Early Sketches

Before putting together with my pitch I created a couple of sketches for my idea. 

Sketch 1: My first idea is the one I am doing for the Journeyman pitch so I did  a rough sketch for my main character. It was mainly a demonstration for my armour.

 

Sketch 2: The main player would been equipped with a bow and arrow that would be able to fire explosives that would be wiping out multiple enemies. 

Sketch 3: My original idea was to be able to deflect projectile attacks that counters back to the enemies.

 

Sketch 4: After a week I had a change of heart I went for a pure stealth game, so I did some character poses for the main character of the second idea. The character had two stances; the standing stance and crouching stance.

 

Sketch 5: I did some running poses for the character. This would make the character faster however it will alert the enemies/

Sketch 6: This was an earlier sketch for the character's walking animation.

Sketch 7: The player would have been able to stealth kill by crouch walking behind the enemy.

Sketch 8: By double tapping the movement control, the player character would be able to roll which would have been a great way to avoid enemy detection.

  The second idea was scrapped because I really enjoyed my original idea and wanted to go deeper with that idea in mind.

Level Design:

This section talks about the actual design of the level. This is only the first draft of the level design. The image below shows the icons of that are shown on the level.

1. Player Character Start: Where the main character starts in the level.
2. Enemy Sword Samurai: A common close combat enemy that can be defeated within three hits.
3. Enemy Archer Samurai: A foe that snipes from a distance although a single hit will be able to beat them.
4. Enemy Spear Samurai: Opposing warrior that are equipped with a spear which can attack the player from mid-range. They take about six hits to defeat them.
5.  Unlock Door: Doors that can be open with just a touch of ‘E’ button.
6.  Event Door: Doors that only open when the player manages to do a certain event.
7. Stairs: Players can go up and down a floor.
8. Fire: Touching this will cause the player to deal damage but is useful when solving problems.
9. Switch: Use to activate event doors. Using the Yumi bow with arrows does the trick 
10.  Fire Switch: Use to activate event doors however; the player must use the Yumi arrows combine with fire to switch it on. 
11.  Time Switch Panel: When a player stands on this it will activate switches mentioned earlier; however it only last thirty seconds.

Part 1: This is the first part of the level. The player’s first objective is to wipe out all the enemies in between the towers. The player starts on the cliff and can either snipe from the cliff or go down the stairs and fight the enemies off by using her sword. Once all the enemies are wiped out the player character’s remaining forces come down from and tells the player that they will enter one of the towers. The players can decide which tower to take on. If the player chooses Tower A then the door to Tower A opens and the player is able to proceed; if the player selects Tower B then the door to Tower B opens and the player is able to proceed. When either Tower A or Tower B is completed the player can move on to Tower C.  Two archers will fire at the player. The player can either retaliate or head straight forward.

Tower A: Tower A has two floors. The player will see two spearmen which the player can either avoid or defeat them. The player then sees a puzzle that must be solved in order to open the locked door. Pressing the time switch panel on the right unveils the switches that open the locked; however the player has only has thirty seconds to shoot them all. If fail the switches reset themselves. When all the switches are shot by the player’s arrows the door is able making the second floor available.

     The second floor contains four spearmen and the flame switch that needs to be activated. A cut scene reveals that the front gate is open. The remaining forces guard the area the player was before. 

Tower B: Tower B has 2 floors. Floor one has only the stairs to proceed, however floor 2 contains a puzzle to solve. The player must activate the flame switch which is far away and must proceed using the narrow paths. Some of the floors are missing and needs to activate by turning on the switches. The first switch is on the left side of the narrow path and when turned on missing floor appears.  The second switch is on the right side on the narrow path which when turned the player is able to turn on the fire switch. A cut scene appears telling the player that the front gate is open and the player can begin the second part of the level.

Tower C: Tower C has two floors. The player can pass through the first floor of this tower if wish to choose to however; it will be wise to do this. The first floor contains an archer, a sword enemy, a spear enemy and stairs which lead to the second floor. The second floor contains two archers and a swordsman. Defeating the enemies will give the player a nice sniping point to take out the archer on the second part of the level.

Part 2: The player enters the bridge however; a swarm of archers appear (six outside). The player must dodge enemy fire at the moment because they are out of range. The player must go to Tower D to finish the archers off. The player will be able to proceed to part 3 once out of Tower D.

Tower D: Tower D only contains two floors; the first floor containing two archers, two spearmen, two swordsmen and stairs that connect to the second floor, while the second floor contains two archers and a spearman. Once defeated, the player can use this as sniper point to get rid of the archers outside.

The final part of the level enters a cut scene where the boss of the level comes out of the gates and challenges the player to fight. The doors are locked and the only way that it will open is to knock the boss into the water that surrounds the area. Once cleared, the gate will open; however they are six archers that will fire at the player. The player can either shoot the archers or run to the goal.

    This is level for the pitch finished. Changes will possibly be made when the project is finished.

The image above shows the player stance that the player character is automatically put into. The other poses are when the player vertically swings the sword to attack opponents. This poses above are based on the Kage-Ryu Nodachi style that was mentioned previously in the blog.

The walking animation is shown. The player character holds the hilt of the sword while the blade is facing left.

By double tapping the walking input the player character is able to perform a quick dash. Pressing the attack button while dashing the player is able to perform a quick sword attack; however with no input the player goes back to the player stance.

The player character can also perform a quick dash backwards. It is about the same speed as a forward dash.

The player can hop left and right by double tapping the left and right button.

The character is able to perform a jump however; due to the weight of the armour the player will only be able to jump 0.3 metres into the air. During that time the player is able to perform a sword attack.

The player character also wields a yumi (bow) that can carry up to fifty arrows.  It fires up to 60 yards. Holding the arrow button will hold the arrow in and releasing the button will fire it.

While holding an arrow the player can aim 360 degrees and when the cursor is shown the player’s arrow will fire in that direction. It is used to hit enemies and activating switches from a far.

Game Overview:

This is what is displayed on the screen.

1.       Player character: The player’s avatar that is shown from behind.

2.       Enemies: The opposition NPCs.

3.       Health: Shows how much vitality the player has left. If the player uses all health the game ends.

4.       Ammo: How much arrows the player has left. When it runs out the player will not be able to fire arrows. The player can gain more during the level.

Environment:

Japanese architecture was heavily influenced by Chinese architecture ; however these two buildings are completely different for example the chinese buildings used to paint the wood that were used and that the chinese used chairs while the Japanese used to sat on the floor and the wood was natural coloured. The materials in Japan were specifically used to sustain the climate and in the summer time in Japan it is often long and hot. The traditional house is raised so that the air can move around and beneath it and the wood is often used to make buildings due to the fact that the wood cools in the summer and warms up in the winter.
Wood is also popular when it comes to interior design when making floors and walls. The most popular types were pine and larch and the tiles on the roof were used by a type of cypress called hinoki. The level is located in a imperial shrine so the building will be large, thinking of adding three floors which is the number of levels we need to add in the Journeyman project. In imperial shrines they is usually a large garden which will take place in the first part of the stage.
   The characters are ready. Just need to upload them.

Nodachi:

    The Nodachi is a large two handed traditionally made Japanese sword used by the samurai class. During the time it was made it was difficult to forge compared to a normal sized and required greater strength to properly wield. Making the character wield a nodachi makes the character a worthy warrior. The length of the nodachi’s hilt varied between twelve to thirteen inches (30 to 33cm) and the blade was usually around four feet (122cm) long. The Kage-ryu is one of the very rare schools of Japanese martial arts remaining in that trains in the use of Japanese long sword. The image is displayed on the left side of the moodboard. The image with a blue background is concept art for Total War: Shogun 2 developed by Creative Assembly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVSONNESfyE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHKKEbxSZx0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=CkundWVLKI4&feature=endscreen

These links on above are videos that demonstrate the Kage-Ryu style using the nodachi and shows the description of how the player character will attack.

Yumi:

   The Yumi is a long bow that is traditionally made by laminating bamboo, wood and leather with a standard length of 221cm (87 inches) and compared to the average height of a Japanese person which is 150-165cm (59-65 inches) the bow is a lot taller than the user. The bow is asymmetric and the grip has to be positioned at about two thirds of the distance from the upper tip.  The draw strength varies by gender, age and experience and the experience female will average between 14 and 16kg (30.8 and 35.2lb) and the experience males will average between 18 and 20kg (39.6 and 44lb) which means that larger enemies and bosses will be stronger than the player character and will deal more damage, however the average non-experienced male will average between 10 and 15 kg (22 and 33lb) which means the earlier enemies will be weaker and will lose more health than the player character.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJ5qFbIgrcY

The video above demonstrates how to fire a yumi bow and how the player character will be using this weapon. They will be more soon.

I have created mood boards for my idea just to give a brief example of what I would like to accomplish. I have made five moodboards; visuals, exterior, armour, long bow (yumi) and nodachi (great sword).

Visuals:

     The visual style for the game is based on ukiyo-e (Japanese art style that was popular in 17^th- 20^th century) which made by using watercolours and heavy inking. Games like Okami made by Capcom and Clover Studio were heavily influenced by this form of art and would like to have something related to this in terms of environment.

  Journey is a game that created by Thatgamecompany that tells its narrative through visuals and player who plays it. The games main character is a mysterious wanderer in the desert finding its way to the tallest mountain is which is shown at the beginning of the game. This shows both player and avatar their motive. In the level for the Journeyman Project I wanted the player character to look upon the enemy castle to show her motive and her anger.

  Shenmue is a game on the dreamcast developed by Sega AM2. The games creator Yu Suzuki wanted to create a realistic game by simulating real time aspects. Also Shenmue was of first games that had fully voiced non-playable characters; most of them with a background story which made the characters in Shenmue relatable and human. I would love to have fully voiced actors from the main characters to common enemies.

Armour:

 The game is set in the 11^th century Japan so the popular armour was the O-yoroi which appeared in the 10^th century Japan and was designed for mounted archery, cavalrymen and high ranking warriors. The main character is meant to be one of the best warriors in the Minamoto clan which make her sand out of the rest of the characters, minus the bosses.

    The O-yoroi contains six components; the kabuto (helmet), do (chest armour), kore (armoured sleeves), hai-date (thigh armour), sune-ate (shin armour) and the mengu (facial armour); all the components excluding the mengu will possibly be used for the main character. The reason for exclusion of the mengu because I wanted to show the face of the main characters which the player can see through the character’s emotion.

 The kabuto is constructed with iron plates that are arranged vertically and the radiate from the opening in the top called the tehen or hachiman-za (hole at the top). The do is one of the major components of the Japanese armour which is made out of iron with lacuquer (urushi) used to weather proof and is used by mounted samurai. The kote is made out of silk and is padded and laced. Gauntlets or covers of metal plates for the back of the hand are attached to the kote. The hai-date is a type of cloth apron with various small metal plates attached to the clothing back; however it is not always worn as many samurai preferred to keep greater mobility and it gives no protection against attacks from behind. This may be excluded from the main character but will be used for some enemies and for the boss in the level.

More mood boards and descriptions will be coming soon.