Dead

till further notice this project has died:(

Big Bad Blobby

Had some thoughts rolling around on what the badies would look like and thought I might squeeze one out quick.


Roughly 5X the size of an ebear, Big Bad Blobbly is a mean bean. And tough to kill to boot, when he takes hits he sprouts lil'blobbys, fast & deadly.

whats the deal? no posty, long time

As it turns out, I'm no better then 90% of indie game developers out there. I dreamed too big too fast and my pet project isn't magically getting done. It was suggested to me before I started ebears to complete a few extremely small projects before jumping into this one. I didn't listen and now the plan is to do just that. Bottom line, I need more help then I can get for free to complete this game, AND I need to spend drastically more time on the design. Having a few completed indie projects under my belt will not only help my design and development skills it will go a long way to insure solid funding and a team when the time comes.
Many thanks to everyone who has contributed ebears world so far - it was not in vane:)

Wiimotes and madness

I was so excited when I got my refurbed Wiimote, wireless sensor bar, and bluetooth dongle in the mail so I could get started testing ebears with the holy grail of input devices. Unfortunately it's not been the perfect marriage of technologies so far, getting and keeping the Wiimote connected to the PC seems very error prone (still testing different driver and bluetooth stack configurations) and the data coming from the Wiimote itself isn't as user friendly as I'd like nor is it obvious how I should use it, but nothing is:)

testing spherical level designs

big burger bridge?


hmm, much better, but not quit as open as i'd like

Prototype 3

Play tested this with several friends and co-workers in the past weeks. Some useful feedback highlights where centered around the aiming difficulty, which comes about for several reasons: possible solutions are to implement a recital system that determines what the projectile will hit, this sounds simpler then it is since the projectiles path is affected by gravity so the angle of the weapon would have to adjust depending on the position and distance of the target surface the recital is over. This would indeed make it easier to aim but I'm not totally convinced this adds to the game, aiming around the spherical environment is a challenge, a skill to hone, a toy to play with, is it a fun toy though?

New ebears skin designs!

frikn fantastic Frank!

Environment Concept Prototype

quasi platform wrapped around the planet
not sure if this works, hard to tell yet
also not sure if it would be better to remove the outer platforms as the planet shrinks, or leave them there towering over it all
it IS pretty surreal though, so i like that aspect

Weapons

franks first 5 ebear skin designs

thanks frank they look GREAT!

Ebear Blank Template

get the latest ebear blank template!
-fixes to UV layout
-updated texture template
-included my own shity example but it should still help
-made a deconstruction video & turntable to help illustrate the Texture Template

Style Guide/Referances

I wasn't able to single out any one style or reference, so I'm going to post many influences and references here in hopes that a concept artist will be able to draw from them a single cohesive vision.



some awesome toys.

Blain Hefner

Brandt Peters

Mars-1 does some really incredible abstract pop-surrealism. What I want to point out is some of the micro landscapes found in many of his pieces seen here.

He also some character designs that border too fantastic for what I’m looking for, but are worth noting.

Although American Gothic is the most noted of Grant Woods work, his landscapes have a style that lends itself well to 3d representation.

The trees in this painting by Joe Vaux have a similar feel to Grants.

This Painting by Nathan Ota starts to get a little closer to the kind of urban-pop-fantasy quality i'm looking for.


Other Influential Media
Earthworm Jim – concept art by Doug TenNapel, has some incredibly creative environments, characters, animation and weaponry

John Kricfalusi – creator of Ren & Stimpy and countless other characters

Chuck Jones – Looney Tunes, Merrie Melodies, essentially the best of Warner Bros.

Super Mario Galaxy – first game to feature none planar game play in a 3d environment

Worms Armageddon – casual turn based strategy game with some really smart design, and creative weaponry

Animation

while working with Valdir(http://greenjuiceteam.wordpress.com/) I was introduced to a AWSOME tool (http://novaumas.blogspot.com/) that lets me better define the animation behavior, see the editor in action

Tools Request

Projectile Effects Prototype/Dev App
To prototype the projectile weapon designs and their effects such as muzzle flash, trails, and impact/explosions. For the sake of quick iteration and flexibility this should use script input for the various weapon aspects.
script inputs:
-weapon mesh
-weapon projectile mesh
-projectile velocity
-particle effects
---muzzle flash
---trail
---explosion
-damage
-clip size
-repeat fire time
-firing animation
-victim animation

Concept Art

some weapon concepts I did highlighting why I'm not a concept artist


some awesome concepts via Michael Myers

Design Doc

ok so far a few things changed from the original discussion, and more are likely to change before we're done but this is the working design document. also if you don't know what desinger toys are or would like to see some awsome examples - go there
http://www.creativecloseup.com/awesome-designer-toys-gallery

Concept:
Face off against other players in a battle royale of explosive weapons on a spherical environment. Designer toy-styled characters, levels, and weapons matched to comedic animation take the player on a fun ride in this casual on-line multiplayer third person shooter.

Game Description:

Characters

30 character designs will be initially available for players to choose from, new character designs will be added eventually from a web forum where anyone can post designs and vote on others.

Environment

The playing map is a perfectly spherical environment. The size of the sphere is determined by the number of players on the map. The size is updated whenever a player enters or leaves a map. Characters and projectile weapons can circumnavigate the map. Plants and other props grow or get removed to fill the same percentage of surface area as the map grows or shrinks.

Battle Match System

Once a player has chosen a character they can view the match system listings where they can see other players on-line and the time remaining till the next match. Players must press a “ready” button to sign up for a match. A match starts once a minute if 2 to 30 players are signed up. If more then 30 players sign up for a match, the overflow starts a new match in 30 seconds. When players are done with a match they are placed back to the match system.

Battles

The last player standing is the battle winner. Battles are not timed, but after 5 minutes the environment shrinks regardless of the number of players left.

Team Match
-15 vs 15
-7 x 4
-4 x 4
-2 x 2
-1 v 1

War Games
-Capture the Flag
-King of the Hill

Skill Games
-First to X Kills
-Quick Death
-Hand Weapons Only
-Juice Bombs Only
-Small World After All

Juice

Each player starts with an equal amount of juice that diminishes when they are injured and can only be gained by “Poking” other players. Juice has no maximum but becomes harder to gain as it increases. A player is dead when their juice is completely diminished.

Weapon Systems

-Poking

Poking is similar to swatting or punching, and only effects players in front or to the sides within reaching distance. The amount of damage it inflicts is very minimal. Poking is the only method of increasing one’s juice.

- Juice Bomb

Juice Bombs inflict damage in a radius from the player. The radius and damage of the juice bomb increases as the player’s juice increases. Using a juice bomb decreases the player’s juice by equal amounts regardless of the player’s juice level. After a player uses a juice bomb they are temporarily disoriented and can not move or defend themselves.

- Hand Weapons

Hand weapons which are randomly dispersed at random times around the map can be obtained by running over them. Only one hand weapon can be held at a time so if a player has a hand weapon and wants to pick a different one up they must press a button to drop their current weapon. Hand weapons have limited ammo. When a weapon is dropped it can be picked up again but with the same amount of ammo as it was dropped with. When weapons run out of ammo they are removed. Additional ammo up to the maximum capacity can be obtained by running over a weapon.

Hand weapons have some or all of the following properties on a scale from 0 to 10: damage, range, rate of fire, and an initial ammo/maximum capacity count.

- - Sling Shot damage 1 range 1 rate of fire 10 ammo 20/40 bee bee, dies on impact and disappears

- - Cross Bow damage 3 range 3 rate of fire 5 ammo 15/30 arrow, dies on impact, lays or sticks in ground for short amount of time

- - Harpoon Gun damage 5 range 6 rate of fire 3 ammo 10/20 arrow with short rope, dies on impact, lays or sticks in ground for short amount of time

- - Grenade Launcher damage 8 range 6 rate of fire 3 ammo 10/10 grenades, set amount of time before detonation, so it could bounce or roll to a stop before exploding

- - Bazooka damage 8 range 8 rate of fire 3 ammo 10/10 explodes on any impact, medium radius of damage

- - Homing Missile damage 6 range 10 rate of fire 3 ammo 8/8 explodes on any impact, curves towards the closest target, medium radius of damage

- - Land Mine damage 7 range 0 rate of fire 5 ammo 5/15 explodes after any impact; players or other weapons, large radius of damage

- - SCUD missile damage 10 range 10 rate of fire 1 ammo 1/1 REALLY LARGE radius of damage, explodes on any impact

All hand weapons except the land mind are arching projectiles that given the right range and angle could orbit the map. However even projectiles like the homing missile have a maximum thrust range and would eventually fall back to earth.

Controls

-Navigation and Aiming

“W” & “S” - Move the player forward and backward along their facing direction

“A” & “D” - Move the player left and right perpendicular to their facing direction

Mouse Movement Left and Right – Turn the players facing direction

Mouse Movement Forward and Backward – adjust the camera angle to the player up and down as well as the aiming angle

-Weapons/ Firing controls

“Ctrl” - display projectile arc.

Left Mouse Button On-Click / Hold – Fire / Auto Fire

Right Mouse Button On-Click - Pokes

Right Mouse Button Rapid Click - Combo Poke

Right Mouse Button Hold 1+ seconds - energizes Juice Bomb,

Then Release – Fire Juice Bomb

Audio?

the epiphany

Paul: i have a game project for us

Slater: yeah?

Paul: Ebear World!

Paul: make you own Ebear texture, now run your very own Ebear around Ebear World making love or war, multiplayer, web based

Slater: ebear world?, esplain.

*** Slater has received EbearWars.7z.

Paul: take a glimpse at a Ebear Blank

Paul: and let your Emaginnation take flight

Paul: how many different Ebears could you make

Paul: Frank ebear, Kill ebear, Love ebear, Cutes ebear, Slut ebear, Rambo ebear!

Paul: Eee-ndless

Slater: haha, wtf!

Paul: take a stroll on Ebear World, but bE wear

Slater: hahah

Paul: other Ebears are out for Eblood

Paul: our your ejuices , you never know

Paul: poke another ebear to increas your speed and power

Paul: or Eblow'm sky high

Paul: using your powers drains your ejuice

Paul: and watch out for other Ebears trying to get some love-taps on you ass

Slater: jeezus

Paul: or team up with a buddy to and go a on a eRampage blow'n the fudge out every one in sight

Paul: high scores are based on total powers gained, damage dealt, and life span

Slater: rocket packs

Slater: grenade launchers