Production Report ‘North Penitentiary’

Luca JorgensonComputer Games Design Level 3

Proposal

The name of the game I will be designing is called 'North Penitentiary'. North Penitentiary is a game where you play as a hired prison breaker that helps people escape out of an incredibly high security prison called North Penitentiary. The prison is in another dimension, and the protagonist is able to enter it due to travelling from this dimension to the other through a portal that opens up in the prison. The protagonist breaks the prisoner out and gets paid for it. For my final product, I will produce two posters, one showing the protagonists, and one showing the enemies and the main antagonist. I will also produce a piece of concept art for the game, showing a typical element of gameplay in the prison environment. I have 8 weeks to complete these two posters, and I will compete all using Photoshop. Over the 8 weeks, I will develop my ideas starting on paper, then finalising them on Photoshop so I can then narrow it down to just three, so I can then polish the chosen posters up to be presented on my website and in the presentation that we are doing at the end of this project.

GenreThe genre of my game would be mainly Sci-fi and Stealth, with an element of action. This is due to the game being mainly about the protagonist attempting to escape the prison he is incarcerated in. The Sci-fi element refers to the other dimension aspect of the whole game, and finally the action part is when you eventually find weapons in the game to help you escape, although this is not a major part of the game and would only feature at the end.

PlatformMy game would be available on all major platforms. This would mean you could buy it on an Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC. I decided on this because I think that it would always be an advantage to have it available for most because you are more likely to get more sales compared to a game that is exclusive to one console.

Target MarketThe target market for my game would be 16+. This is due to many different aspects of the game, but mainly because of both the violence the game would feature (due to the game being in a prison, which is usually considered to be a violent place) and the difficulty as parts of the game may be too hard for younger players which would potentially give the game negative reviews if it was given a younger age limit.

Market ResearchPersonally, I think that my game idea is definitely viable because of multiple reasons. Firstly, games that have a similar combination of genres sell incredibly well, for example Portal and Portal 2, sold a total of 7 million hard copies, which is excluding the purchases of the game using the online shop Steam, which would add at least 1 million more for each game. Another similar game would be the Assassin’s Creed series. From the 9 full games they have released, Ubisoft have sold over 100 million copies of the Assassin’s Creed games. This clearly shows that the style of game I have chosen is a popular theme in video gaming and most likely be popular if I did make it.

FundingTo fund my game, I think the best way would be to pitch my idea to a larger company that have enough money to fund my game. The positives of this idea are that I would not have to put any money into it myself, the idea would most likely be bought off me. I would also be paid quite a significant amount if they did like the game idea. The negatives of this idea are that it would be difficult to get such an opportunity with a large company without any connection with the company in the first place. Even if I did manage to get a meeting set up with people from this company, everything would rest on that one pitch and of they didn’t like the idea, I would have no way of funding my game, making it impossible to make. Another method would be to sign up to a ‘fund me’ website, like Kickstarter or GoFundMe. These websites allow you to upload information about your project for the public to read, and if they decide they want the project to be created, they can send you money through the website. Many games have begun on pages like this, for example Shadowrun and Shovel Knight.

Facilities and ResourcesUnlike how it would be if I did this in the real games industry, I am able to use all the facilities and resources that college supplies, free of charge. For my case, this includes the computers available, the resources like pencils, paper, pens and colouring pencils. I was also able to use the software on the computer, for example the program called Maya. Maya is 3D modelling software that allows you to create 3 dimensional scenes with lighting and shadows, I used this when creating my example if gameplay scene for my game. Another example of software I use on the college computers is Photoshop. I used Photoshop to draw out all my designs for my 2 posters I did for my final pieces. Photoshop is used mainly for digital painting and editing images.

Production ScheduleAs I mentioned earlier in the proposal, we all had 8 weeks to complete our projects, and to help me plan my project out, I made a Gantt chart. The Gantt chart shows how I will plan out all the aspects of my project so I can break it down to help me manage my time well. My Gantt chart is below, I have colour coded it to make sure I don’t repeat work and to help me stay on track.

Project ManagementFortunately, I managed to keep to my Gantt chart fairly well, although I fell behind slightly at the end of the project due to last minute decisions. If I were to repeat this project I would concentrate more on managing my time much better as I now know how important it is. The following links are of my production diaries that I filled out each week. They show how I progressed throughout my project and again assisted me in continuing to progress.

Week 1 - 24/04/17production-diary 21.04.17Week 2 - 31/04/17production-diary-30-04-17Week 3 - 05/05/17production-diary 05.05.17Week 4 - 12/05/17production-diary 12.05.17Week 5 - 18/05/17production-diary 18.05.17Week 6 - 26/05/17production-diary 26.05.17Week 7 - 02/06/17production-diary 02.06.17Week 8 - 05/06/17production-diary 05.06.17

CopyrightThe definition of copyright is the exclusive and assignable legal right, given to the originator for a fixed number of years, to print, publish, perform, film, or record literary, artistic, or musical material. Which means that if I were to use content of any kind that someone else has assigned a copyright to, then that would be in violation of the law. For my artwork, there should be no infringement of copyright at all as it is all my own work. Although, I did use the company Valve’s logo in my final piece to show how it would look like in a real game advertisement. This would be an infringement of copyright and I’m sure that Valve would sue the company that makes the game for using their logo on something they had nothing to do with. As for my game as a whole, I believe there should be no issues with copyright, as the only thing similar to other games is the fact it is a prison escape type of game, and as far as I am aware, this is not in violation of copyright as it is merely a game type and not actual content copied from someone else’s work.

Ideas Development - Protagonist Poster

Initial Face Design

The images above are my first designs for the face of my main character in my game. The first two designs I decided not use for my

protagonist, due to the fact that they look way to

unproportioned and slightly exaggerated for the style I am going for. The larger image is the one I will develop into my main character. I now need to trace over this in Photoshop and then add the necessary detail to get the style I want for my game.

 

Body and Position Design

This image is a design I did to test the position I want for my protagonist on the poster. I am going to have him facing the camera possibly holding a gun, or holding something else. I obviously need to improve on this by adding colour and detail, but I am not yet certain on the position I want my character to be in. Once I have decided how I want my protagonist to stand, I will draw it out and scan it into Photoshop to add detail and shading as well as colour.

I used this model above to help with the stance I wanted. Although its movement is restricted and unrealistic to human movements, it still helped me with the drawing above. I would also use this manikin to get the positions for my other main character and my enemies because they are all humanoid figures.

 Further Developments

The above image is a drawing I did using the facial structure of the larger image of the initial drawings. I think that the eyes and possibly the nose are the best features but the proportions of the face are off and need adjusting as I want more of a realistic art style in my game and my posters.

In this image, I have continued to draw on this as I decided that the previous image needed hair, stubble and shading to help it look more natural and realistic. I think that it partially worked although I do need to develop this further in Photoshop as this is how my final piece will be set out. 

I then imported the drawing into Photoshop to draw over. I outlined the image and added the skin colour and a basic hair colour so I can then draw over and shade it. I did this because it is easier to do it in stages rather than randomly. I feel like I can get a better result using this method.

As I did for my drawing, I also added some facial hair to give the character a slightly more detailed and realistic look. I have also started drawing the eyes, the eyes are incredibly important because they can determine the art style and realism of the poster.

This is the final poster design, I have added the title and release date to make it more like a real advertising poster. The background is supposed to be a form of height indication as the poster is in fact a mugshot of the main character, although the numbers are from the other dimension (as I mentioned in the proposal) and this is why they are different. I think that the blood on his shirt would intrigue viewers of the poster as well as the numbers on the height board. As for improvements on the previous image, the hair is finished, I used the dodge and burn tools on Photoshop to give it a realistic look with both highlights and shadows, I think this worked well and gave me the look that I wanted. I finally added the shadows on both the face and the background. This really made the image much more 3 dimensional and gave it the polished look I wanted for my final piece.

Idea Development – Antagonist Poster

Initial Drawings

The three images above are the initial drawings I made for the antagonist of the game. Similar to the protagonist, this poster will be of a mugshot taken of the character before he is taken to prison. This character is actually from the other dimension where the prison is set, which is why I decided to make the person look unusual. At this point in the project I hadn't decided what differences I wanted, which is why all three are very different. 

Unlike my development on the protagonist, I decided to go straight in to Photoshop to create the image above. I did this mainly because on the other poster, I was having trouble getting the art style I wanted, and I found it much easier to draw it out by hand, but for this one, I now know how I wanted my art style to be like. Additionally, I didn't need this character to look completely human, in fact I wanted him to look like there was something off about him, due to him being from another dimension. 

In this picture I have now added colour and detail in the eyes, but it still needs more detail like shading and possibly more facial details like imperfections and other details. I also need to add the same background as I did on the protagonist poster because both are supposed to be mugshots of the prisoners.

As you can see, I have now added shading on the face and neck, and added the background. The background is supposed to be the same as the other, although this character is supposed to be taller than the protagonist, which is why the height marker shows the numbers higher up. I finally need to do more work on the shading and more detail on the nose and eyes.

This is the final piece, I have decided to add some cuts and bruises onto his face to give it more detail and more of a realistic feel, as well as hopefully intrigue the potential audience that would see the poster as they would be wondering why he has the cuts on his face. As I have done for the other poster, I added the title in the stencil font and the date of release. I chose this font because it is regularly associated with prisons and prisoners as it is the font used on the prison uniform. I finally added the shadow on the background like I did for the previous poster, this helps it get a more 3 dimensional feel to it and adds to the realism but still keeps to the art style.

Idea Development – Environment Scene

Initial Drawing

This is one of the first drawings I did for my environment. It is an example of the cafeteria in the game, with the game in 3rd person which is why you can see the back of the playable character. As this is just an initial drawing, it is all out of proportion and it is purely just so I can get an idea of what I want for my final piece. The people are just simple outlines and examples but I'm most likely not going to have any people in my final piece, to save time and to not ruin the style. As well as this piece is supposed to be an environment example, not a character example.

I then went into Photoshop and started to develop this image above, which as you can see it is a similar drawing to the pencil drawing I did earlier. I need to add tables and more detail in the shading. As you can tell, I added textures on the walls and floor to show more detail, because

without the textures it looked very bland and was the wrong art style to my other posters.

Now that I have added the tables and chairs the image is looking a little more like a cafeteria, although the perspective on the tables and chairs are off and they don't really fit with the background and they need changing before I finish this piece. I will hopefully do this by adding textures to the tables and removing the black rings around the chairs and tables to make it look more realistic.

 Further Development

Unfortunately, I decided that the previous Photoshop image didn't suit the environment I was trying to portray, so I made a decision that I wanted my final piece for my environment to be in 3D to make it more true to the actual game. I used a program called Maya to develop this first image above. As you may be able to tell, the 3 dimensional scene above is of one of the tables from both my original hand drawing, and from the Photoshop image that I did before this. I am relatively happy with this, although I think that the tables will need a texture to make it look how I

want it to. I would also like to put more details on like some kind of reflection and shine to it.

 Final ImagesAll the images below are of my rendered scene of my final environment. As I said earlier, this room is the cafeteria in the prison that the game is set in. I decided that I wanted the tables to be hexagonal just because it seemed more appropriate and it makes the overall scene more aesthetic in my opinion. I have added the windows to the room that I had on both of my previous drawings, I did this by adding blue walls outside, and then shining area lights directly at the blue wall to create a sun and sky feel to it. As you can see I also added the doors because it still looked a bit bland and lacked detail. In the final version, I have added textures to both the walls and the floor, they are both concrete textures although they are different types of concrete. The metal bars are supposed to have a shiny texture (although I'm not sure it rendered properly) and the tables have a plastic shine texture on them so they do have an element of reflection, but it’s not as prominent as some of the other textures.

 

Evaluation

Overall, I am quite pleased with the end products of my project. I think my three end products are relatively strong pieces of work and I am happy with the outcome. Although if I were to do this project again I would definitely try to improve certain aspects of my work. For example, my time management was probably the biggest down fall of this project as I have had to leave a lot of work to the very end. Next time doing a project like this I need to remind myself of this project when organising my time because it has made it difficult to finish my project to my full potential. As for the game idea, I believe that it is completely viable and could quite easily become a real game one day with effort put into it. If I were to go back and change my final pieces, I would start by making my prison cafeteria scene much more obvious that it is set in another dimension. Although I am happy with the outcome, it could easily be set in any prison from this world, and I think I needed it to be a bit more obvious that it was inside this other dimension. I would have also liked to put prisoners in the cafeteria scene just so the people looking at it get more of a feel for what the game would be like walking around the cafeteria. If I had more time, I would have also devoted more time towards my posters, just because I think I would prefer them to have more obvious details like wrinkles and veins etc. Finally, If I were to continue this project to lead towards actually making the game, I think my next step would be to write the full story of the game out, beginning, middle and end. I would do this before anything else because once the story is written out and everyone on the project is aware of each major aspect of the story, I would then be able to start on the script. The script needs to be developed before the actual creation of the game because the voice actors and actresses need to record their parts so that the animators can make the characters move their mouths and make their body language suit how the actors read the script.