Day119

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It's Wednesday, if you hadn't noticed. And that means Failout stuff!

Well, since on Saturday, Blogger was rejecting all my pictures, I have both Photoshop concepts and Failton screenshots for you. Yes, that's TWO things!

First up, UDK stuff. I've changed the lighting in Failton to have one dominant directional light (sunlight, basically, lighting the entire map from one direction) which has decreased light rendering times a bit, and made shadows cats by buildings more realistic. I've also addedsome more detail to the inside of the smaller factory buildings.

 Another - smaller - building furnished.

 Some changes made to interior of this building, wall detail added, lighting dimmed to give a gloomier feel, and made the tanks bigger to create a claustrophobic effect.

Now I'd like you to meet... John? I don't know. He doesn't really need a name, seeing as he wouldn't  remember it anyway. 

Attractive, huh? This little fellow is a Fool. Basically the dessicated husk of a human who has been so badly affected by Fail that they are driven only by their need to find and consume more. Bodily damage appears not to affect them as much as before their mutation. Weaknesses include fire and decapitation. While insignificant alone, fools can pose a very real threat to survivors if encountered in large groups.

Day 26.2

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Good evening, Failians! Since the first part of this double post this morning, I've done two - yes two - things!

Puka-Cola is going to play a big part in the story and overall feel of the game, just as good old Nuka-Cola does in Fallout. For this reason, I've decided it would be prudent to start designing the many advertising posters and other branding that I'd like to put into the game. I did a quick drawing of what I'd hope some of the posters to resemble earlier:

The whole of the poster. the bottom got crumpled in an embarrassing cat incident. Needless to say, the cat escaped unharmed.

Health warnings absolve Failco. Fail Production Industries from all blame in the event of accidental death caused by the consumption of Puka-Cola.

Just a few of the tasty ingredients used in the production of Puka-Cola.

I couldn't help having a pop at those drinkaware tag lines on the end of every alcohol ad. With one sentence, Failco. dodge all blame for the negative effects of their product.









I also did some stuff in the UDK. I've added windows and detail to the inside, but alot of the work today was fixing textures that decided to break themselves. Either that, or I did something stupid without noticing.

 The pumps and reservoirs supplying the production line with pure Fail and its derivatives.

 Windows, without glass at the moment.

Day 23

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Greetings once again, faithful Failians! That's what I'm calling you now, ok? I'm not even sure who you are, or if you even exist, but at least you have a name. A damn fine name, if you ask me!


Now, to business. Today I added meshes to the three empty buildings I created yesterday and implemented a genius new idea that will add an extra dimension to gameplay: rooftop travel! Pretty much just bits of scrap that the residents of Failout have used to bridge the gap between buildings, these let you travel across the city much quicker and safer. However, there will of course be areas that require you to walk the streets.

 Rooftop travel is the easiest and safest way to cross the city, but it isn't always possible.

 The streets of Failton. Gonna put something on the lit-up sign by the way.

One of the many derelict industrial buildings that has become home to some of Failton's less desireable residents.


I'll be starting on the Puka-Cola factory buildings tomorrow, as I wanted to get a big landmark done to give me a sense of the finished city. I doubt I'll get much of it done, because I want it to be big. It's the manufacturing facility for Failtopia's favourite toxic beverage after all!

Minipost: Zombiefication!

Ghouls were the enemies that added the horror factor to fallout. I just thought of our alternative - Autoplay. A terrible condition affecting those who have suffered extreme doses of Fail.

Autoplay does, basically, what it says on the tin: taking control of the afflicted's mind and turning them into a fail-obsessed vegetable. These zombiefied few can be found in the heavily contaminated areas of Failton, searching for the raw essence of Fail.

I want this to add a Left 4 Dead-type feel to some areas of the city, accentuating the horror factor that originated in Fallout.

Day 21.1

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Well, today's post will be in two sections. This is partly down to the fact that my recent posts have been very brief for the most part, as I've been hard at work shipping out that alpha build for the rest of the team.

Later on today I'll be starting the second stage of Failout's progression - as in, level two - and as this is a much bigger task than the bunker, I think it might well take me a few weeks to complete. During this time, I hope to get someone else working on finishing off the Failbunker (under my supervision of course - that thing's like my child!) i.e: animation, bug fixing, objectives and the final mesh placements. I don't think we'll be ready to put characters in there for a long time yet, and I'd prefer to do that once we have some level structure under our belts. I also need to write a story for the characters to be built around, and that takes time.

 So, today's task is to build a city (Failton) which can be enclosed by walls to create a stand-alone level. That is, if I don't build the entirety of Failtopia as one level, thus making it open world - but I don't think that would be wise. I don't have the computing power to make it, and you (most likely) don't have the computing power to play it. Anyway, the city will probably be a large, tiered structure with high surrounding walls (for keeping out those nasties!) and several open courtyards, so that the player doesn't feel like they're still back in the bunker.

And with that, I must leave you. Until later on anyway, because I need to start building this thing. Remember, any suggestions are welcome, and will be read and ignored as my highest priority.

Remember children, Fail kills. Play safe.

Day 9

Badga could not write today's blog post unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances involving him breaking his fingers while having sex with....well...another badger of course! As a result and his legal advisor (zeugma ftw, look it up u naabs), it has fallen to me to write this post. 

Today's philosophy lecture dealt with the question of what makes a human's actions moral and how they differ from the actions of an animal. You probably know where this is going. Yes that's right, Fallout's karma system. This will probably not be implemented in Failout, I just mentioned it to get your hopes up and then immediately dash them to pieces like the heartless son of a biatch lawyer I am to become. Unless maybe Badga has a lot of spare time and consequently spare time problems, meaning he does not know what to do with all that spare time and must inevitably design a karma system for Failout to stave off boredom. This will not happen. Ever. However, rest assured, the final version of the game will have oodles and oodles of pie, it will simply be in a hidden area which is impossible to reach, making its presence in the game absolutely pointless, so we won't include it.

Until next time, this is FffffffffffffailDin, AA-OOH, coming to you live from the Capital Failland!! Bow-wow! (Well done if you got the Galaxy News Radio + Three Dog spoof reference, here's a cookie)

Day 8

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 Multiplayer... I always wished Fallout had an option to play with other people. We'd need servers, though, and servers cost money. Anyway, it would have to be a pretty ordinary FPS game seperate the single player RPG/ish thing, at least I'm pretty sure making MMOs wouldn't be practical on the UDK - Or possible for me to do in under 20 years.

 Work on the first level is going more slowly than I'd expected now, but I'll have unlimited time to work on it in a couple of week's time! Holidays ftw.

Day 6

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 Like I said, today I'm going to write about the little details. These are the things that will make Failout something which slightly resembles Fallout. -ish. Kinda. Legally. Anyway, I fear I have drifted from the point again. Here's a nice, concise list without too much of my incoherent and unnecessary babbling. Have fun! Seriously, do. Or else.

Systems

Basically, Failout is going to be a single player, first-person action game. Probably very linear and seperated into levels.I don't suppose something like the V.A.T.S. system would be easy for a newbie like me to create, so this will likely be missing from the game. It always made things far too easy anyway!

Levels - I'll update and re-post this section in more details once I've made some more progress in this area.

• Level 1: The Failbunker.

This is the level I'm currently working on, and you can see in development in yesterday's post. The Failbunker is pretty much our version of Fallout's Vault 101. It's where the inhabitants of Failton hid in order to escape the Epic fail. Unlike the Vaults, I'm currently planning for there to be only one of these in the game. Unless of course, more could be discovered in some sort of sequel!?!!!! Probably not though.

Weapons
 
I have plans for a few variations on Fallout weapons, as well as some original ones. Several of these weapons are based on the ominously named Puka-Cola. As you may have deciphered already, this is our version of the popular Wasteland beverage; Nuka-cola. Planned weapons for this highly toxic ammunition include the Puka Rifle, Puka Launcher and Puka-nade.

I'll cover more tomorrow,  wouldn't want to give away too much at once! Especially seeing as I'll be building this thing for months. Years, probably.

Day 3: I can has failsketch?

Did a couple of sketches earlier, an idea for branding and a concept piece for the Brotherhood of Fail (ingeniously named, I'm sure you'll agree). I really doubt I'll be able to create anything resembling this in UDK, but I can always try. And hey, if I fail I will have pretty much achieved the project goals anyway. Image quality is terrible because I took it with a web cam. It's not my fault, I'm poor!




I haven't decided on any colours or a background for this yet, although the f-brand will probably be red. I think this is suitably distinguishable from that game's branding. Din could perhaps confirm this for me, but I doubt it.

The Brotherhood of Fail needs to live up to it's name, and I think a patchwork, ramshackle and quite frankly ridiculous look suits that image well.

Although this probably won't be possible with the UDK (at least, not for me) I hope to base the design on something like this. Fallout - crap, I said it - always contained allot of useless crap that we had to wade through. It makes sense that a destitute organisation like the Brotherhood of Fail would make use of this stuff in their, uhm, Tactical Junk Armour?


The middle armour section is made up of half a barrel, and has been imprinted with the f-brand; the sacred symbol of The Brotherhood of Fail.

Lp and Din haven't seen these yet. I hope they're not too downhearted by the overall progress so far... from Lp's first post I think he may be close to cracking. And I've always had my suspicions about Din - he's a strange one that.

If you think about it, kinda like a sausage.