Let me tell you about The Co-Signers :D

THE CO-SIGNERS

It has been a long time since my last blog post about the games we pitched and the games that got selected for Gate 1. Now I will tell you about my experience as I started working on our prototype for Cellblock.

Our final team who was working on Cellblock for the Gate 1 included me, Max, Nikhil, Chris, Kiran and our great team of producers, Andrew, AJ and Zac. I was very happy with my team. All of us were really excited to make an awesome game. The idea of an Asymmetric couch co-op game was something different and exciting. So our team started working on it with full force.

We started our first day with physical prototype of the Game focusing on the stealth mechanism and communication between the two players. Initial premise of the game was a Hacker helps a Prisoner to escape out of a high security prison. The hacker can hack the security cameras, get to know the position of the prisoner using the security camera footage and eventually, guide the prisoner to take proper decisions while the prisoner tries to dodge the security guards and other security threats on the ground.

Here's the video of our physical prototype

This physical prototype was followed by a week of brainstorming sessions. We came up with a few mechanics for both sides of the game. The mechanics that we came up with for the first-person view player did not suit the theme of the prisoner. We wanted the first-person guy to have some high tech gadgets like tracking bugs, mobile cameras and other similar stuff. A prisoner would not have all this if he was trapped in a jail. So we thought of moving away from the Prisoner-Hacker team to something else.

The Prisoner-Hacker theme was followed by a Thief-Hacker theme but even that too did not stay on the table for long. Then during our next stand-up meeting, Andrew told us about the theme that he thought of during the weekend. So the theme was that two graduate students infiltrate the department of education for resetting all the student loans. So we thought of the name THE CO-SIGNERS!!!

After the theme and the mechanics we decided, we started working of the prototype in Unity4 with full force. Me and Kiran were working on the Point Man's mechanics whereas Nikhil, Chris and Max were working on the Hacker's mechanics. Max also managed the networking between the two parts of the Game.

Me and Kiran working on the Point-Man's mechanics

Chris, Max and Nikhil discussing the Hacker's perspective

Specifically, I started my work on the Mechanics with implementing the doors properly, viz. Opening and the Closing of doors. The doors that I implemented for the prototype were the old-school Doom or Wolfenstein style doors which open and close side-ways. 

My next task was working on the AI, i.e. movement of the guards in the world. I used Unity4's NavMesh for implementing it. Andrew gave me the guard paths and I assigned those patrol paths to the Guards. We thought that if the Point-Man is seen by the guard then that is the end-state for the prototype. So me and Max added a vision box for the guard and that was all about AI for the prototype.

Both sides of our prototype were coming through nicely. Max had figured out the networking stuff in Unity4 in the first week itself. He continued managing the networking till the end of the prototype. We had a few playtesting sessions and added a few mechanics that we necessary for the prototype.

This prototype had to pass through Gate 1 for making it into a complete game. Industry panel was going to judge our games and give some suggestions about the game. The games shortlisted after this gate were gonna be made into complete games. Before the final industry panel meeting, we had our demo presentations. For this presentation, everyone worked really hard. 

Before the Gate 1, we had a major question in front of us. Whether to show a video of the game being played or to show a live gameplay demo? Our prototype had a few game crashing bugs which would show up once in thousand times. We tried our best to find all the bugs and resolve them before the Gate 1 presentations. While this was being done, deciding which way to go was still a question. After our first demo presentation all of us decided that we will have a live gameplay demo. A gameplay demo was really necessary for understanding the core of our game which was the co-operative tension between the two players. If this was not showcased properly, our prototype and the presentation would have lacked the most important idea that we wanted to convey.

It was Saturday and our industry panel presentations were gonna be on the following Monday. All of us met in the lab on Saturday and we were working on polishing the presentation. Few of us worked on the Game Demo while others worked on the presentation. Collective effort of Chris and AJ created an awesome video which was gonna place the plot of our game during the presentation.

On Monday, all of our cohort helped is setting up and cleaning the lab for the BIG EVENING.

Studio Setup

Members of Team Hack 'n' Hide Setting up the presentation (From left - Zac, Me, Andrew, AJ and Chris)

Everything was set to go. Our team, all pumped up. Andrew, very nervous :P. We wanted to be the first ones to present because we were the one group which had 10 different technical things that could fail. Two projectors, HDMI switchers, Live Gameplay Demo are the few things that I can mention. 

Finally the presentations started. Here's the video of our presentation.

Lot of the industry professionals mentioned their concerns about the scope of our game being too big. We knew this could come up and this was one of the other reasons that we wanted a Live Gameplay Demo. We wanted them to know that we have done so much in the span of 5 weeks and we could do a lot more if we get an year. Some of them encouraged us by saying that if this is done in a right way, we could pull this off.

After all the presentations were over, we had to wait till Thursday to know which games were going to go ahead. All of us wanted The Co-Signers to go ahead. All of us were really passionate about this idea and could work really really hard for making this game. But we had to wait till Thursday to know what was gonna happen with the Co-Signers.

Wait for the next post to know what happened with THE CO-SIGNERS :).