Production Diary

The production of my flash game has started and i am creating the title graphics for the start screen in photoshop. The game is going to be called "Haunted house of horrors" and it is going to be white with a red radiant glow to stand out to the user.

I created the titles on a transparent background so when I save it as a .PNG it will not have a white background when i import it into flash.

 I then went into Adobe Illustrator and created the scenes backgrounds for the whole flash game. The first scene that i created was the basement scene and i made two versions of the picture. one dark with a gradient glow to add a lens flare effect from the light in the wall and one that is bright so the user can see when they pick up a torch that they have to find to go through the rest of the house.

I then did the same effect when doing the rest of the scenes in Illustrator. This is for it to look like it is a torch in the players hand whilst going from room to room. the source of the glow will be at the bottom of the screen to create the torch illusion.

The rest of the scenes im going to design them in flash because it is easier to work with and also i need to animate the rooms as most of them are interactive with animations in the scene.

I then took a break from doing some designs and recorded some voices for my flash game. I was reading the script on one half of my screen and recording my voice on the other half in Audacity. When i recorded my voice i changed the pitch to make my voice sound younger.

The picture below shows the sound files that i have for voices in the first scene of the game when Jason finds the house.

I will now be using Adobe Audition to edit my voices so they sound good for the flash game. I opened my sounds in the windows explorer and dragged the sounds i wanted to edit into the Audition programme. I then increased the dB (Volume) of the sounds so the user can hear the sounds more clearly. I did this by using the dial that is above the sound waves.

I then used an echo effect to make some of the sounds sound like that the character is inside a basement. This is for the scene where Jason lands in a basement after falling through a trap door whilst trying to enter the house.

I left the rest of my recorded sounds how they were because i thought they sounded good as they were.

I then imported my sounds into flash to start making the character that I have created in flash speak. I did this by going to File > Import > Import to Library so I can keep track of what symbols and sounds I have ready for my animation.

I then went into create some new mouth symbols that will show the character will speak. I made certain mouth shapes for the character so they can speak correctly in the game’s cut scenes.

To make sure I had the quality of the sound on flash the best it can be I went into each sound properties and changed the compression settings to speech at 44kHz.

 The symbols below are the mouth graphics that i use for the main characters mouth for when i lip sync the animation with the sound.

I have a few symbols that look the same. this is so i can get the longer vowles animated in the lip sync. For example if he says soon i will use the enlarged O shaped mouth for the oo sound and animate it with the smaller O shape for a moving mouth effect.

My method of animation that i am using in my game is both tweening animation and frame by frame animation. Below is an example of how i do my frame by frame animation.

The left of the screen is the example that i use for the pose that i am working from and the colours that i need for the shading of the character. i have this on a separate layer in the animation because this will be removed and will not be in the final product. This example is from the scene that i have Jason trying to smash down a door to get into the house. The picture below shows the frame by frame animation that I have done.

I also did some frame by frame animation for the final part of the first scene that shows Jason falling through a trap door after he stops to take a breath from smashing on the door. I did the background and floor beneath the trap door on the same layer so it is quicker to draw the scene. 

I then did the trap door on a separate layer so i can do an animation of the doors opening more smoothly and consistent. It is also easier to do so i can animate it quicker.

I also drew Jason on a separate layer so i can animate him falling through the trap door quicker and better for work time.

Copyright and Ethics

Copyright:

Hopefully in my interactive flash game it will not conflict with anything that should be copyrighted (for example music, sound effects, graphics, etc...). I will be creating all my sounds from scratch using different pieces of software. I will be using FL Studios to create my sound and most of the adobe software to create my graphics. No pictures will be taken from the internet and no sound clips will be taken either.

Ethics:

I will make the graphics suitable for the audience so that no one is easily offended by what they see on screen. I will make sure there will be less gore and more fear in the horror game to make the viewer more scared than freaked out by the interactive flash game. The sound clips will also not have any offensive language in so the interactive flash movie is viewer friendly and is more focused on entertainment other then offending people.

Game script:

Jason: how did i get here?...

*Jason goes down the dark road towards the house*

Jason: what is this place? how have i gone the wrong way?... maybe I should go back the other way.

*Goes to walk away*
Unknown: "Deadly Screams!"

Jason: WHAT THE?!?!

*Jason goes towards the house where the screaming came from*

Jason: Don't worry i'll get you outta there!

*Tries barging down the door. It wont open*

Jason: why wont it open?

*There is a silence for a second them a loud metallic sound of a door opening startles Jason. leading him to fall through a trap door in front of the front door.*

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*Jason wakes up in the back of a basement*

Jason: Where am I now? I need to find a torch

*The user has to find a torch to continue the dialogue*

Jason: Looks like i'm in a basement... of where though... why cant i remember anything?

*The user will have to go through the basement door to continue the dialogue*

Jason: Last thing i remember is leaving home... WHY CANT I REMEMBER ANYTHING?!

*Jason finds the main hallway*

Jason: Where to now?

Unknown: "Deadly screaming!"

Jason: Thats coming from upstairs. Hello!

Unknown: "More Screaming!"

Jason: I'm not going there! I wonder whats in these rooms?

*The user will explore several rooms to find a key to a double doored room up the stairs which is where the screaming is coming from*

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*When the user leaves the room where they get the key from they will be taken to a cut scene*

Unknown: HEEEEEEEELLLLLLLPPPP MMMEEEEEEEE!!!!! AAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Jason: That's it I gotta help her!

*Jason will go up the stairs and the user will decide weather to open the door or not. One decision is game ending*

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*When the user opens the door they will see a bedroom covered in blood. They will see feet moving at the bottom of the bed on the other side. Jason will then run away from the room and will be chased by the thing that was eating the body in the bedroom. The user will do quick time actions with the keyboard keys to run away from the thing and hide in a room down the stairs in the bedroom downstairs in a closet*

Jason: What just happened? What was that...that...thing "Speaks in his mind worried"

*Once the noises stop the user will have to leave the closet and find a way out of the house"

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Jason: Well i got to find a way out of this house. Quickly.

Unknown: HEELLLPPPP!!

Jason: I'm not going after that again. Not after last time.

Unknown: JASON!!!! HELLLPP!!

Jason: WHAT!! WHO WAS THAT!!

Unknown: "More Screaming"

Jason: I'M COMING!! HOLD ON!!

*The user will direct Jason up the stairs to the left and to the door on the left that inst open. Jason will open the door slowly to reveal a little girl cowering under bed sheets*

Jason: Hello...Little girl... how do you know my name? Hello?

*Jason goes to take the sheet of the girls head but instead ends up getting sent flying across the room by the witch of the house*

Jason: I knew i shouldn't of come to this room!!

*The user will now need to do quick time actions to get away from the witch but need to be fast with their reactions because you have less time to do these actions to escape from the witch because she is just that little bit faster than the thing. Jason will end up hiding inside the closet again to hide from the witch*

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*When Jason leaves the closet the new aim is to complete the game. The user will have to go to the kitchen for a fire axe after exploring the rest of the upstairs area to find a door with what sounds like a film playing in the next room*

Jason: Ok i'm defiantly not going to go save someone in this house I just need to get out.

The Witch: JASON!! "screams"

Jason: i gotta get away from that voice. Back up the stairs should do it. I wonder what else is up there.

*The user will then go up the stairs to find a room with the film in and wonder how to get in there. He then hears the thing close to him*

Jason: Whats in this room? sounds like a film playing? but there are only creepers in the house no one living. I gotta find a way in.

The thing: "Ambient sound gets louder"

Jason: I'm getting away from here!

*The user will then have to direct Jason to go to the kitchen where the axe will be to break open the door for the theater room. where the final quick time actions will be*

Jason: An axe. I can use this to get into the room with the film and see what it is and who is in there!

*The user now takes Jason to the theater room*

Jason: Lets see who's in here.

"Axe chopping sound on a door"

*When Jason enters the room he see's a doctor on the film with a woman strapped to a bed about to be injected with something*

Doctor: Test vaccine number one. First test on a human. The effects should cause slowing of the heart and killing the virus within the subject.

Test Subject: GET ME OUT OF THIS CHAIR!! THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH ME!!

Doctor: The subject is delusional and thinks she is perfectly healthy. The final stage of the virus. Injecting with the cure now.

*The doctor goes to put the cure into the test subjects bloodstream when she suddenly breaks free from whats holding her down and she hovers over the bed and starts to speak in a devils tone of voice to the doctor.*

Test subject: THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH ME!!

Doctor: WHAT ARE YOU?!? GET AWAY FROM ME!!

*The test subject then uses it's psychological technique to make the doctor inject himself with the cure turning him into the thing. This makes the witch and the thing in the house*

Jason: So that's what the thing is... that doesn't explain the witch though... Where did she come from?

*Jason then finds two keys on the film player and notices that they look like house keys. The witch then comes in the scene for a jumpscare on the user and now they will have two buttons to select from. Go through the front door or go out the back door. One will lead to death and one will lead to staying alive*

Good ending - Jason: well that was weird *End*

Bad ending - *Jason gets killed by the witch and the thing - End*

Concept art part 2

 



This is the Basement plan for the start of the horror game. The scene will include sounds like a light wind blowing effect to make the user feel uncomfortable. There will also be spot sounds for picking stuff up like the torch and the key in the basement. The navigation will include having to pick the key and torch up to move on through the door at the top of the scene.



This is the plan out for the main hallway. You will come here after escaping the basement and throughout most of the game to get where you need to go. There will be ambient sounds on the scene like a light humming sound that will make the user feel tense like somethings is going to happen. To move around this scene there will be an invisable button around the area where you need to go. They will be on all the doors and the stairs so you go up the stairs to go to the next scene. Spot sounds will include the sound of opening doors and the sound of stairs creaking when you go up the stairs.

This is the plan for the bedroom where you will go to hide when the thing comes chasing you through the house. There will be more ambient suonds in the room like a light humming sound effect for example to make the user feel uncomfortable and unable to think about what they are going to do. The navigation will be with invisable hit box buttons over the wardrobe for the user to hide in there if the thing is chasing them and benith the screen to leave the room when they have experienced enough in that room. There will be spot sound effect for the wardrobe and door and they will both include creaking doors to make the user know it is an old house they are running around.

 

 

This is the plan for the theater cut scene where the user will find out finally what is the thing that is chasing them. The navigation in this scene is different from the rest. there will be quicktime actions for the user to do to run away from teh thing that is chasing them. they will have to do this successfully or they will be killed and will have to start the game all over again. The spot sounds will include a stoping feet sound effect to make the user feel like they are really running from the thing.

Week 3: action scripting in flash

Now i am going to actionscript the flash document to make the animation transfer from one scene to another. To do this i have to create another scene from my first one in flash. To do thatyou have to go to Insert > Scene in the toolbar at the top of the application, then you have your new scene.

i then put action script on the button. To do this i selected the button and right-clicked on it and selected it to open the actions window at the bottom of the menu. The actions window will pop up then i start action scripting.

The action script i put in for it to go to the next scene is
on (release) {
gotoAndPlay("Scene 2",1);
}

However to make sure the button is used properly you have to put a stop action on the scene where the button. To do this you have to right click on the frame where the button is in a new layer and put the stop action from the action script menu in the actionscript.

The button is now action scripted

 

Now i to added sound to my button to put some sound in the animation. to do this i im going to shorten a sound to under a second to make it suitable for the buttons properties. First i got a sound effect to fit with the button. i impotred the sound i wanted into audacity and selected the ammount of sound that i wanted ton have imported into flash. so i selected it and went to File > Export selection.

 

I then imported the sound into flash's librairy and double clicked my button and i added the sound effect to the buttons over frame on a new layer



Sounds, techniques being used in the flash game

I am going to be using multiple sounds that i will create to make the horror in the game more suspense for the user. The type of sounds that i will be using are:

- Light background music for some points
- Ambient sounds
- jump scare noises
- vocals
- character chat

Things like ambient sounds and jump scare noises will be used so the user will feel intensity when they play the game. The aim of this is to make the user scared when they play the game so they can have a good experience of the gameplay. The character chat will mostly be the main character thinking on what they have to do for the next objective and in cut scenes there will be multiple vocals and noises to scare the user. There will be light background music playing so the user can feel unprepared for what is going to happen next so they will un-expect the jump scares in the game. There will also be a sound coming from the thing that will be chasing you to add more horror to the game because the sounds is the source of anything being scary.

The type of lighting that i will use in the game will be dark but brightened with the torch the user finds at the start of the game. This is to put tension on the user because the game needs to be scary for the character entering a haunted house. The house will look like it has been abandoned to make the fear factor of the game go up when the character goes into the house, this is because the look of a haunted house makes the user feel uncomfortable so the game will take the user out of their comfort zone and into the fear zone in their mind so its adds more fear to the game.

The style of the game will be set in both picture form and animated form. The picture parts will be for the users interactivity and the cut scenes will show them the story behind the haunted house. However there will be a twist to some cut scenes because the user will have to quick time actions to escape the thing when it chases you. This will require a combination of buttons to escape the thing for an entertaining and horror experience. The user in the picture scenes will have to find their way around the house and find certain objects to survive the house. When it is animated the user will have to prepare for a quick time action if a sign at the bottom says 'Prepare to run'.

Overall the whole game will be dark and gloomy to add suspense and horror to the user. This is to give them a good experiance of horror whilst playing a game. I think it is best to design the game in this fashion because it is easy to do and the user can still think of it as a good horror game.

Week 2 - Designing graphics:

My haunted house

some techniques i used for this haunted house is dragging in a cloud image over an image of a haunted house. i did this by getting rid of the background of the house by using the eraser tool and inserting the sky i wanted to use on a layer beloew the house's layer.

 

I then matched the house to the colour of the sky by changing the brightness, hue and saturastion to make the house match the mood of the picture.

 i also used the stamp tool to get rid of some of the fence without erasing it out. I changed the colour of the house on the house's layer on photoshop to match the background.

click the picture for enlargement.

Creating a flash button:

I created an icon in photoshop to become a button in flash. I made a square button because it is simple and the user can see it well.



This is me creating my button in photoshop



I then saved it as a .PNG file because i made the button on a transparent document so the user will not see a white box over the button when it is imported into flash.

I then inserted the button into flash as a button symbol so i can edit the properties of the button when the user interacts with it. The interaction stage works in 4 stages of creation. The button how the user see's it without a mose over, how it looks with a mouse over, what it looks like when you click it and the hit box for the button.