Project Update 29/10/2010

So time for my first Project Post. As I stated in earlier posts there isn't a set format yet, but that may change the more I do as there might be a regular pattern that starts to show up. But in the mean time, it's all done freestyle.

Things done to date

• Arrange team and assigned roles. Full list below (Team)
• Made temporary Time Line with most important dates filled in. To see go here (Myself)

Things to do

• Come up with a group name. I just don't feel that Group Z is good enough.
• Come up with a Game Concept.
• Meet with whole group and set clear expectations.

Summary so far
For our final product we need to make something that is based around the game Flowers Vs Zombies. Please note how I said BASED ON. While I do believe we will get a pass for a clone of FVsZ (Short hand for Flowers Vs Zombies from now on) we will lose marks for originality.
FvsZ is a Tower Defence game where you need to protect your house from a onslaught of Zombies. The weapons at your disposal for different types of plants ranging from the Pea Shooter (fires a pea in a straight line at the on coming Zombie and has a strong resemblance to Bellsprout) to Wall-Nuts that slow down the oncoming assault. The way that plants are deployed is by "Planting" them on your front lawn using a grid system. The picture below demonstrate how the grid system works.

Picture from http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2009/05/plants-vs-zombies/

Some games that follow the same concept as PvsZ are as follows:
Space Invaders. You control a space ship that is trying to stop aliens from reaching earth (or in case of the game the bottom of the screen).

Guitar Hero/Rock Band. Many people are probably going "WTF" at the moment but take a moment to think about it for a second. The overall aim of both of these games is to preform to a crowd. You achieve this by playing "Notes" that come down the screen. Miss a "Note" and the crowd become unhappy but if you hit one then the crowd becomes happy. Just think of the "Notes" as the Zombies and it should start making more sense.

Frogger. Again I can visualise a lot of people with very confused looks. One concept of PvsZ is to prevent the Zombies getting from one side to the other. Why can't that concept be turned on it's head and be made that the aim is to help them get to the other side. Frogger demonstrates this by getting the player to control frogs that need to cross a road and then a river, all of which have various obstacles and hazards.

Just thinking of these games alone should be enough to get a rough idea of a good game concept.

Also while writing this post I've arranged a meeting with the whole group tomorrow (30/09/10) hopefully we'll be able to get this boat a sailing.


Quick list of the team and roles are as follows.

Executive Producer- Vladimir Sivc
Assistant Producer Jakub "Kuba" Klitenik (That's me in case you didn't know)

Lead Artist- Arron Pommeroy
Artist - Ed Wulf-Vanderpuije
Artist- Arkin Buhara
Artist- Liam Crossan-Maguire
Artist- Craig Fitzgerald

Sound- Sam Stead
Sound- Helen Dunne

Writer- Reese Newton
Writer- Tim Moore

Designer- Anton Korubov

Programmer- carlos el-kaadi
Programmer- Alexander Jones

Currently Listening to Bloc Party, The Prayer (Hadouken! Remix)