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DevBlog - Hope

A topic by Christ Games created Jun 10, 2018 Views: 570 Replies: 22
Viewing posts 1 to 15
Submitted (11 edits)

This blog will capture our daily progress for the game jam entry that Doug Moses and Irma De Leon are making from the Dallas area team. The game is called Hope. Our bible verse for the theme is:

1 Thessalonians 5:11 New International Version (NIV)
11 Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.

We picked the name Hope because it lends itself to the ultimate wining goal of our game, and that is to trust in the Lord, with a strong  desire to make that happen. The game will be a 3D adventure style story where you, the protagonist, explores a small environment filled with people desperate to know Christ. You will encounter Atheists, Criminals, and others needing to hear the good news. You will also minister to the homeless, suicidal, and people hurting too. Each time you convert a person to believe in Christ, the color of your environment gets a little more vibrant. You start out in a gray and bleak world. By the end of the game, your world is clear and beautiful. Along the way you learn that you must change too in order to win. You are encouraged more than the people you are attempting to touch. It should be a warm and heart felt game, full of emotion and inspiration.

Game Design Document

GitHub Repository

Submitted

Sounds interesting to see what this will turn out to be, but cant quite picture yet what it will look like at all. 

Submitted

I added a simple Game Design Document above with a little more clarity. We will update it with screen shots and details as we go along to help you visualize the end product. You can think of it kind of like the gameJourney, but your goal is to interact with people along the way to bring them to Christ/church.

Submitted

Ah. getting that better now. Although not having played journey myself, dont have a clear picture of it, but I am starting to see what it is supposed to be. Design document helped seeing what it is to be. Especially parts where it told very clearly that when yo ugo out the church it changes into gray, except the pamphlets still stay colorful. And funny idea that your health is shown with color of pamphlets.

Submitted

Irma came up with the idea of the color of the environment and pamphlets changing to be the game progression mechanic, genius. :)

Host

Sounds like a great game for Christians to practice Biblical preachings. 

Here is a copy of the Hope Level Design image (paper map) that I will try to build as a World Scene on Unity with just blocks to get a general layout that our player can travel to and collide with.

Submitted

Nice! Excited to see this in action!

Submitted

coool!

Submitted

World Screen Shot

Screen Shot
Church Screen Shot
Screen Shot
Church Screen Shot
Screen Shot
A few screen shots of our game so far. This is the church where we start out and finish. The other image is a mock up for the world. The blocks and cylinders will be replaced with buildings, trees, etc. 
Submitted

nice looking.

Host

The church is looking pretty good. I like it. You guys are doing great so far.

Submitted

More screen shots of the world outside of the church.








Submitted

Ah, so this will have bit realistic approach to the game. Might be interesting experience when considering your current game ideas.

Submitted

Looking good Irma and Doug!

Host

The world is really coming together. I'm sure it's going to be pretty fun.

Submitted

We did it! Our game is published and submitted for the contest. Win or loose, this was a fun event. I am privileged and proud to have been a part of it.

Submitted (2 edits)

I have added some hints and cheats at the bottom of the page in our GitHub. This is mainly added to help the judges progress quickly through the game, or help you if you get stuck. 

Submitted (1 edit)

I am trying to avoid reading those spoilers, hence I am not looking for more but asking from here.

It would to nice to have some instructions on how to play the game. My first puzzle was how to get out of the church, couldnt figure that out. Tried to click on door handle and press most of the keys on keyboard, none helped.

Submitted (1 edit)

I will give you the first spoiler to get you going. The object of the church scene is to gather up your bible, and tracts that are sitting on shelfs at the front of the church. You need to click on them to take them into your inventory. Once you are armed with these documents and the bible, the door will activate and you can go through it. 


Submitted

I must have been so blind. I thought i checked those sehlves, but maybe i checked the same shelf twice, but even then, it is close to impossible to miss them, yet i did.

Submitted

My thoughts on the game. And I have to say, this is the toughest one to decide what I think about it. I at same time didnt like it much, as well as liked it. I have very mixed feeling about this.

First of all, graphics are really good and I like how all the people were detailed and when you got close to those tracts you could read them etc.

Also the town makes sense and feels like real neighborhood. To some extent I also liked the barricades idea. You could have made the game to just end on some edge or not being able to walk any further, but those barricades made the world seem more real and bigger, that you could see there was bigger world there, although you couldnt reach them. Of course we can always question what are those barricades doing there in the first place, that why are people trapped inside there, but that aside, I quite liked the way you restricted the access to only certain area. I have bit unliked the idea that either character stops walking after certain point or you see simply a blue wall or something, this was much nicer approach and made it seem so much better, despite the question of why them barricades.

Good thing about town was that it wasnt very big. Especially with the walking speed of the character, it was essential that neighborhood couldnt be big, since it took ages to walk around. This walking speed was one of the things i had mixed feeling about. On one hand i would have preferred there having been an option to actually run, since while realism many times makes games better, realism of walking slow from one edge of map to other edge of map is simply boring and no fun at all.

However, that gets me to next thing. I dont think this should be aimed as a game. It doesnt work very well as a game. But what I think this would be excellent, would be to be gospel spreading simulation. I bit of enjoyed walking slowly on street and sharing the good news to people in this game. I liked that aspect, although I am pretty sure non believers wouldnt like it. But as believer myself, it is nice imagining going to streets and preaching, and this game lets me do just that without any risk. And that is exactly why i have mixed feeling about this one. As a game it wasnt very good, but as street preacher simulator, I liked it somewhat much. If this would be more geared towards simulation, i could imagine even playing this through some other time too. Now I dont think I will touch this again.

What comes to the game part, there however was somewhat brilliant idea in that black shade being there darker at beginning, and more light you shead through gospel, brighter the world came to be. That was very good idea, although from that simulation point of view i might have preferred it to simply be bright, since if the point would be to be simulation, then game element like that is out of place.

You also confused a bit when you mentioned this is puzzle adventure. I didnt quite get the puzzle elements at all. I thought it was obvious from your description that you were supposed to spread those tracts to people. Only after had i done that i was wondering what now? But then figured maybe back to church, especially since i had already checked every place i could get to since i was looking for those puzzle elements from somewhere and was wondering where they are. But never thought preaching and giving final sermon were the puzzle elements, i thought them as goals rather than puzzles to be cracked.

What comes to conversations, I would have very much liked to be able to skip each speech bubble by mouse button or something, for sometimes when the sentence was short, it was annoying to wait for the next one, and actually one time it happened that sentence was long enough that i didnt get to read it at all.

Music also worked fine, giving the right atmosphere for the game.

It was also very nice touch that when those people were at church in the end, they all had a new posture, that they were actually sitting there, instead of just putting them to stand in a row or something, as could have been done as well. It made it seem more worth it when you were awarded with them actually sitting there waiting to listen to you.

All in all, I did like the game, but not as a game so much, but  as a simulation about street preaching. It was very satisfying experience thinking it as a simulator that you slowly go around and preach gospel to the people and then in the end see them all in church, giving you feeling that it works and makes you even think perhaps i should go and do the same. And although there were some good game ideas in it too, like the black shade, it in the end hindered the gameproduct as i liked it more as a simulation than as a game and as good as the idea was, it didnt work on simulation.

Submitted

Thanks for the feedback GamesForFun. All good notes to take away. You are correct, this is not a traditional game, per se. It is a simulation about preaching the gospel. If we had more time, we would have added more puzzles, physics, mechanics, etc. and updated it with the ideas you posted here. In the end, this game helped me understand Unity more, I am primarily an Unreal guy. I think it gave us a good base for Hope 2 where the ideas can be expanded on for a more interactive game with all of the bells and whistles.