I also found time to make a list of "types" for weapons I found would make an interesting game.

Next, I will show my concepts for three types of character designs.

The first row consists of something we see in a lot of vertical or horizontal shooters, and that is the ship design.  Included is a simple concept for a jet, a spaceship, and an alien craft.

The second row are designs if we want to do a human character.  Included are the typical action star, and a ninja.

The last bit of character design are animals.  They include a close range and a long range weapon in their design.  I made a penguin, a bear, and a squirrel.

The last row are ideas for extra components designed for each sub group.

Ideas for Vertical Side Scrolling Shooter

Over the weekend, I looked over at some scrolling shooters, both old and new, to get an idea of what worked and what didn't.  I also drew up some character designs which we could use.  I couldn't upload the images as of this post, but I will include them in the next blog post.

From what I saw, this is what worked great for a scrolling shooter:

-Diversity of weapons *
-Ratio of enemies is on par with the weapons and difficulty
-Movement patterns of both the enemies and player
-Hitbox of the player works
-Strong use of bosses in varying difficulties and different patterns *
-Enemies could have weaknesses
-Usually consist of hard but short levels
-Enemies work with the design of the player
-A form of scoreboard (either in points obtained from enemies destroyed or a simple story) to keep the player entertained

And here is what I saw didn't work so well:

-Slow moving (both from the player and the scrolling environment)
-Seeing no diversity of weapons or enemies
-Repetition (goes with the above 2 examples)

Ones with * next to them stood out the most to me.

Porta Potty Final Designs

After doing a bit of voting, our group came up with these drawings consisting of what we believe makes a better porta potty.

This group consists of -

Colby Paul
Nick Hornbacker
Kelly Harper
Ron Romero
Willtham Thammavong
Blake Sleight
Daniel Cushing
Brendan Wanlass
Ben Turner

The initial drawings consisted of these:

These were given to Kelly to pretty up and give a finalized system.  They are included on his blog, but I will include the drawings here:

These ideas will be presented in class.

Porto-potty Design

Given the first task of coming up with a porto-potty design fit to better itself, our group spend a bit of time figuring out the key complaints the standard design had.  After discussing what was wrong, we narrowed it to four main subjects.

-Safety
-Disposal
-Smell
-Transport

Everyone picked one of these features to focus on for design aspects.  I myself picked disposal, or how the "waste" can be taken out of the potties.  I went and asked those who have tried a porto potty on easier methods of retrieving and disposing the waste, given the current method is to suck it straight through a large hose.

After asking, I came up with these sketches:

 

These first designs show off two main methods.  A retrieval tray that can be switched out with a clean one once it is full, and a reservoir where more than one potty can be connected to.  Included are suggestions as to how the reservoir could potentially be underground.

This goes further into the reservoir idea by having it connect to the back, and gives it another tray like feel with the first design.  It also shows methods as to how the waste could be pushed into the tank.  Could we have a conveyer belt do it, a vacuum, or a mechanism actually push it in?