Week Eleven

Monday 10th May

Progress Update

Reflecting back on the project pipeline, week 10 expected the launch of the beginning of play testing for our vertical slice. And week 11 and 12 have been reserved for flourishes and fixes. Unfortunately I the vertical slice is not ready for play testing as there are still some changes to be made, such as new puzzle clouds seen below, and I have not yet finished implementing all of the puzzles. However time will be made to get some session of play testing one, from individuals who have no relation to the course or any prior knowledge about the game. This will be documented in the testing tab at the top of the page.

At this point in the project we are working on the final flourishes, those being lighting, UI and the sound. As well as game manuals, tutorial prompts and a last stretch for the marketing before the release. We are well on track in these areas and the team are in comfortable positions to get all of this done. The unity development is behind the schedule but I am working hard every day to get everything in and functioning, with guidance from consultants as I go.

UI Discussion

At the beginning of this week, Charisma shared her first designs for the start screen, including different compositions, colour schemes and titles. The requirements of the start screen are that it must give the game titel, have a play icon and tease what the game really looks like. This design can also be used for marketing processes. We gave feedback at every step of the process. my main suggestions being that the first design looked more like a level selection page than a start screen, and that the clouds on the decided design should have some tints to reflect the sunset, as we have done to the rest of the clouds that are used in the vertical slice. The decided start screen looks great and showcases some our 2D art we have been working on over the project. IT also includes the region we have selected to use in the vertical slice which I think is a nice detail.

Testing

Final Sky Painting. Above is the final sky paining I have painted for the background of our vertical slice. This ky willl be attached to the main camera in unity so that it follows along with the player. Above I have also provided a little scene mock-up to show how the sky looks with the assets. I think it harmonises well with the other art the team has created, as I made sure to use colour from the give colour pallet. You can see that above where the sun is the same red hue as the lantern hanging from the tree.

Cloud Testing

Now that I had created the final sky to go into unity and clarified that it works with the foreground assets, I tested the clouds that Charisma has sent over the previous week to see how they look in the new scene mock up. The shape and texture of the clouds are perfect and work really well with how I have painted the sky. The only problem is that they are tinted with highlights and shadows of the wrong arrangement and colours. Thankfully, and before I could even ask, Charisma sent over a new version of the decorative clouds, shown below.

New Clouds!

After testing the clouds that Charisma made, it was clear that they were not suitable for the final sky painting. So she has adapted them once again with highlights and shadows tinted to the correct colours of the sunset. These are now perfect and if the clouds need the brightness increased or decrease, or given a deeper orange glow, I will be able to edit the individual sprite rendered to do this inside of unity. The variation in shape will also allow me to build up detail in the background without the shapes becoming too repetitive and overused.

I have provided a video above that shows what the clouds will look like as they are passing in the sky. The clip is quite fast but it was a good demonstration to see how natural it looked. I think the clouds look really good and will be essential in adding beautiful details to both the back and foreground in the game. I think we have done a decent job with maintaining the idea of being in an airy region despite the scene being quite dark.

While setting up for the cloud blowing puzzle, I realised that once I dragged the clouds over onto the platforms, they were not quite dense enough for their purpose of concealing where the platforms are. The point of this puzzle is that the clouds need to conceal enough of the platforms so that it will be incredibly difficult for the player to traverse this section of platforms without first clearing them from view, using the gust ability. The clouds just needed to be a little denser.

I sent a message over to Charisma, with the first screenshot above attached to the message, to let her know about this little problem. I assumed that she might just be able to open her assets back up in photoshop and increase the opacity back up. A simple fix that was completed the same morning. As you can see in the second screenshot, the denser clouds work perfectly, and without losing their texture or quality. These dense clouds could also be used in parts of the background, alongside the initial more transparent version of the clouds.

Other progress made at the beginning of this week include a new refined gust animation that is reflective of the finger motions the player would have to use on a mobile device to use the gust ability. This was created by Molly and I will be adding that to the unity project this week. Molly has also made further progress to the lighting, still experimenting with the different types and how they can be shaped on to give the assets we have created some more dimension.

Thursday 13th May

Team Meeting with James

We started the meeting off with a progress update. We have everything we need to finish building the game scenes and the puzzles and I am working through building them in unity still this week. All features of the game are complete apart from a last few tasks that have been assigned for the final two weeks, so if we are required to made changes or additional assets we are going time to do so. Although I still have quite a bit of work to do in unity to get those puzzles functioning, it is going well and I am happy with the speed of progression.

I did have a problem with the bridge puzzle especially and caused further problems to it when I tried to make fixes and add in the assets for detail. But I have decided to take a new angle anyway and reconstruct the way the puzzle works to better reflect the original expectation of it outlined in our project scope. I mentioned a few things I had managed to get into unity this week such as the ability animations and butterfly movement.

The rest of the team are working on the sound, UI and lighting, as well as the game manual, while I complete the final work in unity.

Charisma presented her Figma prototype to James with her own mock-ups of the scenes. What was special about those mock-ups is that the composition and use of lighting in them were amazing. She has done an amazing job of using highlights and shadows to bring so much dimension the game, and it has really transformed it. I have suggested that when we come to implementing the lighting, we should use these mock-ups Charisma has made as a guide, and for inspiration.

Development Surgery

This was the penultimate development surgery before deadline. I had a basic plan established last week for how all of the puzzles will be made functional, but today we just focused on how to possibly fix the boulder-bridge puzzle, the cloud blowing puzzle and added in a checkpoint system because the previous method for re-spawn wasn't great - to put in the number of checkpoints I wanted, I would have had to break down the games into so many scenes. Therefore a simple checkpoint script would be more time efficient and work just as well. We also had a discussion about how I will implement the lanterns and was pleased to hear that my plan for them will work just fine, having the triggers activate a sprite switch after each challenge.

This development surgery is documented in my blog under the post Unity Development Part 10.

Friday 14th May

Project Postmortem - Class Meeting

A postmortem is basically a constructive discourse for edification - it is meant to help us improve and get better at what we do. It allows us to reflect on both ourselves and the project as a whole.

During the postmortem we should summarise what we have learnt and process those lessons so that we avoid the mistakes in the future.

A postmortem report is a document compiled by the project leader and outlines the feelings of the team regarding the success of the project, and it is made up of four major sections. It is typically just a page from each person.

Four major sections

Outline the goals of the project. Describe if, as a team, we were successful in achieving them or not.

Goal examples

Create vertical slice by… include details about the actual finished date. Did the project come in under or over budget? Did the project reach its scope?
Improve technical skill in a sub-team… you might have an example of the team branching out into other areas. Was this a successful venture? What skills have been developed? How has the team levelled up?
Generate a z amount of income. If there are any shortcomings, can they be accounted for? Was there a problem area? Not enough time or dedication?
Increased community outreach. ‘’

Etc.

Personal Project goals. Go through the successes or failures. This is an optional step but is good practice to do so.
The good
The bad

Each department makes a list around five things that worked well and five things that didn’t work so well. All written from their own perspectives. The language used in these sections is very important to get correct.

Progress Update Part 2

With about one week to go, the team are working on the final few detail for the vertical slice. Charisma is developing all the UI we need, Molly is doing some training ready to implement the lighting, learning how to use the lighting manager in unity with some scene mock-ups she has created, and using the VFX lead as a consultant. Emilia is working hard on composing the completely original soundtrack for the game and Daniella is making up some game manuals. Meanwhile, I am adding implementing the final features in unity and will keep adding what I can up to the deadline to make the vertical slice the best it can be.

The UI

The most important UI features to get done are the start screen and the prompts that will be used to introduce the player to the game, the objectives and how to play. It is vital that we included some form of tutorial inside the vertical slice as at the arcade there is going to be visitors who will have no prior knowledge about he game or how to play it. Today Charisma got those two important features done and is making some further UI such as menu screens and icons.

Here is the design for the start screen on the left and the only change I requested for it is to tint the clouds to a colour that reflects the sunset in the background image. The start screen includes the name, the level name from the GDD that we chose to present and a play icon, keeping it clean and concise.

Below are the three pieces of UI, made by Charisma, that I considered were most essential for the vertical slice. In our project scope, we had intended for the design of our vertical slice to be developed of mobile platforms. So everything down to the scale of pour design, the controller mapping and the UI was initially designed and produced to be used on mobile. It was not until the last couple of weeks when we were told the arcade event at the end of this project would be entirely online. Therefore we have had to adapt our designs for PC use and I got Charisma to make some changes to the UI, shown in the final designs below, such as including letter presses for the abilities rather than motions, and WASD for movement rather than swiping. The controls were kept simple throughout development as the game focus' on beauty and comfort. The only interactions being, moving the character and using the two abilities it possesses.

It is a shame that we had to switch from mobile controls to PC as I thought the player interaction as we designed it with swiping and swirling on the screen added to the immersion and keeping grasp of the players. It required sme level of concentration and skill. So with a button press, those extra levels of challenge, immersion and engagement have been lost.

The tutorial prompts above are as follows:

The welcome message - This will be displayed at the very beginning of the game. I would like to make sure that it is not too big that it covers so much of the beautiful background we are in the process of creating. I think it just needs to be big enough that the player is able to read it. It is great that is has been made the same colour as the lanterns and sun in the game, so that it will look harmonious against the assets in the game and not just like a big ugly pop up.

This welcome message provides a little information to help the player understand where they are and why they are there. The player at the arcade event will not have read the games design document and will have no idea that this is a small part of a much bigger game. So the message lets them know that they are in the air region ,suggesting that there are other parts/levels to the game. It then gives a brief line on how to play and then lets the player know that their objective is to ignite lantern by completing puzzles that restore the beauty in the land. This indirectly hints to the player who the character is and what they care about. The role of the Shaman is to bring peace.

It is also essential that this welcome message included the detail about the lanterns. The lantern are the only indication in the vertical slice, that show the player when they have done the right thing. If they come across a lantern that has not been ignited, this prompt lets them know they must have to go back and work out why, solving any puzzle that they might have missed.

Boulder throw prompt - This prompt will be displayed right at the beginning of the bridge for the first puzzle where the aim is to fill a gap in the bridge steps so it is able to be walked over. If the player is to not bother reading the UI, which we know players do as seen in my testing videos, they will just fall through the gap. More experienced players might have already tried pressing keys to see what they do. But the reason that this prompt is important is because new players will not know how to interact with the bridge, not know which keys they could press to interact with the game and would get frustrated. And frustration is definitely not the feeling we are aiming to evoke with this vertical slice.

Gust prompt - just like the boulder throw prompt above, this prompt lets the player know how to use the gust ability, and that is by pressing the "r" key. In the design above, I realise it has a typo and says "n" so that will of course be fixed before I put it into the game. This prompt will be displayed just before the first puzzle at which the player must use the gust ability to clear clouds that are blocking the view of the platforms they must traverse. This ability is required for the other three puzzles after this one so it is incredibly important that the player sees this prompt.

The Lighting

Molly is keeping us all up to date with the process of implementing the lighting. She has begun by first experimenting with the different types of light that can be used in unity and explained to us how each one can be used and given us visual demonstrations. We suggest that she use Charismas lighting experiment as a guide as it is a perfect representation of how we want the game to look. It was really great to see the process from to start to beginning and for the team to be able to give feedback at each step. Once she was finished training and experimenting I opened the up collaboration function for the unity project.

I initially felt regretful that I wasn't able to give access to the unity project sooner, because I was still changing parts of the build so the puzzles worked effectively. And further more, Emilia and I had scheduled time at the weekend in order to build up the background detail of the game meaning we had to change the build further to make sure the structure was sound. I didn't Molly to have to keep going back into unity rather than get it done during one session.

I do wish that we were able to get to the point of putting in the FINAL final structure a bit earlier so Molly would have had more time across the last few weeks to work on the lighting. However, as I am writing this, I have now seen the results of her hard work and it really has paid off. The lighting looks incredible and really does bring so much dimension to the game. It looks visually stunning and has made me feel even prouder of what we have managed to create as a team.

Week Eleven Reflection

This week, team Anima Mundi has been working on the fixing and flourishes of the vertical slice as well as some technical documentation. We are a the point in the project where we are finishing off final touches. I am pleased that we have stayed generally on track and been meeting our milestones on time.

For UI, we have the start screen and player prompts which were the most essential pieces of UI to get finished, and the lighting and sound work is making great progress. In terms of unity development of the vertical slice, on Thursday I had made fixes to the boulder puzzle so it does now function as James and I planned it to after I spent some time rebuilding the colliders. But then later in the week, I completely scrapped the whole thing and re-made the puzzle. This is documented in the post Unity Development Part 12. The reason for this is that the original puzzle build did not work so well, but more importantly did not function the way the team had planned it to. I now feel a lot better about this puzzle and can't wait for Monday when I will be presenting the build to the team.

Further progress on the build include finishing the cloud puzzle (number 2) during my development surgery on Thursday, as well as putting in a checkpoint system. In my independent development, this week I have also built the tree restoration and windmill puzzles and put in a script for the patrolling Eagle and all of this is working perfectly. My work for unity this week can be found in unity development post's 10, 11, 12 and 13.

To summarise what each member of the team is working on this week:

Charisma - UI; start screen, prompts, menu's

Molly - Lighting training and consultation from Nerice

Daniella - Game manuals

Emilia - Soundtrack and marketing

Me- Unity building

The next steps or next set of tasks to get done, are the menu screens that Charisma will be working on into next week, some game posters for advertising and further progress on sound and lighting. In unity, I will be building the panpipe puzzle, writing scripts for the lantern system and putting in Molly's gust of wind animation.

Project progress review

We have one week to go before the deadline!

The vertical slice is almost there. Four out of five of the puzzles are completed. I am working on the final one and the other essential game features are being prioritised. Those being the lantern function and final puzzle. I will be able to work out the details of building those myself but there are some thing I am going to need guidance on. I am not quite sure how to implement the UI or the sound so I am going to book a final development surgery session with James next week so he can show me how to do those things. Molly will be putting the lighting in at the beginning of the week and then that is everything covered.

I am pretty confident that we that we have included every game feature that we planned in the project scope but i will do a final reflection on that once I have the vertical slice completely finalised next week. On Monday or Tuesday I will also get some play testing done for the game. It is quite late to be doing it but it would be good to test how clear the game is to play for somebody from outside the project, so I can make some last minute adjustments if they are required.