Thursday, September 23, 2010

Color Fusion Pitch Presentation

Hokay, so...

We have this idea for a game.

The name of that game idea is:   ~*~*~!  C o l o r   F u s i o !~*~*~

(Here's a banner for it)

"Okay cool!" you might be saying. You also might be wondering "Well what is it?" Fantastic question! Well you better run for cover because I'm about to drop a bomb on you! (Figuratively speaking, of course...)

Color Fusion is a ...
  • 3 player co-operative
  • puzzle platformer
  • adventure

"Cool! Sounds neato! Tell me more!!"

Okay. We're going to release it on this platform:
 
And make it using this:
Oh, by the way, it's 2-dimensional.


"Sweet!! Who is making this amazing game!?!?"



Our team is as follows:

  • Will Gallagher
    • Artist
    • Webmaster
    • Sound effects







  • Matt Burroughs
    • Programmer
    • Level Design









  • David Noonan
    • Programmer
    • Business Management







"How did you guys think of this!?!"


Well, despite looking a lot like LBP, that game did not influence the design of Color Fusion. However, two other games did.

  • Cid the Chameleon
    • Formerly created by Will as a student project.
    • Made use of colored platforms as the primary game mechanic.
    • Inspired the color-coded collision we implement in Color Fusion.

  • Braid
    • The painterly artistic feel in Braid partially inspired the art direction for Color Fusion.
    • For example: scanning in actual finger paintings as background pieces instead of trying to digital create them.
    • Here's a screenshot for reference: 


"So how does this game work, exactly?"


Well, the players exist as three differently colored blobs of paint that live in an expansive canvas world.
You play as these three little dudes!
Pretty similarly to any other puzzle platformer, really. Players jump around and attempt to progress through a level by solves puzzles. However, in our game, the color of an object is of utmost importance. Players can only interact with objects of their own color. Let me illustrate.


If you were the red player and attempted to jump through a blue platform, you'd fall straight through it. But if you were the red player and attempted to jump on a red platform, you'd have no problem and land just fine. These "rules of color" allow us to craft very interesting platforming situations.

Color moves beyond just collision, though. All of the three primary colors (Red, Yellow, Blue) of which the players control have access to specific emotions which commonly correlate to that color. The players can wield these emotions as special abilities to further their goals. To make a simple example out of a long-winded explanation, if you're the red player you can get really angry (because red = anger) and use your rage to crush opponents. Get it now?

But wait, it gets even cooler. Remember the "fusion" part of the title? Well, that's not there just for kicks and giggles. Players can fuse together to form different colors, gaining access to new collision options and emotional abilities. I'll pause to give you a moment to pick your jaw back up.

(Green is sick)


Okay moving on.

"So does this shindig have a story associated with it?"

Short answer: kind of.

We are still developing the story into something that suitably fits the theme and feel of the game. As it currently stands, the story is essentially that the blobs want to fully explore the world that they live in. Just for fun. That's about it.

Like I said, we're still working on that.

"This all seems pretty swell, but why should I invest my hard-earned dollars into this game?"

A few reasons.
  • Not many 3 player co-op games out there.
    • Interesting niche with few close competitors.
  • Very heavy focus on cooperation, promotes teamwork.
    • Has potential as a fun teaching tool.
  • Captivating artistic style.
    • Use of real finger paintings and heavily stylized graphics.
    • Also, sweet music to compliment the visual art.

That's about it! Please feel free to leave comments telling us what you think about the game or how we could improve it!

Thanks for stopping by!
- The Maniacal Crew

    9 comments:

    1. Just to play the devil's advocate...is there going to be a colorblind mode?

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    2. Actually Sean, while the current art concepts might not reflect it, we plan on giving the blobs accessories to match their moods so that they'll be identifiable even without color.

      For example: Red could have a metal anklet and spiky punk hair while Blue could have some long, dark emo haircut covering his blubbering eyes, stuff like that!

      (Note: that last example was 50% sarcasm. Maybe more like 60%.)

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    3. Well, I saw the game over the summer when you guys brought it up in Stuart's last course at UB. Still looks pretty solid, so allow me to give you kudos on your pitch style. I loved the box formatting within the blog, the tone, the dialogue gimmick. You guys are gonna do awesome when it comes to the final presentations.

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    4. I love the premise of this game being that I love art and all. I will come back and post some of my research for the color theory vehicle I help design a couple of years ago. You are welcome to use what you find useful and throw out the rest. In the meantime read a little from this site: http://www.tigercolor.com/color-lab/color-theory/color-theory-intro.htm
      This site is good too:

      http://www.cs.brown.edu/courses/cs092/VA10/HTML/start.html

      It's what I referenced for my project.

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    5. Thanks for the feedback!

      @Wheeler - I was just playing around with the give-and-take dialogue pitch style, but maybe we should more seriously consider using it for our final presentation. I just hope we do as well as you think we will! (Thank you for the vote of confidence)

      @Christina - First off, thank you!! We vastly appreciate some real color theory knowledge, because we definitely just googled it and went ahead blindly with what we found. We look forward to what you come back with! (And will definitely check out the links you gave)

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    6. As simple as your game seems, the concept is actually very original (at least, to me anyway). I think it is a fantastic idea, and I'm glad that you guys were able to generate some interest at Artscape over the summer. Looking forward to seeing the finished product.

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    7. I like the look of the game, the presentation,and I really like the sound. I suspect you already have a color wheel but in case you don't, here is a link to an online one: http://www.ficml.org/jemimap/style/color/wheel.html. I will try to find mine in this mess I call my computer room and bring it to class on the 9th. I also am looking forward to seeing the finished product and I think it will be well accepted at the final presentation and (hopefully) beyond.

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    8. I like the crumpled paper background that you showed last week. It had a crisp look and it still fit well because when kids paint theres always construction paper involved.

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    9. This is a great game idea, pretty daring to have a 3 player co-op. You should keep this blog up and running with updates, so we know when the game is actually finished. I'd actually like to buy this if you put it up on Xbox live. You should make an announcement here on the blog.

      Just a bit of encouragement, as well. If you are concerned with an individual ruining the game, like sometimes Yellow Blob seems to like to cause mischief, you can always see what Valve did with Left 4 Dead (I assume they had to have something to deal unruly players) or have some kind of "voting off the island" feature in the multiplayer.

      - Kyle Bowser

      ReplyDelete