Task: Narrative Design Document
11.19.2013Softwares: Adobe® InDesign CSx
Summary
I worked on a narrative game design and level design. This article is an example showing how I write my documentation.
Work: I designed a level and wrote a document.
The document
It contains an overview of the design and the story, and give the details on:
- conversation branches
- environments : interactive objects and characters
- Minigames: pick lock, combat, complex object observation
You can find it there.
I wish you good reading.
Task: Boss fight: Teal'c VS Khufu
11.15.2013Softwares: Unity 3D Microsoft Word
Summary
In the last chapter of Stargate: Unleashed, Teal'c is fighting Khufu, a strong opponent.
Work: I designed the boss fight
Concept
At the begining it was said I had to work on something epic but trying to avoid adding features because of the deadline.
I started to think about a way to design a generic combat. The best way was to use the tap and sliding quick time events and also, because in this part you are fighting a boss I wanted the player to feel it this way.
So I decided to create this kind of patterns a boss can have and added a healthbar on both character to make a comparison and add tense for the player. To sum up the design, the fight uses randomly chosen sequences of QTEs with different ratio. At first, Teal'c will try to hit his opponent. If he succeed, Khufu looses some health, in the other case, the boss just block and try to counterattack, giving the player a last chance to acheive another QTE to save his character from the death.
Anyway, if he is alive, another sequence is chosen. Maybe Khufu will attack Teal'c and the player will have to block or will see the healthbar decreasing. In anoher case, maybe he will have to make several combos. If he fails Teal'c takes one more hit.
A second part
After, I added a second combat part, like an evolution of the boss. When the player reachs the bottom of Khufu's healthbar, the second sequence starts with Teal'c losing his weapon. In this position the boss becomes harder but the sequence is more like a cinematic showing a more epic combat helping the player feeling the tense of it.
Designing the moves
With the help of other colleagues we made some captures of the most important moves to give the most information we can to the animator. After defining more content, we recorded some videos.
In the first combat, the characters had to go quickly from one move to another if the player succeeds or not.
For the second part, it was something more epic, showing a perfect ending gratifying the player a lot.
News: New section : My hobbies
03.15.2013A new section concerning my hobbies is now available in each web page bottom.
Actually, it contains some songs I composed for Supinfogame last year projects on 2009.I will post more songs later, performed alone or in bands.
Have a good listening,
Vincent
Task: Concept: Epic Zombie Survivor
08.12.2012Softwares: Character Maker Adobe® Flash CSx
Summary
This game concept is one of my personal projects. It comes from the common belief that playing a flash game during the spare time disable the feeling of the player. In order to knock this idea, I chose the 'survival-horror' genre that really implies the player in his game. My design is oriented on the feeling, but the game stays a flash one.
Work: Creating the concept and developing the prototype.
The intention behind Epic Zombie Survivor
The main interest behind this concept is to make the player feel the characteristic frightening of a "survival-horror" in a game conceived as a "Flash" formated one.
Concept and design choices
In order to keep the game unrevealed publicly since the end of the development, please contact me for more information.
The artistic direction and the universe
The game takes place in a american metropolis comparable to New York and its districts: Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn, Staten Island. It shows the wounds of zombies invasion; many traces reveal the horror of the scenes taking place in the city streets. We hear the silence now, any sound being able to alert the living deads.
The game orientation is pixel art. This kind of graphic designg allows to symbolize the landscapes and to focus on the murky details. It offers a reading comfort to the player, give an 'independant game' style, and allows younger players to play a survival horror: 12 years and older.
With pixel arts, landscapes are also made of shadows and lights that strengthen the game ambience (doubt feeling, claustrophobia) and generates gameplay (zombies hidden in the dark, game elements teasing...)
To the right, the first landscape in the game:
Development Technology: Flixel
To prototype EZS (Epic Zombie Survivor), I decided to use "Flixel" flash game engine. Using it is pretty simple, everything is here to create a two-dimensional game: sprite managment, collisions, tile-based levels, path finding, etc. It is optimized for the pixel art and makes game development faster.
Prototype
The prorotype is under construction. To test it or to have more information about it, please contact me.
News: Portfolio online!
04.03.2012Well, all is done, some details to tune then my portfolio is now online. The opportunity for me to tell you I'm currently looking for a job in videogames creation.
Have a good visit,
Vincent