Cutlery Clue images

Yo yo~

Obviously I have no life, and thus, I present to you an array of images to accompany the odd cutlery clue mini-game. I figured since I've only got 7 objects there so far, we could re-use one or two since only 1 would be correct for each of the 3 clues.

I haven't fixed up a "clue panel lifted up to reveal the description of the object" image just yet, but that won't take me long. Likewise if we want 2 more object images I can knock those up later. Let me know what you think and if they suffice.

Just so the rest are aware. The idea is 3 objects will be on display, and you'll be given the clue/question (taken from the display in the gallery). You'll then select which of the objects you think is correct, then hit a button on the bottom right of the panel (which I haven't done yet) to "check answer" and the panel will lift up and reveal the description etc. if you're right. Afterward, everything will slide along and you'll be given another 3 objects to choose from along with another clue. In total, you'll guess 3 different objects.

As a final note. I'm pretty sure the University is completely closed on Friday. So I vote we meet in the Winter Gardens (big greenhouse bit) or something and if anyone has a laptop or mac-book we can all plug hard drives into there for some show-and-tell.

Final candlestick game images

Hey hey,

Not sure if these are quite right, but I can rustle up better images further down the line when we get to the fine-tuning stages. If i missed any just let me know Simon.

I also made up a little image for all the Tommy Turtle limbs. I was wondering which games should have which pieces etc. As far as i know, we need five sets of pieces (candlesticks, spoons, drawers, quiz, and odd cutlery game). So I figure we can have the tail, the two front legs/fins, the two back legs/fins, the shell, and the head. This would leave the underside of the shell as a base that you would have from the beginning.

The top two are his front left and back left limbs, the bottom two being the opposite, and the one on the right is the tail. We've already got the upper shell in the drawer game... and i don't feel like doing the head cuz i wanna make a nicer job of that piece.

Clue Game Prototype

Gamemaker was being an absolute c*** but I've eventually managed to knock out a working prototype. Still needs some fine tuning and I'll add in the animated gifs when I'm using the final images but the foundation of the game is there.

Crunchy Candlesticks

Aight!

Let it be known for the record, I do not like candlesticks anymore... Here are the last 2 candlesticks, but if we decide on having 6 just let me know and I can pop one more out. Hope you guys like them. (I also tweaked the first one again).

Here's the tweaked background as well. I think all that's missing now are the buttons and the message that should go across the top. I'll get on those next probably.

Monday Merciful Mudblood Macing

Okay guys, good meeting today. We're essentially getting gown to the finer points of our project this week.

Note: Ben and Chris were absent due to being out of town and ill respectively.

We went over the Quiz and Info NPC details, think everything is clear on that now, just need to fine tune the dialogue i.e. make the answers shorter etc. Anthony has been looking into sound a little and is playing with one or two pieces of software to try putting some music together. I can't remember the software names, one was called Acid, the other was something like Jamster.

We talked a little about the other characters, and agreed on the three in my previous post with the ticks next to them, so that'll be a task for this week. We were trying to decide if the character will only face one direction, of if they can turn to face the hero when he interacts with them. For now we're going have them be static, but if we have time we can add the changing face direction afterward.

Talking about the 3d plate intro video Simon put together, we agreed the camera will move a little differently at the beginning but otherwise it's perfect. That just leaves some Aftereffects magic of adding in the titles etc.

Simon also discussed his idea for the 'odd cutlery' game and we went through a few sketches and plans for it during the meeting. It's looking really nice, so I'll upload one of the sketches and give a description of how it'll work. It's still a bit of a back-burner at the moment as we have more pressing matters.

Anywho, onto the tasks for this week. Hopefully we can have most of these down by Friday and meet up Friday lunchtime as the rest of us felt another meeting would be beneficial.

ACTION PLAN:

Anthony

• Main focus, Polishing the Quiz and Info NPC dialogue up.
• Continuing sound experimentation.
• Putting titles etc into the 3d plate video after final adjustments and rendering are done.

Simon

• Changing camera movement for the beginning of the 3d plate intro video.
• Creating prototype of the ''Odd Cutlery' mini-game in Game Maker
• Possibly continuing the Candlesticks mini-game that Chris has made a start on. Please sort that out between the two of you.

Ben

• Not sure where you're at with things Ben, can you give us an update via blog please?
• Main focus, get the spoons images finished up by Friday, including background etc. We need that mini-game complete soon.
• NPC designs (like security guard) and music/sound work, but these will have to wait till after spoons.

Chris

• Did you manage to fix the sprite walking left and right animations?
• Main focus, finish off the spoons mini-game in Game Maker by Friday.
• Possibly more with the candlesticks mini-game, please speak to Simon about it thanks.

John

• Main focus, Finishing off candlesticks images.
• Inking and colouring NPC designs that the team agreed on.
• Images for the 'Odd Cutlery' game based on Simon's idea.
• Back-burner stuff = second set of images for contents of the animated drawers. Transition images for going between the museum and the mini-games when interacting with NPCs. These can wait.

OKAY, so if everyone can aim to have their main focus finished by Friday this week, then we can meet again Friday lunchtime and go from there.

Right now we really need to focus on completing the mini-games we've started so that next week we can put the pieces together and start polishing off finer details.

NEXT MEETING: Friday 2nd April 12:00noon. Possibly outside Harmer 2303 but I'll double check that the building is open before this. If anyone can't make Friday just let me know and we can rearrange it maybe.

Candlesticks and Characters

Hey guys,

Tweaked one of the candlesticks and managed to knock another one out today. Think the rest will be quicker to do thankfully.

Also thought I'd upload some sketches I came out with for more NPCs. I can ink up and colour whichever ones anyone likes, I put a little tick next to the ones I prefer.

p.s. I rendered the file of the plate you sent me Simon, at 800x600. Looks really nice.

Candlesticks progress

Hi guys, Think I'm getting somewhere with candlesticks but still a little iffy. Thought I'd show you what I've got at the moment. Been struggling for time a lot this week but I've still got tomorrow. I did a few NPC sketches as well, so I'll maybe upload those tomorrow if I can make some better ones.

Plate Redone

I've changed the map on the plate and I think it looks much better now, here's a few screens from the animation.

Plate animation

Alright, so I've done the modelling of the plate and gave it a decent texture. Here's some screens from the animation I've rendered, might want to change it before final handin but for now I'm pretty happy.

Monday Monkey Minkling

Okay, meeting notes yada yada.

We had the usual show-and-tell and everyone's been making progress.
For now our main focus is still the mini-games, then next week or the week after we can work on polishing I think.

Anthony, I guess this paragraph is just for you. It was good to see the Quiz NPC work you've done on the blog today, we all liked the questions and some of the information/answers. We're concerned you've made it unnecessarily large though, as it needs to be kept very simple (for game mechanics and because it's a "mini"-game). The group agreed we need it to be a case of a Quiz NPC who just asks you 4 (team voted 4 was suitable number) questions and you'll have multiple choice answers. The rest of the NPCs will just state information we take from the information boards (in their own friendly manner, like your nice dialogue). So there isn't a running back and forth between all the NPCs scenario, and it's the players prerogative whether they find the NPCs with the information or not.

We especially liked the idea that the Quiz NPC has a test to practice for etc. so please don't be dissuaded by the above :). It just needs cleaned up and simplified a little, i.e. buff out the info statements to be a little larger and come up with one more question and info statement.

Anyway, the ACTION PLAN is as follows:

ANTHONY:

• If you can clean up and finish the Quiz and info NPC stuff then that'll be done and dusted which will be great. Any questions just gimme a shout as I probably rambled on above.
• I dunno how much time you've got with current circumstances but if you can look into music to accompany the mini-games, cut-scenes, intro etc. See what you can create (as opposed to us ripping from anymore titles).

BEN:

• Continuing with the oh-so-wonderful spoooooooooooons designs.
• Continuing his NPC designs such as the security guard, professor-esque guy, and little girl.
• Looking into sounds/music for mini-games, cut-scenes, intro etc.

SIMON:

• Modeling the 3d plate with engravings for the intro video.
• Any spare time can be thrown towards whichever of the mini-games.

CHRIS:

• Getting hold of Game Maker 8 since we've established it's much better than 7.
• Fixing the walking left and right sprite for the hero in the main game.
• Setting up a template for the candlestick mini-game ready for images.

JOHN:

• Continuing with the joys of candlestick creation.
• Coming up with a few more NPC designs to dot around the virtual museum.

So that's about it. Just so we're all aware, there are a few things we have on the backburner that we'll need to get around to doing too. These are things like the stylized images we're going to have displaying on screen when you interact with NPCs (with comic transitions between virtual museum, to interaction, to mini-game) and if we have the time then a final mini-game which can be the odd cutlery if we come up with a solid idea.

Lastly, we don't have classes next week but we'll meet and do the show-and-tell and another action plan as usual.
MEETING OUTSIDE HARMER 2303 - Monday 29th, 12:00 noon.

ok just jumped on hospitals wifi...

So this is what ive got so far im on the 3rd picture from the information boards...

NPC - Q = person asking questions
HERO - A = Hero's possible answers to above question asker (1 = option 1) (2 = option 2)
NPC - generic NPC
NPC - GUARD - Guard of museum
NPC - Curator - Curator of exhibition

so theres the key...

NPC - Q - Hey, i was wondering if you could help me, i've got a test tomorrow on the metal museum and i'm panicing, i just dont understand the information boards. Can you help me?

HERO - A - (1) Yeh Sure! What's the first question. (2) Sorry dude, I'm abit busy at the moment. Maybe later.

(all questions are assuming the player clicks 1)

NPC - Q - So first off i need to know when Sheffield's silver industry began, Can you find out that for me?

HERO - A - (1) I'm on it! (2) I'll look into it a little bit later, bit busy right now!

NPC - Hi there, did you know that the sheffield silver industry began in the 1760's thats 250 decades ago, how amazing is that.

NPC - Q - Can you find out what the hallmark for sheffield is, i think that will be on my test?

HERO - A - (1) I'll go ask the guard he will know. (2) I'll come back in a few miniutes.

NPC - GUARD - Yes can tell you what the hallmark for sheffield is, i can also show you, (shows hallmark with crossable icon for continued talk) This hallmark is a yorkshire rose and we've used it since 1975.

NPC - Q - I'm really stuck on this next one, my history teacher gave me a qoute but i need to know who said it and why they said it. The qoute is "a town of considerable note for this manufactures". Can you foind out for me who said this?

HERO - A - (1) I'll just go ask the curator. (2) I will have to get back to you i need to explore a little first.

NPC - CURATOR - Yeah I know that qoute. It's on this board (take HERO to the board to read) (bring up growth of the sheffield Industry)

NPC - Q - Thanks for helping me out so far, but i've still got a few questions. I keen to know the difference between "Hollowware" and "Flatware"

HERO - A - (1) I know who i can ask for this. (2) Maybe later, i need to find the remains of tommy for somebody else.

NPC - Yeah, i know the answer, i just read about it. "Hollowware" means hollow metalwork, like teapots and candlesticks, even a flat tray. BUT "Flatware" is used for describing spoons, forks and serving impliments. Anything but knives because they are classed as "Cutlery"

______________________________________________________________

Ok so thats what ive got so far.... i didnt know how you wanted it worded so i did it how i assumed it would be... if that makes sence kind of informal but more understandable to the younger generation.

Only half way down on the info boards so quite a decent NPC script system.

Time to go back to the daddy...

will research into sound and send the scissor pics when im bk in sheffield.

3D plate

Met with John at gallery this morning to get some images of the plates that were the basis for our 3D intro video. Managed to get some good images and from them I've came up with this drawing to use as a blueprint for modelling the plate. I'll get started on the modelling tommorow, shouldn't take too long and then the animating should be even quicker, so all is looking good. If anyone isn't happy with the drawing let me know and we can change it .

Draw Revamped

Started redoing the draw last week with the new images John drew up, making more animated GIFs goody : )
As a little extra this week I've put in the final new images, you can now click on any object and get it's details up, I put in an animation for tommy being grabbed (more animated GIFS!) and I replaced all the sprite images on Gamemaker 8 so no annoying edges. I've exported it as an executable so hopefully I can show everyone Monday.

Colossal Candlestick Creations

Bleh, personally I think this looks like trash... But I wanted to show what I had so far since I've wasted enough time on it. The shading on the candlestick is pretty abysmal, but I think I've got the technique down for using paths to cut shapes out etc. for easier shading... I'll have another go with a simpler candlestick probably. I'll be grabbing some more reference photos from the gallery tomorrow if anyone would like any in particular.

A little stumped on how the background should look too, it needs something else to add interest and my brain isn't helping me out. Any input would be appreciated.

Who needs to get out more? John needs to get out more...

Okay guys, just posting up the message my primary school teacher sister sent me. I've googled some of it already and it's good to play around with if anyone's struggling with ideas etc.

"Interactive software in school, we have used mathsphere, we use education city, I'm looking at something like mathsletics oh and bbc bitesize is good too. Woodlands Junior Kent school have some good interactive game links too. Just google any of these to find out more."

Mathsphere
Education City
Mathsletics
BBC Bitesize
Woodlands Junior Kent School - Interactive section

Monday Moogle Mooching Mobsters

Okay, there wasn't a whooooooole ton of new topics this week as a contrast to last week.

Ben was absent for today, though he was in touch to let us know why and is continuing his work. Also, Ben, if you're having any troubles with software or anything else interfering with things just give me a shout and we can always change things up a little :).

Anyway, we were introduced to Anthony's candlestick minigame design and it looks promising. We discussed how feasible it will be to create in Game Maker and some of the changes we might need to make to it.

We were fiddling around a little with Game Maker and I think there are one or two bonuses to version 8 compared to 7 (which is what the university pcs currently have installed). This might be worth looking into as Simon and I were trying things with how clean the edges on the sprites were so we might have even BETTER looking shiznit by the end of this.

Otherwise, everyone has plenty to be carrying on with for now and a few additional tasks that we can spread between us:

CHRIS -

• Editing the virtual museum character sprites for the walking animation, to reduce our protagonist's hip swagger..
• Tweaking the virtual museum camera to zoom closer in, therefore encouraging the player to adventure more since they can't see everything on screen at once. Let's us show off more detail too.
• Setting up a template in Game Maker for the spoons minigame ready for Ben's artwork.
• Experimenting more with 3ds Max (as we'll never keep him off it).

SIMON - 

• Continuing work for the 'odd cutlery' minigame.
• 3ds Max work with engravings and the M logo. Kinda of continuing what Chris has been working with (for variation).
• Finishing off the drawer minigame once I complete and send the final images.

BEN - 

• Continuing working on the spoons design (which looks awesome from the below post I might add).
• Continuing the cleaned up designs of a few NPCs

ANTHONY - 

• Coming up with the questions for the Quiz NPC based on the information on the previous blog posts research.
• Trying out some designs for candlesticks ready for the minigame.
• Looking into sounds for characters or background music for parts of the game.

JOHN - 

• Finishing drawer feature images, including the object's individual details and the "congratulations" screen after you find the Turtle piece.
• Posting further info regarding educational games research.
• Creating background images for the candlesticks minigame, along with some candlestick designs.
• Looking into sounds such as characters and music for the game if time allows.

Aight, so on with the show.

On a final note, if everyone is available during the Easter Break, I'd like it if we could still meet up once a week and carry on with some of this work. Also if possible I think we should aim to have the minigames all at a near completion stage by midway through the Easter Break, just to make sure we don't run out of time.

Spoons a-plenty

Hey guys, sorry I didn't make it in today, I've been hard at work with spoons though...

here's a model from Illustrator....

fun stuff, but they're getting there and looking vector-tastic detailed too.

I hate cutlery...

Clue Game Trouble

I've been having trouble figuring out and trying to make the clue game work, I think am gonna scrap the stuff I've been trying and start fresh tommorow. I'm liking the draw screens you've put up john, they definitely fit with the style of the intro video you've done. I'll get the seperate images off you and put them into a working version.

Anthony my email is Simon.D.Timms@student.shu.ac.uk if you need to contact me.

candle tastic....

tried creating the candles on photoshop from scratch but there to intense on details, so i figured it would be more benifitial drawing them and then scanning them in and ajusting but im working from the pictures john sent me ... so im gonna take my 12mega pixel in with us on monday and speak to john hayes about maybe selecting a few candles of the equal height to take out of casing to position them so i can get detailed photo's to sketch from...

as i cant really see the detail within these pictures so im working my best on sketches.

side note..... my student housing flooded today.... so fireman were here draining it so powers been an issue, hense the lack of progression on photoshop.

i think this game will work really well and tie in with the vector style look were going for :) x

Mini Drawer Update

Hey all,

Okay so I've got some objects in there now, still one more to draw for this one really, but otherwise it's an exact match of one of the drawer's contents in the gallery. We can just add the Tommy Turtle piece in on top of it somewhere. I'm still not entirely happy with it, so any opinions are welcome. The nice thing is it's all easily scalable and simple to seperate all the parts of the image to put into GameMaker thanks to the wonders of vector graphics.

Hoola Loopa

Just to keep everyone in the loop, here's the response email i got from Clare about the photography of spoons and candlesticks that we were requesting and the information regarding logos:

Hi John

The only logo for the Millennium gallery we tend to use is the text one attached – you could come up with a new one, but it would not be used on any of our product at the moment, as we have not long been ‘rebranded’!

I’ve only just seen this email – and it after I took the objects out of the gallery this morning!  Sorry about that!

If you want images of any of the timeline silver spoons, I have large TIFFS of some of them I could let you have- front and back shots and some of the tops were thay are decorated. Also I have some of the candlesticks too- let me know if you need any of these.

The Greek dish and large steel scissors are available as they have been removed from the gallery for another group.

See you next week

Clare

I asked her to email me whatever images she can of the candlesticks and spoons for now and just said that we may come up with a little something in terms of a logo for the Metalworks part of the gallery, but otherwise we can try and stick with the MuseumsSheffield logo.

Drawer Update

Hi guys,

Just a little update really, not had much chance to get more done but hopefully get the objects side of this stuff done tonight and tomorrow. Here's what I've got so far though.

That last one is the hand :3

Lemme know what you guys think.

ok so candle idea...

going to take pics of candles n get started on the art for this candle game.... basically imagine all the candles split into 3 horizontal cuts.... like candle base mid candle top of candle..... n then you have to slide through all the possible candle's to make a candle and when you think the candle is correctly put to gether u click on the top of the candle and it will light a flame..... it will stay a flame if correct.... it will blow out if wrong.... just an idea like.... tell me what you think

candles update....

john hayes had a class in there before and after lesson so im gonna get out tomorrow morning before any group gets in there n get some candles pics to get working on a game for it.

The Long Mutton Chops of the Law...

So here's a coloured version of the security guy, let me know what you think about the colour schemes... The legs have been shortened to keep in style with the other characters, but I'll continue to work on that. Im' working on some vector versions, and as John quite correctly pointed out, Illustrator is a less tempting version of sticking boiling hot needles in your eyes... far more time consuming too if you ask me.

So it's time to heat up the ol' needles... Illustrator time...

candles..

gonna go in the gallery before oksana's lesson from hell... and get some detailed pictures of the candles ive got a few ideas for a game just need to see if theres much difference between each candle so its notice-able for a kid to fix them back together will post some screens on friday mid day...

Drawers WIP

Hiya guys,

I've been teaching myself some Illustrator (as it didn't seem sensible to draw things in Flash) and working on drawer designs after perusing through my oodles of photographs. I know we were potentially gonna leave the drawers as they were and just focus on the items inside getting drawn up, i just wanted to put it out there i guess, as i wasn't sure what style to go for exactly. I think with some block shading over the gradients on the below image it might look nice enough, but obviously it's down to the group vote =).

I'm gonna get to work on the objects inside next, get some drawings and ink them up or draw them in Illustrator etc.

p.s. Illustrator is awkward, should've taught myself it long ago =/

I figured the vector style artwork was working well for the comic style we've been going for so far.

slide_em3

ok i simplified it instead of 8x8 = 64 i did it 4x4 = 16 welll 15 with 1 blank one..... which for this one is top right....

read the part about the games being educational and solving games.......

personally i think we have really taken on the brief really well...

working on the other one i was on about now.

and this is screen of the slide em game..... but obviously with temp pic.

Screens for the odd cutlery

These are in a funny order, but it beats editing a bajillion pictures just for a blog post...

ta-dahhhhh, that took too long...

Also I've been in touch with my sister a little about the edumacational games. She said general ICT games consist of ordering, sequencing, sorting things, or completing some sort of mission by answering questions. I'll see if i can find some more info in the mean time though. Otherwise i think half of our mini-games fall in line with that criteria as long as we consider the difficulty of them.