Thursday, May 29, 2014

Epic Quest Bios

The bios for my programming assignment video game, Epic Quest.



Male/Female Player: From a small farming village, the player lost his or her mother at a young age and was forced to learn to fight because of the constant dangers of bandits in the area. At the start of the game, the town is having a celebration for the player’s coming of age, when he or she officially becomes an adult. The death of his or her father plunges the player into a dark spiral of death and destruction in the quest to avenge his death.
·      Can use any weapon and have any assortment of stats
·      Health and damage varies
·      The male has brown hair and a green shirt while the female has red hair and a blue shirt

Dad: After the death of his wife, the player’s father had to raise the player on his own. Because of this, he and his child are very close, and his death and plea for the player to “avenge him” sends the player down a dark pit of despair and anger.
·      No health, no stats, no damage
·      Deceased

Bandits: The bandits are disorganized robbers who were a minor nuisance to the player’s village before the nameless villain came along. Now, they are a force to be reckoned with (in large numbers).
·      Easy difficulty
i)     75 health
ii)    Damage from 1-4
·      Hard difficulty
i)     150 health
ii)    Damage from 1-8

Dying Woman: Born and raised in Tierre, the dying woman meets her untimely end presumably at the hands of the nameless villain. She implores the player to go after her killer, but never dies on screen. Maybe she is still alive…? No, she’s dead.
·      No health, no stats, no damage
·      Deceased

Nameless villain: The nameless villain is a sorcerer of great power, and the final encounter with this man is a very difficult battle. In two of the four stages, he stands on an unreachable ledge to launch magic repeatedly at the player, seemingly toying with his prey. He believes himself to be unbeatable.
·      Easy difficulty
i)     400 health
ii)    Damage unknown
·      Hard difficulty
i)     800 health
ii)    Damage unknown

Friday, May 23, 2014

Video Game Sprites (Non)Valedictory Concentration

I planned to create digital 8 (or 16, in my case)-bit sprites to be used in the video game I am coding for my final project in Computer Science class. I knew I would have to use a grid to create pixelized pictures out of individual, color-filled squares.

To do so, I looked up how to create a live-paint group grid in Adobe Illustrator, and used a 16-bit sprite of Link from The Legend of Zelda I found on the website deviantart as reference for the shape and shading of my characters. I must admit, I did not think I would do very well at first, but it is actually surprisingly easy to create these characters simply by using the paint bucket on individual squares in a grid.

Creating the sprites became easy after a few days. I use the other sprites I've already made as a reference for each new sprite, though for some reason it won't allow me to copy a specific section of a grid to place on another grid, and that's really annoying if I make mistakes. I have to erase the whole thing and start again, depending on how big the mistake is. Here are some examples of my sprites:





As you can see, the pixels in the images are obvious. Because of the colors and amount of pixels, these are technically 16-bit sprites. From left to right, these are the main character as a female with a staff, the main character as a male with a sword, a bandit enemy, and a dead character (whose identity I will not reveal!)

The sprites have turned out great. I love them, and they are a perfect fit for my game, though I could do a lot more like making the sprites have a walking animation and actually swinging their melee weapon or firing their ranged weapon, but I don't have enough time as the programming assignment is due very soon. The sprites work perfectly in game apart from some size issues (that are easily fixed, but again I don't have the time), and I have attained the goal I set at the start of this game design project.

In the future, I will know how to make this type of sprite and be able to continue to develop my video game design skills, which I intend to do for a long time to come.