Drawing and Other Design Works: January 2014

For this semester's Game Design class we're moving onto developing an actual playable racing level based off of the theme most voted for by each of our classes, which we will then also have to develop and program live stunts into them. In my case, the class I'm in chose "Pinball" as our theme and I am excited!

The Research: Here are some videos I looked to for some inspiration in designing the initial stunts.

The Level Theme: Scifi/Robots.

The level will initially look like a pinball machine, just with a lot of retro robots and the occasional science fiction piece here and there.

The level will be lit by various neon lights produced by the pinball level's constructs.

Look at those lights!

The color scheme will be as basic as can be since I'm going retro.
I feel going with CS 2 here would be more preferable. Bright reds, oranges, blues and purples are major in scifi.

CS1

CS2

Concept Statement and Story: "Race or be Replaced!"

The story of my level is of course going to be loony being that it revolves around retro scifi and pinball.
"Mankind has been taken over by evil robots! Having defeated the human race the new robot overlords have decided to use humans as guinea pigs by shrinking them down and forcing them to race in absurd pinball styled tracks set up in their labs. Will some human rise to the challenge and beat their games? Or is humanity doomed?!....DUN DUN DUN"

Inspirations:

Retro Robots

They look cute now....

Cylons from Battlestar. They still have that old scifi look about them that's so great.

Robot Pinball anyone?

More simple yet stylish robots. I feel designing the level to look retro scifi will make the time to to the 3D assets easier since it would be possible to make a lot of simple, low poly models. The textures are what will make the models really stand out!

Another pinball inspiration.

The Stunts:

"Don't Miss" Long Ramp Jump

Players will come to a ramp they must jump across to get to the other side of the track. In order to do so the player will activate a boost pad which will increase their vehicle's speed to jump to the other ramp. However, the ramp the player must land on does not stay stationary. It periodically moves up and down so if the jump doesn't have enough of a boost kick then the player may not make the jump.

"Pyro Bumpers"

The players will face numerous giant robot bumpers when they reach the last area in the track. These bumpers may range in size but are identical. Watch out though as they will open their mouths and shoot the player with a horrendous burst of fire if triggered.

The player activates a hidden trigger near the bumper if they get close enough.

When the trigger is activated the bumper opens its "mouth" and lets loose a torrent of flame.

"Slammer!"

Besides also acting as a landmark, this colossal robot is a major obstacle which the player must pass to get to the ramp jump and bumper area to finish the race.

The player will activate a hidden trigger which will start the robots "SLAMMING" mechanism. Once this begins the player must time their run accordingly.