P1: Game Feel Experiment

For your first Game Feel project, you should create a simple 3D “game toy” (as with the previous projects, this is not really a game, since there are no objectives) that meets the following objectives.

The project is due at 9am on Friday Oct 10th.

1. Basic Game Setup
As with the same code we’ve been using, the world should be a large flat surface, which is textured so you can see the 3D space, distances, etc.  The world should have some objects, such as a bunch of cubes/platforms/objects, in it, and should use a 3rd person follow-campus view of an avatar.  The avatar should be composed of a few primitive objects (spheres and/or cubes, etc.).  You can use a similar avatar as the previous assignments, or change it as you desire, but please stick to a few primitive shapes (i.e., no animated 3D models, and do not create a whole pile of little objects to make the avatar more anthropomorphic).

In this project, you should focus on creating an avatar that can move around in the world, and jump on and off the elements you’ve scattered throughout the world.   The avatar should move around using a combination of the ASWD keys and the mouse, and use the space bar to jump (or do some other “in character” movement).

Your world should have a background audio track.  Please make sure the sounds you use are either original (you created them) or are licensed as free for your use (personal, non-commercial, educational, or something similar).  There are many sites with free audio, such as www.freesound.org

2. Game Feel
The main task of the assignment is to use the core elements of game feel (interactions between character and world, polish effects to emphasize those interactions) to create two avatar behaviors, each of which would be described by someone else as having a pair of the following characteristics (one from each list):

List 1:

  • scared
  • dreamy
  • joyful
  • aggressive

List 2:

  • strong
  • weak
  • dizzy
  • nimble

(For each behavior, choose an element from each list, and pair them up;  don’t reuse an element from either list).  You should be able to switch between the two behaviors by pressing the “1” and “2” keys.

You should think carefully about how your avatar moves, and about how it interacts with objects in the world (how they react to it and it reacts to them).  All the actions and reactions you implement should make sense, and fit within the feel you are trying to acheive.

You should use any-and-all polish effects to emphasize the interactions between your character and the world: particle effects, sound, camera shake, etc.

3. Non-Game-Feel Polish
To additionally emphasize the two feels, you should use different background textures (ground and/or skybox), different lighting (color and/or intensity) and a different background audio track.

Atmospheric effects are secondary to the way the character moves and interacts with the world (and how the world reacts), so you should not rely on these to convey game feel.  To reinforce this, you should allow the user to toggle these effects on and off by pressing the ‘g’ key. When off, there should be no background sound, the lighting should be a neutral white, and the background textures should be some simple default (like the grass in the example).

Assuming that the behaviors and interactions convey the feel you want, you should use textures, graphical effects, and background sounds, as you see fit:  do whatever you can to create the most compelling experience for the player.  Just don’t rely on it to create the feel in the first place.

4. Turn-in
You will turn your project in two ways, as in previous assignments (on the blog, and on t-square).

On t-square, you will upload your project source, and put your player file in the resources directory, as in the past.

In the text part of the submission, you should write a very short summary of everything you did to try and achieve the feel.  What are the interactions you tried to create (what are they, what do they do, etc).  On the blog, you should put this same explaination on the same post as the submission.

Grading
We will post detailed grading before the assignment is due, but the high level breakdown is this:

  • 2 points for basic game setup
  • 6 points (3 points EACH) for the two game feels
  • 2 points for non-game-feel polish