Alrighty, so I have all but one king/boss done for Legion of Devagog. Here they are:

The names are just something I can up with on the fly, so they may or may not change. One is a dwarf king, the one that is missing will be a black knight type king/queen, the only one where a face is not visible most likely. After each level a dialog will come up with the face of one of the kings and tell the player a bit more of the story and maybe a little of the next area; they will also thank the player for freeing them from dark magic.

I also added a piece to my portfolio that I did for fun and to increase my skills, a void knight type character: http://dracon852001.wix.com/csinclairportfolio#!2d-art/albumphotos4=0

That's all for this week, look forward to doing the last king and maybe some more random concepts for the coming week.

Last week I said I would be doing some game art, but there was a death in the family and the service was a couple days ago. So art kind of got put on hold, sorry readers. I did update one of my portfolio pieces though, defined the edges better and just improved the entire thing in my opinion. Check her out at http://dracon852001.wix.com/csinclairportfolio#!2d-art/albumphotos4=3
She is my favorite character from a game called League of Legends, so they get credit for the original idea, but I decided to create my own work with her midway between her human and dragon form.

Hopefully I will feel up to doing some more work next week. I have decided to pay more attention to my art skills due to a presentation I watched from Westwood. They had examples of what should be done (yes) and what isn't good enough (no). I kind of thought my art fell into the maybe pile, I think it is good, but with some more attention my art could become awesome. Got to stop spending so much time watching netflix and gaming haha.

So, I have all the levels finished. My final two levels are Lavascars and Devagog's Castle. The shrine levels are all relatively the same setup though I was hoping to have the troops at each shrine have certain effects on them possibly.

Lavascars:

For Lavascars I want to have environmental hazards. The lava will come up at random intervals making troop movement more complicated. The player will have to time when to move troops into battle, and possibly even draw enemy troops into traps to progress. The ultimate goal still being to storm the castle of course.


Devagog's Castle:

For the final battle I want it to be the biggest army seen yet stationed outside the castle (so it starts sort of like a shrine battle). The player will have to engage this first, and after a set time reinforcements would start spawning like they do on normal maps. Every troop should count, each choice carefully considered. Also I was thinking about adding shrine power-ups to help beat the level. For example the player could call upon the sword shrine to strengthen an attack for short time, or combine all shrine power-ups to make a smaller force much more effective etc. There will be no obstacles on this map, just two mighty forces clashing on an open field.

That's all for this week. Next week I am thinking about making some portraits for the kings of each land to go with some end text. Just trying to keep busy and add more to the game.

I have managed to work through 5 level concepts so far. I will skip the first, since that is pretty much already setup.

Level2: Rivera.

In this level I was going for a slightly different setup with diagonal castles. There will be two paths of attack for both the enemy and the player. I hope to introduce collisions (troops can not go through the river, only across bridges) and different battle strategies with this map.

Level3: Sword Shrine

This level is sort of an arena combat type level, there are three shrines (levels 3, 5, and 7) to help a player defeat Devagog with certain powers. These sorts of levels might be a bit easier due to the fact a player can select counters from the start. Once all troops have been placed a sort of melee erupts. If a player has balanced their forces correctly they should prevail and thus win the map. Certain shrines may give the enemy an advantage; once the players gold supply runs out there is no more on these maps. They are sort of sink or swim maps.

Level4: Highpeak

With Highpeak I was going for a sort of maze type setup. Troops will be funneled through the mountains and emerge at various points making defense difficult. The obstacles could also be used for ambushes though. Other than the obstacles it is similar to the first level, just a melee and kill the enemy castle sort of setup.

That is all for this week. I plan to continue working on levels and graphics as time goes on and at least finishing the graphic side of things. I need one more terrain type and some lava pits for lava scars and a special castle graphic for Devagog's castle.

I said I would be more optimistic and pro-active when it came to creating game assets so here is the result: A complete game map for Legion of Devagog!

Ideally this would be displayed as a level transition with players starting at Foresta and an icon moving clockwise as they progress through the game. The finished game will have eight levels if you include shrine battles. Currently we only have Foresta close to finished, but it is nice to have the rest of the game mapped out. I figure my part is just to make some textures and a couple extra graphics. The programmer will need to hammer out collisions and a couple extra battle conditions in addition to map transitions. She is still currently working on unit control and other details at this time though. Once that is done the extra levels shouldn't be too hard from what I have heard from the programmer.

I really appreciate having Kelsey to do the programming side of things, and look forward to making this dream of mine a reality (or giving it our best shot anyways!).

I have returned from vacation and look forward to working on the two projects I have going at the moment. I think I will take a more pro-active approach and start working on stuff we will use if everything goes well rather than waiting for the programmer to catch up (since it is now definite the LoD programmer has returned to the project).

As for the vacation itself; I took a trip with my family to Disneyland, Sea world, and Knott's soak city. We stayed at a time share in Palm Springs. 3 kids around 9 years old, a teenager, myself, and my parents. The kids were pretty annoying, ranging from whiny to shooting people with squirt guns lol. Only one of the kids accompanied me and Tyler (teenage nephew) on roller coasters. We stayed at Disneyland until 1 am in the morning, which was exhausting. I had 6 blisters on my feet, a sunburn from yesterday, and being a gamer/computer nerd I am not in the best physical shape. Still I suppose it was all worth it and everyone had a good time.

Well it looks like I am taking a couple weeks break for now. I have asked my programmers if they needed anything before I went on vacation and they seem okay for now. I may work on some concept art or adding more to the mockup, but I wouldn't expect much until I return on June 4th.

I got a initial mockup for the tutorial section of Supernatural Defense: http://www.esnips.com/displayimage.php?pid=34094589 (you may have to watch it twice as esnips loads it slow or something the first time). It will show players which weapons to use against each foe. Still working on sounds, though I may have some background music now. Projects are almost set to go on hold for a week as I go on a vacation with my family on the 26th though.

Hopefully by then my programmers have caught up a bit and I can hit the art a bit harder then I have been. I really am looking forward to entering the contest Westwood is offering for these games I am creating, but a lot is riding on: can the programmers create something close enough to the original design plan and will it be fun? Still, I am happy to continue working on these sorts of projects as they provide valuable experience; they are also quite fun to create!

I have made contact with the programmer for Supernatural defense and he says things are going well, but the base defenses are not tracking properly. Some design compromises might need to be made but I told him to try and get the original design to work. As such the mockup was put on hold due to this, but I will keep in touch and I have all the elements ready to go except sounds. For now here is how I envision a screenshot of the game to look:

Just a simple hp indicator in the upper left corner with some way to track score and progress on the bottom of the screen. We also see the holy water cannon selected and being put to use on a demon. Some refinements may yet be made, but for now this will be the basis for my mockup should my programmer get those turrets to work correctly.

Sorry for the slow updates... I always seem to slow down a bit towards the end of a project (mainly to let my partners catch up it seems, since usually one should probably rush to finish the game when near the end). The art is fairly quick with simpler games where one knows details will be less noticeable due to screen size. Currently all that is left is to get some sounds and make a mockup of the game, maybe a couple interface elements. This week I revisited another old project that should do nicely for the intro screen to this game:

We have our werewolf silhouetted by the moon and various creatures in the background, I always figured the best way to introduce a game is to show a player the enemy first. Of course, previews of the scenery are not a bad idea either. This actually started as an illustrator file (vector art), I decided to make the werewolf softer and more like a painting though with my tablet and Photoshop.

Anyways, I am still waiting to hear back on the progress from the programmer, hopefully I get news soon. C ya next week!

Sprite animations complete! Upper left/center is Fae units, far right are demons and lower left are werewolves. We should now have everything we need for a basic game: enemies, a map with various time settings, a base with defenses, and projectiles to kill the enemies.

Next up is finishing up the very basic interface which should include a health bar for the player, a wave counter, and maybe a score indicator. Also I need to work on an intro screen and various sounds to go with these animations.

Supernatural Defense is moving right along, and I can't wait to hear what updates my programmer has on the project.

Okay I will admit it I got a little side tracked with Guild Wars 2 open beta last weekend. All I really got done over the week was some sketches of the characters and how the game would work:

Basically I am envisioning the phone being held sort of like controller and the player can aim using either both thumbs or in a position like this with a surface to rest it on (knees, a table).

As for Guild Wars 2 it was pretty good, could still use some polish but really not bad for a beta. I can see it coming out in a couple more months easy!

Alright, kicking things off fast with Supernatural Defense, we have base sprites finished, the fort is in place and the backgrounds work. I am now working on enemies, projectiles and an intro screen. At the moment I have just finished the werewolf animations, and am working on the other two enemies. The interface comes last this time around.

So all in all I would say the art side of things is a little over halfway done (maybe even nearing 3/4 done).

So it seems my work on Legion of Devagog is complete for now. I have put it on hold to work on another project called Supernatural Defense. It is a base defense game where the player must choose the correct weapons to prevail against various foes. Here is some initial concept art:

I actually had created this background for another game... but that seems to have been discontinued so I see no reason why I can't use those backgrounds for this game (especially since they were mine in the first place haha).

Revised and improved mockup: Added green circles and dots to simulate player selecting unit and moving it (the circles may also designate a target to move to). The train button darkens to simulate a click. And there is now a main menu in the demo that simulates a player saving and resuming the game. The end where the enemy concedes was mainly just to shorten the demo, though it is not a bad idea to implement in the real game.

The mockup still runs a little fast, as if an expert player is playing it. However, it is a lot slower than it originally was (I almost halved the frame-rate to slow it down from the original, because you had to watch it a few times to catch everything going on).

Well, module 9 seems to have went over fairly well, though the instructor said I could tune up my game mockup a bit more. Still 91 out of 100 in the workshop is not bad at all!

Also, I have decided to add a new page to my portfolio to display my game design endeavors:
http://www.wix.com/dracon852001/csinclairportfolio#!game-projects
Please check it out, I plan to put the best of my game assets there as I create them, though you will see some of them here on this blog as well. I hope to continue sharing my design endeavors, thanks for reading/viewing, I will continue to update at least once a week.

In other news, my birthday is coming up, so I fully plan to slack off a bit and give myself something nice; perhaps pre-order guild wars 2 lol.

Yes I am still alive, just a bit distracted still. I will turn Module 9, the final module for the workshop this Sunday. Then I will work on art for the extras I had planned for the game. The new art is looking good, I will link to it when I have everything organized and set up. It has been a great ride and I am looking forward to seeing the art come together and come to life in a game!

So far I have a decent game mockup completed. I have bit preoccupied lately, but I am approaching the finish line in terms of the initial design. Completing this module will finish the workshop. As I look back on everything I have to say it was a great adventure designing this. I firmly believe my skills have grown and that I have learned just a little bit more about what it takes to design a game.

This is not to say the game is finished, I still have a lot of things I want to add into it to make it a unique and fun experience. But I continue work on my own rather than with a structured workshop. I plan to keep in touch with Kelsey, my partner, and keep things rolling, so stay tuned for further updates.

Module 8 complete, it called for a refined interface and background:

This will probably be the final interface template I use. The background seen is probably what the first or second level will be based off of. So a lot of the elements are complete and we are well on our way to a working first level! I know the programmer is still working on some things, but it is nice to be almost done with the modules.

Module 9 looks to be mainly gathering everything up, refining some images, and presenting. A mockup of the game is called for as well, presented via a flash animation. I look forward to putting everything together!

Module 7 complete, I actually had to refine my image... Unfortunately I redesigned at my old size and not a bigger size so there are some pixel artifacts (not too bad though). Note to self, design larger, it is easier to shrink things than it is to make them bigger lol.

The level 1 map currently looks like this (though it may actually be level 2, I got to talk to my partner and see what they think, they may already have a rough map to finalize for a first level):

Module 8 is refining this background and my interface elements further. I actually will redo the larger portions of this at a higher resolution per the instructors recommendation.

two modules left to go, but I feel we can take this game above and beyond this course if we keep in touch and keep working on it!