Chris Fisher

Tutorials

I'll add links to these at the top, just for ease
UnCodeX Tutorial
UDE Tutorial


Me

Follow my blog

As I’m the new student, I’ll start off with a little introduction about myself, before moving on to a brief outline of my Total Conversion (TC) plan.
Feel free to skip on using the hopefully working contents above.

I'm a mature student (25 to be precise) from the midlands, and have entered year 2 following a HND in Computing. In my illustrious past I have worked for such amazing companies as McDonalds and Adams Childrenswear, but feel that I can do an awful lot more. My ambition is to become a computer games programmer (obviously) and hopefully progress further up the ladder from there. I'll be contributing towards this wiki in the coming months by adding a couple of tutorials and maybe sparking some discussions! But enough on me (for now); feel free to introduce yourself if u see me around and I’ll happily provide more details.


My Outline

I will be using the book Five go to Smugglers Top as the thesis for my assignment. I choose Smuggler Top (ST) as I had a vague memory of reading it as a child. The book begins with a tree falling onto Kirrin Cottage, forcing the five to holiday at a friends house; Sooty Lenoir. Upon arriving at Sooy's George is dismayed to discover that there's “..no dog's allowed at Smugglers Top”. Fortunately for George and the gang, Sooty has an idea – Timmy can hide in the warren of tunnels beneath the house.

I like this section of the book as it really embodies what I feel is the true spirit of the famous five books; secret passages and exploration. Whilst the main crux of the following chapters has very little in the way of action, I think it can be converted into a series of puzzles with relative ease. Things introduced to the five, such as Sooty's 'alarm' can be presented incomplete – the player must finish the device instead of just being shown it.


The Story

For the purpose of the game, it isn't necessary for the player to be informed of WHY the five go to ST, so I will be leaving the tree falling incident out. Instead the story will begin with the five arriving by car. This allows for a more simplistic environment – Kirrin Cottage does not need to be modelled as it will not feature. A short animation sequence will introduce the five's arrival and the initial conversation with Sooty. It is at this point in the book that adventure really begins, and allows for a sequence of puzzles to be implemented.

We begin the game proper with the five having to navigate through the underground tunnels. Taking on the role of Julian, the player will have to traverse a maze like section. Throughout the darkened tunnels the other members of the five, and Sooty will be posted to give hints and help. To make the opening more interesting, the tunnels will be very dark, but fortunately Sooty will be visible close by with a torch for the player to obtain. This will hopefully introduce the dialogue system in a very hands-on manner, skipping lengthy tutorial sections and taking the player straight into the action. Once the player reaches the tunnel exit, the first puzzle will be presented. In the book Julian simply has to turn a handle to open the exit door, but we will instead use a simple matching puzzle.

Once the player has succeed in 'escaping' the tunnels, a short dialogue will introduce the next game. Sooty has a device rigged to alert him when someone enters the long passage connecting his room with the main wing of the building, the player will have to build this device. This will be done in a similar manner to the hacking mini-game in Bioshock, although it will NOT be timed. Instead the player has a limited number of lives with which to complete the puzzle – lives being lost for errors, and having to start again once all chances have expired.

The next piece of dialogue will introduce Block, the sinister butler, and provides an example of the alarm in action. I intend to keep much of the dialogue intact for this section as it is pretty funny – vocabulary has changed a lot since ST was written, and I find the use of the word 'queer' and a reference to Block as “my stepfather's man” somewhat humorous. The next mini game will utilise hints from previous scenes and is a matching game where the player must fill in 2 family trees; One for Sooty and Marybelle, another for the 5. This puzzle will be fairly straight forward if the player has paid attention to the story, but just in case they haven't, it will provide infinite chances to correct.

A lot of dialogue is featured in the book after this point, for the purposes of the game we will skip this and move straight onto the final puzzle. At this point in the book, the gang must move furniture in order to uncover yet another secret passage in which to hide Timmy. Our player will achieve this using a slide puzzle – in order to minimise it's complexity, there will only be 9 tiles.

End cinematic and text.

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License