End of Development and Gameplay Footage

So the time of development has come to an end and Protoplay is on the horizon. Its been an amazing 9.5 weeks developing for a platform that has given us pleasure and pain! We hope to see many of you at Protoplay to try out the game yourself. If you are unable to attend, check out our latest video, showing the game in action with brief explanations of the main gameplay mechanics.

View It Here

Some Box Art

For presentational purposes, we've knocked up a simple box art design for the game that will be used as a display piece (in a game case) at Protoplay. Check out the design below (note: this is a work in progress piece).

Game of Death Reaper (Future Features Screen)

As part of our future features screen, we want to provide a representation of how the Reaper would look when upgraded. So, we decided to give the reaper a yellow and black robe (paying homeage to Game of Death). Hes also been bulked up slightly, made taller and now sports an uber scythe. The eyes also represent a Reaper with increased capabilities. The idea is that as you progress through the different eras of history, you can upgrade certain characteristics (health, attack, etc) to improve your capabilities as the difficulty increases. A render of the upgraded character can be seen below.

Our Promotional Video

Here is our promotional video showing some of the key features of our game

New Gameplay Video

Here is another capture of the first part of the level for our game. We've made quite a big leap these past few days in terms of development so there is more to come very soon :)

Real World Character NPCs and QTE Animations

Here are most of the quick-time event animations, some of the background animations (for the battlefield section of the level) and the final cutscene for the demise of the King of Troy. We've tried to get some humour into alot of these animations, particularly for the final soul of King Priam. Check back in the week for an updated gameplay video.

Death Inc. Environment Assets

Here is a short video of the major 3D environment assets for the game. All the assets are rendered using their PSP textures.

Death by Battering Ram - QTE Animation

Each of our quick-time events will have animations showing the "demise" of the Greek Generals. The idea is that you will persuade injured soliders to do your bidding for you, setting of environment traps that will take out the Generals through short quick-time events. Here is a test render of one of these animations, that will take place towards the end of the level.

Kill the King!

The final character model is complete and ready for rigging and animating. This is the first character model to actually have a proper head and face so will have (a very basic) facial rig. King Priam, the King of Troy, will be the end of level target, your overall goal for the level. Check out some renders of the character below.

Our Team Photo

Here is our group photo, collaborating the cast with the crew!

Some Gameplay Footage

We finally got the capture device working (Yay!) so can now record footage directly from the PSP. To celebrate this, we've captured the state the game is in at the moment. As you can see, we still have a long way to go, but the main structure of the game is there. Just to briefly point out what the video shows:
> Scene Management
> Animated and Static Models
> Death and Respawn (instant at the moment when the character falls from the ships)
> Ethereal world phasing
> Path finding A.I for the Enemy reaper (not in correct place at the moment but it works!)
> Level loading in and models loaded in place
> Actions mapped to buttons (animations just need assigning to some of these)
> HUD
We also have a number of other features implemented, such as a state management, but we will capture all improvements later down the line when more visuals and gameplay are added to the level so that it will start to look more like our original concept. We also plan to fine-tune the camera once all levels are loaded.

Note: I recommend watching the video in fullscreen because the video size outputted by the PSP is quite small so it makes things easier to see. Enjoy!

NPC Character Animations - Fat (Admin) Reaper

Here are the animation sets for the Fat Reaper character. This old chap acts as checkpoints in the Ethereal world and the Reaper who you give your souls to at the end of the level. Nearly all the animations are idle/background animations.

NPC Character Animations - Enemy and Security Reapers

Here is a video showcasing the animations cycles for some of the NPC Reaper characters found in the Ethereal World. Enjoy!

A present for Troy

Here's the Trojan horse model, using 64X64 16-bit textures and one 16X16 texture.

A Few Greeks More...

The base warrior model has been modified to give the Greek soldier, the Generals and the injured/pawn soldiers. These are all rigged up, with most of the animations for the Greek/Trojan warriors completed. Some test renders for the Generals and the injured soldiers can be seen below. We've tried to make the Generals stand out by making them taller and bulkier, modifying the helmet slightly and giving him a unique colour scheme.

Siege Tower Asset

Testing a new look for the assets. Hopefully deforming them will make them look more consistant with the character models. (Using PSP textures).

Animations for our main character, Mini Reaper

Here is a new video showing off the animations of our main character Mini Reaper for the game Death Inc. Enjoy!

Trojan Warriors

The main base model for the Greek/Trojan warrior is basically done and ready for rigging and animating. This character will act as a background NPC in the real world. The texture will be changed to give the Greek warrior model and the colour scheme will also be altered for use as the Greek/Trojan Generals. Some renders of the models can be seen below.

Promotional Image

The game is starting to come along now, in terms of the code and the art assets. As with all the teams in the competition, we are required to produce a promotional image for the game. We wanted to play on the whole death as a coporation theme with our image so went for a board meeting/alan sugar theme. Check it out below.

Fat (Accountant/Admin) Reaper

The fat reaper character is almost finished. There are just a few animations to get completed. We've tried to give him the stereotypical accountant look while maintaining the traditional 'reaper' elements. Some renders of the character can be seen below.

Security Reaper Character Model

The security reaper model is done and about ready to animate. This character will act as a form of blocking device to stop the player simply advancing through the level in the Ethereal world. As usual, here are a few test renders with a cel-shaded mock-up thrown in.

Enemy Reapers

The enemy reaper character model is done and rigged up and is now in the process of being animated. Some renders of this character can be seen below (both normally and in simulated cel-shading in 3D Studio Max).

Cel-Shaded assets

Following on from the cel-shade reaper test here are some environment assets.

Toon Shading Test

Upon talking with the guys from Blitz Games earlier (which was very helpful), we've been thinking about ways of doing the toon-shading in the game. We experimented with the main character model in 3D Studio Max and aim to replicate this method in code. The results are pretty cool and should lend itself well to the style of the game. A few renders can be seen below of the effect achieved on the mini reaper model.

Some HUD concepts

Main Character Model Renders

The main character model is now more or less complete. The bone system will be created today and then the model will be rigged up to the bones then the animating can commence! Below are a few renders of the model, some being normal renders with a sky light and the rest being a test with toon-shading (if...no WHEN we get it in our game). Textures are of a low resolution and the poly count is low to accommodate the platform we are developing for.

Programming brainstorming with a whiteboard = awesome sauce

This is why every team needs a whiteboard...

Character Reference Sheets

Most of yesterday (for the artists) was spent doing more concepts on the game and for levels as well getting the character reference sheets done for most of the characters to help during the modelling process. These reference images below are for the main character, the enemy reapers, the fat reaper, the trojan/greek warriors and for King Priam. The rest of the day will be spent designing and producing concepts for the HUD. Note: The scale guides are rough estimates at this stage.

End of Day 3

Its the end of day three and more progress has been made. The playable reaper character class has been created with movement and the animations working (video coming soon...). Had some texture, depth buffer, rendering order, gamemaker and scaling issues. Funnily enough, none of these were artist related....

All of these were solved, now to try and load a level in!

Also had a mentor visit from the guys from Rare Ltd., great guys who gave advise on design, art and programming issues.

Things seem to be moving in the right direction. Check back later for some photos and videos took during the day.

Toodle doo

Grimnir Games

Another Concept Piece

This is a piece of Concept Art for the Ethereal World. It has been designed to show the main elements of this realm in relation to the Greek Armada section of the level.

Some Concept Art

Some work has been done on Concept Art today for the real world sections of the game. This concept is for the battle of Troy, designed to show the main elements behind the gameplay in this realm of the game. The game logo can also be seen in this concept piece (slogan may change).

Plus, here are a few character concepts, ranging from the main character, to enemy reapers, the fat administrator reapers and the greek/trojan warriors.

Stay tuned for more concept art over the next few days!