News
Active-Adventure in Game Informer!
What a way to kickoff Active-Adventure: Semester II... If you're out and about, be sure to pick up the September '08 copy of Game Informer (Batman or Joker grace the cover). We were lucky enough to be able to share our team philosophy on how we think we are evolving the active gaming genre. Thanks to GI for the opportunity!
Keep checking back for additional updates. We have some changes planned for the website!
Active Adventure on KDKA
Today KDKA aired a story about Active Adventure. The video can be found online
here.
Active Adventure Postmortem on Game Career Guide
Seth Sivak, one of Active Adventure's programmers, recently wrote a postmortem on The Winds of Orbis: An Active Adventure and got it published on Game Career Guide.
For those who may be unfamiliar with this term, a postmortem is an analysis of the process used to create a video game, evaluating what went right and what went wrong.
The article is available
here.
Active Adventure Gameplay
Finally we have gameplay up for all to see. This video explains all there is to know about The Winds of Orbis:
An Active Adventures. It includes clips of most of the interactions that we designed and even shows a player performing them.
You can catch bits and pieces of combat, climbing, throwing, running, and our climactic boss battle.
This video also features our youngest player, only three years old! He was more than capable of taking on our game
but didn't want to stop.
Active Adventure on Gamasutra
Today, An article about Active Adventure was a cover feature on the game developer website Gamasutra.com. Our very
own Garth DeAngelis penned the article now up on the website about his experience making the game, and what this new
genre can do for the industry. Congratulations, Garth!!
The article is available
here.
CMU News Story
A while back, Active Adventure was featured on Carnegie Mellon's homepage. The article about the project is available
here.
Active Adventure Cinematic
Here is an example of an in-game cinematic for The Winds of Orbis: An Active Adventure.
This cinematic shows the path that the player must follow to complete the level. The giant purple thing
at the end is the level boss.
After the player completes a climbing section, the cinematic begins. We wanted to make a dramatic moment out of
the first time you see the temple in the fog. Nate spent a lot of time making the temple look amazing so we had to give
it its own cinematic. This also gives the player an idea of what's ahead.
Active Adventure on WTAE
Today WTAE aired a story about Active Adventure. The video can be found online
here.
Active Adventure in the newspaper
Well, the semester is finally over but the team isn't finished working. Over the summer, our project will be featured in various media channels. Yesterday, we were covered in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazzette in an article featuring innovative Wii games.
Check back soon for more press updates!
Here it is..
Playtesting at Magee Hospital
Here's a quick collection of a few of the many kids who tested 'Orbis' at Magee Hospital. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazzette was on hand to cover the game and interview the playtesters. Their enthusiasm was inspiring! More updates to come soon.
Soft Opening is upon us!
This Friday, our thrill of a semester will come to an important conclusion: Soft Opening. Each ETC project must present the status of their work, exepected to be in 'Finished' form. We're almost there and working hard to polish the level.
In the meantime, check out our mentor figure Bellator (modeled and textured by Kwon) and the climatic Altar of the Custos, an immense ziggurat-inspired piece modeled and textured by Nate. The giant orbs and vines are flontus plants, supporting the massive structure and holding it aloft in the sky.
Quick updates... And Mark Hamill.
Two updates of note. Two samples of the original music of 'Orbis' are now located under the 'Assets' tab.
Also, Dr. David Bickham of Harvard Medical School asked us to write an article on our game discussing the social and business context of our vision. It can be found here.
Here are pictures from our latest playtest... but we also weren't ready to bump Mark Hamill down the page yet.
Mark Hamill plays 'Orbis'!
The ETC had a special treat today as recurring advisor Anthony Daniels (C-3PO) was joined by fellow 'Star Wars' actor Mark Hamill (the iconic Luke Skywalker) and 'Heroes' villain Zachary Quinto (soon to be young Spock in J.J. Abrams upcoming 'Star Trek' film). The three provided us with deep insight into their personal career paths in the entertainment industry, along with their impressions of the importance of working with cutting edge special effects.
Afterwards, Mark Hamill came up to our room to demo 'Orbis'. It was a pleasure to hear his thoughts on the Nintendo Wii and the potential that the active gaming industry has (not to mention, an absolute thrill for our team who grew up loving his work in the original trilogy). Enjoy the pictures of Mark exploring the world of Orbis!
'Playing to Win' and more testing...
After a busy week, we concluded with a playtest and two conferences. Actor Anthony Daniels (C-3PO in all six 'Star Wars' movies) swung by our room during the Peace conference and proved to us that protocol droids can indeed play 'Active-Adventure'.
We also tested with three "expert" boys in the 10 to 11 age range. Each boy loved video games and the Nintendo Wii, so it was useful to see our desired demographic have fun with the demo. While the magical radial attack was what they had the most difficulty with, they also couldn't stop trying to master that particular combo. As a side note, their three year old brother jumped into the game and had a heck of a time knocking blocks around. Check him out below (along with Brandon and friends)... Do not fret, we are NOT expanding our target demographic!
Finally, Bard, Seth, and I attended Penn State's "Business & Social Frontiers of Video Games: Playing to Win" conference. We met some influential players that had many interesting things to say about the future political and social landscape of the gaming industry. We also presented on a panel and were able to demo our prototype. We were given positive feedback for addressing the social issue of child obesity in America.
Cornerstone Conference
Yesterday we were invited to Carnegie Mellon's Cornerstone Conference which featured many distinguished speakers including Pittsburgh's mayor Luke Ravenstahl, Jack Lew from Electronic Arts Global University Relations, Minoru Asada from Osaka University's Robotics division, and our very own Don Marinelli.
We had a wonderful time displaying the game for some of the most influential folks that advance the city of Pittsburgh. Here is a picture of Jack Lew working up a sweat in the world of Orbis!
Half Presentation
Half presentations have come and gone, and we're making strong progress. We have added a 'Story' tab to our page here. We want to create a deep and rich world for the child to read about and invest themselves into.
Who is the hero, K'nil? Who is the enigmatic beast tutoring him in the opening level? What is the history of the Gatti tribe? How did Orbis become a mass of floating islands? And what is K'nil's mysterious relationship with the ancient Custos, the colossal guardians?
We hope to forumlate a story that will encourage a child to want to answer these questions and more. The critical aspect here is that they can choose to read a passage, or they can play without the backstory. Still, we have had multiple children ask us if there will be a story, so the goal would be to motivate them to get up and move with the protagonist that they are learning about.
More story passages will be updated throughout the semester.
Tech Night
With each new child that we have play our demo, we come away with much invaluable feedback to consider and bring back to the drawing board. Here is an excerpt from our latest user test at CyberConXion. Check out the full article here and more pictures from the successful night here.
Going into the demo, we weren't sure what to expect. We're happy to say that we were pleasantly shocked by the reception our demo received from the clever girls at Creative Tech Night. Not only were they hopping around with infectious grins on their faces and picking up controls faster than most of our other user testers (all male), but they were asking us when they could have a version to bring home! They were enthralled with the idea, and provided us with encouraging feedback. Needless to say, we're already thinking of efficient ways to cater the art towards both sexes.
This is Orbis...
K'nil has a home in our game. This small haven has given our old flat texture a breath of fresh air. Nate modeled and textured the island with the vibrant, cartoon feel we were looking for. Pretty soon we'll have the kids running around with K'nil on it!
And if you're wondering, the "loop" around the model will be a neverending waterfall... Pretty nifty.
More Animations
We added a new section to the website for our finished art assets. Right now there are a bunch of the animations for K'nil. Check it out.
Demo Update
We have been working hard over the past few days to get a solid playable demo with a tutorial ready to user test. The goal is to fine
tune our new combat system and give players a chance to have fun with our physics engine. The demo is broken down into three basic parts,
the first being the tutorial step. We wanted to add in a tutorial because we are creating a totally new way of controlling a character
in a game. The next part is the physics demo, where players can use all they learned during the tutorial to destroy a large group of
enemies. The tutorial ends with a showdown against an actual enemy. Here the player needs to try and dodge the incoming attacks while
still landing some of his own.
We will have this demo available at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco this week and we will all be back next week.
If you are in the Pittsburgh area and would like to user test the game, or you have any questions or comments please contact us at
WindsofOrbis at gmail dot com.
K'nil is taking shape...
Today we received the textured version of our protagonist, K'nil Novus, and it looks stellar. Bard did an awesome job creating the color palette which Sean then took and textured. He then added lighting and shadows through baking. Zikun is currently rigging and animating the Gatti character.
When we first discussed focusing on a bright, vivid, cartoon-style in the same vein as Team Fortress 2, I was a bit apprehensive. I absolutely love the style that Valve used but TF2 uses multiple complex shaders that are tricky to replicate. Still, our art team seems to have found a way to efficiently make it work. Keep on chuggin'...
Quarter Presentation
I couldn't be more proud of the team.
Yesterday was quarter presentations. Every team member did an outstanding job of conveying what our project is about. The work that has been put in thus far is a true testament of our passion to create something special and meaningful in the lives of children.
When a few of us sat down to brainstorm before our pitch last semester, we knew we wanted to do something with activity. Still, we wanted to avoid the dreaded "exercise game". DDR, My Life Coach, Eyetoy products and others have all been released to the public as exercise simulators. We knew we had to differentiate our idea.
The novelty of the Nintendo Wii was appealing to us. With a staggering amount of possibilities, we thought it would be cool to create a game with fundamentals that we loved when we were kids, but use the Nintendo's Wiimote instead. What if we could play a Zelda-like action-adventure, but force the guest to truly workout their upper body (no more wrist flicks for slashing and hacking)? What if we took some elements of RPGs like imaginative fantasy, epic heroes on a quest, and appealing art style, but made the meat of the game be an active workout for kids instead of sitting on the couch doing thumb push-ups?
And what if we used the DDR floor pad as the bulk of gameplay? *Gasp*! But instead of being a prisoner to scrolling arrows or a digital trainer, they would battle their way through hordes of enemies, making choices along the way and moving their body along with their on-screen hero.
I was pretty surprised when I couldn't find any other game on the market that uses the DDR pad, besides dance-inspired or workout-simulation games. The pad is actually a pretty neat input device. We are working with one that has eight buttons (the directional axis and four diagonals), and it seems pretty exciting to create the very first "active"-adventure game, where the game world is literally at the guest's feet.
Twenty-five percent through the semester, and we're chugging full steam ahead. We have an immense amount of work ahead of us and enormous challenges, but it's a nice feeling knowing that we are all looking forward to it. Now it's our job to not let up...
Wii did it
The wii remote is now an official member of the team. After battling with it for several days, the wiimote is operational in Panda3D. Seth and I worked in parallel, tweaking the C# wiimote software and developing the Python wii handler on two networked computers. We had a setback when it was all complete and dreadfully slow. After adjusting a few networking issues on the Python side, we had a working piece of hardware.
We plan on using the wiimote as the controller for the playable character's weapon in the game. A player swings or jabs the wiimote to control the characters actions. Since the goal of our game is to be 'active', we will probably use the higher end of what the wiimote's acceleromter's can detect.
Starting Out
So we've had the first few weeks of work, and I'm really excited about our progress. While we have much to do in terms of design, we're being extremely efficient building assets that we'll need for the future. Seth is working on a combat system, Ryan is building a sweet physics engine, and the artists are hard at work on some great concepts. Here's a link to our concept art page, and an example of Zikun's badass painting of the world of Orbis:
