Progress Report – Week 12

Updates for the week…we were only required to do ten blog posts but I didn’t want to leave anybody reading this on a cliffhanger so I’m continuing until the end of the semester…

• Designer Meeting on Monday, April 3rd, 2017…
  • Scheduled a work meeting next Wednesday at 6pm.
  • Jed worked on his companion’s dialogue to make it more linear.
  • Agreed to add all Recurring and General Customer dialogue this week.
  • Discussed an issue with True-items potentially being removed from the game.
  • Checked in on Riley’s level blockouts
  • Started talking about music and sound assets. The search for sound assets has begun, and Jed is attempting to get in contact with a European folk musician.
• Artist Check-In on Monday, April 3rd, 2017…
  • Ben was sick and couldn’t make it.
  • Aaron worked on the troll.
  • Amanda worked on concept art for her demo reel.
• Artist Work Meeting on Wednesday, April 5th, 2017 (in which I attended this week)…
  • Ben was still sick so he missed again.
  • Aaron continued work on the Troll.
  • Amanda worked on re-skinning.
  • I worked on the Competitive Review.
  • For the Full Group Meeting, they want to get feedback/suggestions for the crystal color of the Lava Worm.
• Programmer Meeting on Wednesday, April 5th, 2017…
  • They discussed what still needs to be implemented, which includes the troll boss, the worm variations, adventurer system/map, the dialogue system, and lots of polish.
  • For the Full Group Meeting, they wanted to bring up boss item drops and get an update on the boss maps/arenas as well as the final arena.
• Full Group Discussion Meeting on Wednesday, April 5th, 2017…
  • We started with a quick Scrum (minus Ben since he is sick)…
    • I started the Competitive Review but is not finished yet.
    • Riley has basically finished the level blockout he was working on. He plans on gathering sounds.
    • Dan got the fighting for the Troll done and plans to work on the Troll’s attacks and should be in by Friday, and plans to work on the final boss fight as well.
    • Amanda started re-skins of the Worm and almost finished the Lava Worm. She plans to finish the other worm re-skins and then move on to the Troll re-skins.
    • Gabby took out all of the old dialogue and got the response dialogue in. Now it needs to be merged.
    • Aaron has been animating the troll and plans to finish that.
    • Dmitri worked on cleaning up the project, fixed the wheel, got rid of the tutorial since it was getting in the way. He added the worm animations and plans to work on finishing the Adventurer system and implementation of the new map, and new dialogue system.
    • Jed has been plugging the dialogue in to text files and plans for that to be done on Thursday.
    • Tony has been tweaking the dialogue for his characters.
    • Dennis has been doing the same as Tony in addition to looking into sound.
    • John couldn’t put in as much work as he wanted due to some complications, but he trimmed up the script for the trailer, he plans on moving the progression system into the build.
  • John then mentioned that he went to the senior poster meeting and said that the rough draft for the poster was well-received but does need tweaks to meet all of the restrictions. This included tweaking the logo to make it more horizontal.
  • Amanda had a question regarding the UI. She needed to know who was making the screenshots of the items. John decided that he can work with Ben on that since Ben already has a lot on his plate with the environments and props.
  • Amanda also wondered if anyone was doing particle effects. Dmitri said Aaron will be getting outside help to teach him how to do that.
  • Dmitri mentioned that the final screenshot of our game for the Senior Book is due Friday. John will put the updated UI in the shop tomorrow, and will try to implement the Progression system tomorrow in order to get a good screenshot.
  • Tony wanted to know what the true item dialogue text is and whether it was still in there. Dmitri said it was removed in favor of personality and category.
  • Amanda then showed off her re-skin of the Lava Worm for feedback. The monitors in this room are different from the art lab monitors so it made the colors look slightly different, but the team liked what she had so far, but they did suggest some things like some spikes being a different color from the rest, and ash falling off as it moves around the level, etc.
  • Dmitri then checked-in with me about Steam Greenlight. We’re still on schedule with my release timeline.
• We then had class on Friday followed by our Work Meeting on Saturday, April 8th, 2017…
  • I worked on finding music tracks and looked over the release timeline. I also went over the Beta checklist.
  • Amanda worked on re-skinning for the Yeti troll.
  • Tony prepared for QA tonight.
  • Dennis continued putting dialogue into text files, and then moved on to sound effects.
  • Dan finished up boss AI.
  • Ben worked on taking Riley’s level blockouts and making it into a level.
  • Riley continued putting dialogue into text files.
  • Dmitri messed around with the dialogue and adventurer.
  • John created a step-by-step list on how to make a branch and how to commit stuff so he doesn’t have to keep bothering Dmitri.
  • Aaron had to re-export the villagers since some of them were messed up.
  • During all of this, Dillon Deloge came in to film us for our trailer.
• Whew…only a week and a few days left until our games need to be complete so crunch time is officially upon us. Everyone is working hard and hopefully it will all pay off. Stay tuned for updates!

Progress Report (Week 12)

Updates for the week…

• We had a work meeting on Sunday, November 13th, 2016 in which we started off by looking at the QA feedback from the night before…
  • When asked if the U.I. was clear enough, everyone but one tester said ‘Yes.’ The one that said ‘No’ didn’t specify why. The main feedback given was that the tutorial didn’t mention the adventurers.
  • When asked for thoughts about the tutorial, just about everyone thought it definitely helped the player understand how to play the game, but mentioned clarity as it didn’t explain why they are doing what they’re doing. (This is because the narrative arc isn’t fully implemented yet).
  • When asked for thoughts on the art that is in the game so far, universal acclaim was given again, with every tester loving it. The 2D customers were still the only negative, but they’re also still placeholder until the updated characters are put in.
  • Finally, when asked for any other thoughts, some testers suggested better indicators of when the player takes damage from the worm, as well as having better balance between what the customer’s want.
• Following this, I spent the rest of the meeting cleaning up the tasks on the Gantt chart and worked on the presentation. Aaron worked on polishing the shop interior. John worked on the presentation. Tony worked on his blog post, and Dmitri continued iterating the prototype and making sure everything was still working.
• We called in an impromptu meeting on Wednesday, November 16th, 2016 due to us having a meeting with Manley tomorrow to find out whether or not our petition to present at the Winter Showcase was successful.
  • We spent this meeting preparing for that meeting as well as iterating our presentation, such as adjusting the flow and where the trailer should be.
  • We also discussed how many people were going to talk as well as what type of clothing we would wear. We didn’t decide on amount of people talking since we’ve heard different limits from different faculty, but for dress we decided on nice jeans and button-down shirts.
  • The team decided to have a content-lock on Friday, thus spending the time over the weekend polishing and practicing the presentation, making sure it is under 10 minutes long.
  • We then discussed the game and the trailer and how they both need some more iterations. The game needs a few more quests, dialogue, and a new build, while the trailer needs some more editing and new audio.
  • We then made a plan for tomorrow where Tony and I would be testing the game in QA while Aaron, John, and Dmitri would be working on an intro for the game.
  • We also discussed how we would mention future members and what we’re looking for. The minimum we could work with is adding one programmer and two artists. What we want to add is one designer, two artists, and two programmers.
• We concluded the week by having another work meeting on Saturday, November 19th, 2016, in which we began by looking at Thursday’s QA feedback…
  • When asked for thoughts on the art, every single tester gave positive feedback saying it was good and they loved it. There were no negatives.
  • We then asked the testers to rank how well the tutorial explained what to do on a scale of 1 to 5 (5 being very well). 64.3% of the testers voted 5, 21.4% voted 4, 7.1% voted 2, and another 7.1% voted 1.
  • When asked for thoughts on the tutorial, most people thought it explained mostly everything. One tester was still confused on sending adventurers out, while some others said it just needs polishing.
  • When asked if they understood the worm arc and the connection between quests and the boss, a lot of people understood it, while other testers didn’t even get to the boss.
  • When asked how they feel about the characters, it was sort of mixed, some testers liked the characters, while others thought they were bland and needed more depth.
  • When asked for other thoughts on the narrative, some testers mentioned it was very loose and there was a select few who wasn’t aware that there was a narrative.
  • When asked how clear the UI was, most testers liked it. The negatives included having quests a different color, and making it easier to tell the player how the time passes.
  • When asked for how long they would want free play to last before the next story arc starts, the times ranged from 4 days to 4 weeks, with most saying 2 weeks.
  • When asked for any thoughts on the boss battle, most people said they loved it. Some feedback was that one felt it was too easy, while one suggested having a stamina bar for the light attacks.
  • When asked for any thoughts on the map screen, everybody loved it except for one, who thought it was a little confusing.
  • Finally, when asked for any thoughts on the merchant gameplay, there were suggestions such as adding a cancel button if you accidentally click to sell an item you didn’t want to sell, as well having the price of the items in the description.
• Following this, we all spent the rest of the time working on our presentation for the Winter Showcase, since our petition was successful! At the same time, Aaron and Dmitri were working on bug fixes, while Tony worked on his blog post, and John made an item list for each supplier.
• The next week’s update will probably be the last, which will include any other meetings held, as well as how well our presentation went at the Showcase, and whether or not The Grand Master goes forward to next semester!