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The project got an A with 94 out of 100 possible points which makes me believe that this is the best game design that our lecturers have ever seen in their careers. The commitment, passion and time put in this design document, in this presentation, in these animated resources and overall in this project paid off, because FRAS Project is one of my greatest achievements.

Here I will make public the Design Document so you can have a better idea how deep I went with the details. 

Design Document

Next I will highlight again the link to the video containing the main menu of the application, created in PowerPoint.

Fras Project Menu 

And finally I will share the Power Point presentation file used for the pitch (I will not include the sound because of the size of the file)

Presentation (without sound)

All these were the ingredients for one of the greatest game concepts and design that I have ever done.

Week 12

With all the work done and ready to be submitted (will do later today...) I can only be proud of the work that has been done for this fantastic project. While we already know that our presentation was something extraordinary (yes we know we got an A), I think there is still plenty room for improvements.
If this project would go live there are things that should be polished.
This is how we managed to stick to the plan, all went smooth, sometimes before the plan, other times after the planned period, but overall we managed to deliver everything before the deadline, and what matters most is the fact that we delivered an awesome design document and an outstanding pitch.

Finally I want to thank FRAS for the licenses, our lecturer for being there when needed and overall thank our University for all the hardware and software they made available to us (me and Cristi).
At the end I would like to highlight that I am sure that for a long period this project will be a masterpiece in our University and to point this, I will show to my competition who they are playing against, and also to assure FRAS that the license to use their content is on good hands:

Constantin Toader, BEST Computer Games Technology Student Year 1 2012-2013

 

FRAS you can`t go wrong with this :)

 

 

This is the final post, this topic will be re-opened if FRAS (the game) will go into development.

 

 

It has been a fantastic pleasure for me to work on this project

Constantin Toader, NT Games, September-December 2013

 

Week 11

Today NT Games attended Games West. Plenty good people joined the event which I found to be a great success. Students could get in touch with important people from games industry like Gary Carr! (LIONHEAD STUDIOS, the next LIONHEAD INCUBATOR), Lee Stott (Microsoft Evangelist), Pete Shea (FIREBRAND GAMES), Luke Dicken (IGDA!), Max Morrice & Phill Harris, Andrew Fray and many other good folks.

Constantin Toader NT GAMES

Gary Carr LIONHEAD STUDIOS

GamesWest UWS 04.12.2013

Games West is definitely one of the greatest events ever hosted by UWS and I am very proud that I as myself and as NT Games got to witness this event. We managed to connect to some important business and changed a few ideas and gathered tips from the more experienced ... I think I`ll call the fathers of Games Industry. It was a great honour for me to meet Gary Carr and was a pleasant experience to listen to his story. Let`s not forget he created games like Fable I II III, Black and White, Hospital (God I loved that game!) and even ancient huge games like BARBARIAN!

Aside from the learning aspect, NT Games got in touch with Firebrand Games and looking forward to confirm an appointment regarding FRAS at FIREBRAND GAMES.

Firebrand Games all well known for their racing type of games that they create for Nintendo DS, Wii and recently for XBOX 360, PS3 and Microsoft Windows.
They have released or have been part of very important titles like Cartoon Network Racing, Ferrari Challenge, Race Driver: GRID, Need For Speed Undercover, DiRT 2, etc. so they have a huge amount of experience regarding racing games and I hope that FRAS can benefit later on from this contact.

Fingers crossed and let`s hope for the best and a positive reply from the famous Games Studio from Glasgow.
I would like to thank Pete Shea for taking time to listen to me and give me this chance to meet him at Firebrand Studio.

Until then, tomorrow NT Games will go at MAAC (Mobile App Acceleration Campus) Edinburgh and gather some more knowledge, this time about mobiles and tablets (generally mobileware).

Week 9

Pitch is ready, Design Document ready, today I went to accommodate with the room we`ll use at the day of presentation. Sure, when it is empty, it is quite easy to perform, but things will be different next week.
Today I also booked E314 for an hour which allowed me and Cristi to rehearse our pitch. We started very slow and noticed that one hour was far away from what we actually needed to get things ready.
So after one hour in E314, we had another meeting at my place, where from 16:00 to 18:00 we rehearsed and I adapted the pitch according to our needs to fit it in under 15 minutes.
Now what started slow, now is something a little more smooth but still there`s still place for improvement.
Definitely 15 minutes aren`t enough for the initial form the pitch had, so we had to cut about 15% out to try and make room for Development and Marketing which we had not included yet.
Now the pitch looks promising and with more rehearse we will arrive to the point where we lose the hand notes and we can watch the audience while presenting.
Meanwhile here`s how the room looks like.

 

 

 

The room might have been intimidating at the beginning, but I rehearsed once in the room next to this one (Brough hall! which happens to be at least 8 times bigger, and HAS A STAGE!) and now this room does not scare me anymore.

 

I am ready, full of confidence and well prepared to deliver our pitch next week. Hopefully we can get a camera to tape everything.

 

Week 8

Week 8 has begun and the only chapter to write in the design document is the Sound Chapter. While it is hard to describe sounds in words, I`ll try to come up with something until the deadline. Now we must focus on the pitch which was set for the 26th November 2013. So in two weeks we have to finish the already started pitch and present it.

In the meantime here is what I covered this week. I split the Marketing and created a case study chapter which will be added in the appendix, the case study is an estimate of how would the company`s revenue would look like in the fortunate case of 100.000 digital downloads (of course, paid downloads and I tell you it would look awfully good!)
Also I came up with this nice cover which I will add it on my portfolio so it will be branded NT Games.

 

 

It looks real, it feels real, I even made it real :D

This is how it should look like.

The plan for next week is to focus on the pitch, and leave the sound for after the presentation.

 

Also here is how we are set up to now with the development plan at the beginning of week 8:

 

Last plan regarding the design document

Here is the plan for week 7 and week 8. I need to finish the Sound section, while Cristi has to come up with an outstanding and detailed Development Plan (at least as detailed as my Marketing Chapter)

 

The deadline is set for the end of next week for the design document, but this does not mean that I can`t go on further and work in parallel for the pitch.

Tomorrow we will have a photo session where you can get to meet the team.

Week 7, 89% done

It`s week 7 and we are starting to see the finish line way before the deadline set by our module coordinator. That is actually good because we have time to improve and tweak whatever we have worked on up to now. I managed to create a few more in-game pictures and I hope you like them.

These are made using the Beam NG alpha engine.

Here is a sample of what Beam NG can do thanks to the implemented physics:

 

Also, I managed to finish a fluffy chapter regarding the Marketing of FRAS, and basically now, with 5 weeks before the deadline there are only 2 chapters not covered in the design document, but 2 very important ones: Sound and Development plan.

Hopefully it will be all done by the end of next week so we can focus on the pitch for the game.



I`ll come back soon with the updated plan for this week and next week.

Menu clip

Finally managed to create, capture, sync with sound a decent video of the Game`s Menu. Enjoy and spread the word that there is something Romanian cooking in Scotland in the next years.

This is România!

InPlay premiere

Thanks to BeamNG Drive alpha, we managed to shape a picture to make an idea about how the HUD will look like.
We would be also proud to have these graphics implemented as well.
What is extra to BeamNG InPlay shot is the map on the bottom right side, the timer on top left, speedometer on top right and track progress bar on the top side.

This is only for FRAS Rally mode. I hope you like it.

Week 6 report

After two busy weeks I managed to get back on track with the plan.
I started to shape the pitch, which looks great up to now, work on menus and HUD from the game and update the plan.
I had to eliminate the Objects topics for now, and I`ll decide later if we include it or not.
Here is the updated plan, we hope to work a lot next week to get the design document almost finished.

I have to confess it becomes more and more difficult for me to manage time, but I have to thank to Cristi that he is doing his tasks on time, even though sometimes I have to double check his materials.

Overall up to now I believe we are far in front of the other students and I personally believe this is going to be one of the most complete game design documents with an outstanding pitch presentation.

With 4 weeks before OUR deadline we have only 3 chapters left to cover, but some of these will require some special attention: the marketing topic and the development plan.

I aim to finish this design document within two weeks and to have at least 75% of the pitch ready.
I`ll keep you updated.

First INGAME footage

 

 

Although I promised these previews a week ago, I have been quite busy, and only now I had some time to go on with the project. After collecting all data from Cristi, which seems to be up to date, I merged it into the Design Document and started working on the menu.
Here is what came out.
This video does not show the complete menu, but I believe that my creativity and attention to detail bursts in this little clip.
I will continue tomorrow to finish the menu, once I establish with Cristi the final components of the menu.

Here is the link to the video. Enjoy! :D

http://youtu.be/qT9yuR17HwE

Menu Structure

Although week 5 has not started yet, I managed to structure the Main Menu and I think this will be final and the only changes to this menu structure will be add ons, nothing else comes out of this menu.
Here it is

So we`ll have Single Race, Championship, Online, Options, Extras each with its own submenu and Quit, which obviously returns to the operating system.

The option to play offline in multiplayer will be done before car selection, in each race mode.

Later I`ll be back with an animation from the actual in-game menu.

Week 5 Plan

Here is the plan for next week.
I`ll be in charge of OS, Menu, Options, while Cristi will highlight the Game`s Features.

Hopefully I`ll try to push further to start Audio and to gather info required for Marketing Chapter.
I don`t promise anything though.

Thanks again FRAS for all the data they made available to use.

Week 4 report

I have just finished the levels chapter and I made some nice statistics about the game after analysing the tracks. This data will be further useful when creating the development plan.

• there are 9 Rallies per season.
• there will be 60 different tracks
• there are 105 races per season
• there are 1234.54 km to be driven per season
• there will be 668.55 km of road track to be modelled
• the average track has 11 km
• the longest Rally is Sibiu Rally with 228 km of distance to be driven on 127 km of  road track.
• the shortest Rally is Harghita Rally with 89.92 km of distance to be driven on 44.04 km of road track
• the longest Race is Gâtu Berbecului, it has 32 km and it is part of Sibiu Rally. The next one is Babarunca from Brasov Rally with 27.62 km.
• the shortest Race is Lugoj with only 1.33 km and it is part of Timis Rally. The next one is Râpa Galbena from Iasi Rally with 1.6 km.

At an average speed of 60 km/h FRAS - The Game will offer at least 20 hours of intense Championship playing time.

This sort of Rally selection will be available in Main Menu. I hope you enjoy it.

Now... after the short presentation we had on Tuesday with our Lecturers we were once again assured that we are on the right track, but now there are doubts in the team if we have to include or not the arcade style of the game.

While I did not want to drop all the work I had done on the powerups, the description in game type, I have decided to still include what was known as Arcade mode, but to make it a game type. So now we have Rally Championship Mode, Destroyer Mode (the arcade type of game) and a new mode which Cristi came up with, and I quickly adopted it which is called Domination Mode. This one will be later presented by Cristi as it`s his idea so we will implement it and adapt it the way he wants.

Having done this we finished the LEVELS and CONTROLS.

I will come later with the plan for week 5.

Week 4 plan

This week we have to get the wheels spinning at full power to finish controls and maybe work some more on other chapters.
Here`s how the plan looks for week 4. We hope to finish quick to have more time to correct any eventual errors that might occur.

Up to now we are on the right path, but I am not very happy with the time wasted on levels and gameplay. While we are still on track, I always enjoy being before the plan and have everything ready far away from the deadline.

Week 3 Videoreference for level design Iasi Rally 4-5 October 2k13

I just had to add this video as reference, it might be useful in the level design to make an idea what objects are involved in a rally race that is outside of city.


I would like to thank the Camera Pilot Dragos for making available this video on Youtube.

Week 3

I checked over the progress up to now and I must say I am not 100% satisfied with the Gameplay chapter so I decided to repair this problem.

In the Design Document the Gameplay was only described for Simulation mode, without any reference to the Arcade mode. So I had to fix this and close this chapter so the work can proceed.

So what`s all the fuss about Arcade Gameplay? Well, it`s the most fun part of the game, the goal is the same to win the National Rally Championship, but you can use whatever you can to take yourself to the first place for each race.

Comparing to Simulation, in Arcade the controls will be more tolerant to the user, so braking, handling and controlling the vehicle overall will be easier than simulation. Other than this, all the properties present in Simulation are also available in Arcade. Next there is something else that`s different from Simulation races. Here in Arcade the player can use various items to make it harder for other players or make it easier for himself.

Here`s what I`m talking about: POWERUPS

There are two types of powerups: SAFE and AGGRESSIVE

Here are the safe type:

IMMUNITY SHIELD - covers the car with a cloak and makes it immune to obstacles or aggressive powerups for a limited period of time
REPAIR KIT - partially repairs the car
HAPPY WHEELY - considerably improves handling and braking
TURBO BOOST - increases the acceleration of the car for a limited amount of time
JUMP - Helps you jump over obstacles

And now presenting the aggressive type:

FOG - casts a cloud on the car`s windshield dramatically reducing visibility ahead no matter what camera the player is using

INSTANT STOP - stops the car immediately

OIL DROP - spills an oil pool on the road, reducing the handling and creating spin on any vehicle that drives through

SPIKESTRIP - sets up a spike strip wide about half of the road`s width from the centre of the road to the left or right margin of the road, depending on the position of the car when using this item

REVERSE CONTROLS - blows the fuse of the affected vehicle reversing commands: acceleration with brake and steer left with steer right for an amount of time

TORNADO SPIN - casts a tornado 1 mile behind, damaging everything that gets in touch with it. Travels only in the centre of the road and can be avoided only if driving at the edge of the road or if using immunity. 

RANDOM - random powerup

The difference between the safe and aggressive items is that the safe ones only affects the driver, while the aggressive ones can affect either an enemy car or the driver. The aggressive items come in a bubble that is three seconds green and one second red. Depending on the colour the bubble has when collecting the item, if it is green, then the player stores the item in the inventory, if it is red, it immediately applies the item to the player.

So if the bubble is red and you get the item when is red, a random action from the aggressive powerups will happen to you.

If the bubble is green, then a random aggressive powerup will be available in your inventory for later use.

When the player uses an aggressive item from inventory, the vehicle blasts a white bubble ahead for FOG, INSTANT STOP and REVERSE CONTROLS. The bubble travels in the centre of the road with great speed and can only be avoided with immunity or by driving at the edge of the road. If the bubble contacts another car, then the action of the aggressive item occurs.

For OIL DROP, SPIKESTRIP or TORNADO, the action occurs immediately behind the player`s vehicle once the item is used.

I hope I was not too hard to follow, but it is not rocket science once you get to play the game.

Having completed this on Gameplay, the chapter is closed, I can further focus on finishing the Levels. 

I`ll update the plan soon.

Week 2 report

It is almost the end of week two and this will be my last post for this week.
Let`s see how we progressed.
As far as I know Cristi finished the Gameplay Chapter, I documented myself about the levels that we are going to put in the game and here it is the plan for the levels.

We will include the following rallies for the National Rally Championship from Romania

Each Rally will have tracks equivalent to those that are approved by FRAS to be part of Romania`s National Rally Championship.

Here is an example of a loading track screen. This screen will take place after the user is ready to start the race and a track will be loaded, in this case it is a track from Iasi Rally, where race 4 and 11 take place.

I hope you guys enjoy this, it took me 4 hours to create this "simple" gif that is made up from 150 frames (that is 150 different pictures played at high speed)

It might not seem much to you, but I know how much I put into this. So presenting the race 4, 11 to Paun, Iasi.

So here`s where we are, we already started levels and controls and I hope we`ll have them ready in two weeks or so. More to come soon.

Week 2 - Status

Today I have received an email from FRAS itself (aye! the real Federatia Romana de Automobilism Sportiv) and FRAS Project received the permission to use content, information, stats and other materials that our project might need for the completion of the Game Design, encouraging to go further and make this thing real.

Not too many can feel the excitement that I got upon reading their email, it is an unique sentiment and it only pushes me to want to progress more and more, my motivation is now sky high. I feel in a way that I am on the right track and as the leader of my team I will make sure they understand how huge this is and I will forward them this feeling and get them to put (even) more soul into this.

Yesterday we also received the OK from our lecturer, after we showed him how our project is organised and this way we removed any doubts that we have had when we had chosen to create a racing game type. 

All these good news improve the chemistry and the motivation in the team, and as far as I am concerned I will try to push more with my work and my creation skills and try to come up Sunday with some information related to the tracks.

I would also like to take the opportunity to say a sincere: 

MULTUMESC ROMANIA! 

MULTUMESC FRAS!

without feeling the need to translate what it means.

Week 2

I had another meeting with Cristi this weekend to check the progress and we clarified some things that have to go in Gameplay; we got together into the lower layers of this topic and we also updated a little bit the plan and the tasks.

Today I managed to gather enough information to finish the "Characters" topic. I searched over the internet and managed to find the real authentic mechanic manuals for all the cars, with nice details that will help us design a better gameplay, details like maximum speed, acceleration, horse power, fuel consumption (this will have a tiny impact on the weight of the car as the fuel gets burned, little impact, but we consider it), ride height, car size, the contact surface with the ground in square centimetres, which will help us with the adherence which will further affect the handling and drag force, breaking distance and deceleration, etc. A lot of table values and graphs to help us design car models with real physical properties, properties unique for each car.
Here`s a sample of the graphs I made based on the values, and a little preview of the car`s properties:

Of course these values will be available only in simulation, cause in arcade mode, we have to make the game more fun, so we will somehow put a tolerance coefficient that will ease the control of the car. 

Having finished another chapter in our design document, my next objective is to do research on tracks, maps, times, average speeds, maximum speeds, etc. to reflect all these as much as possible closer to reality. Next I will create an animation of a map, highlighting the track from start to finish from satellite view. 

Many of these materials and resources will be used to create the presentation for the pitch, which also has to be something special.

Here is the plan for week 2:

Basically we need to make sure that Gameplay will be finished by the end of the week, and we proceed with research on Levels (me) and Controls (Cristi).
Also, I am very happy that we managed to push the deadline at the end of week 10!

Week 1 report

So we got the wheels spinning now and everything looks perfect.
We managed to go ahead of the plan and there will be a new picture of the updated plan which describes better the situation.
After a meeting where we agreed on the Game modes topic, I had the task to put down all the ideas we discussed about, and Cristi went on with the Gameplay topic.
At the moment it is Saturday to Sunday, I can say we are very well organised and matching the same goals in the team makes us very organised and we manage to collaborate and synchronise perfectly.
While Cristi is working on Gameplay topic, I went ahead of the plan and prepared some nice animations of the cars that will be used in game. Here they are:

 Dacia R12 1300                                   Dacia Sport 1310

 Dacia Lastun 500                                   Dacia Lastun 500 Rally

 Dacia Solenza                                   Dacia Super Nova

Oltcit Club

Dacia Logan                                   Dacia Logan Police Car

Dacia Sandero                                    Dacia Logan MCV Concept Steppe

Dacia Duster                                    Dacia Duster Rally

Click on the pictures for a "closer" view.

So these are only 13 of the cars that will be available to the users to play with. Of course other cars will be available but this is just to have a starting point to make yourself an idea about the graphics.

Feel free to search for these on Google Images and you will see how close these little models are to reality. It took 5 and a half hours to create this cute animations, and now this project has become personal as I put a lot of soul into this.
Now we know what "toys" we will use in the game, the next thing we need to do is to gather up as much information as possible about these models, to implement their real horse power, weight, size, and other parameters in our physics engine to make it as real as possible.
This task will be assigned to Cristi while I will move further to research the "playground" seeing the fact that we got the toys.

Here is how the plan looks after one week:

We managed to finish earlier than planned the topic regarding Game modes, Characters and Gameplay are in progress but started sooner than expected, so we really hope to push the deadline closer to present and have more time for final touches and for polishing the Design Document.

Next post will include the updated plan for week 2.