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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Production

Production

Timeline

Logistics

​Battle Squirrels is a tower defense game that has the main heroine, Coco, defending her home from cyborg animals who have come to destroy the great big tree.

Aspects of the game:
Weapons to defeat the Cyborgs
Angle / point of view of character

Antagonist (Cyborgs)

Protagonist (Coco and the Squirrels)

Communication
​Main communication tools members of Battle Squirrels has been utilizing is the Facebook group, which is extremely useful based on the fact that its easily accessible and the notifications are helpful to keep up-to-date on any new information/sketches/ideas.

Asset management
Production specs
​Sprite Sheets/Character Development
​HTML
​Music / sound effects / etc
​
​Programs/Technical MamboJambo
 Adobe Flash
 TextWrangler
 Cyberduck
 CreateJS
 etc
​
Production conventions

We will be using the above mentioned Programs to create and facilitate our tower defense, Battle Squirrels, game.

Deliverables
​What can be accomplished within the next 2-3 weeks? Well, we can at least get a prototype up and running as well as get a more rock-solid idea of the background design including the angle of where the Coco will defend her home. If we have time we can create a really good-looking version of the game by the time of the final presentation—hopefully one that works across different platforms

Meeting times
**Included on the timeline

 

A bit of code to create a path for the enemies to travel.

The following is an example of some code that will allow us generate a path for the enemies to travel. This code is a good template to work from, and can be easily modified to create different paths for different levels. You can take a background image and use Photoshop or similar program to determine the X and Y coordinates (or way points) of your drawn path. You can then load those coordinates into the array contained in this code snippet, and theoretically it will generate a path for the enemies to follow that coincides with the path on your background image.

loadGame = function() {  var canvas = document.getElementById(‘main’);  stage = new Stage(canvas);

var mapImg = new Image();  mapImg.src = “images/map.jpg”;

var mapBitmap = new Bitmap(mapImg);  mapBitmap.regX = 0;  mapBitmap.regY = 0;

stage.addChild(mapBitmap);  stage.update(); }; var coordinates = [  [200, 0],  [177, 127],  [289, 152],  [480, 100],  [566, 131],  [575, 250],  [362, 262],  [78, 310],  [80, 394],  [288, 400] ]; var g = new Graphics();

for(var i = 1; i < coordinates.length; i++) {  var s = new Shape(g);  s.x = 0;  s.y = 0;

var point1 = coordinates[i-1];  var point2 = coordinates[i];

s.graphics   .setStrokeStyle(1)   .moveTo(point1[0], point1[1])   .beginStroke(Graphics.getRGB(255,0,0))   .lineTo(point2[0], point2[1]);

stage.addChild(s); }

stage.update();

 

Project Proposal

WingNutz, a team made up of people with awesomely varried skills, is going to be bringing you a tower dfense game. But not just any old tower defense game. WingNutz is proud to be working on Battle Squirrels: Protect Your Nuts. Our game will consist of 9 section “board” and a main tree (castle) that needs to be defended at all costs. This is the tree of life for the squirrels, where all their glorious nuts come from. The battle squirrels themselve will be additional defense towers, and can be placed anywhere on the board. The squirrels must protect the tree from an onslaught of monsterous creatures, half-animal-half-machine, from destroying their home. The enemies will be armed and posses special attack skills, all focused on destroying the squirrels who stand in their way. But the squirrels are far from being helpless, little chattering creatures. The Queen Warrior Squirrel, Coco, has the ability to hurl destructive acorns at the enemy from the tree of life. The othere battle squirrels too, posses devastating skill, artilliry and wepons. But they need your help to defend their home from pure destruction and mayham. With your tactical analysis, obersvation and strategy, you can lead the battle squirrel army to victory!

For the purpose of this project (and working within the constraints of the class schedule) we have developed a timeline for constructing our MVP (minimum viable product). Our MVP is a workable beta version of our game consisting of one tower (main tower, featuring Coco as defense), protecting against one attacking enemy. The basic game (after construction of MVP) is developed with the midset of massive expansion in the future. We already have multiple characters on-tap, with ideas for the advancement of levels, upgrades on defenses and weapons, and the like. We are primarily focusing on creating this game for a PC platform, but are also storing up ideas for a multi-platform development. Our main goal is to create a game that is fun-for-all, doesn’t have a repetitive feeling and inspires others through its awesomeness. And the fact that it has a bit of the ol’ “protect the forest from destruction” bit in there doesn’t hurt either!

 

Prototype Concept

This here is a concept for our game Battle Squirrels, drawn up by Mr. Vaughn! It give a general idea of what we are going for in this project. Battle Squirrels is a tower defense game, with 9 areas, or plots, to defend. The squirrels will defend the Tree of Nuts with their lives, keeping the nefarious creatures of darkness at bay. There will be many more concepts to follow this one as we progress further…however, for now, consider this our starting point. *squeak*

 

(4-22) First Group Meeting- Quick Notes

Battle squirrels “Protect Your Nuts”

Single level
Multiple character squirrels with different abilities defending “home” tree with 9 different plots on the ground ( future growth for aerial defense)
Coco maintains tree defense
Keystrokes for engaging defense from squirrels or automatic attack with special attack key strokes.
Enemy’s on 3 paths per plot
Obstacles on plots (re: rocks, holes, logs)
Open source coding for tower defense games
Animation ease
PC platform
Enemy: Machine/ Animal hybrid: gorilla lawn mower, badger w/ chainsaw arms, balloon snake
Everyone draw up concepts, source code (Give code sources to Adam)
Everyone tries some coding, everything!
Reward for completion is failed concept art 🙂
Code will be given to all in “packages”
MVP: 1 tower and 1 enemy
Owen lead artist others to give concept art
Background and scenery
Aesthetic: look at what’s out there and then apply, scientific + anime= awesome
Bone Tool in flash, symbols library
Direction is important!
Preproduction is first step ie. concept art from everyone
Vaughn begin on sound effects and music: Dragon Ball-z sound effects (?), random sound effects for hitting, random sounds
Music: 8-bit, slower paced, pan flute, metal song remixes.

 

Let it Begin!

Alright All!
Are you ready to have your mind blown?! Coming soon to a computer near you…Battle Squirrels! A totally rad, interactive game, where it will be up to you to “Save Your Nuts”! The brilliant minds behind this impressive idea will be constantly bantering about here, swapping ideas and the like. If you have anything awesome to add, please feel free to leave a comment! And keep those eyes trained here for the latest new about Battle Squirrels!