I finally finish my MA course. After a year working on the
Lost tower I got a final version of the demo. It was a great and hard
experience, where I test my limits and force me to think outside the box in
order to create something from the scratch. And here you can see the result of
this work.
First let me say that eurogamer was a great opportunity to
test the first version of the demo. Two months before Eurogamer I build a test
level and started to work on the AI for Carol, the companion of the John in the
game. That was an important task, make sure that the AI of both Carol, and the
monsters worked.
You can download the Demo of the game from this link:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/7550r4711p688fb/Lost+Tower+Demo_0.2.rar
If you go to the extras tap you can play the original demo
of the game made for Eurogamer, so you can compare the improvements done in two
months of work.
Carol, Monsters and AI
The first version of the AI for carol was a very sophisticated
code, the idea was to create a companion that reacted to the environment,
following a set of markers that give her the information of how she should
react. Carol was planned as a companion that follow the player and help him to
see the environment, and also simulate a real behavior.
The main task for carol was to follow the player, keep it
close to him. Then if she was close to a marker she should move to the marker
and react as the marker tell her to do. So for example, if she was close to a
marker that was marked as "look" she was suppose to play the corresponding
animation and sound, finally after completing the task she would be back to the
player.
Sadly, one month before Eurogame I got the final model for
carol with the animations and the AI code don't work as planned, so I made a
temporary fix for the presentation, keep it simple.
The result was a hilarious broken companion that all the
player realize in 5 seconds that was dump and leave her behind in seconds. When
I finish the Eurogamer, was clear that I need it to fix that.
The new version of Carol is not perfect, looks smart but in
reality is just a tool. She walks in the environment guiding the player and "speaking"
to him, and if the player is in a 12 meters radius the characters speak back to
her, simulating a conversation. Is not perfect and I'm working on bring back
the smart Carol that I felt in love in my concept.
New environments, same story
In the new version you can see that the idea of the Lost
tower is coming to live, now with a proper place to explore the player can look
for answers in the dark corners of the dark halls.
These new environment were possible to the team of 3d artist
that help me in the months after Eurogamer and I will be always in dept with
them for help me.
