Project “Haunted Light” 2014-03-13 Beta presentation script & Intro sequence

Week 7 of our game development project “Haunted light” is coming to an end and I have to say this week has been the one of the most turbulent ones since we started with this project. We in group 5 had to make the devastating decision to cut our regenerating levels because one member was sick for two whole weeks. Not much progress was done on the AI-front for our monsters which this member was in charge of during that time. Because our monsters stand for much of the challenges within game, it was really something we were aiming to have done in time for the BETA version. But without the challenges we have no gameplay and that’s why we had to re-prioritize the tasks given amongst our programmers. The lead programmer, whom had been working with the level regeneration, took over the AI and smaller tasks were given to the member who had been sick. I was also given a task that initially was supposed to be done by our Lead designer/programmer. When we realized that most of the things that needed to be done were programming heavy, the Lead designer/programmer had to step into the role working only as a programmer during this weeks’ sprint. And that was why I was assigned to write the script for the BETA presentation.

So during the first part of this sprint I was only working with writing the script for the presentation that will be held on Friday. This was no big issue for me because most of the graphics for our game are almost completed and nothing was in grave need of my assistance. The lead artist of our group was assigned to do an animation sketch for an intro sequence that will be played in the beginning of our game that I would later clean up and flesh out with values. So while I was waiting for her to be done with the intro animation sketch, I wrote the script.

Here is the first part of the intro animation sketch created by Jonna (http://moonphanter.wordpress.com)

In this scene the player is supposed to wake up in this dark cellar enviroment and pick up the only light source it can find, which is the candle besides it, and later stand up. In the following part of the sequence (which is not shown here) the player character will notice the big monster behind it and begin to run from it. From that point on the game starts. Since I was working with writing the script during most of the week and not having an animation sketch to flesh out until yesterday afternoon, not much progress has been done in giving the sketch values. I started working with the first frame of the animation today and this is my progress on it;

I used the player idle sprite in the left corner for reference as to how I would go about painting the values. I’m nowhere close to being done with the first frame even but I believe it’s coming along well. I have to darken it up and create more occlusion. I’m being very careful of how I sort my layers in Photoshop to make it easier for myself when I will animate movement in the folds of the clothes. I’m keeping each value on its own separate layer that I later can tug and pull to create illusion of movement. I will continue working with this sketch for the rest of the week. Cross my fingers all goes well.