Get in the Coop Design Doc

The concept of the game we had before the development was a little bit complicated than what we have now. At the start we were planning to make a AR dating simulater where the character are all different kind of birds and the player have to interact with them in order to build up a relationship with them. 

The initial game play concept look like this:

• Kabedon-ing Birds
• Dialogue with Birds
• Take Selfies with Birds
  • Taking selfie is the final part of getting close to a bird (add the photo to collection)
• Birds will follow you when your relationship is close
• Alpha Buff Chicken is the KING BIRB
• You need to approach different birds with different strategies
  • Dialogue
  • Giving them things [Player has an inventory]
  • Kabedon
• To get closer to birbs, do tasks for them
  • Items are spawned in the room: Pick up items in the room to give to birb
  • Flamingo: YOga, “Breathe in and out, FEEL THE TRANQUILITY. TRANSCEND YOUR SOUL TO THE NEXT LEVEL. Did you see the light?” 
  • Alpha Buff Chicken: do squats for them as a sort of mating dance
  • Dapper Penguin: Lost and found: Dress up the penguin with a bow tie, hat, monocle and cane
  • Silly Chicken: PICK UP ITS SHIT D:
• Main Mechanic:
  • Corner Birb and kabedon them to unlock dialogue

And here are some initial ideas for the characters, we were planning to make them as different birds, each will have different characteristic which will be shown by their behaviors, what they like and dislike.

Birds:

• Flamingo
  • Never move a bit
  • Doesn’t give a SHIT
  • But I’m not a rapper
• Penguin
  • Can slide away
• Silly Chicken
  • Chaotic running champion
• Alpha Buff Chicken
  • Likes to lift weights
  • Likes barbie dolls

In the intial concept, we want the player to ru aroud in the play zone and chase the birds to corners so they can't run around.  Once the birds got cornered, it will triggers a conversation section with the players, where the players can "chat" and give gifts to them in order to win their favor. 

Since this is the first time we are working on an AR project, we are not really sure if we could achieve all the concept of mechanics listed above. So we listed out a few questions around the mechanics and some technicle difficulties we might encounter if we decide to follow the plan. Here are some questions:

• Who is dating? Birds or people?
• Why chase birds?
• Who is the player? Maybe let the player figure out who he/she is
  • Randomization of player and targets?
• Make all birds stuck to ground not let them fly away
• Test selfie as soon as possible
• Talk to john about occlusion
• Maybe just focus on one kind of bird so that we only need to design one kind of behavior & animation for all of them
• Prototypes:
  • Proof on concept
  • Technical
  • Aesthetic

After some disscussion, we decided to make the theme of the game focus on Chicken only.  And Inorder to strengthen the concept that the game has to be an AR game, we decided to change the interaction between player and the birds from just talking and deliver items to a set of mini game that would involve with player's actual physical movement.

Here are the options for Chickens:

• Muscular: Alpha BUFF Chicken
  • BIG BULGING ARMS, Loves to work out and barbie dolls
  • Minigame: Do 5 squats
  • Maybe the number keeps increasing but you can choose to stop, I’m tired
• Silly/Derpy: Rubber chicken toy
  • Hyper, Cross-country Champion
  • Minigame: [Follow] Race the chicken, marathon partner
• “Flamingo” Chicken: stands still, “Oh? You’re approaching me?”
  • Never move a bit, doesn’t give a SHIT. But I’m not a rapper.
  • Minigame: Defeat me in a RAP battle (i dunno)
  • It does yoga, convince it to move?
• Dapper Chicken:
  • Monocle [maybe limit to one object?]
  • Top Hat
  • Bow tie
  • Minigame: Find their clothes/accessories around the space
• Regular ‘ol chicken: “Bwak bwak”
  • Just wants a friend (and food)
  • Minigame: Become their friend, dragging feed into their bowl, clicking on food? (really simple “minigame”)
    • Or eating competition: who can finish the food faster (clicking to eat)

At the stage of the development we felt our concept might be too ambious and the time we have for the project might not allow us to accomplish all of them. At the same time we started prototype the basic function and mechanic of the game. Cindy was working on programming, Michelle is working on concept arts and character arts. And since this is the first time I work on 3D modeling and animation, I started to learning how to use the software and getting use to its control and functions. For this project, I chose Blender as my tool for 3D assets creation and animation.

The first model I made was based on Cindy's concept art of Chicken, it has a cartoon-ish look with very simple shapes and limited details. It was a great practice for me to learn how to make models and understand Blender's controls.

For 11.21 we had a playtest session at New School with the members of Game Club. For this playtest, we prepare a prototype of the game that contains our basic plan detection,  a work-in progress occlusion function, and AI functions. One focus of this playtest for us is to test out a reason number of chickens on the screen, detection distance between chicken and the player,  and their movement speed. In order to make the test easier and more efficient, we make several buttons on the screen that contain different set of numbers. It is easier for the players to try different numbers and give us feedback on what they prefer. 

Beside getting an average number of Speed, Distance, and the amount of chicken. We also received some feedback/suggestion for UI and addition mechanics. Many Players want a simple tutorial at the start of the game that explain to them how to play and what's their goal.  We also received a feedback from a player about adding a controlable door on the chicken coop so the chicken could still move around within the coop once they are in without letting the player worry too much the possibility of them escape. We thought that was great feedback, for the build we were running for the playtest, the chickens stopped moving once they entered the coop. It felt a little bit unnatural interms of animall behavior so we thought it would be a nice addtion to the game. 

Another thing we've noticed from the playtest was that our player were having fun just chasing the chicken. And that made us wanted to just focus the game as a chicken chasing simulator instead of a fating simulator.  We felt many of the concpet for the dating simulation were too ambitious and we do not have the time to accomplish all those functions and mechanics with the time we have left for the development.  So here are some changes and goal for the following  development:

• Take out the dating concept, set the focus on chasing and better AI behavior.
• Add a controlable door for the coop
• A designated play area for the game ( a big fence that surrounded the chickens and the coop) 
  • The occlusion is not really working and we thought it would be better to move on another solution instead of spend more time and energy on it.

After the play test the group resume their work. I continue working on 3D Modeling based on the new character art Michelle had just finished. Artisticly we want our birds to be cute so the players will have a better time chasing them and having more fun. 

Modeling this version of chicken was definately more challenging from the rubber toy chicken I did earlier.  The shapes is complicated and there is more details need to be included. I was trying to accomplish what michelle has in her art and make the chicken as fluffy, healthy, and cute as possible. 

Overall, I'm happy with what I have accompplished. I made the chicken look close to what Michelle has in her art and the model look even better once they were textured. 

Besides the chicken, I also did some environmental assets like the fences and the door, compare to the chicken they are pretty easy to make.

After the Models are finished, I started working on the Animation, which is also a challenging task for me since this is also my first time making animation.

I started working on the chicken walking animation first, and speeded up the walking pace to make it a running animation. The result is functionable but also a little bit unnatural. Although for most of the time players will look at the chicken from a top to down perspective and this animation wouldn't effect the overall experience in a really bad way, but I believe the more accurate and detailed I can get the better for the game and myself.

I also try to make some idle animation for the chicken when they are not moving , they look ok but could used more imporvement.

At this stage the game is at the final stage of it's development. We went to an even on 12.6 at Wonderville to present the game and receive more feedback that would help us to improve the game one last time before the final submission.

Here is the game play vdieo for the build we had for the Wonderville event:

Beside a few miner issues with the AI behavier, we had a soild AR game that we could present on the even. The presentation went well and we received some kind feedback from players we met there. 

And here are something we've noticed that we need to improve for the game:

• Fix the AI bug that occur sometimes through out the game play
• A clearer tutorial that explains how the game works and what is player playing for in the game
• Environment sometime could be a restriction for the game play
  • Maybe give the gplayer an option to set the playground on table top so they could have a more open plan to play the game.

For the end, this is an unedited game play video of the final version of the game:

Thank you for reading!