Author
Torrey Daniel
Game App Icon
Title
The Crazy 8
Genre
Action/Fighter
Platform(s)
Android
Revenue model
Free-To-Play
In-Game Purchases
Interstitial Ads
Development tools/Language
The Engine - Unity 3D
UI - Adobe Photoshop,
Illustrator
Sprites – Adobe Fireworks
Version Control – Underdog
Programming – MonoDevelop, C#
API’s & Other Resources
· Google Play Games Services
· Photon Unity Networking
· Cartoon FX Packs 1 & 2
· MOGA Controller Plugin
· Set Builders
· Universal Sound Effects
· Westar Music Library
Game audience
The intended audience for
this game is from teens to young adults. Based on Bartle’s Player Types
(Bartle, 1996), TC8 is intended for players who would fall into the Achiever
category: Players who seek a challenge and play to unlock all of the characters. With that said, once
player-vs-player is added, player’s who fall into the Killer category are
expected: Players who play simply to give other players a hard time.
Team
Torrey Daniel - Designer/Developer
Copyright/Reference
The Crazy 8 Copyright © 2015 Torrey Daniel
Backstory
Sound Bite
The Crazy 8: Go In, Go Hard,
Go Crazy.
Executive Summary
TC8 is a mobile fighting game
with the goal of a classic fighting game experience to mobile devices. TC8
presents a more traditional fighting game play style than most modern mobile
fighters.
Inspiration
TC8 was inspired the classic,
console and arcade-based fighters. The overall goal of this project was to
bring that nostalgic “feel” of playing a classic fighter to the mobile
platform, which is a challenge due to the lack of physical buttons.
Capstone Scope
TC8 was a five-month, solo game project, which was
completed within Full Sail University’s Mobile Gaming Master’s Program.
Ideal
Ideally, at the end of the
Capstone period, TC8 was planned to have a playable roster of 8 characters, 8
playable stages, 6 game modes (Arcade, Time Trial, Survival, Single-Player VS,
Multiplayer VS, and Training), all major mechanics implemented, a fully
function in-game store, Google Play Game services fully implemented
(Leaderboards, Achievement, and In-App Purchases), and multiplayer
connectivity.
Design & Aesthetics:
· Design
Documents:
o
The design
documents did well in providing an overall guideline for this project as the
contained information that kept this project on track. With that said, I do
believe that they could have been managed better (See Below)
· Mechanics:
o
Out of everything
that was achieved in this project, I am most proud of the fighting mechanics. At
the start of the project, I struggled to decide exactly how the players should
fight. I wanted something that was not too complicated due to device
restrictions, while at the same time not as simple as simple swiping the screen
to perform actions. In the end, I decided on something that fell between the
style of Marvel vs Capcom and Street Fighter. A fighting game would not be a
fighting game without combos, which is why I aimed to keep it simple while still
requiring a bit of practice, just like the games that inspired TC8.
· Balancing:
o
Each character
has their own strengths and weaknesses. I had to keep this in mind as I created
the roster in order to keep each of them from being too overpowered. For example,
Sophi and Source Code are capable of performing more elaborate combos than the
rest of the roster, but they also deal the least damage. Terrah Bihte and Lance
are slower than the rest of the roster, and they’re also less combo-friendly.
However, they deal the most damage of them all.
· Graphics:
o
While the
characters are 2D sprites, the stages are full 3D geometry. This gives the game
a bit more depth than having a layered 2D background. However, there are a few
issues that arose because of this (See Below)
· Audio:
o
TC8 uses audio
that fits the game well. Since voice actors were not an option due to the scope
of the project, the game uses simple voices (grunts, yells, etc.) acquired from
the Unity Asset Store. The music was acquired from the Westar Music Library,
which also fits the game well. There’s different music for different sections
of the game. In addition to the Unity Asset store, a few of the sound effects
used were also obtained from FreeSFX.com.
· Narrative:
o
TC8 has
announcers that speak a certain points in the game. They are primarily used for
announcing things related to the match. There are also loading screens before a
match, which tells players their next opponent, and where they will be
fighting. Also, character bios are displayed to the players during character
selection screen. There’s still a bit more to add when it comes to narrative.
(See Below)
· UI Screens
o
TC8 follows a
more dark, less saturated color scheme to fit the serious tone of most fighting
games. I designed the overall color scheme of the menus to match the colors of
the logo.
· UI Controls:
o
The UI controls
are straight-forward. There are four buttons located on the right side of the
screen, and there are directional input buttons on the left side for movement.
Players have the option to change the opacity of these buttons.
Project Management
Given what was accomplished within the short scope of this project,
I believe that it was managed well. Most of the planned features were added,
and what was not added was does not impact the primary features and
functionality of the game.
Development
The code is set up well with each mechanic/feature organized in
separate scripts. Unity Engine was great to work with. As it stands now, the
game is set up in a way that allows additional features to be added with
minimal issues. New characters and stages can easily be added with only a few
lines of code. The AI has 3 changeable difficulty levels which each behave
differently. With that said, there’s still some work needed for the AI.
Testing
During testing, TC8 performed well. The only causes of crashes have
been memory issues caused by oversized textures, which were easy fixes by
compressing them. Although the tests went well, setting them up was difficult.
Business Model/Plan
TC8 will follow the Free to
Play (F2P) revenue model. The game will also use ads that will appear after
completing a game mode or receiving a game over. In addition to that, TC8 will
also have in-app purchases. The first of which, is the in-game currency. TC8
features it’s own currency called Fight Coins, which is used to purchase
additional Sanity Attacks for each character. Players can either ear Fight
Coins by playing the various game modes, or by purchasing them in coin packs.
Lastly, at release, there
will be an initial playable roster of eight (8) characters. Over time, an
additional eight characters will be added. These characters will be released in
sets of 2 called Rival Packs. Players will be able to purchase these new characters
via in-app purchases.
The Critique: What went wrong…
Design & Aesthetics
· Design
Documents:
o
During
the Usability Test, some of the participants made a few suggestions about the
layout of the main menu, since then, I’ve been experimenting with other
layouts, but at this point in time, I have haven’t decided on a new one. Below
is a snapshot of the layout that I’m considering going with for the main menu.
Also, I tended to get very carried away with development, which caused me to
forget to keep the project documents updated.
· Mechanics:
o
Although the
primary mechanics were added, they are not perfect. There are still a few bugs
that need to be fixed, specifically when it comes to collisions.
· Balancing:
o
The balancing
could use a bit more work, but its nothing major. The characters’ strengths and
weaknesses could use a bit more enforcing.
· Graphics:
o
At this point in
time, there are still a few placeholder graphics that I had planned to replace
by now with other graphics that fit the UI theme better.
· Networking:
o
One of TC8’s
primary planned features was multiplayer. When I began this portion of
development, I encountered numerous issues. Because of this, I decided to leave
multiplayer out of the scope of the Capstone, and focus on solidifying what was
already in place. I still plan to add multiplayer in the future.
· Narrative:
o
In addition to
the current narrative aspects in place, Arcade mode is missing the scenes that
tell each character’s story. These scenes would be short, manga-style images
that portray the events that lead up to the final boss fight.
Project Management
Although
I tried my best to stay on schedule, there were situations where I had to
extend the time scheduled to complete a task. This occurred most often during the
sprite creation phase, which was extremely time consuming.
Development
The
code could have been organized more cleanly with comments and having related
methods and variable declarations grouped together for improved readability. The
repo should have also been updated more often.
Testing
Although
the tests went well, some were quite difficult to set up. This is because I had
not planned to test early in development. This made it difficult to isolate the
blocks of code being tested because of their dependencies with other scripts.
Summary
Overall, I’m proud of what
was accomplished within the scope of the Capstone. The final version of TC8 was
not far off from the planned one. The primary fighting mechanics were added,
there is a roster of 8 characters, there are 8 stages, and 5 out of the 6
planned game modes were added.
Besides development-related
things, I learned quite a lot from this project. My main take-away is project
management. Although a lot was achieved, it was difficult to stay on schedule.
I also take debugging more seriously after this project. Android’s Logcat
debugging tool was essential in finding the dreaded “Out of Memory” error that
plagued this project for a while. Also, I learned the importance of making code
testable from the start. It saves a lot of headaches when it comes to testing.
That would be the only thing I would redo about this project.
For me, the high point of
this project was completing the combat system. It took a bit of time to get it
working, but once it did, I felt a great sense of achievement. The low point
was when I decided to postpone multiplayer. Although I do plan to complete it
in the future, I was disappointed that I could not get it working at the
scheduled time.
From here, I intend to continue working on TC8.
There are still some bugs that need to be fixed, and features that need to be
added. It won’t take much to fully set up achievements, leaderboards, and
in-app billing via Google Play. Multiplayer will be added via update after
release. Once the game is in a stable condition, I plan to release TC8 on
Google Play.
