Dinner Love and The Quest for Soup: a Love Story

T-minus 12 hours...

2010-04-24T00:44:00.000-07:00

Just checked out the build and there's still one major functionality issue that Jeff tells me will be done within the next hour. Other than that, there's a few very minor bugs and polish opportunities, but no other showstoppers.

I'm excited - it looks like we've done it! After the final build is done there's nothing to do but make sure to get our A/V system situated, drink a few beers and just do it :)

Results to come..

-Anders

Week 9: Putting it all together

2010-04-17T20:57:00.000-07:00

I haven't kept this blog as well as I liked, but I wanted to give it at least one last update.

I've spent the last few weeks tying up loose ends. Everything is falling into place, including the venue that I hope to propose to Steffany in. Fortuitously she booked a private dining room at a local brewery and invited all of her family along. I also let her father in on the project and he vowed to obtain a projector for the event.Yesss, I love it when a plan comes together.

Last week I collected animation from my good buddy Bennett who I've chatted with off and on about digital art projects since high school. I also gave myself a long time to create the UI art since graphic design isn't my strength.

This week I've been stressing out over actually completing the project, but then Jeff sent me a build that put my mind to ease :) All of the broad strokes are in place and its just the details that need ironing out now.

While all this was happening, my room mate and sometimes collaborator Ian Buckzkowski has been churning out music for me. It is a really cute tune, I can't wait for people to hear it.

Today I am putting together the level in Maya and adding vertex coloring to the buildings. The city looks like an easter egg basket!

It looks like this might actually happen! I also picked up the ring today - it is way gorgeous. I don't even like jewelry, but this is an exceptional ring. The jeweler had me look at the detail under his jeweler's magnifying glass thing and I exclaimed "Wow! It's like look at the moon with binoculars!"

-Anders

Week 6: Characters and Animation Complete

2010-03-27T13:11:00.000-07:00

I lagged this week - I should have had these models complete a few days ago. All that remains to be done on the art side are the UI and Menu art, then I gave myself 2 weeks of polish time. I gave myself lots of time for the Menu and UI stuff because my graphic design skills are a bit rusty.

The textured models:

Now I have to hook them up to the animated rigs and make any necessary adjustments, then ship them off to Jeff to get plugged into the game!

-Anders

Week 5/10: Character Work

2010-03-18T21:23:00.000-07:00

OK! I think I'm still on schedule! Awesome! I finished the character models a few days ago and I sat down to do the rigs but then realized I forgot everything I knew about rigging and didn't have the time to go through tutorials. So I contacted an acquaintance from school who I know to have a good reputation(George Lam) and asked if he would like to contribute to the project by making some rigs. He referred me to his friend Justin Fong who cranked out the rigs faster than I expected =) The characters are ready to send off to be animated while I work on the textures.

Here's a shot of my silly character models:

So hopefully by next week we'll have complete, animated characters!

-anders

Week 4/10: Beginning Character Art

2010-03-05T21:59:00.000-08:00

Character Models Complete: Week 4 (3/10)

I finished up the environment art but have had little time to begin work on the characters - Steff has been visiting and I'm trying not to get caught working on the project. Between this and GDC next week its going to be tough to stick to schedule.

Got ahold of Jeff (my programmer buddy/knight in shining armor/frequent collaborator) - he let me know that everything was on track and he would be kicking me out a build in the coming days. What a relief!

I think I will end up spending 2 weeks on characters instead of the 1 week I initially planned for. So the character models and rigs will be due on week 5. This should be fine because I have an animator and don't have to do that work myself.

I managed to sneak out this concept art while Steffany was away visiting her cousin today:

Should get one of them done by late next week and then will rig it and kick it off to Courtney (animator) to do some cycles while I work on the other model. Its gonna be a stretch but I'll try to buckle down this week!

-Anders

Week 3 Deadline Approaching

2010-02-28T13:32:00.000-08:00

Static Art Complete, Placeholder UI Dialogs System Complete Week 3 (3/3)

I know I am posting these retroactively - hopefully I'll get on top of these blog updates eventually. This week I'd like to share the concept of the game and some of the planning. From the spec I wrote before kicking this whole thing off:

High Level Overview:

The goal of the game is for Anders to propose to Steffany in a creative, fun way. The game must be simple to understand, impossible to screw up, very quick to produce, and be cute as hell.

   To achieve these high level goals:
1.       The game play is to be modeled off of Pac Man, a simple game that almost everybody knows.
2.       The player will be guided by pop-up dialogs that must be read before continuing to inform the player of changes in game state.
3.       Game logic will facilitate "not screwing up" by forcing the player into the desired situations.
4.       The game must be in a limited arena with limited art assets (like Pac Man). The maze walls will be constructed by 5-10 or so extremely simple building block models and will remain static.
5.       The game art and presentation must be as polished as possible - this includes start menu, end credits, music, in-game art and animation. You know how we roll with our production values.

Mockup

The basic concept: Pac Man. Steff is navigating the maze trying to eat foods when I show up on the scene and start stealing her foods. Then (quite metaphorically) we decide that we can eat more foods if we join forces and work together!

This week I'm trying to finish up the environment art. I also secured an animator - an old friend from school who animated on a previous project: Full Moon Manor (another project I'd like to continue some day).

Communicating with my programmer has been problematic, hoping to resolve that soon! This project is moving fast and I'm concerned that we'll be behind schedule soon.

-anders

Week 1/10: The beginning of the project..

2010-02-18T23:34:00.000-08:00

Hello, my name is Anders Howard. I am a 24 year old Junior Game Designer at the beginning of my career in the games industry. I am keeping this blog to record the happenings surrounding the production of a small game I am making in collaboration with some of my friends.

The purpose of the game is to propose to my girlfriend of 5 years, Steffany.

A little more than a week ago now I decided that this is what I had to do. I had heard that a friend of mine was planning on proposing to his girlfriend in a spectacularly romantic way and I knew that there was no way that I could outdo him. I was sitting on MUNI wishing there was something that I could do to impress my girlfriend when the idea that I could make a game crept into my head. It wasn't the first time. But this time I decided that I simply had to do it. I am a trained creative professional and if I couldn't make a game for an occasion like this, well...then that would just be lazy.

I wrote the spec in my spare time over the next couple days and recruited a couple friends to join me. My hope is that we can churn out the game in 10 weeks in time to surprise Steff when she flies back home for her birthday at the end of April. Here's our projected schedule:

11 Week Development

Kick off + Design Complete:

Week 0 (Feb. 10)

Basic Game Engine/Mechanics Complete + Food Models Complete

Week 2 (Feb. 24)

Environment Art Complete, Placeholder UI Dialogs System Complete

Week 3 (Mar. 3)

Character Models Complete:

Week 4 (Mar. 10)

Character Rigs + Animation Complete:

Week 6 (Mar. 24)

Menu & UI Function + Art Complete:

Week 8 (Apr. 7)

Polish + Game Complete:

Week 10 (Apr. 21)

So it'll be tough to pull off, but I'm optimistic. As of the time of writing, I have already completed the Food Models 100% (more on that in later posts) and am moving on to the environment art while my friend and frequent collaborator Jeff Aydelotte is programming the main mechanics.

More to come!
-Anders