2D Platform Game

During the first week I was assigned to create a sprite to show to my fellow classmates. It was like to show what skills I had and what Ideas suited a certain designers Idea. 

What I intended to make was a platform game where you can roam from left to right and there would be different levels. 

After developing ideas I started to work on Photoshop to create a gif of my main character. Here is what each frame looks like. 

Here are the fames that when combined together made a gif. Here is the final product. 

Each frame was played at 0.05seconds and when combined together it made this gif. I showed this gif to my classmates and the majority enjoyed viewing it. 
We then got paired withdesigners who had similar ideas to us artists and I got paired up with Sabeel. 

The game he wanted to create was quite similar to mine. We discussed several features from each of our games and took out the best features. We both agreed that the game should have several levels and have a left to right p[latform rather than top to bottom. We also discussed the graphics of the game. Sabeel suggested either 16 or 8 bit. After some discussion we both agreed that 16 bit would be the best option because we wanted the game to be deatailed with some scheme of pixels involved.

After we also spoke about backgrounds for our game. I suggested that as you complete each level the location changes and the time changes too. forinstance it would go from sunnyto night time as you complete each level. 

As I was searching through google about city background as Sabeel's idea was having the dinosaur from his game wreck the city, we were intrigued by the dark city background but showing the scenery also. 

 As the game is based mainly around the dinosaur, i decided to get the most important features first. Firstly I started to draw a still image of the dinsaur, so that when the dinsoaur stops moving that image woulld be shown. 

 As you can see the dinosaur is not very detailed. This is because my partner and I chose a cartoon theme.

Now that the still image has been completed I started to devleop the walk cycle. I first studied the walk cycle of a T-rex by using this reference image.

I noticed that as the T-rex takes each step its head and body moves up and down like a human's body would. I took that into conideration and started to make each movement of its back and head slowly move down and up in each frame. 

For the first frame of the walking cycle I made the dinosaur stand in a postion where it's about to walk. Rather than including a standing still image within the walk cycle I wanted the cycle to be endless rather than have a frame where it would spontaneously stand still within the animation.



The second frame shows the dinosaur putting his foot down to show that in the next frame he will lift his other leg so that it can be able to walk.

 In the third frame he uses his other leg to push off the ground to be able to walk forward. Furthermore I tilted the T-rex's body down slightly to show the realistic walking movement. 

The fourth frame shows the dinosaur raising its other leg forward and the leg at the front moving slightly backwards.




The fith frame  shows the front leg pushing it self up as i move the body up, but not only that I pushed the leg bag and moved the back leg forward.

 The sisxth frame shows its body moving downwards as it lands on its other leg. 

 

The final frame show it moving it front leg forward now and is quite similar to the frist frame. So when all frames are all combined together and each frame is played at 0.1 seconds here is the final result. 

After the walking cycle had been complete, I started to work on the the jumping animation as our gam has many platforms to jump on. 

I used this reference image to help build my jump animation
 
The first frame consists of the T-rex standing still.

The second frame I lowered the T-rex's knees so that it is ready to jump including lowering the body.

 The third frame consists of the T-rex bouncing back up, this includes the legs and the body being raised.

In the fourth frame the T-rex is in mid air with its legs stretched al the way down. 

The fith frame is the same as the fourth except that the fifth frame is raised higher than the previous one. As a result here is the dinosaur jumping.

After I had finished the main components of the main character I started to focus on the backgrounds for the game. Myself and my team mate discussed of what backgrounds we should include in our game and we came to a decision to have level 1-3 from morning till night. Here is what level one looks like

Like the 2 pictures I used for the reference at the start I tried to make it lookk quite similimar to those images. However what I have changedis the quality of the image. For instance my interpretation of the background image compared to the reference image is a lot more cartoon visual whereas the reference image is a lot more realistic. But this is the point im trying to achieve, so this background worked successfully.

Here is the second level

The theme of the second background is dusk as it's in bewtween morning and night as you can see by the colour and the side moving to the east. 

Here is the third level

The final level is themed at night time. I used a gradient for the background from white,blue, to black. I also added a moon and several stars.


We wanted the game to have an objective or some extra tasks to do whilst playing the game. We thought about what games were successful and why they were addicting. We found a solution that including coins would do the trick. Therefore I started to make coins that we could scatter accross the map.

We both thought that the game was quite calm and there wasn't any action occuring. Therefore I decided to draw soldiers that would shoot at the T-rex.

It was then time to test our game to our class members and we recieved positive feeback. Here are one of the feedback sheets that had been filled out 

After reviewing each feedback sheet there were imporvements that we could have made. Therefore I started to add more animated gifs and art. I first started to make a menu page as we wanted to introduce the game.

Here is what the menu page looks like 

I then started to make some buildings that were able to be destroyed wehn you trigger the attack button. Here is the process of making the building.

Here is thew first frame

 The first frame is just a still image of the building

Then in the second frame the building tilts down and I added a smoke effect in each frame as it tilts down to create the destruction effect.

Here is the GIF of the building

In order for the buildings to drop it needed to be triggered by an attack. Therefore I created an attack animation. This consisted of 3 frames. 

The first frame is a still image

The sceond frame is where the T-rex bites. I opened its jaw and added bloody teeth and tilted the body down.

The third frame is the same as the first frame. As an end result here is what the GIF looks like when you hit spacebar.