Project December: Development Journal

by Marie Lazar

Dance and rhythm mechanic in video games:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6npVMGDCNrU

Paper Mario and the Thousand Year Door- appropriately eerie, does a good job for only using quick-time events.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6v0CRUUnHE

DDR is classic. Other rhythm games use similar interfaces. Versatile because it allows you to do two steps at once.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHBLQage_AA

Dance Central…is completely irrelevant to my method of input (keyboard). But it looks like fun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y16ocEC8h_E

I like Elite Beat Agent’s way of keeping the interface to a small portion of the screen.

http://nyarlulabs.tumblr.com/dancedancedance

Dance dance dance

Short indie game where you fling your waltz partner at other couples. Not really relevant, but neat.

Style: Isometric or top-down?

Classic top-down is easy to organize, and movement maps naturally to the arrow keys. The tradeoff is that you can only

see detail on the far wall (as in the right example). Golden Sun found a creative workaround for this, distorting the side

walls so you can (somewhat) see what’s on them, but it only works for boxy rooms and the game reverts to the standard

isometric for the dungeons.

The other way to go about it is to use isometric projection. Isometric looks sleek and hey, you get twice as many walls to

work with. The big problem, as already mentioned, is that it’s not intuitive to move around using the arrow keys.

Solution:

Using the top-down style but “cheating” the walls a little so you can see more of the sides, a la Golden Sun. Wall niches

will be added to the design of the room so there is more space to decorate.

Setting: I found out from The Art of Anastasia that the ballroom from the movie is based on the one in the Catherine Palace, not

the Winter Palace as was originally planned. It was also expanded from one floor to two, and augmented with a grand

staircase.

The Winter Palace was still used for exterior shots, and I think I’m going to make it the setting for my game. It’s location

right off the street in St. Petersburg makes it plausible that someone could stumble inside, as opposed to the more out of

the way Catherine palace. Besides, the Winter Palace is stunning. There are lots of photos from the present-day museum

it’s been converted into. Like the creators of Anastasia, I have no problem taking creative liberties with the design to

make it fit the game and capture the emotional response I want. But it should still be identifiable as this specific place in

St. Petersberg.

The Catherine Palace. Lovely, but we can do better.

Much better! I really like the colors in the last two.

Color Schemes: http://www.colorhunter.com/ Colorhunter gave me some pretty colors based on a photo

Another palette, this one from I forget where.

This one from bighugelabs.com even names your colors and lets you download them as a photoshop swatch.

Another one from color paletteFX. It’s interesting to see how all these formulae break down color differently.

One more, from photocopa.

Floor plans:

How to waltz:

The standard waltz is very basic. For women is goes as thus:

Step back with right foot

Step back and to the left with left foot

Step to the left with right foot

Step forward with left foot

Step forward and to the right with right foot

Step right with left foot

Repeat

More complex versions add rotation to the mix. Waltzes come in “slow” and “Viennese” flavors, with the latter being up

to four times faster. The slow waltz, or the American waltz, is the one that’s commonly danced at weddings and social

occasions.

Music: This is tough. “Once Upon a December” isn’t going to cut it. I need a piece that:

1. could plausibly have been danced to by the Romanovs (Russian composer, late 1800’s.)

2. sounds equally good as an orchestral piece and a music box tune.

3. is available in midi format (so I can make both versions in FL studio)

4. fits the mood of the scene and is easy to keep the beat of

Some possibilities:

Johann Strauss II – Blue Danube Waltz (everyone knows it, not especially sad or mournful)

Dmitry Shostakovich – Jazz Suite No. 2 Waltz 2 (I love this one, it reminds me of Eyes Wide Shut, but it comes a little too

late to be historically accurate)

Tchaikovsky – Anything by Tchaikovsky (but only if it’s never been in a Disney movie)