It is Finished…For Now

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Alissa Corman:

“Mother Hen”, Game Development, Concept Art, Game Background Design, Animation of Frog Enemy

Battle Squirrels: Protect Your Nuts has gone through many changes since my original pitch to the group which consisted of, “So there’s this squirrel right?…and…yeah.  That’s all I’ve got”. From the very beginning though, we have all been excited about making a game centered on squirrels (don’t ask me why, just sounded like fun, I guess). Each group member, including myself, has been great with contributing ideas and helping to develop the game.

As the “Mother Hen” of the group, I kept tabs on everyone’s progress and ran the Battle Squirrels blog. This meant I collected everyone’s work, posting concepts and animation iterations, as well as keeping notes on what new ideas we wanted to develop, what was said at meetings and keeping track of game development. Basically, I led from behind the curtain, trying to be involved in as many ways as I could.

I also really enjoy drawing, so I was privileged to be a part of the art team as well. I drew up some concept work and animated the frog enemy. I also created the background for the game. Working on these creative elements was interesting because I had to challenge myself to fuse everyone’s artistic style with my own to retain a consistent aesthetic. I am happy to say I think I rose to the challenge and am quite pleased with the results.

I also worked closely with Vaughn, our sound technician, becoming the voice of Coco. After a few recordings Vaughn worked his magic and although Coco started out sounding very much like me, she now has a voice of her own.

The “Mother Hen” is very proud of the work that each group member has put in to make Battle Squirrels as awesome as it is.

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Kyle Golden: 

Game Development, Concept Art, Animation of Badger Enemy Character and Acorn Projectile

Having experience in game concept art and 2D animation lead to my involvement in the games artistic development. I was paired with just about everyone in the group. This was fortunate, a wide variety of people meant an influx of a wide variety of ideas as to which direction the game should move artistically. I am also happy to say that all the artists resonated so well that no single participant’s style became the style everyone was made to adapt to. I’ve observed a blend of styles. My biological illustration background moved into the cartoon style of Owen’s, and our art was coupled with all the ideas we wanted to included in the game. Now we have an army of animal-machine hybrids hell bent on the destruction Koko’s forest.

Example of how the co-creation worked: original concepts were made by Owen, I took one of those concepts into animation.

This instance I fear doesn’t happen all to often though. Research into post-mortems lead me to discover how a leader in the visual department is necessary for a product to have a strong visual theme through out. With out a creative head production slows down as well. I’m not saying we were halted at any point, but we didn’t follow a protocol that is the norm of what happens in the industry.

I had to make my concept art more cartoonish, something I’m comfortable doing but don’t do often. I looked at artwork from games like Castle Crashers and Super Meat Boy. I chose those because they weren’t impossible to imitate and their style was made for flash games. I even delved into non-electronic work like table top game Mouseguard. The feature of woodland creatures had an obvious influence on what I made.

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Owen Ellis: 

Game Development, Concept Art, Animation of Main Character Coco

From the beginning what I felt to be most important, as an artist and graphic designer, was for us to choose a unique art direction for the game. I knew I wanted it to stand out and be recognizable as well as easy to animate and re-create.

I started out by looking up and sketching various drawings of squirrels, from realistic –

to very cartoonish:

Eventually I settled upon a flowy, catchy style that was simple, easy to reproduce and color, and looked good.

I tried out different styles with coloring and backgrounds as well,

such as bright, simple color palettes and colored outlines to make everything stand out.

I drew the main character many times to get a feel for her personality, so it would come across through the art and animations in-game, making her memorable and loveable.

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Vaughn Swanson:

Game Development, Sound Effects and Music

• In our initial pitch, the game was meant to be a platform/adventure type of game. This was revised, and Battle Squirrels became a tower defense.
• Tower defense music has particular feel.
  • Driving, but slower pace.
  • Music emulates gameplay in that it ‘builds’ in complexity, dynamic, etc.
  • Must be able to loop
• Having researched the music of various Tower Defense soundtracks, I then sought ideas that supported the game’s concept/art as well.
  • To emphasize the contrast between the woodland creatures and their diabolical cyborg counterparts, I wanted the music to be a mix of traditional acoustical instrumentation mixed with synths and mechanical/electrical/technological sound effects.
  • I wanted the main theme to sound determined, with the variations to sound menacing, urgent, etc.
  • So I wrote the theme following these parameters.
• If an additional theme was needed, I wanted more of a laidback, peaceful theme. This could be implemented at the end, at the Main Menu screen, or during a cut-scene prior to the game beginning. A contrast from the main games song.
• As with the music, the concept informed the sounds.
• For Coco, we had our fearless leader Alissa do some voice acting.
  • For a little more squirrel and a little less human, I tweaked the pitch and speed.
• For the cyborg enemies, I wanted to combine the sound of the animals with their machine’s sound.
• • For example, chainsaw badger’s call is a mix between a growl and the sound of a chainsaw.
  • Jaw frog is a mix between a frog’s call and the hydraulic lift of a large machine.

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Adam Corman: 

Game Development, Code Master, Win/Try Again Screen Design & Creation

As I sat down and began to code the game Battle Squirrels, I gained great respect for all game coders.

The coding journey was filled with learning and frustration. As the subsequent coding sessions came and

went, the scope of the project became more dynamic. It quickly became apparent that good game

coders have a great team behind them. When the degree of coding expertise needed exceeded my own,

we were able to come together as a group and adapt the game to better suit my abilities. Although

coding Battle Squirrels tested my abilities as well as my patience at times, I had a lot of fun watching the

puzzle come together.

I also created the pop-up screens for the end of the game, displaying either “You Win!” or “Try Again”.  These screens were relatively easy to create because I used pre-established elements from the start screen to create a full-circle aesthetic effect. I decided that it looked much cleaner than if I were to introduce an entirely new graphic.

In further iterations of Battle Squirrels we hope to include more functionality, more fluid operation,

increasing levels of difficulty, possible animated shorts between levels, and more unusual –make you say

what- enemies.

vvv Below is a little snippet of code from our game that I wrote: vvv

queue.loadManifest([

{id:”background-sound”, src:”sound/BattleTheme.mp3″},

{id:”acorn-sound”, src:”sound/AcornSound.wav”},

{id:”bandgerA-sound”, src:”sound/BadgerA.wav”},

{id:”badgerB-sound”, src:”sound/BadgerB.wav”},

{id:”cocoAngry-sound”, src:”sound/CocoAngry.wav”},

{id:”cocoThrow-sound”, src:”sound/CocoThrow.wav”},

{id:”frog-sound”, src:”sound/Frog.wav”}

]);

                {id:”background-sound”, src:”sound/BattleTheme.mp3″},

                {id:”acorn-sound”, src:”sound/AcornSound.wav”},

                {id:”bandgerA-sound”, src:”sound/BadgerA.wav”},

                {id:”badgerB-sound”, src:”sound/BadgerB.wav”},

                {id:”cocoAngry-sound”, src:”sound/CocoAngry.wav”},

                {id:”cocoThrow-sound”, src:”sound/CocoThrow.wav”},

                {id:”frog-sound”, src:”sound/Frog.wav”}

                                ]);

                var coco;

                //var frameRate=30;     

                //createJS code here

                var myStage;

                var badger;

                var frog;

                var myImage;

                var myImage2;

                var nut;

                var badgerSoundCounter = 0;

                var badgerCounter = 0;

                var frogCounter = 0;

                var badgerKill;

                var frogKill;

                var score = 0;

                var nutCounter =0;

                var titleView;

                var bg;

                var start;

                var loadCounter;

                var frogSoundInstance;

                var backgroundInstance;

                var nutThrowingSoundInstance;

                var badgerSoundInstance;

                var badgerDieSoundInstance;

                var scoreDisplay = new createjs.Text(score.toString() + ” points”, “40px Arial”, “#FFFFFF”);

                function init(){

                                myStage = new createjs.Stage(document.getElementById(“myCanvas”));

              createjs.Ticker.setFPS(30);

createjs.Ticker.addEventListener(“tick”, drawNewFrame);

                badger = new wholebagd();

                badger.x =1475;

                badger.y = Math.random() * 250 +400;

                badger.scaleX = .23;

                badger.scaleY = .3;

                createjs.Ticker.setFPS(30);

                createjs.Ticker.addEventListener(“tick”, drawNewFrame);

                myStage.addChild(badger);

                myStage.update();

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Amanda Denbeck:

Game Development, Organization, Concept Art, Start-Screen Design & Creation, Logo Design & Creation

^ Created by Amanda Denbeck

Throughout the project, we have been thinking of the future–understanding that what we have been creating are prototypes, earlier versions of what could be. We hope to further develop the game to be fully functioning with eye-catching animations and backgrounds, different levels, characters, and weapons, etc. We want to create a game that consumers will never want to stop playing. By creating a game menu, it shows that we are looking towards that future and that we look forward to this promise of the future of Battle Squirrels.

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Art Direction

From the beginning what I felt to be most important, as an artist and graphic designer, was for us to choose a unique art direction for the game. I knew I wanted it to stand out and be recognizable as well as easy to animate and re-create.

I started out by looking up and sketching various drawings of squirrels, from realistic –

to very cartoonish:

Eventually I settled upon a flowy, catchy style that was simple, easy to reproduce and color, and looked good.

I tried out different styles with coloring and backgrounds as well,

such as bright, simple color palettes and colored outlines to make everything stand out.

I drew the main character many times to get a feel for her personality, so it would come across through the art and animations in-game making her memorable and loveable.

 

The Music & Sound of Battle Squirrels

• In our initial pitch, the game was meant to be a platform/adventure type of game. This was revised, and Battle Squirrels became a tower defense.
• Tower defense music has particular feel.
  • Driving, but slower pace.
  • Music emulates gameplay in that it ‘builds’ in complexity, dynamic, etc.
  • Must be able to loop
• Having researched the music of various Tower Defense soundtracks, I then sought ideas that supported the game’s concept/art as well.
  • To emphasize the contrast between the woodland creatures and their diabolical cyborg counterparts, I wanted the music to be a mix of traditional acoustical instrumentation mixed with synths and mechanical/electrical/technological sound effects.
  • I wanted the main theme to sound determined, with the variations to sound menacing, urgent, etc.
  • So I wrote the theme following these parameters.
• If an additional theme was needed, I wanted more of a laidback, peaceful theme. This could be implemented at the end, at the Main Menu screen, or during a cut-scene prior to the game beginning. A contrast from the main games song.
• As with the music, the concept informed the sounds.
• For Coco, we had our fearless leader Alyssa do some voice acting.
  • For a little more squirrel and a little less human, I tweaked the pitch and speed.
• For the cyborg enemies, I wanted to combine the sound of the animals with their machine’s sound.
• • For example, chainsaw badger’s call is a mix between a growl and the sound of a chainsaw.
  • Jaw frog is a mix between a frog’s call and the hydraulic lift of a large machine.