BGP Week One: Getting Started

Last week we started off with the big game project, and I’ll be back blogging about it. Were making an Arabic themed action adventure game, I won’t go into detail on what it’s about right now, but I’m sure I’ll write some about it later on.

The first week started off quite slowly, we hadn’t assembled the full group yet, and we were spend most of the time setting up the “office”, scrum documents and planning. We already had a bit of a head start, with several graphical assets, such as the main character ‘Mokhtar’, already ready to go. It worries me slightly as lead artist, to have graphical assets rushed this way, since we haven’t really had the time to fully define the art style of the game, and there’s a risk the rushed assets are either going to fall out of style, or limit the art style, if furnished to include the assets. However, I believe it’s for the best, since We’ve only got 8 weeks, and the art style was after all, nearly settled.

I spent most of the first week working on getting the art style set, and producing thumbnails and concept art for the cave in which the level is set. I also worked on the animations already started for the finished Mokhtar model and reworked our lead designer’s concept art of the boss the player will face in the end of the level to fit our style better, and properly communicate the character’s personality.

The boss, who’s name I don’t recall right now, is an evil Djinn (or Djinni?) who resides deep inside the cave, with servants who provide him with food and riches. He doesn’t appear as filthy as I wanted him too (filthy being one of his important traits), the scruffy beard is really all that communicates that. The jewelry is supposed to make him seem rich (obviously), and I think they do the job quite well, even though it probably wouldn’t hurt to add add some more.

Overall, this week was spent getting on the rail, the programmers mostly made themselves familiar with Unreal 4(the engine we’re using), planning and documentation were made, and the final members we needed were recruited.