Hey hey everyone! It's check-in time. This is going to be a very brief check-in seeing as my activities last week were more or less the same as the week before it, and most likely will be this week as well. The biggest difference seen this week was resolving creative differences between different team members, which I hope to see less of moving forward, considering the little time we have to polish everything to a certain degree. I at least have to count myself lucky that such issues have been minimal up until now but let's at least hope to keep it that way. Regardless, the plan remains the same for me, and I am now more confident that we can put something together that is worthy of submission. The hard part of that plan is making sure it goes over well with the rest of the class, seeing as turning in an unpolished product can be seen as a bit unsatisfactory. But this is senior year after all. Plan for the week... Monday: Team check/brief Tuesday/Wednesday: Animation work Thursday: Speaking with 3D modeler and programmer for scene construction Friday: Departing tasks for team
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The appeal of life is its short nature in the grand scheme of constantly shifting events. A tiny blimp in the ever vast and complicated typhoon of the void. Why is that so important? Are we simply a product of circumstance? Fated to exist for but a brief moment after what is a millennium of preparation and experimentation? The Maw in which we exist is a vast laboratory, comprised of nothing but an incomprehensible amount of energy, and an equally incomprehensible amount of nothingness. We float without aim or purpose as the writings of fate drag us all along. Waiting as our concept of time continues to tick without any discernable end in sight. In this Maw, free will is but a myth, and we are subject to the daily occurrences of the void, assuming it is within the realm of reason for our minds and bodies alike. But does reason have a place here? The answer to that is unclear. We try to look forward, to find and define a permanent "end". Is it truly so? This end we speak of refers to the moment that life within our grasp will cease to exist, that along with all activity that The Maw has to offer. This aspect is easier to define in our terms, which saying that alone comes with a level of irony. But what is truly "The End'? How can we ever know if we have not found "The Beginning"? Is this our purpose? To discover what gave us purpose in the first place? So many questions, and so little time. Are they worth answering? Will we be satisfied by the answer? Now that is a good question. The fear presented by these questions is also what leaves them unanswered, which in turn answers them, nonetheless. What is but a fraction of the annals of existence is the foundation in which we build our temporary legacy. Bound to The Maw and at the mercy of our own concepts. To ignore is one answer, to accept is another, and so is to search. Finding purpose gives us purpose, that and the curiosity many have been endowed. In this lies happiness, amidst the almost inherent sadness of The Maw. And there is plenty to go around. For our small ember is to be engulfed by a greater flame. Rip. Freeze. Crunch Rip. Freeze. Crunch Bang 22^9
It's been a few months, so I believe that a game review is in order, so I might as well pick something that I was unable to put down for weeks on end. The Final Fantasy 7 Remake. Now seeing as I'm not that old, I never had the pleasure of playing the original when it came out in 1997, but I've known about its influence not just on the RPG genre, but on gaming and popular culture as a whole my entire life. This behemoth of a game, originally released on three separate discs due to the hardware limitations of the PS1, captured the hearts and minds of millions across the globe and by far becoming the most popular game in Square Enix's library. Hoping to revive and pay ohmage to the incredible success of the original, a remake was announced in 2015, after almost a decade of rumors and speculation that a remake was on the way. The game would not be released until 2020, with the COVID pandemic taking up the majority of the media attention at the time. Let's just say that it went over really, really well... Gameplay/Experience Shifting away from the traditional turn-based battle system, the FFVII Remake instead opts for a free form fighting system, reliant on precise attacks and dodging, mixed with spells and items with the use of a quick menu. This method was first tried in 2015 in Final Fantasy 15, which was met with mixed reviews. It was then adjusted and highly polished for use in this newest remake, and it sure does show. In comparison to the previous attempt back in FFXV, the remake manages to make free form fighting feel fresh and rewarding, with a variety of moves and tactics available to the 4 main playable characters of the game, each of which sporting a list of special weapons and abilities. Unlike FFXV, I went out of my way to complete as many side quests as possible, because not only were they rewarding and manageable, but they were actually fun to complete. Moving on to the environment, we get to one of the selling points of the remake, it's incredible level design. The city of Midgar (the location the entire game takes place in) not only feels massive but is genuinely pleasing to look at. Every corner of the city shines with a level of polish that the developers clearly put years of work into. Despite the fact that missions take you to select areas rather than use a free-roam system, the city itself still feels massive and entertaining everywhere you go. And last but not least, the cast. I've never been one for the typical RPG cast, since they more often than not fill very clique niches and have very predictable personalities. Fortunately, the remake has stuck to the characteristics of the cast characters that captivated so many players with the original release. Characters like Barret, Tifa, and Aerith are some of the greatest and most genuine personalities that I have ever seen in a video game, and every second spent in their presence made the game just that much better. Art Direction/Audio As touched on earlier, the world of Midgar has been expanded to a scale unseen by its previous counterpart and makes up a vast majority of the game's appeal in the realm of art direction. The sheer amount of detail in the environment, regardless of whether or not it is interactable to the player, is staggering. Being able to see into the distance and still make out distinct 3D models shows how technically impressive this game is as a whole. There is eventually a point where the environment turns into 2D images, but the use of some clever camera and wrapping techniques manages to make it look 3D regardless. Audio also takes full advantage of the many incredible soundtracks made in the original game, remaking them as well and adding an extra layer of polish all around. Many classic tracks remain in the game, now modernized with orchestral arrangements and even some entirely new verses. It's quite fair to say that they are just as enjoyable to listen to in their revamped state as they were in the original. Stability/Performance My personal playthrough on the game was done on the PS5, using the performance mode at 60fps. My playthrough took about 35 hours and never ran into a single issue along the way. This is quite impressive considering the sheer amount that the game has to render at all times. Verdict Again, I never had the pleasure of playing the original when it came out, which is not exactly something that I can change, but I can at the very least appreciate the enormous impact it has had on popular culture since then. I can also appreciate the classic story in its new and refreshed state, which I have enjoyed thoroughly from start to finish. Every once in a while, I'll finish a game and just sit in silence and awe. Only one word comes to mind when I describe those games: "Wow". And it is with a great honor that I can say that this is one of those games. 10/10 Image 1 Source: FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE INTERGRADE on PC | Square Enix Blog (square-enix-games.com)
Image 2 Source: Final Fantasy VII Remake review | Engadget This, my friends, will be the first of many updates that I will post as part of our development process for our final team game. The production of Zenith will require a clear timeline and detailed path as to where the project will head. As of right now, I have started with simple animations to remind myself of the process, as well as knock out a number of essential enemy types early. My creation of a number of idle animations is a clear and simple example of my role as the resident 2D artist and animator, and the addition of these animations will aid my teammates as the overall world is flushed out and brought to life. Overall, I ran into very few problems, which is good in this particular aspect of the team project. That does not mean that this will not be a long and arduous process, as these are only a few of the many animations that I will have to move forward with making. I believe that the relative speed that I made these animations with is a very good sign, meaning that I can pump these out without too much risk of falling behind. That and my ability to do them in this manner after a long hiatus from animation fills me with a newfound level of confidence. My future plans are now to focus on the animations custom to the main character, mainly so the programmers can then move in to programming him in to make the gameplay functional to a degree, which then allows for the development of the rest of the game.
Anyway, it's time I got back to it.
As part of the AGAD schedule, we must now move out of our PBM assignments and back into team work to finish our games by the end of the year. While I am eager to get back into this process, it does pose a few problems, mainly how rusty the class will be moving back into teams. The entire class has been away from team work for a number of weeks now, meaning that people will need to get back into the swing of things once the main project picks up again. That and people will have to refresh their memories on what their game overview even is in the first place. This does pose a number of issues when moving back in, but the experience provided by the PBM assignment will help soften the blow of this transition if just by a little bit. The skills we relearned in the Unity Engine and coding software should prove helpful when each team member moves back into their assigned roles. This is especially important in the coding sector, as almost every single person in the class had issues with coding one way or another. I genuinely hope that I won't find myself to be disoriented once this shift back into teams occurs, and I can quickly get back into the sector of game design that I specialize in.
After all this time, the parkour level is finally finished, and what a process this was. From start to finish, the entire project feels like it's taken years to complete, mainly due to the enormous number of steps in the entire development process. That being said, the entire process provided a good number of ups and downs, as well as an expectation of what is to come. The finished level design ended up being wildly different from the original drafts and concepts, especially since the original design just didn't function on a base level, with objects clipping into one another and floating in random directions. The process of making the game linear did fix this issue, as it limited the number of overlapping colliders and lowered the overall density of the environment. Although I still did find a good number of issues as I worked out the coding along the way. All in all, I think this worked out quite well for the timeframe I was given, and even could have done better if not for the setbacks encountered with the original design. I hope to take these mistakes and learn from them in a way that benefits my future projects and creations in this particular class, especially as we move back into team games for the rest of the year. This sure was a short post, but one that needed to be written for the sake of self-reflection and a clean conclusion.
I believe it's been a bit since I've done a proper game review, so I've decided to start again with a game that I recently completed. Metroid Dread. The Metroid series has gone without a mainline entry in its 2D series for almost 20 years, making Dread the 5th entry in the main series. Mind you, this is a game series that saw its first release back in 1986. Typically overshadowed my Nintendo's much larger IPs like Mario and Zelda, Metroid has been at the back end of company projects for some time now. Regardless, MercurySteam, the developers of the previous Metroid game, Metroid Fusion (back in 2002) were called back for the production of Metroid 5. And due to the slow nature of Metroid games, the game took about 15 years to develop. Boy, I didn't even know how much I desperately needed this, seeing as I'm an enormous fan of Metroidvanias. Gameplay/Experience This particular entry in Samus' adventure was developed by MercuryStream, a development company located in Madrid, Spain. Seeing as this entry was made by a group outside of Nintendo's usual Japanese production teams, various aspects of the game can be drawn in comparison to MercurySteam's other works. Mainly, movement is key. Everything about Dread aims to be Metroid, but faster. And this mission is achieved to great affect, as Samus moves smoother than ever, and has a number of extra movement abilities to boot. From short dashes to double jumps, slides, wall crawling, and grappling hooks, it's immediately clear that the objective is to give the player as much freedom of movement as possible. All the while, enemies are a good bit faster in order to counter the player's newfound speed. At the same time, many of the key Metroid aspects remain in place, such as the unique health system, various power suits, and even a few bosses. Now on the topic of environmental design, Dread excels in all categories. From lush forests to cold laboratories, the game has no shortage of unique environments and enemies to go along with them. The graphical capabilities of the Switch are what ultimately make all of this possible as well, which is exactly why the developers decided to wait until the newest console was out in order to wrap up production. And boy does it deliver. I have only 1 complaint in the end, and it's that the game itself is a bit on the shorter side, only taking me about 8 hours to complete. And this is in comparison to my time spent completing Super Metroid, which sits around 12 hours. (I'm not a speedrurner ok)
Art Direction/Audio Dread has quickly taken on a different style than that of its predecessors, which is already evident in its overhaul in environmental design. Aside from that, it now fully embraces the decision by Metroid developers to put everything in 3D, technically making this the first original mainline Metroid game to modeled entirely in 3D. While the game may ultimately be a 2D platformer, the 3D models still give everything a sense of weight and depth, further immersing Samus in the strange world she finds herself on. Audio on the other hand takes a clear shift over to darker/more foreboding tones. Most, if not all of the area soundtracks in the game, are very low volume, further emphasizing the overall danger of the mission. I would akin most of the soundtrack to almost robotic humming, very reminiscent of the mechanical threat that Samus is faced with at all times. At the same time, Dread's remakes of songs from previous games also serve as a gut punch of nostalgia for returning fans. (Thank you for Brinstar Depths) Stability/Performance In the 12 hours that I spent on Metroid Dread (1 playthrough, all items), I never ran into a single issue, which is really all I have to say about it. It ran beautifully the entire time, and now that I think about it, never experienced a single drop in frame rate. Verdict Metroid Dread has been nothing but an absolute thrill from start to finish, and while on the short side, I still found myself dumbfounded by the level of care taken to the original Metroid formula, all the while reviving it into something completely new. I can guarantee that I will be back to tackle this game in both its hard mode, and perhaps even attempt to speed run it should I find the time. 9/10 EMMI Image Source: https://attackofthefanboy.com/guides/metroid-dread-how-to-defeat-the-emmi-robots/
All other images are personal screenshots Well folks, the time has come. As part of our game development process in AGAD, each team had to come up with a name and brand. And without further ado, I introduce to you: Studio Rust. With this newfound level of professionalism, we're now ready to begin production on our game. Having this title worked out, and our roles set, the stages of pre-production should be able to start fairly quickly on our end. While it did take some time to work out said roles, we eventually got everyone into a position where they would provide the most to the team and the final product. As for me? I just have to oversee it all, it was in my contract after all. In general, I have a lot of confidence in this team, as we have some especially talented people on all fronts. I hope that this talent will pull through and provide as much as possible to our final game. We hope to put our general idea for a 2D platformer to use, particularly with pixel graphics, and perhaps a Metroidvania gameplay system. These are essential questions that we will ask and answer as we move into pre-production. I wish the rest of the production teams good luck. And a special message to Butter Cow Games: This is not over
Our Team Website: Studio Rust - Home (weebly.com)
It really is odd to think that the end of this school year is just around the corner, regardless of how long it felt. This entire year of COVID has really made junior year, which is already the hardest year in high school, nearly unbearable at points. Late nights, piles upon piles of homework, these things are nearly every day as the year is wrapping up. But against all odds, I'm somehow still in good spirits? I surprise myself sometimes with this stuff. I guess that the idea of the upcoming senior year and college preparations are a bit exciting to me, even though they are not most of the time. That and the fact that the pandemic is continuing to weaken and eventually end in time, which is a massive improvement from just a few months ago. My main concern continues to be my need to work on personal artistic improvement and eventually teaching myself animation, I've put it off for a little too long. But before that can happen, I need to deal with my AP exams, which will determine whether or not this entire school year's worth of effort will be enough to earn the college credits, a system I still despise. Are we seeing change? I sure do think so, some more than others. I do see 2021 as being a significantly better year in comparison, regardless of its bumpy start. And a time to unwind will be essential after everything that has been thrown at us. But as a high school student, I am legally obligated by the school board to never sleep until the end of the year, so I'll have to put up with it for one more year. They're lucky that the only thing keeping me around is my desire for a degree.
Monster Hunter is back babyyyyyyyyyyy Maybe I put a little too much emphasis on this series, but I have been playing it since I was 12, so I hold it quite dear. Now, as of March 26th, Capcom released their follow up to MHW, Monster Hunter Rise. And I really like it to say the least, especially since it keeps so many aspects that World nailed back in 2018. Gameplay is solid, with a number of new movement changes. Progression is a bit slower but not especially noticeable once the story picks up momentum. And the multiplayer still holds up as one of the best things about the series. I completed it within about a week of getting it, which may sound fast to some, but it's nothing compared to the many people that do it in 2 days, which I don't personally do because I'm not mentally insane. I found the entire experience to be another grand experience worthy of praise, as well as a strong foundation for future updates and DLC. And just like its successor, it's completely worthwhile to give it a try. Gameplay/Experience Just like Capcom's successful 2018 iteration, Rise takes all of the aspects of traditional Monster Hunter and modernizes it to appear polished and more appealing to beginners, all the while keeping faithful to the structure and story in order to satisfy veterans. Gameplay follows the simple process of wandering an expansive area to find a target and take it down, sounds simple right? Well it is, and that proves to be one of the downsides to Rise as a whole, as it has proven to be one of, if not the easiest iteration in the series. While this can make a number of the quests a breeze, it is a needed step back after the methods used in World, which was known for having a crushingly difficult endgame, something I enjoyed but others did not. Difficulty aside, Rise has actually managed to improve upon the gameplay with its own personal additions, mainly an overhaul on environment verticality. Both MHW and MHR follow the pattern of being semi-open world, as there are multiple environments to hunt monsters in, and each one has multiple layers and and an overall vast scale, meaning it takes some time to walk across the entire thing. Rise has added to this by making nearly every surface climbable through the use of a gadget called the Wirebug, creating a very Breath of the Wild type of traversal, but with mid-air grappling hooks. That being said, these Wirebugs are quite literally living grappling hooks, but can be used in mid-air to yank characters in certain directions and even during combat. Editors Note: You're pretty much Spider-Man Art Direction/Audio Rise takes some very clear inspiration when it comes to its art style. The entire game is set in a very traditional Japanese art style, with icons, sketches, and even the monster models themselves taking on a texture akin to oil painting. The entire aesthetic can be seen in every nook and cranny of the game, setting the entire story in this very same Japanese style. This same style applies to the music as well, with most of the music being very Asian in nature, using instruments like wind chimes and wooden lutes. This mainly applies to all of the music being made by scratch, but some songs have to be recycled from previous games, like the main title theme or monsters with their own theme songs. All of these songs may be recycled, but they also add small bits of the eastern style into it, usually by incorporating an extra instrument or replacing a few. This makes it so that the song itself stays faithful to the original adaptation, all the while adapting to the new aesthetic. Stability/Technical Features I had practically no issues when it came to playing, which is especially great when it comes to things like online multiplayer. The processing power needed to run a large environment with 4 separate players is something that games pull off often, but is still an impressive feat when looked into the technicalities of it. Verdict Rise has once again proven why I hold Monster Hunter with such a high opinion. Its ability to take the effective aspects of its predecessors and adapt it to both a new console and art style entirely is an impressive feat on part of the developers. While its occasional slow pace and sometimes underwhelming lack of challenge can be a bit discouraging at times, its setup as a perfect foundation for updates gives plenty of room for the difficulty to amp up in a way that many desire. 8/10 Image rights belong to Capcom
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AuthorI have a passion for creating things, and hopefully one day those things will be video games. You can check over on this blog if you wish to see any updates on my work or other subjects. The views and opinions expressed in this blog are solely those of the author and do not represent those of Durham School of the Arts or Durham Public Schools.
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