Aftermath (2010)
“Aftermath”
The war is over, the torment has just begun…
In “Aftermath” the player takes on the role of Victor, an ex soldier who finds himself in hospital after terrible wounds leave him paralized from the waist down. As Victor attempts to rehabilitate from his injurys he begins to fall into a deep depression as the world around him feels darker every day. One day Victor wakes up to find the hospital deserted and plauged by haunting visions from his terrible past he attempts escape the labarynth of the abandoned building and the darkness of his collapsing mind.
Brief
Aftermath was a gameplay prototype that I worked on during my third year group project at Abertay. The goal was to work in conjunction with programmers and artists to design a game and create a gameplay prototype using the Microsoft XNA framework.
Role
Environment Artist and Level Designer: Since our group was only allocated one didicated artist the group decided that it would be in our best interests if the two Games Design and Production Managment students (myself and another) would work on the environment together. Unfortunately the second GDPM was not present for the majority of the project and produced no work to be added, thus I was the sole environment artist on the project.
Success
As of writing on the 6th May 2010 the project has not been submitted so its overall success cannot be fully analysed.
Lessons Learned
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“Things can change…drastically”: When I pitched the idea to the team it started off as a third person psychological horror game, where the player was supposed to frequently question what was actually going on, if victor was going insane or there was some form of demonic presence in the hospital. Yet as the project moved forward more and more features of the game were stripped or changed until it was essentialy a third person shooter in a hospital with a man in a wheelchair versus government agents. As I was only the environment artist there was not much I could do but sit back and work on what I was told, but it was heartbreaking to see a concept I loved so much devolve in such a drastic manner. This is can be a sad reality of the games industry.
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“Real world environments are not fun!”: During the design phase of the game I spent allot of time studying real life NHS hospitals, looking at floor plans, interviewing NHS staff etc. My research all pointed to one solid conclusion…Reality is not so much fun. Real world spaces are just not built to accommodate the type of things you expect from a game, corridors need to be wide enough to give the player enough room to manouver while also attempting to take into account camera movement etc. Real world environments also present the challenge of finding a way to steer the player without forcing them too much. This is also conpounded by the realities of certain environments such as hospitals having gas pipes running through all the walls, hence any stray bullet could potentialy destroy the whole hospital. All these issues must be either tackeled vigorously or ommitted in order to make an environment fit for most types of gameplay.
- “Leading by a commity is murder”: As there was no established group leader or mentor to supervise the project the organisation of the group was dreadful. Even something as simple as organising a group meeting was extremely difficult, and that’s nothing compared to the nightmare of attempting to allocate tasks and ensure that work is completed on time and to standard. In future projects I think I would very strongly recommend a team lead is allocated to ensure a smoother runnig project.
