Visual Artists were polishing assets and finishing animations, getting ready to bring the game to life. We have some amazing elements, beautifully crafted for the various environments of the game. All of the characters have been given personality with their very own animations! Just wait ’til you see the villain battle our heroine Ieniente!

Gameplay Artists were implementing some of the improvements discussed over the past few days. The boss level is being carefully shaped into a really fun and challenging part of the game. It is no longer a “rage-quit” level, but a really enjoyable orchestration of our two favourite mechanics. We can’t wait to share it with you!

Many people decided to stay late tonight, to try and get ahead for tomorrow. It really gave us a boost!

Tomorrow is the final crunch. No messing around over here–we are working hard to get this game done!

It was amazing to be here today. There’s nothing like being surrounded by creative energy–everyone has been in the zone, getting things done together. It was the kind of calm, productive atmosphere that would give anyone the creative itch. People are buzzing with anticipation for the playtest tomorrow; at the same time, they are in a peaceful state of production, happily moving forward.

The script and storyboard got a bit of TLC; we have begun coordinating the original concepts with the script writers and Construct 2 programmers. The importance of working together on this was emphasized when we discussed which assets we will need and where their roles in the game are mentioned. In the cutscenes or in-game? Many decisions to make!

3D models for the game are also coming together quickly. Check out participants Jake Lazore and Darian Jacobs’ character concepts turn into 3D characters in the images below! Wahsontiio Cross and Quintin Rice-Marquis, our other Visual Artist participants, have been making elements of the environment “from scratch”, meaning without technical drawings for reference. The evil mansion and the different types of trees are looking great! (See those in our previous blog post.)

By next week, assets will begin trickling in, dialogue will be finalised, and the game will really start coming to life. For now, we are so excited to play the first iteration of the game tomorrow morning. Stay tuned!

Visual Artists  learned the 12 principles of animation today, and got to describe some exaggerated character walks they each acted out during a fun exercise with Andrew Lunga, one of our Research Assistants. They rigged and animated and were all rigged-out by the end of the day! But it was a lot of fun, and we can’t wait to see our characters come to life thanks to the skills we learned today.

Gameplay Artists put their heads together and came up with some more refined level ideas, and presented a couple to the group during our wrap-up discussion at the end of the day. Jeremy Alvarez, one of the Gameplay Artists and programming instructor, has been working hard in the evenings testing different gameplay scenarios. He and Travis Mercredi, another Gameplay Artist and sound instructor, have come up with some really fun stuff! Michael Morris had some unique ideas for the heads-up display, using a medicine wheel. It was really exciting to be able to start to envision actually playing the game!

So despite the heavy lessons and tired brains after a long day, much has been accomplished! We have our boss character modelled and ready for texturing. We have a boss level in the making, which combines two of our favourite mechanics to form the final level in the game. The other levels and characters are coming along nicely as well; the mini-games we worked on together last week are shaping into some really fun puzzles and sneaky stealth levels, and environment elements are being prepped for level beautification!

There’s only one more, lighter lesson for the Visual Artists tomorrow morning, and then it’s pure production time for all. This is going to be fun.

Check out what they’ve created so far:

On the Gameplay Artists’ side, due to technical difficulties they were not yet able to access the SFX bank to begin sound implementation, but instead improved their level maps and the game mechanics. By the end of the day, we had two mazes to explore and a rough draft of a challenging boss battle!
Things are quickly being produced on both teams, with all character models in progress as well as the 5 level map sections. In addition, the script is nearly complete so that we can start voice recording for the cutscenes soon!

We cannot wait to put everyone’s work together and see our amazing, final game.

On the Visual Arts side, students were introduced to the concepts of UV-mapping and Texturing. That is to say; how to add color, materials, and features details to a finished model. The process of UV-mapping involves “un-wrapping” a 3D model so that its vertex coordinates correspond to a UV-coordinate on a flat image. R.A. Vince demonstrated this by taking a cute stuffed bear and ripping it apart (literally)! He showed that by cutting along strategically placed seams, we can turn a stuffed, rounded bear’s skin into a flat canvas that can then be easily painted on. In the case of a 3D model, once you choose the seam locations and “unwrap” it, it can then be colored in Photoshop.
Though the original plans included heading up to the mountain to gather photos for textures and then having a picnic lunch, bad weather forced us to remain inside where we practiced how to best collect images with the intention of using them for 3D model textures. Students were taught that textures should be seamless, with even lighting and shadows as such details will be added in the engine’s lighting set up. Later on, R.A. Veniamin taught the basics of Photoshop as well as how make an image seamless so that is can become a tiled texture.

On the gameplay artists’ side, things were moving along swiftly as students began with a morning of brainstorming and work time followed by making some test maps with events, actions and behaviors. This team picked up Construct 2 quite quickly and by the end of the day, they had some demo mechanics to show to the group.

During work time, the character models progressed, we had the basic programming structure for the “put the statue in the right order” puzzle and the script was reduced for cutscenes of a more realistic length considering our time limit. All in all, a very productive day!

The group divided into its smaller teams (visual artists and gameplay artists), and began to learn some of the more technical nitty-gritty: character modelling in Blender and level creation in Construct 2.

In only two hours, the visual artists had made a basic character using the box-modelling technique. They finished the technical drawings for the main characters in the story and have even begun modelling assets for the game! It was so exciting to see concepts we discussed only a couple of days ago materialise into 3D objects and characters. We can’t wait to see them all gussied up and animated!

The gameplay artists were ahead of the game. Not only were they two lessons ahead of schedule, they each made their own mini-game! Construct 2 has proven to be a winner so far in this workshop; it was easy to put together a basic level and incredibly satisfying to be able to play it right away. One of the levels, by participant Michael Morris, was almost like a minimalist “Operation” where you had to navigate through jagged barriers without touching them. It was as entertaining and frustrating as the children’s classic, old-school board game!

By the end of the day, we all had great stories to tell each other. Everyone was showing off their work–it was truly a proud day for all. As we came together to hash out a few more details in the script, we talked through some of the holes in the story and made suggestions about how to fill them in. Skawennati proposed a couple of solutions to the group, and everyone will come back on Monday with fresh eyes and ears to make a few more decisions.

All in all, this was an amazing week. How do you top it? We have a feeling we’ll find out next week…

As usual, we could have talked for another hour, but soon our guest instructor, Teyowisonte Thomas Deer arrived. His presentation started with an awesome image: a kid’s drawing of the well-known Transformers character, Optimus Prime.  Of course, it was his own drawing and it represented not only his longstanding love for comics in general, and for Transformers in particular, but also his persistence in reaching his goal to become a professional comic artist.  His story was inspirational.  He also shared a little about his experience consulting for Assassin’s Creed 3, then gave us a demonstration of his character concept art, which was full of handy Photoshop tricks.  After this, the participants split into their two groups -Visual Artists and Gameplay artists. The Visual Artists showed Teyowisonte some of the character concept art they’d been working on, refining their sketches as he gave feedback.  We are getting closer to finding a name for our heroine.

The Gameplay artists learned about sound thanks to Metis participant Travis Mercredi, who came all the way from Yellowknife, NorthWest Territories.  This year, for the first time, the Skins workshop has participants who, in addition to wanting to learn game design, also have expertise in one of our key instruction areas.  (The other is Akwesasneronon Jeremy Alvarez.)  So they will both learn and teach! Travis owns his own company up north, called Outland Sound Design and has done sound design and recording on a number of projects, including the movie, The Lesser Blessed (written by former AbTeC guest, Richard Van Camp!).

After a lengthy discussion (and a few enthusiastic debates), the team was able to settle on a list of key mechanics, puzzle styles, settings, character descriptions and a basic, plot-point storyline. We then moved on to designing our game-plan on who would be responsible for what aspects in order make this project a completed success by the end of the three weeks. Research Assistant Nancy went over the steps of the “production pipeline”; a poster listing all the jobs and what could be done simultaneously for maximum efficiency. Based on the participants’ strengths and interests, the group was divided into “Visual Artists” who would be creating the 3D art as well as finalizing the characters and environment designs (modelling, UV-Mapping, Texturing, Rigging and Animation) and a second team of “Gameplay Artists” who would focus on sound, HUD-Design as well as all the game engine mechanics & level design maps. We also selected two eager members to be the primary scriptwriters; a task that is nearly impossible to complete with 15+ people all at once. To everyone’s luck, the group divided relatively evenly and we were able to more finely tune some previously vague decisions now that the teams were smaller.

After lunch, we all moved into the computer lab for the first time, where we tested everyone’s logins as well as learned our first and basic tool of organization: GoogleDocs. There, the team had already placed and shared two documents that will become our key to keeping the project files clean and organized: the asset list (where we list every, single item and mechanic as well as their file-names so that other team members can see who is working on what and where they can find said items. In addition to those lists, we also all worked on a game design document (or GDD) which is basically the detailed plan on paper on everything the game should be about. This includes long descriptions of the story, the characters, the maps, the exact mechanics (to the point of what controller keys are used) and anything else.

Thanks to GoogleDocs multi-user interface, every team member was able to write in their ideas at the same time until we had a thick and well-rounded document for all of our reference by the end of the day.

The group got to know each other a little better through discovering each other’s tastes and preferences and together we discovered that there were several, mutual goals in mind for the game’s story concept:

1. Everyone agreed to making the main character a strong, educated and brave Mohawk woman

2. We wanted the story set in modern day (or an alternate modern day world)

3. We wanted to avoid the typical Native stereotypes showcased in most media

Some elements of certain stories were highlighted as favorites and we began the process of converting these bits of information into a flowing tale. After some more discussion over lunch, we launched into how to take these decisions and tales and translate (trans-mediate) them into a playable game format. Another debate arose as to whether we should show and/or make reference to some sacred Native objects, but it was quickly deemed not only potentially off-putting, but we wanted our story to go beyond the typical tale of the “spiritual Native” stereotype.

AbTeC R.A. Alicia Fortier then made a more detailed presentation on the MDA concepts touched upon by guest Stephanie Bouchard the previous day. We learned more about Mechanics, Dynamics and Aesthetics as well as watched some game play examples that could work with our engine with a isometric perspective, such at “Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light” as well as “The Cave”.

More decisions were settled upon as we plowed through. Such as our character having the ability to access another, perhaps spiritual plane/dimension where she can see things not present in the normal world and retrieve hints. We also fully settled on the idea of this being a puzzle game with potential stealth elements. Our character’s goal would be to retrieve (perhaps to re-appropriate) an article stolen by some old and evil secret society (a reference to the Skull & Bones) and she uses modernized versions of traditional skills in order to discover secret hatches, get past security, open locks, get through mazes, etc..

With those vague decisions/preferences settled, it was time to paper prototype. The purpose of paper prototyping is to make a quick sketch of your game concept that others (even non-gamers) can play with and therefore give feedback without having to spend much on resources should the idea fall-apart OR, worse, be deemed “not fun”. Because we decided on multiple challenges, the large group broke up into sections so that the specifics could be more finely tuned.  Afterwards, we came together to make our puzzle ideas corporeal onto a map and rearrange them into a more pleasing order for story flow.

By the end of the day, we had a semi-functional map laid out which included mazes, forest, excavation site, secret hatches and moving guards. Hopefully our play-tester guests tomorrow will not only be able to navigate the world, but have fun in doing so!