What is National Mech League

Posted by Matheus Pitillo on Sep 15, 2012 in Life at VFS | 2 comments

Loads of changes, loads of arguments, loads of questions… and here we are now! Production Phase, 2nd Floor, a team of three guys. This is National Mech League. 😀 Oh, wait, what?! A team of three guys? Yeah! Team Baking Power ended up jumping from 4 Team Members, to 2, and finally ending up with 3. LOL. This is how I will explain all the delays with the website. The Final Project comes first – and we needed to organize so many things – so I couldn’t give attention to anything else.

Omar, our artist, had some personal problems in Mexico and he took two weeks to decide if he would give up on everything here in Canada, or if he would stay and finish the project with us. During all these confusion, Agnish didn’t know if he could reconcile his idea of the game with the final game concept and atmosphere, so he asked to move to another team and project of our class. In the end everything was solved in a good way, everyone was left satisfied, and Omar decided to stay in the project and go with us until the end. 😀

Team Baking Power is composed of Mustafa Dungarpurwala (Lead Programmer, Gameplay and AI Programmer), Omar Gonzalez (Artist, Character Design, 3D Artist), and me, Matheus Pitillo (Level Designer, Environmental Artist, Project Manager and Game Designer). Everyone is expecting a lot of our team. A team of three. And we are looking forward to proving that we are good enough. 😀

What is National Mech League?
Its fast, it’s explosive. It’s Mechalicious!

National Mech League (NML) is a 3D Dual Stick Shooter PC Game developed with Unity Engine 3.4, where Mechs defeat waves of enemies through a League Arena, while attempting to gain attention from sponsors.

In the far future, mankind is finally able to build Mechs. The only logical outcome of such an engineering achievement is to use Mechs in the newly created sport: Mech Match! In the NML, Mechs fight waves of enemy robots in arenas around the world in order to earn sponsorship and please the fans. By collecting sponsors points, the player can exchange these points for new Mech Pieces, increasing their original stats.

The game takes place in two different areas/levels: the Training Centre and the League Arena. Both scenarios are represented as part of a real Mech League. The Training Centre is a small arena with different rooms. Each room will represent one small challenge, teaching the player all of the necessary game controls. By completing the Training Centre the player will finally get the Mech License to participate in the League. The League Arena is where the real combat in the game happens, in which all waves of enemies and the League Boss will appear.

Design Guidelines
With National Mech League we want the player to feel in control of a big and strong weapon that leaves all the power in their own hands. The player will have the experience of a new participant of a futuristic League in search of victory.

• Charismatic, comic and funny Storytelling
  The whole game atmosphere will focus on a very comic and funny storytelling and universe. All characters will have unique and charismatic personalities, and everything that happens in the League Arena will follow the clichés of Sports, funny commentators etc.
• Brands, Marketing and Sponsorships
  NML is all about the idea of how the world is saturated with marketing, brands and advertisements. Everything in the game will be sponsored by some big fake brand, and all the universe and environments will reflect how superficial this whole thing is, in a very funny and satirical way.
• Level Design that takes advantage of Mechs Mechanics
  The major objectives featured in NML will aim to convey the idea of how the core Mech Mechanics can change and solve the missions according to our Mission Design. Almost all objectives are related to destroying machines in the level, using the maximum Mech Power available. These features beg for thoughtful design that provides varied, interesting, and rewarding gameplay.

From Pre-Production to Production Phase
Term 04 was the Pre-Production Phase of our Final Project. After a lot of meetings and all the help from the instructors, we decided to develop National Mech League. All the designs needed to be built in a way that we could create a fun gameplay experience. We are still fighting to achieve that, but I believe we are on the right track. Pre-Production Phase was in the 3rd Floor and we had our space, with our boards, post-its, pens etc. Everything during this phase was about creating the first steps to follow ahead with Production.

Pre-Production Wall

In the end of Pre-Production we had to present our Game Concept to the Mentors. After the presentation a Mentor would choose us according based on the quality of the presentation and the game concept. Mentors are people from the industry and they always come weekly to check your progress in the development of the game, and to help you during this phase. In our case, Joshua Long was the one who chose our team. Josh is helping us all the time and he usually come to visit us even more than the normal. It’s amazing how he has a great vision about Game Design, Gameplay etc. We are grateful for all help.

Developer Blog
To keep everyone always updated with our work, we decided to create a official website for NML. The development steps of our game will be presented on our website, with Omar’s and mine updates. Of course I will try my best to update everything around here too. My idea is for each new post around here, I will show one step / area of production of our game. Starting with the Game Concept Art and Characters, moving to Level Design, Environmental Art, Project Management, Programming, UI and Design. Let’s see how this will work.

In any case, please visit our official website, let us know your opinion and keep tuned around here. You are always welcome!

• Official Website: National Mech League