Evaluation/Conclusion/Summary

Anglia Ruskin University

Science and Technology

Computing

Computer Gaming and Animation Technology

Year: 3 Semester: 2

Professional and Entrepreneurial Portfolio module

Module Code: EJ330007S

Video Game Based Physical Game and Development

Super Smash Bros: Brawl THE REAL LIFE GAME

Student: Henry Harling

SID: 0804212/3

Date:19/05/2011

This project set out to create a finished, playable, enjoyable concept design of a physical game that was based solely on one video game.

The video game chosen was Super Smash Bros: Brawl on Nintendo Wii.

The other key aims were to create as many artifacts for the game as possible with good design based mainly on the design of the video game so to try and relate the physical game to it even more. It was also an aim to try and use many different pieces of software to support the development of the game and to make a short video sequence comprsisng of as many of the created artifacts as possible to some up the project.

It is felt that all the project aims were successfully met and a lot of content was created.

Testing and research is always important in projects such as these.

The testing was performed during development and with the finished product which is always useful when developing games. It was a very time consuming process, getting different people to play the game, study them and record their results. To expand on this project the key thing to develop would be the testing, a more complete version of the game would have to be created and tested on a lot more people for more significant data.

The results that were collected to help to show that the theories behind this game definitely do work, what needs to be discovered mainly if this project was going to be taken any further would be how many people actually like the game and would want to play it more and even buy it, sure the game works but is it really any good, this was the main weakness of the project, it would need to be tested on all types of people as well not just friends, mainly players of Super Smash Bros the video game, as they are believed to be the target market which has been discussed a lot, earlier in the project.

If further testing was successful then the game could be developed further into a finished title that could be released. If unsuccessful depending to what extent either the game would have to be scrapped, re-thought out or tweaked.

Skills of many different software packages were developed and used very effectively in order to help the development of the project. Because of the many aspects of the project, it did work as a small show reel type item which is also very beneficial.

To develop this concept into a complete sell-able game would not be too difficult, the artifacts used would be relatively cheap to make, Velcro would be the most expensive part of the development, but money could easily saved here by buying in bulk.

In the logbook the complete game designs can be found, more complete suits would need to be made and more of all aspects of the game. For the game to be sold as it is, as in a Nintendo title, publishing rights would be needed from Nintendo, which would not be easy. To avoid this a very similar game could be developed without using any of the Nintendo copyrighted aspects of the game, which would mean developing a set of completely unique characters mainly, which is very doable. The downside to this would be that a massive selling point of the game would be it's appeal due to the huge Nintendo and Super Smash Bros fan based. So to develop this project it would need to be weighed up which of these two directions it would be best to move towards.

To improve the product itself it would be best of course to do more testing but also to perhaps try to simplify the game even more but it would be a trade off meaning losing some of the links to the video game.

For marketing of the product more trailers/teasers such as the one this project produced could be created, such as short sequences revealing some new characters much like they do in video game adverts and Pokemon card adverts to build the hype of the new game installments.

The core game itself without any of the video game references is a very fun and likable game, not unlike ones already on the market but unique enough to have selling potential. There are some similar games which you can see in my research, ones you can by in shops are a much smaller scale, such as target practice at a person's head, the ones that are most like this game are not as readily available in shops and involve hiring objects or suits for party venues which would cost a lot more money, which is how those companies seem to be milking their game ideas slightly, but also differentiating this product from theirs.

Huge amounts of research about other similar games was not carried out in this project because the main aim was to create a game as similar as possible to a video game, because that was the Sony task, giving some room to assume there is a demand for such a game, if nothing else, just by them. To develop the project further this would be a more important aspect and perhaps is a weakness of this project. The main research aspect of this project was the video game itself rather than other physical games, in order to make this projects physical game as much like the video game as possible, from this aspect the project was very successful.

Final Video sequence

Super Smash Bros THE REAL LIFE GAME

Here is the final video that was created to some up the project and was presented to the class, it's two and a half minutes long and features music, as well as a small piece of footage from the video game.

Finished Instruction Manual Design

After developing and play testing the game, the concepts were constantly re-considered as to what worked well and what didn't, and what other new ideas could be implemented.

Based on the prior concepts, new and finished concepts the rules were developed. Their does not seem to be any loop holes, but only a lot more further testing could prove that.

The rules were written up with the ambition for them to be as straight forward, clear and easy to understand as possible. You don't want an instructions book to be any bigger or complex than it needs to be so people won't mind reading it, another way to encourage this is to make it very attractive with plenty of nice pictures and colours to break up and supplement the text. Not only do you want the rule book to tell the player hot to play but also to excite them about playing, so try and cover some of the great aspects and possibilities of the game.

A font very close to the one in the video game manual was found: Tekton Pro

The design like the cards was based on the artifacts already created and the video games instruction booklet (posted in a prior post) and in game menus seen here:

As you can see the main colour scheme uses dark reds and pale blues.

As said before by closely following the video games design with not just the game play design but also the artifact design you can help draw in fans of the video game so if this game came into being, it is not just a unique physical game to excite gamers but you will already have some likely customers (Super Smash Bros fans) and you need to support them with this nostalgia. But not only that by following this design it will mean that you are following good design techniques.

Creating the manual

An alternative game box was found online, ideal for displaying as a cover to the instructions booklet. Appropriate text was added in Photoshop with the right style and colour to match. The image was then imported into word where the manual was developed.

Image and Video References

Help images (found in CD folder)

• Logo and characters: http://www.freewebs.com/peachy10/photos/super-smash-BROS-brawl/super_smash_bros__brawl_circle_by_darkyoshi97531.jpg
• Mario: http://wikicheats.gametrailers.com/images/4/41/Super_Smash_Bros_Mario_01.jpg
• Sonic: http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/characters/images/sonic/sonic.jpg
• Challenger approaching: http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs28/f/2008/077/8/1/Challenger_Approaching_by_DarkStory.jpg
• Text logo: http://www.dignews.com/legacy/screenshots/super_smash_bros_brawl_logo.jpg
• Plain logo: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1b/SmashBall.svg/200px-SmashBall.svg.png
• Smash ball: http://images.wikia.com/ssb/images/b/b6/Basic02_070529a.jpg
• Nintendo logo: http://www.hardergamerfaster.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/nintendo-logo.jpg
• Teen logo: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkAjd77dRWRvsYmVhRvEKte6hs9v9pyYGuH6H4vVlU4jJD2iJbU6ESfpuX79hmLKD2Nx-XkEAurpMplH6DPgW83gcSdf8rTNElT07_NqHeMnn2eeIc6aNNGSy6398xlZbacdNnFhoRo63G/s1600/esrb-teen-logo-.jpg
• Character select screen: http://www.infendo.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/brawlselect495.jpg
• Alternative cover art: http://www.vgboxart.com/boxes/Wii/14182_super_smash_bros_brawl-print.jpg
• Dice: http://www.andapps.com/images/dice6.jpg
• Diddy Kong: http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/characters/images/diddykong/diddykong.jpg
• Group picture: http://www.lesjeuxvideo.com/img/jeux/1411/super-smash-bros-brawl-wii-469.jpg
• Magic the gathering card: http://i1-win.softpedia-static.com/screenshots/Magic-The-Gathering_1.png
• Fire logo: http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs26/f/2008/136/4/e/Super_Smash_Bros__Brawlpaper_2_by_leechiahan.jpg

Video used in my demo video:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FO83eZdWks

This was a great video to display a bit of what the video game is like in my presentation video. I also though it was a great hook to reveal a new character right at the end which is what I will do for my video. I will use my Drake Duck character I created in my 3D character animation module as this project works as a bit of a show reel, it will advance my knowledge of Blender further too. I will create a brand new animation with Drake just for this video. He will need to have a short clip to excite viewers at the end, demonstrating some of his Smash moves.

Tutorials:

• http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/soul_removal/
• http://alfoart.com/business_card_layout_1.html

I used the tutorials to get started but I designed my artifacts and effects based on the games imagery and by mainly trial and error and doing a lot of playing around with the software, I feel I have taken my knowledge of After Effects a step further and have now have some great new working knowledge of Photoshop.

Results

Play Test Results

Ten participants were used (my friends). There was only enough equipment to test 1 on 1 type matches. So each participant had two turns against random opponents, and so there were ten games of one round. There was no need to time the matches, they threw all the balls at each other quickly enough, there were only six each after all.

For the sake of testing the speed attribute 1 is worth 5, 2 is worth 10 and 3 is worth 15, this is a lot less than what speed is worth in the real game (rules), this is to compensate for the less ball in this concept version.

Also for the sake of testing and in order to speed things up, the games were only ever one round, who ever came highest on the dice card ranking one, if they were in the same part it was a draw. This style could also be developed into a quick-play mode for the game so you have all the great strategy aspects of a normal game, but you can play it in a shorter time period, possibly the best way to play the game due to it's nature, testing showed a like for the game but not necessarily for long periods of play.

Game Artifacts

After editing the score cards to make them look more professional, I put all the created artifacts together to represent what would be found in the game box, to show in my final video. These are all the key elements. The instructions manual and dice cards are missing but they are less important and are not finished yet.

Images to be used in video edited in MS Paint

To be used for the HUDs in the video, Drake's HUD was created in Paint based on the other HUDs from the game such as Mario's you can see here. Drake was created for the 3D character animation module and was designed as a Disney character, so felt it appropriate to use the Disney 'D' logo for his HUD and it looks great. Numbers are added in After Effects so they can be animated. Colour keying and blending options were used to remove unwanted colour in the pictures when added into the video. A similar font to the in game graphics was found after searching through the fonts in After Effects.

Score Card concept

Final concept design

Concept 2

After development testing, it was decided it would be better if Mario did not have any speed attributes because he is not really about speed, and they way the end of the round is decided has been altered a bit so the score card needed to be changed too. It was decided it would be better instead of using the dice roll to multiply your score (using more maths) it would be better to have dice cards which define you in a category based on your points and then the dice roll decides your final fate and the jump attribute will now effect your dice roll instead of your score, this was a much better, simpler and more exciting way of ending a round. This could also be done with a spinner instead of a dice and dice cards (another idea for further development).

Concept 1

This is where the calculations take place, and it's all laid out in an easy to understand structure to help the player. The final version can be edited in Photoshop to look a bit nicer but it should remain very clear and simple because it needs to be written on. Maybe some background colour and character image rather than just their name in the text.

Adding Effects

Here you can see effects added to the video of the game play, to help make the relation the video game more obvious. Cartoon effects were added to the sequence, as well as character HUDs with animated text. To do this just like in Photoshop the blending options were very useful, you just have to find the best one that will blend your image with the scene. By key framing the source text you can animate the text, by doing this at the exact time a player was hit, it looks like they are in the video game. This was a brand new technique I had not used for and was very simple yet effective. I discovered these techniques just by playing around with the functions in After Effects, it's amazing what things you discover.

Windows movie maker was used to produce the final sequence, for two main reasons, because it is much more efficient for doing simple things such as text animations and transitions and it produces a final video with a much smaller file size so it is more easy to manage, unlike After Effects.

Here you can see I added in the Smash Ball item by editing in and animating an image I found on the internet. Similar to when Mario grabs a Smash Ball in the video game video footage that was used in the final sequence.

I used after effects to add effects to the animation I created in Blender and also to some of the video footage I captured of people play testing the game to improve my final video sequence and also to develop my skills with after effects. I hadn't done much with particle effects in after effects before although I have used them in other programs such as Unity and Blender. For the animation I could have used Blender to create particle effects but I wanted a different sort of effect that I knew would be better to create using After Effects and would also not take as long to render and would be more easily manipulated in the scene, so a more efficient way of doing things. To help get me started I followed some of the Soul Removal tutorial from Video Copilot and then I tested a lot of different settings and functions before finding the look I wanted. I wanted the particle effect to look like a burst of magic, for the colours to match the character and the effect to look like it is being produced by the character, I believe this was achieved quite well. It was done by increasing the size and birth rate of the particles, and making sure they lived long enough to leave the screen. They also start white and end up green, giving a very nice effect.

The notes of how to create these effects and also how to create the character cards can be found in the log book I submitted with this project. The intention is that the log book and the blog compliment each other in representing my development process.

Play testing

In order to test whether or not a game works firstly and then if it is enjoyable and fun and how it can be improved upon you need to test it throughout development and play the game as much as you can with different people when it is finished. Me and my friends tested the game a fair bit, which you can see some evidence from the pictures and videos on this blog. It was difficult to test the game as well as we would if we could play a proper finished version. The game was well received by most and was good fun.

The game was tested using 10 different character statistics, which were created based on the video game and were made to be as different as possible but still quite equal, so that they could be strategically chosen but someone would not have a massive unfair advantage.

It was found that at times it could be a bit frustrating calculating scores between rounds when all you really want to do is throw balls at each other, but when you got really into the game it became trying to choose the right character to help you win the game. Some characters like Yoshi seemed to do a lot better than others, so the player attributes may need to be re-thought out or it may be because Yoshi was chosen the most due to is popularity, like Wario was only chosen once, so the testing was not necessarily that scientific, but this method was necessary for the fun factor, the whole point of the game is to choose your character, more testing would make the results more even. overall though the results look very even through out suggesting the matches were fair, even though there were some exciting and unexpected endings, for instance the match between Kirby and Wario, even though Kirby had a higher amount of damage taken, he still won the game due to his mighty jump!

Finished Physical Demo Artifacts

Final Card Designs

Editing

Photoshop coming in handy again. I used what I had previously learnt to quickly edit in my character to this picture using cut, paste and blending tools. Very useful.

Dice Cards

These are the cards you use at the end of each round after the calculations have been made to determine which category you fall into, then a mere roll of the dice decides your fate! Exciting stuff right? Pictures are screen shots from the game to represent the actions that are occurring. In this game there is no real difference between just getting back on or getting back on easily, it's just for fun really. It was considered to implement some kind of handicap or advantage depending on which you get but that is just adding extra complications, this idea could be developed further in the future if the game was to be brought any closer to production than just a concept, but further play testing would be needed to decide whether or not added rules would be well received, thus far it seems as though the game has enough complications in it during the phase in between rounds, most players didn't mind the rest and the excitement of wanting to know who won, that is considered a weakness and a strength of this game, that is has two very different parts to it, some liked this, some didn't. Perhaps in the future some of the mechanics would be re-considered or perhaps this wasn't the best game after all to turn into a physical, only a lot more proper testing could prove or dis-prove this.

Creating the animation

It was great that I got to bring out Drake again and use him on another project, I loved developing him and it allowed me to try and learn even more of 3D animations possibilities, especially when putting it together with after effects, the results can be tremendous, as you see in modern day cinema.

Since creating this animation I have received my mark for the 3D character module, I attained a high 2.1 but there was some flaws in my project which was to be expected being my first ever 3D character. There was some movements that were not quite right, such as not enough bend in the feet when he walks and some crossover between his arms or his chest, so I was very careful to try and avoid things like this in this animation. I was also told that it is important to reflect more on my work, especially on it's weaknesses so I have tried to do that more this time on this blog.

The short fighting sequence included, a short idle introduction where the character is standing looking around biting his nails. Then he jumps into the air for a bit of comedy reference to the Matrix in the hope people will relate to this and find it funny. Then he shows of a few of his moves in reference to Super Smash Bros, his Smash moves and the most exciting Super Smash as a final move. Effects will be added after in After Effects.

Because of the characters action constraints and well rigged skeleton, he was very easy to manipulate, but the placement of the key frames is a tricky business. The copy position in Blender is a very useful function indeed, you can use it to copy a pose from one side of the body to another or the whole body pose to another key frame, it speeds things up a lot. The NLA editor was useful to join different animation sequences together and then to animate the camera over the top of those animation sequences to create the whole sequence. Some of the character movements are a bit off, this was my first ever character model and in the future more professional meshes will be created. I have learnt a lot from developing this model and using it for different purposes.

I short fight sequence with the drake duck character was created. It was created for part of the final video sequence in the effort to make the video more varied and exciting. The main aim of this project was to create a physical game based on a particular video game as closely as possible and creating a lot of material to go along with it and to create that material and put it together in different ways to also create a show reel type project.

Programs used: MS Word, Paint and Excel, Adobe After Effects and Photoshop, Blender and Windows Movie maker. Photoshop was the main component for creating the digital artifacts for the game.

This is a simple animation but character animation is very time consuming and this took a while in itself, although considered complex enough for it's purpose. Different lighting was used to make the model look more like a game character model and his movements reflect the movements of similar characters in the video game.

The detailed information of how this character was created can be found on the whole profile or henerz2011.blogspot.com

If this animation was to be made better, the timing of some of the movements and amount of detail in the movements could be improved. For instance the punches are rather slow and don't show enough force, this could be fixed with a lot of playing around with the key frames. The finishing move was deliberately slow for a build up effect.

Creating the cards

Other successful card game designs

These were used for inspiration but something unique was created as well. The designs were based on these cards as well as the Super Smash Bros video game. For the sake of simplicity and unique design, shapes were used instead of numbers, and minimal text was used so not to over whelm the player and scare them off with fear of a complicated game.

It was decided to include characters in the physical game because they are the main attraction of the video game. It was decided to represent them as cards because it would not be as cost effective to represent them as anything else, for instance a different suit for each character. It is possible for people to develop the game immersion more them selves by using costumes (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8zOQq2N3xA) and building arenas, the game has endless possibilities and can be played anywhere.

It was felt that the physical game would not do the video game enough justice as purely a board or card game so a more physical, hands on play style was developed.

Another way this game could be developed further is by releasing new rules to add complexity or change them completely possibly to use the same artifacts to represent other video games, you can create a lot of different games using Velcro balls as I found in my research. One of the play tests participants suggested it would be a great idea to have a team death match in the park or forest with his friends and they could play stealth Super Smash, his positive and imaginative response to the game was very much appreciated

Learning how to use Photoshop

I took some hints from the business card tutorial and began making my card design based on the sketched I had done prior to this. I knew that the colour scheme should be red and blue and use imagery from the video game and I wanted the cards to look more like a finished artifact rather than just a concept design to try and show that I am capable of creating good final designs as well as concepts.

I was very pleased indeed with the final result of the cards. I spent a long time making them and the process took longer because I had never used Photoshop before. It is very easy to use and seems like a terrific program. I used again and again to edit images. It has similar functions to After Effects such as the blending options which was the aspect I used the most. Obviously Photoshop is more for editing pictures and After Effects video which is why it is very helpful to use both. I did not know about the blending options in After Effects but after learning how they work in Photoshop I used them in After Effects too, to add in images to the video, such as the character HUDs.

Details of how I created the cards can be found in the log book and you can see some of the process in these pictures.

I stuck to just making two cards to show the idea of what they would look like but I didn't think it was worth making more at this stage because it would just really be duplicating work I have already done, I wanted to spend my time on making other completely different things.