I’ve done my part, so what’s next?
I have completed all of the requested work, and now I wait on Luc to implement my work into the game before we can officially say we have a viable product. While I would have liked to see cut things like some bonus attacks (while are still to be determined on their presence or not), the fourth boss and some bonus attacks for the player, I believe it was the correct choice to cut these when we did, otherwise we wouldn’t have gotten this far if we did not.
Now that both Michael and I are finished, we are going to begin work on our pitch to actual in-industry developers, where we plan to show off everything we have done, and our thought process. This includes cut content, to display how much thought we placed into this as a team.
10/05/2021- Our Final Pitch
Soon we will pitch Toad Out of The Hole to some actual in-industry developers, on the 17th May, leaving us only a week to prepare our presentation. For our presentation, we need a trailer, as well as a jam-packed presentation with most details of our game summarised.
A list of thing we should include, going off some of our tutors slides:
- Elevator Pitch
- A brief description of our product.
- in-depth idea and product descriptions
- this will give us a platform each to discuss out ideas and designs in detail, myself with the enemies and bosses, oliver with outfits, and michael with the environment pieces.
- target audience and market research
- storyboard/playboard
- crew introductions
- Towards the start of the presentation, introducing each one of us
- stretch goals
- cut content, future plans
- concept
- sound
- diegetic and non diegetic
Developing a Trailer
I have been tasked with the creation of a trailer showcasing our work for the upcoming project. I know a little bit on how to make cool trailers and good videos, as I do YouTube videos on The Fallout series in my spare time.
What Will I need in my trailer?
- A good respresentation of our gameplay
- Different gameplay scenarios
- customisation (brief)
Luc says the gameplay will be in my hands tomorrow, in which I will be using Kdenlive, a free editing software, to compile the things I need in the trailer.
Finished product:
Here is the finished trailer. I used the openbrush font from a free font website for the text, made them into PNG’s so I could create a fade to red in some of the text. A lot of the art was done by Oliver, and gameplay captured by Luc and myself.
This red text is used in the UI and throughout many pieces relating to the game. The reason is due to the fact we decided it fitted well with the theme, painting our game as a grizzly, fun, 2D beat-em-up.
Music was used from a royalty free YouTube channel named ‘White Bat Audio’.
Pitch:
The pitch was put together by Oliver, and showcases all of the work we have done since January.
How did our pitch go?
Our pitch went quite well, I feel Oliver did an excellent job at presenting his ideas and we all did a good job at showcasing our ideas. Our feedback was justified, and we plan to act on it.
Our feedback consisted of adding more content and features, including a map to fit the levels together nicely, and show just how close you are to getting the worm. Introduction of weapons on the maps was also another recommendation to spice up gameplay more.
Acting Upon Feedback- 18/05/2021
TOAD OUT OF THE HOLE
- Nice video intro and also link to your real toad – people like stories so tell us more about the toad!
- Great character design and animations – very distinctive
- Seagulls make great evil bosses – everyone knows they are evil
- Would be good to know more about the player you are targeting – maybe use Quantic Foundry’s segmentation model https://quanticfoundry.com/gamer-types/
- Marketing – Patreon could work – I think people could buy into original characters but maybe add some more ideas – how do you appeal to streamers, for example
- 1-2 hours is achievable in the scale of the game made at college so that’s fair
What I will be doing to act upon this feedback:
I will be designing concepts and ideas that, if we were to hypothetically continue our game’s development sometime in the future, we could work into the game. This equates to:
- Extended playtime (beyond college’s limitations) with new levels
- More fun and diverse play styles, with the introduction of weapons, new and interesting bosses and more
- co-op
Weapons system:
The weapons system could work in many ways, from multiple use to single use, projectile to companion AI. A lot of the ideas I have so far are in relation to the bosses we have designed, whether cut or not.
Some weapon ideas consist of A boomerang, a fish that throws up water, a beach ball launcher, and more.
Levels:
Our feedback also stated, during our pitch, that playtime is short but our reasoning was understandable. It is better to have more frequent levels than drawn out ones, so having a mix between those two elements could be interesting, with interesting ways to link them together. Here are some of the ideas I have had so far, in relation to a level select screen or chronological order of levels:
Level No. Name Boss
Level 1- Overworld forest- Captain Vermin
Level 2- Sewer- Giant Sludge Monster
Level 3- Beach- Crab boss
Level 4- Sand Castle- Floating jellyfish boss
Level 5- Desert- Scorpion mech
Level 6- Military Base- Fishguts
Level 7- Black Forest- Wizard toad
Level 8- castle- Rat King
Level 9- Mountain- Goat boss
Level 10- Volcano lands- Magma golem
Level 11- Secret Military base 2- Owl Pilot boss
Level 12- Zeppelin- Bobby
Level 13- Treetops- Bird
Level 14- swamp- sentient mushroom thing
Level 15- Crackbeak’s Nest- Crackbeak
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