Progress Report – Week 13, 14, 15 (Last One)

Here it is…the final blog post summing up the last 3 weeks of our development cycle. It’s been a fun ride!

• Artist Check-In on Monday, April 10th, 2017…
  • Quick update..Aaron is working on the villagers and Amanda is finishing the UI.
• Designer Meeting on Monday, April 10th, 2017 (in which I attended)…
  • I contacted Arany Zoltan, a musician who specializes in European Folk Music. Arany got back to me and gave the team permission to use his work, so now we just need to pick out a song or two and let him know.
  • John then brought up Riley’s maps because there was a problem with them. Dmitri thinks the problem could be that they were made in the wrong version of Unreal or something to do with the substance plugin. The worst case scenario is that Riley has to remake them in the actual project.
  • He then brought up Customer Dialogue Files
  • After that, he showed the rest of the Designers a step-by-step guide to Mercurial so everyone will know how to use it. The guide shows how to create and merge branches as well as committing and pushing.
  • Riley then showed his character database doc, which included updates to the character’s primary and secondary traits. It also includes how much money they have, and their scale of wealth.
  • Dennis then clarified the priorities, which are sound, dialogue, and particle effects and suggested dividing it up. John and Dennis will take a look at particle effects.
  • John then showed off the build as part of the new dialogue is in as well as different customers.
  • We then looked at the Sellable Items List. They’re going to start modeling the icons for each one and possibly hand off to the Artists to quickly vertex paint them.
  • I then left to do homework for other classes but the rest of the Designers worked on their respective tasks for the rest of the meeting.
• Artist Work Meeting on Wednesday, April 12th, 2017…
  • Ben worked on environment props.
  • Amanda worked on promo art.
  • Aaron worked on The Grand Master rig and animations.
• Programmer Meeting on Wednesday, April 12th, 2017…
  • They spent the entire time trying to solve a bug with the game involving recurring customers.
• Full Group Discussion Meeting on Wednesday, April 12th, 2017…
  • We started with a Quick Scrum…
    • I am almost done with the Competitive Review. I am then planning on focusing completely on preparing for the Senior Show and for release.
    • Amanda has finished UI and put it in the repo, and plans to focus on the demo reel and/or tweak the UI.
    • Gabby worked on fixing a bug in the build. If it can’t be fixed in time, the Designers planned in advance in which there would only be five recurring characters.
    • Riley gathered sound effects for the shop and the Troll. He was also looking at particle effect tutorials and is confident he can work on those.
    • Dennis gathered sound effects and our tracklist.
    • John has been looking at sounds and implemented about 95% of the UI. He plans on doing the 2nd draft of the poster since it’s due Friday.
    • Dmitri worked on the Adventurer System and it includes stats, level, experience, health. You can equip adventurers with items and give them food to increase health. The quests have success/failure text for each adventurer and success chance is based on adventurer experience and what items they are equipped with. He also changed completing the quests where the adventurer shows up in your shop upon returning and explaining that they returned. He also added scrolling text. He plans on adding the map and tweaking.
    • Aaron completed Troll and villager animations and plans to finish The Grand Master and he plans to clean up the Troll and finish up any assets.
    • Jed gathered sound effects and sent some music to me. He also implemented some dialogue and plans on doing some revisions/helping others with their dialogue.
    • Tony plans to work on quests, items, and dialogue.
    • Ben talked to an Artist from another team who helped him learn particle effects. He finished boss landscapes aside from the final boss. He also did environment props like rocks. He plans on putting them on mercurial and giving them a paint job.
    • Amanda had a question about a folder that would contain clips of our game so everyone can use for their individual reels.
    • Dan was not here because he ended up staying up all night working on implementing Aaron’s animations as well as modifying hit boxes and timers.
  • Jed then had a question about name changes in the dialogue boxes. Gabby thinks just having the name change on the box when someone new talks is too subtle, so she suggested having customer dialogue higher on the screen, and then The Grand Master’s dialogue lower.
  • John then asked Gabby for a tutorial on how to add dialogue into the text files so he can help the narrative Designers.
  • Dmitri then asked Aaron if there was time if he could make a generic adventurer.
  • He then also mentioned that the Designers could change the class names for the adventurers. As an example. Tam is a Level 1 Adventurer. In addition to this, when they’re not on quests, it says they are idle, so if time, the Designers could think of things they could be doing in that time. This would be a good spot to add in easter eggs of the other senior games.
  • I then asked the team who wanted to volunteer to help set up our game at the Senior Show. Ben and Dmitri volunteered.
  • We then discussed what props we’re going to have for the Senior Show. Ben can get a mannequin. Jed can get some armor. John suggested apples and stickers.
• Following the class time on Friday, April 14th, 2017, we had our Full Group Work Meeting on Saturday, April 15th, 2017…
  • I organized tasks and moved ones over to the next sprint that needed to be moved, in addition to getting screenshots for Steam and gathering some sound effects.
  • Tony worked on quests.
  • Dennis worked on sound implementation.
  • Ben worked on the final level and props.
  • Dan and Dmitri worked on getting the Troll animations working. Dan then also plans making hit detection better.
  • John worked on updating the main menu, revising the credit screen, the poster, and reviewed Jed’s ending for the game.
  • Riley floated around helping other Designers with various things.
  • Dmitri worked on customers, the tutorial, animation implementation.
  • Aaron worked on making designs for the stickers and gave them to John so we could order them today.
• We then started the next week with the Artist Check-In on Monday, April 17th, 2017…
  • Aaron worked from the labs, which included working on The Grand Master animations and on adventurer models
  • Amanda worked from home on the UI sheet, concept art, and Troll turnaround
• Designer Meeting on Monday, April 17th, 2017…
  • They had a quick scrum about what they all did and plan to do.
  • Went over QA results, for the most part things went well people had fun. Some bugs and UI issues, but nothing too bad.
  • Went over sounds and plans for implementation.
  • Talked about getting gameplay footage, Riley said he’d get it once the Troll is in the game.
  • Looked at Steam Greenlight games.
• Artist Meeting on Wednesday, April 19th, 2017…
  • They used this time to complete assets for The Grand Master.
  • Aaron worked with Ben on finishing environment vertex painting, props, and lighting.
  • Amanda continued working on concept and promotional art.
• Programmer Meeting on Wednesday, April 19th, 2017 (in which I attended)…
  • We listed the tasks that still need to be finished and figured out the status of each one. This included fixing repo issues, troll boss/combo fight, recurring dialogue, menu polish, worm boss bugs, Progression System, tutorial, idle video, animations, Drifters, save data, Trust System, C++ structure, and options menu.
• Our last Full Group Discussion Meeting on Wednesday, April 19th, 2017…
  • We started with a quick Scrum…
    • I did some minor sound design and I am preparing for the Steam submission.
    • Aaron completed The Grand Master’s animations, worked on extra villager props. He’s also been helping Ben re-paint environments.
    • Amanda worked on finishing concept art and her senior reel which is due tomorrow. Now she needs footage of the worm and the troll as well as UI screenshots.
    • Ben has been working on environments and still needs lighting for some of them.
    • Dennis gathered pretty much all of the sound effects.
    • Jed finished the footage for the final cutscene and just needs the voices. He had to re-input the text files as well.
    • John worked on cleaning up UI, the poster, and made items. He brought in our stickers as they arrived today. He plans on finishing the poster.
    • Riley has been implementing sounds.
    • Tony finished editing quests, and did QA and plans to do more QA.
    • Dan completed the Troll, but it needs sound and particles. He still needs to tweak the final boss fight.
    • Dmitri made the Adventurer System depend on which adventurer is being used. He still needs to polish it. He also added The Grand Master’s animations. The attack damage now needs to be re-balanced. He also plans to implement the Progression System.
    • Gabby worked on the customer dialogue and fixed bugs.
  • The Artists then mentioned cutting some environments. Ben suggested the Mountain Troll. Dmitri suggested not having bosses assigned to certain maps, and have the arenas be random. The Mountain Troll arena is officially cut.
  • Dmitri mentioned that the repo is broken and that he can’t find a way to fix it, so he informed the team that there is a new one.
  • Dan had a question on which arenas would have the trolls in them, which Ben answered.
  • Dmitri needed Designer help with tutorial, idle video, particles, and sounds. John and Riley said they could help.
  • Gabby then asked who can help with particles. Dennis volunteered.
  • Gabby then informed the Designers on how the dialogue and customer files are fragile, so one little mistake can crash the game. She then explained to them how to properly add the dialogue in.
  • Aaron mentioned that the adventurer models are done and can be implemented. He also said if anything else is needed, then let him know. He also needs a list of particles.
  • We then took a final vote on our new team name. Yhomstad Meadery was the winner.
  • I then talked about Steam stuff and how there is a submission fee.
  • John then wanted to talk about reels. He mentioned we need full gameplay to send to Dillon (our film guy).
  • Jed needed to ask Programmers about Drifters. He wanted to make a contingency plan if it couldn’t be done in time. Dmitri suggested having it to where after so many customers come through, a Drifter appears.
• After this we had our class on Friday, April 21st, 2017. The final build was due on this day, although the final, final, FINAL build is due the following Tuesday (the days in between can only be spent on fixing anything that’s broken).
• We then had a brief, optional meeting on Saturday, April 22nd, 2017 to officially submit our game to Steam Greenlight!! It is up and you can vote on it right now! 😀 The link is: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=911146599&searchtext=the+grand+master
• After that there were no more meetings! We submitted our Final(x3) build on Tuesday, April 25th, 2017 and needless to say, we came through! Everything we agreed that would be in in the last discussion was in and everything worked almost flawlessly! (Aside from one or two things).
• We then had a nice cookout with all of the senior game majors on Thursday, April 27th, 2017 which was a nice break from all the stress that game development brings.
• AND FINALLY….we presented all of our games at the Champlain College Game Studio Senior Show in front of faculty, friends, family, and recruiters! Everyone looked good and went by smooth and fast. Afterward there was an after party in the art gallery where all the games were set up, and even real life props at all the stations! For us we had a mannequin dressed in a tunic, chainmail, and armor. We also had a basket of apples and The Grand Master’s hat, as well as stickers and business cards! Everyone who attended the show (even the recruiters) played the game and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. At long last…WE DID IT!!

Progress Report (Week 13 & 14 – Final Update)

Well, here I am, finally at the end of Capstone. Here is an update for the last two weeks…

• We started the week with our final meeting before our presentation at the Winter Showcase. The meeting was on Sunday, November 20th, 2016. The meeting was started by looking at the QA feedback which are as follows…
  • When asked for thoughts on the art, we had unanimous positive feedback again. One tester suggested more details on the map.
  • We asked how well did the tutorial explain everything on a scale from 1 to 5 again. 46.4% voted 5, 35.7% voted 4, 17.9% voted 3, and 0 voted for 1 and 2.
  • When asked for any other thoughts on the tutorial, we had unanimous positive feedback saying it got the message across. Some raised a concern that the quest portion was still a little confusing.
  • When asked about the worm arc and whether they understood the connection between everything, it was still a little mixed, with some understanding pretty clearly, while others said it felt disconnected. A select few didn’t get far enough to make a comment.
  • When asked how they felt about the characters, most testers loved them and noticed differences in personalities. Some testers wanted to know more about the worm.
  • When asked for any other thoughts on the narrative, most testers didn’t have any because they liked it, but some said an ending cutscene should be added.
  • When asked how clear the UI and the font is, most testers loved the font and that it was easy to read, and that the UI was clear, but some thought the font was a little hard to read and thought some letters didn’t look capitalized even though they should be.
  • When asked for how long free-play should last before the next arc starts, it ranged from a couple of days to 8 weeks of in-game time.
  • When asked for any thoughts on the boss gameplay, some testers never made it to the boss, while others liked it. A suggestion was to lower the difficulty or the number of shards the worm shoots out.
  • When asked for any thoughts on the map, mostly everyone loved it. Some pointed out that one of the quests appeared behind part of the UI thus making it hard to click on.
  • When asked for any thoughts on the merchant gameplay, most testers liked it. Some suggestions included removing the price slider and instead being able to increase the price in certain increments, as well as having the customers do counteroffers.
  • When asked for thoughts on the audio, most testers couldn’t hear it due to the QA room being really loud, but the ones that did hear it loved it.
  • Finally, when asked if any bugs were found, someone found that the credits overlay if you didn’t close them before starting the game, and that another text box was overlaying after doing a quest.
• Following this, the rest of the time was spent fixing bugs, making sure the build was as perfect as we could get it. Then, we spent a lot of time on the presentation, editing slides and doing several timed dry-runs to make sure we met the 10 minute time-limit. The first run went over 10 minutes, but after some editing and more attempts, we shortened it down to around 9 and a half minutes.
• The following day in class, we did a dry-run of this presentation, and got some feedback. The majority of it was deemed to be good, except for one slide that needed changing, in which we removed it completely and replaced it with a different topic that was determined to be more important.
• That night, we presented at the Winter Showcase and everything went really well!!
• The following day was the demos for the faculty, which made me nervous on whether our game was going to move forward since it didn’t go as well as I had hoped…BUT later that night, after the decisions were made…our game was one of the ten picked to move forward! WE DID IT!!
• The rest of the week was Thanksgiving break, in which we all took a well-deserved break. Upon returning, we spent trying to figure out who we specifically needed as the Free Agent Draft was coming up on Thursday, December 1st. We needed to know who we were drafting, and who other teams were drafting.
• After some uncertainty with teams, members from each team met to have a pre-draft in which every pick was decided and compromised on. All we had to do was show up to the draft and stick with who we decided on.
• Aside from the 4 free agents that wasn’t picked by anyone, the draft went extremely smooth as every team already had their picks laid out as I mentioned. We ended up getting most of the people we wanted. Our new additions are two artists, three designers, and two programmers. I contacted them following this welcoming them to the team and now as of this writing, a full group introductory meeting is planned where we’ll get to know each other and just hangout. There will be a postmortem post after this one, but other than that, this is the final update. What a crazy semester this has been!