Game Demo submitted! + Video Walkthrough

After an eventful few months, we have reached the a major milestone for Knightside Chronicles and have completed our first iteration of the game demo/vertical slice to demonstrate the gameplay and concepts for Knightside Chronicles.

To mark this event, I've recorded a quick gameplay demo video/walkthrough for those who are unable to try out the game for themselves.

Finished Caruso Base Mesh

Caruso's base meshes. The Nude version was modelled using Nell's reference images and will be used to get the right body shape for the clothed version of Caruso - the head is reused from the nude Caruso mesh.

The clothed version using Nell's concept art to base it on. After some feedback from Cullan and a few creative decisions we decided to go for a vambrace on his left arm with a rolled up sleever but made the coat's collar/lapels symmetrical because it was agreed it looks better this way.

Designing the Game Level

The main idea of the level is that can help the player learn how to play the game through pure gameplay and try to avoid "how to play" videos or "tutorials". The first part of the level has a set of pillars/platforms where the player can start jumping on. 

 This is how it looks like. (up)
The player is drawn to them since there's nowhere else to explore. so by taking advantage of human curiosity   and by giving the player the time to experiment with the controls the player can now start climbing his way up.

 After the player makes it to the tallest of the platforms, all of them rise up to a certain  height, so the player can make it to the top part of the tower there is. We decided to do it like that - and not add extra platforms for that so the player can understand that the world he's in is a bit different than ours and certain rules don't apply (such as platforms rise up). Also the player gets used to the jumping height and distance and has no time limit to get used to the controls,

As the player makes it to the top, the floating islands that surround the level align into a path where Caruso will get to use his Rift Powers to start crossing the path. Ideally there would be a cutscene to explain the player how to use them, but we couldn't do it due to schedule constraints. At the end of that path, there is a gate-teleporter that allows the player to move on to the next part of the level.

 This part of the level, features a platform of Crystals, which works as a tutorial for the combat. As the elevator rises, it stops at 2 points where enemies spawn. At that point the player again has no time limit and can try beating the enemies.

 The elevator takes the player to the crossroad, where he can start Purifying the crystals at the end of each path. Ideally the player could choose which path he wanted to go to first, but due to to schedule constraint, we had to put barriers to rig which path the player will chose to go to. 

 The Paths are designed so that each path can be crossed with more than one ways. That way the player can have a sense of freedom in the platforming department.

 At the end of each path there are enemies that guard the corrupted crystals. After all the enemies are defeated then the player can simply walk to the crossroad, since the road floats to it's original state.  Some of the buildings move and align themselves to a spiral, some parts of the elevator start rising up as well forming a crystalline staircase.

This is how the Crystalline staircase looks like as well as the building spiral. This works are a visual indicator for the player on his progress and as a relaxing platforming section to prepare the player for the battle ahead.

 This is the boss room where the player fights the first boss, the Giant Tumbler.

After the player defeats the Giant Tumbler, he has to go through a fairly easy platforming section which works as a reward to the player for beating the level. The main idea was that in that section the player would unlock memories of Caruso (the avatar of the player) as he was platforming, but we didn't feasible in this timeframe we had available. 

*note i am using the most recent screenshots for the sake of good aesthetics.

Early sketches made by Cullan and myself as we were brainstorming about the level design. We worked together on the initial designing. 

Sketch of the platforming bit in the last part of the game level, the main idea was that the camera would change angle and it would make the game feel like a 2D platforming for that part. The idea was canceled after we decided it would be too time consuming on the programming aspect of the game.

Motion Capture.

As a team we booked the motion capture suit the university provides so we can use it to lessen the amount of hand keyed animation we have to do on the main character.
We had five, four hour long sessions over a 30 day period to achieve that.
Our work-flow was quite simple, we made a list of the movements we wanted to record then on the desired date we would meet so Cullan would put the suit on and one of us would sit behind the monitor to make sure   that the skeleton is aligned correctly (sometimes the skeleton disfigures due to magnetic currents in the room cause usually by power cables or plugs)  as well as record and save the data. When we were happy with it we just moved on to the next movement.
The workflow was as following: After we recorded all of our data, we would give the .bvh files to Anna so she can clean them up and apply it to the Rig.

Cullan getting prepared to use the motion capture suit

Cullan getting in the T-Pose position and me operating the animazoo software to make sure the suit is aligned properly.

(photos taken by Anna Chen)