Development Diary!
October 13th
Our jetpack orangutan project is in progress!
We have agreed to create the concept for our game about an orangutan with a jetpack.
October 14th
I worked from home today. I searched for a fitting audiovisual representation of what I believe the game could be.
Idea for main character name; Monsieur Singe, being French for ‘Sir Ape’.
Idea for a Power-up; top hat of temporary invincibility, acts as a shield.
Idea for a Power-up; monocle of true sight, slow motion enemies and enemy projectiles.
Super Power-up; if both top hat and monocle are equipped the player receives the status of ‘Gentleman Primate’. Enemies will stop attacking (and instead admire) Monsieur Singe.
I finished the sound mood board at 16:40 today.
October 15th
We are determining the best high concept for our game. I believe the one we’re going with is ‘Monsieur Singe, the jetpacking orangutan, uses his arsenal of fruit to defend his home’.
We discussed my ideas for Power-ups, which were accepted by the group and we chose the setting and story this day:
The setting is an artificial jungle in a zoo and the story is Monsieur Singe thinking he is still in the jungle and is trying to escape the zoo keepers’ sponge bath.
We peered at my choice of intro sequence music from the sound mood board, popular opinion said it was good.
We started talking about game play, if it should be a ‘fixed-to-player’ (like Super Mario Bros.) or ‘sliding’ (like Jets’n’Guns) side-scrolling game. We did not decide.
October 21st
We decided on a sliding scroller.
We started with our paper prototype today and hope to finish it today as well.
We also discussed power-ups in the paper prototype, we will tape the entire upside paper prototype and use a highlighter to mark it on the level.
We did finish the crude paper prototype of our game and we are happy with the results (we did test, but nothing conclusive was found). I am in charge of keeping it safe until tomorrow; I am the keeper.
October 22nd
Today, we will be working on the pitch. The outline was completed.
Today
We are playtesting the paper prototype more thoroughly before Marcus playtests it, to find obvious flaws. Again, no conclusive results.
Feedback on our paper prototype is as follows; it felt straightforward and uninteresting. A lot more things should be added to the program inculding enemy variations and environmental influences (which feels a tad obvious in hindsight).
Tools
For this project I have used;
Grooveshark – a music service I used for the soundboard.
YouTube – also for the soundboard
FreeSound FX – soundboard
Paper, paper towels, tape, magic markers (for the paper prototype)
CullyCoconut 