FYP - Initial Idea and Research

Description:

Feline Frenzy is a game where your goal is to break into peoples houses and steal cats to build your own kittytopia.

Mechanics and Features:

[sumarise proposal mechanics - keep brief and short?]

AI behaviour:

[to add]

Main Screen Interface:

Cat Journal Interface:

A scriptable object will be used to create the cat’s personalities, randomised names and preferred food and toys per level. Personality types determines the cat’s behavior towards the player.

List of personalities:

Friendly: more likely to follow the player rather than flee from them.

Energetic: enjoys playing with toy than receiving food - faster than other cats

Reserved: shy and more likely to flee from the player, difficult to lure

Aggressive: will alert the owner of the player and flee. Seeks the owner once player is within their line of sight. [might move to proposal]

Level Design:

[not confirmed] Singleplayer mode will have a set amount of levels where the player progresses through each one. (if time procedural levels)

As the game could potentially have multiplayer modes, there will be a need for thorough playtesting of the multiplayer levels. They will need to be even for all players (adjustments made to the maps depending on how many there are e.g. 1v1 vs 4players against each other). The prophunt level will need to have no blind spots for the player posing as the owner to reduce player frustration. Whereas the multiplayer mode where players race to get as many cats as possible will have to have even layout, one player base should not be bigger than the other ect. [review]

Development Methodology:

The project will use the Agile approach due to the amount of mechanics to be implemented [too much use of due to + implement + mechanics] The agile methodology breaks up the development process into much smaller iterations known as 'sprints', which allows for testing at the end of each cycle to improve features. This approach is more efficient over the current timescale as it allows more time to confirm and plan desired features and mechanics which allows for an overall polished outcome. With the current amount of intended mechanics this approach [too much usage of approach cut down] is much more flexible and helps workflow(?) for correction of problematic implementations as the deadline approaches.

[Diagram of Agile vs waterfall, showcase how waterfall was used before agile + difference]

Sprint 1: review>test>build>design>plan >> Sprint 2 .... etc

Over the course of summer I attempted to use the waterfall model in order to program, this ended up not working as too many mechanics were implemented at once and gave off a __ feel? Player model and cat model had problems with UI and became very buggy etc. had to restart several times before switching to agile. caused problems with progress, am now a little behind on initial gantt chart [show initial gannt]

Engine and Language:

The game will be written using C# and the Unity Engine. I have chosen to use Unity as opposed to the Unreal Engine is because of the simple user interface and coding using scripts instead of blueprints. I believe integrating blueprints alongside code overcomplicates the development process. The built in physics system and particle system makes mechanics to implement easier. [requires reordering of phrases etc how word? More familiar w unity + more experience overall preference, unreal too big and crashes often not ideal etc etc]

Many of the objects in Feline Frenzy will have a 3D rigidbody component to incorporate physics into the game. The Navmesh system will also help in implementing AI behavior states such as seeking, fleeing and wandering.

The game [referred to as FF1] was initially made using unreal for an assignment. It features basic randomised movements for the cats and an unlimited supply of bait. Due to time constraints, an enemy AI was not implemented. The primary focus for FF1 was to implement a shapeshifting mechanic to specified objects in the level. A raycast would test if the hit object is a disguise, if it is then the player can shapeshift into it. [Fix description + differences in mechanics between FYP and initial outcome]

Link to first game done with unreal: https://zahramiah.itch.io/feline-frenzy

Feline Frenzy Proposal:

Zahra Miah Project Proposal 1.docx

Download DOCX • 339KB

Progress to date:

• Simple first person movement

• Randomly spawn cats within specified area [When Key is pressed for testing purposes]

• Basic randomised movement for cats

• Pickup cats and drop them

• Simple Menu system

• Enemy basic wander and chase sequence

• Simple Minimap