Devlog 2: Rough Waters

Rough Waters

As the title implies, this week went a bit less smoothly than the last. This is mainly due to sickness spreading through our team.
Despite that, we worked on plenty of things this week, continuing our research and prototyping. We worked on our ship, chose an engine, and prototyped a lot of new features. We also made sure all prototypes work when put in a single scene together so there's no unexpected issues when putting our game together. 

On the more administrative front, our Art Bible needed a bit of work too this week, so our artists took care of that. Other than that we worked on our Game Design Document so there was a clear overview of how everything should function.

Ship Size & Design

Making the ship interesting both visually and as the gameplay area is quite challenging! We are still prototyping this, to ensure we have the perfect ship for our game! Let's dive into the process:

a stylized  ship model by Maksim Batyrev

Firstly, to save some time I decided to grab a free 3d model of a ship from the internet that would serve as a base for the proportions. This one was great because its heavily stylized which matches Dizzy Deck's artstyle. Obviously, the theme is quite different from our Ancient Greece but at this stage I'm not too worried about that.

Ship Design & Size prototype in Maya

In Maya, I adjusted the proportions of the ship, making it a lot wider, making our arena more spacious! I try to keep in mind that this boat has to hold enough space for up to 4 players and a lot of props. I added 2 additional platforms at the side of the ship to add interest in multiple elevations as well as break up the playing area into more parts.  

Engine Choice

Due to the physics system being easier to mold into what we envision for our game, we have decided to go with Unity. This was obviously not the only deciding factor but it was definitely the one holding the biggest weight. Unity also comes with the easy of being able to iterate very swiftly through ideas due to the quick compilation and fast changes we can apply.

Player Interaction

This week we added an interaction mechanic:

• Where will this be relevant in the game? Since the ship will constantly be plagued by events, the players will need to tend to these. This can range from fixing a hole in the ship to cleaning up some bird poop. We created a simple interaction mechanic so the player can press F on keyboard, or X on an Xbox  controller to interact. For now the interactable object is a floating gray cube that disappears if you interact with it while within range.

Interactable Object prototype in Unity

• Explosions? We also made an interactable object that explodes when interacted with. This will be used for when the Kraken attacks and hits certain objects. For now it is triggered in the same was as the default interactable object.

Interactable Explosive prototype in Unity

Local couch co-op multiplayer

• We added local multiplayer support to the game as this is a party game. This did not happen without any mishaps though

Local co-op multiplayer prototype

Wave shader

• The boat rocking in still water or in a void doesn't look good. So we decided to make a wave shader. It went through a few stages. first stage a normal vertex shader using sin waves to create waves. Then we decided to draw flat waves based on how the boat is rocking. And finally we created a vertex shader that creates physical waves based on where the boat is rocking. The next step would be to do predictive waves. That way it will look like a wave hits the boat and then rocks with it.

First simple vertex shader

Waves drawn based on boat tilting shader

Physical waves based on where the boat tilts up

Camera Angle

After making adjustments to the ship design it was time to find a good camera angle. Here are some options prototyped this week. We haven't made the final choice as this is still expected to change once are gameplay mechanics get more refined.

Camera Angles prototyping in Unity

Art Bible

The main focus of the art bible this week was shape language, colors, lighting and rfx. We make some sketches focussing on the effects, environment and character colors to create a recognizable ancient Greek palette. Choosing a color for the gods was the most experimental, as each god needed a respective color that can tell apart their features and identities. 

After this, we iterated on some further character designs like the hairstyle. Further enhancing the ancient Greek theme. Finally, after the hairstyle was decided. Which ended up being number 3 by voting. No hairstyle would be most ideal to see everything the player is doing at all times. 

Lastly, We created a design for the enemy NPC's. Which were the creatures summoned by different gods. Among these are very annoying - angry seagulls and of course a great Kraken threatening the ship! 

Putting this all together in our art bible with guides on how to recreate the needed art style and color themes. 

Art bible lay-out page sneak peek: 

What's next

Next week we will be rounding off our work on all documents that are not living, and we will be making a playable demo of our game.