Storytelling and Gaming

This is one of my audition screenshots, I had to convert this file from mp3 to wav in order to work with it.

I eventually decided I did not want to just start going straight into the game story and I wanted to make a cover and loading page, since my game has mild comical violence I found it suiting that it has the pegi 3 age rating.

  

This was my first design in illustrator, I drew two diagonal question marks which aligned together with one dot. Over a few days I decided that I did not like the blue circle so I removed it and left behind was white circular space. I also made the name 'out riddled' its short and memorable whilst being very relevant to my game. 

This design is okay, the colours do work together, but they work even better with just two main colours so I removed the blue.

I created layers of question marks in the background to emphasise the thinking that my game may involve.

 

Storytelling and Gaming

For the game music, I researched mysterious puzzle game music, overall I found some great non copy righted music and sound effects from 'Bensounds' 'Incompetech' and 'soundjay'

I used the music from ben sounds and imcompetech as the background game music, I imported the music firstly into adobe auidition where I would crop and make changes with the volume. Then I would import the wav file into animate where I would assign the music to the beginning of a significant keyframe with a riddle question.

I then assigned the celebratory bells sound effects into the keyframes where the navigation would lead to a correct answer and 'fail' music to whenever a 'wrong' button was clicked.

I also had to assign codes to stop music playing in most frames as I noticed there seemed to be a lot of overlapping.

 

 Storytelling and Gaming

This is a screenshot of the option the player falls under when they score few points,

Max is gradually falling into the hole and as mentioned earlier the facial features are movie clips. I used a different set of eyes in this ending clip to emphasise the shock on the face.

I used photoshop to crop the body sectionally, to make the falling a bit more believable , I think it was succesful.

I also animated the chair and gave it exaggerated facial features for a more dramatic impact.

This screenshot shows me in the progress of creating functions for my buttons, and as you can see I already have many frames filled out with navigation codes.

Game scripts

Using animate I scripts for navigation and audio mostly.

Before I realised I could access the codes I manually learnt how to write some of them.

I watched this video from 'Reppa's Tech' where they talked about basic navigation codes,

I then made a word document where I wrote some code and would copy and paste into animate, below is an example of a pasted script.

Eventually,I realised that the navigation scripts were already accessible so I begun using them.

I would click on the buttons, give them an instance name, change the colour of their hit keyframe and then click on either the jump or replay codes, 

I decided to format my riddle questions with 3 icons

1 would be the correct icon and the other two false,

upon clicking the correct icon the player has a stronger chance of securing more points

Although, in the first few tries clicking on the wrong icon is not the end of the game as the navigation allows you to try again until the game progresses where extra turns are limited.

1)Reppa'sTech, Animate CC Navigation Buttons,2016.YouTube

 

Storytelling and gaming

I made some more button and screen assets for the next riddles. I converted most of these into buttons where I made navigation codes in the action scripts prompting that when clicked for to either go backwards or forwards when clicked on by the player.

this is a button of a computer I made on illustrator 

 Another background scene created on illustrator

More mini assets 

 

 Installation plan

this is my plan for my installation which is heavily influenced by 

John Akomfrah: Purple

installation, where he had multiple screens in a dark room, I also want to have bean bags for the viewers so they have a more comfortable, viewing experience.

I plan to have a picture of the final shot (the purple moon) projected on the roof of the viewing room if possible.

Designing game assets and scenes

I designed some assets for each of the riddles using using illustrator, I did make overly complex designs and I stuck to simple colour designs so the objects were not so difficult to make.

I used illustrator to design some scenes for my game

,

The first scene I chose to create a living room area aesthetic 

I did some research and found this artwork by Vectorpouch from 'freepik' .

I was inspired by the colour selection and I made an illustration below using a similar pallet but simplified and a bit softer in terms of gradient.

I then made a simple background with clouds and grass which was simple to make.

Afterwards I made this to display a room with a later opening door, using the line and brush tools.

final video edits 2

I added graphics to show my title and final credits, 

this was needed but before I added them the film had rendered very smoothly, but soon afterwards the flow of the frames became stagnant again. I used keyframes to move the moon around which I think worked out well, I also used a clearer and close up shot at the end of the moon. I thought that would be important since its the main objective for the viewer it makes no sense for it to be blurry.

I loved how the music worked coherently with the flow of the film, I still intend to work on the movie to create a smoother outcome though.

 

Part of final edits

I cropped out a lot of the animation dialogue when I noticed I preferred using the song created in auidition, I also removed the bouncing moon since it was hard to transition smoothly and seemed very out of place to me. I also added the new videos I recorded which seem alright, but I want to remove the scenes where I am walking up the stairs now after watching the video. My favourite thing so far is the water transitions, but everything else seems a bit too shaky for me I will have to render the video.

Another thing I dislike are my shots at the end, they are too stiff and need some transitions.

 

 Final filming

I filmed for one last time where, I took medium, long and close up shots of my friend running,

Even though the weather conditions were harsh I was still able to capture decent footage. With the help of another student i directed a shot where they walked inside a deep puddle to create a wide ripple.

I had to take a couple shots of my friend and choose the best one. this was the same for the rest, therefore I would have a large selection to choose from when I edit them.

More music editing

I placed my favourite versions of noir jazz and classical horror songs into audition. 

I used music from mcleod and 'the hunt'. 

I first inserted the jazz music which is in the first column, and had one continuous song playing, in the next column I inserted parts of 'the hunt' which i cropped, I also decreased the volume each time before I cropped the tracks to help make it sound smooth. I did the same for the other columns.

Overall the sound produced sounded mystifying, chilling and yet relaxing.
 

More editing /film

Using photoshop, I used some older pictures I took which I then edited them one by one making them significantly darker over time, I did this because I noticed some of the pictures I took were better than the footage of the sky I captured in videos,  it was because the weather progressively became more unpredictable meaning less consistent sunny skies  and I ended up filming a lot of gloomy looking clouds. Overall, I liked the edits and I intended to blend them into the final film.

 

 

More editing for film

 

I combined some of the videos from my previous recordings as well as the animation into the initial film. Overall, after making this I realised I inserted way too many videos that did not flow together. The animation was too long and some of the cuts were either too shaky or abrupt. I did like some of the special features I added including the morph cut into the animation and the scenes when I am going up the stairs, I liked how mysterious they were. 

 More filming

I went along to a local water fountain/pond where I took videos of the local wildlife, I was able to briefly capture a bird at a near close range but to keep up with its movement I had to move the camera a lot which was difficult. I also took various recordings of the water pond and the plants alongside that area. 

I started playing around with camera shots and produced some wide and close up shots.

this is a screenshot showing all the videos I took that day, and below are two of the videos.

Looking and experimenting with music

I was listening to jazz one day and stumbled upon this genre called 'noir jazz/ambient' which to me had a very deeply mysterious tone, I then thought about mixing it with some classical horror music to create subtle chilling effects.

I watched various YouTube videos, the ones I watched the most I have inserted below, my favourites were the film noir with music by Kevin Mcleod and the hunt classical song which I found on 

Marc v/d Meulen YouTube channel.

                                                                             New game

I started building my game in  animate, I decided that for my storyline I would have an alien called max and other animated characters talking to the player.

Ultimately, the players actions determine where max ends up at the end of the game.

In my first scene, I have Max introduced, and the player is told immediately that if they do not complete all of the tasks Max will fall into a black hole. 

This is the character I created, I decided to make their eyes and mouth into movie clips so they would be easier to change within each keyframes.

This is the living room I created earlier with the hole at the bottom. I made the instructions into a movie clip as well so I could easily edit them without changing the contents of the scene too much. 

 Editing.

I focused now more on editing the videos I had into premiere pro,

I then produced this video below, where I combined my daytime filming and night time film, I still had not decided whether I wanted to have my own commentary in the audio or music. 

Overall, I did not render the video enough so it was overly shaky, and it felt incomplete.

Filming in the night.

I intended to take videos of the moon in the night sky, when I had checked the forecast before I had seen clear skies so I expected to see a bright moon, unfortunately was no where to be seen as it had finished it cycle earlier than I expected. Therefore, I instead took recordings of nearby brightly lit buildings and the local street at night. I played around with recording using night mode (hence the black and white videos) and normal mode. Although, I it was difficult bringing out a tripod on this occasion so some videos were slightly shaky, I did enjoy seeing how colours were contrasted in the night. 

Storytelling and gaming: Changing the subject of my game

After having issues with unity I decided to quit using it altogether and put my focus on making a game on animate.

Additionally, I also changed my game concept, I had reached a dead end with the idea of the arson and the murder mystery, 

This same week I had been doing a lot of riddle games with my friends which gave me an idea to learn how to write my own riddles.

    I watched this video from 'Runesmith' on youtube about how to create great riddles.

Overall, I learnt that it personifying the object consistently strengthens the riddle.

I then wrote my first riddle about 'light'

and I begun it by saying 'I am the first thing you see when you wake up' already I had used personification but not in a strongly vague way.

I then made my plan where I chose my topics, I chose: football , headphones, a bucket hat, even pizza

1 )Runesmith,How to Write Riddles:2019.Youtube