Week Six
Monday 15th March
Progress Update
On Monday, Emilia and I drew up the full game, organising the structure of the puzzle from start to finish, including all the interactions and how they look. A short animation was made after every asset and explanation was put up to show when the lanterns would be switched on and how different assets will move during after interaction from the player. This took a couple of hours and consisted of printing out all of the assets we had already made as well as templated for the ones we didn't and then drawing on the interactions. We were able to experiment with scale and composition as well as solve problems such as how far distances should be between puzzles and where the lanterns should be placed.
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Before we started I let the rest of the team know what we were doing and asked how they were getting on with the work they were doing so I would be able to set new tasks. Molly is working on the basic animation of walking, running, jumping and falling. She will be able to complete all four of these using the character design given to her by Daniella. Charisma has done some research into unity development, alongside creating assets, because she would also like to develop her skills in that area during this project as independent learning/self-training. Daniella is still working on her controller mapping task, explained her process and what part she is working on, updating us as she goes.
Above is the full storyboard that we created. The game has been split into eight parts reflecting he structure I first designed in my Game Structure blog post for the week 2/3 task. For each "scene", we have outlined the mechanic, a summary of the player interaction and presented which assets should be present. Scene 4 in the storyboard is mostly blank because, as a team, we still have not worked out how we want this puzzle interaction to play out. It is by far, the most complicated and requires the most time to create, especially for the waterfall animation. More detailed documentation on the process and analysis of this task can be found in this blog post: https://kw4u19.wixsite.com/gamedevelopment/post/gameplay-level-design
Thursday 18th March
Team Leader Meeting 10 am
In the team leader meeting, went over worries, milestones, and how to communicate more effectively. We are still on track and meeting are milestones, currently in our second out of four weeks of development, aiming for all version 1 (at least) assets to be finished at the end of those 4 weeks.
The only concerns I had at this point in the project was some members of the team not contributing to discussion as much as others. This has caused some difficulties when as a group we need to solve problems over call and often some members do not contribute enough despite even being directed questions at. I discussed this with James and said I understand that there are anxieties and discomforts about speaking over the phone and also just in groups generally. So I asked what I could do further as a team leader to encourage more interaction between members of the group without forcing anybody out of their comfort zone. He suggested that I make a Miro board for tasks and that way members of the team would be able to directly respond to and ask questions about work they had been set as well as post their work and give others feedback. I think as far as calls go, there is little I can do to push people to talk but providing multiple methods of communication and finding one people are most comfortable to use will be helpful.
Team Meeting with James 10.20 am
Team meeting – went over what we did this week and where we are at in the project which is getting development done and testing our work as we go. Over Easter I have not planned to set much work but will be assigning new tasks today to make sure we get some essential work out the way and the team can spend as much time as they please over Easter working on those tasks and if they have suggestions to begin something else then should bring it up to the team. Molly, Charisma and Daniella were able to present their work before we ran out of time.
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Team Meeting 11:15 am
During this call with the team, we set up a Miro board as James suggested in the team leader meeting. We discussed work that needed to be accomplished, prioritising work that needed to be shared between different departments. For example, I need to create the sky designs for the game before we can even consider lighting and work out if we need to make any changes to a particular assets so they suit the lighting and other colours in the scene. We also require a diagram/guide for scale and this needs to be decided on as a group so we are all happy with the finished structure of the game.
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A Miro is not only helpful as another means of communication organisation, but also helps to manage individual deadlines rather. So far this project I have been setting weekly tasks for everyone as it has been too difficult to establish separate tasks, deadlines and then also keep track of all of them. The tasks that were assigned are as follows. I have taken into account easter begins next week and I don't want to set too much work but some members will want to use their free time to do some work.
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Daniella - Still needs to finish controller mapping, including final diagrams of how the player interacts with the mobile screen. I have given her a new deadline, March 23rd.
Molly -Complete animations still being worked on and then see the asset list in Trello to find other animations that need to be completed.
Charisma - Assets (Eagle, tree restoration and pan pipes). See asset list and discuss with Emilia if finish.
Emilia - Assets (butterflies, Japanese huts and blossom trees) and scale diagram.
Kiera - Refine game structure in unity alongside continued development, and implement all the player animations that have been made so far. Also develop the first sky iterations - plenty of experiments so they can be shared and get group feedback.
PAT Meeting 4 pm
Pat meeting – physical health, being a team leader and how I think the works going.
In the meeting, I explained to James that i've been suffering with really bad fatigue but also not sleeping very well at all. Because of this I have fallen behind on personal development and documentation but as a team we are still on track to meet our milestones. Being a team leader has been incredibly difficult as it seems impossible to know if I am doing the right thing but I was reminded that as we are on track and doing well, it can't be going so bad.
Week Six Reflection
This week started off by Emilia and I creating a detailed plan of how the game will look to guide the development of the structure in unity and also organise the assets we have set out to create, listed in out project scope. After we organised the game scene by scene, we also created a short video showing each interaction and how it will change the game. Emilia then developed an animation that drew this all together as well as examples for the sound design. This showed me the importance of the use of the sound in game. It completely changes the experience and provides more immersion.
Further assets have been created for the game such as the panpipes and eagle, developed by Charisma. And I have been provided a final walking animation for the shaman from Molly. Charisma also created the animation, for the tree revival puzzle, of a blossom tree that goes from dead and wilting to being nursed back to health, restoring its beauty.
Emilia has provided an updated art bible which has more guides for asset creation including details of brushes to use, techniques and visual mood boards. This will be helpful for me when it comes to designing the background of the game. Emilia has also set up the team instagram page and each member of the team has provided some lines to introduce themselves to our audience, including who we are and what our favourite games are.
This week, I worked on the gameplay storyboard at the beginning with Emilia and made a visual asset list that I then added onto the Trello board so the group would be able to use it as reference, and to keep track of what is left to do. This has all been documented in the blog posts. I also did some further work in unity; see part 2 and then part 3 in in the Unity Development tab of my blog posts.
Next Steps
The group have been provided with new tasks to do. For Easter, I did not want to set too much work as I know people need and are deserving of a break but as people get the set tasks done, I will suggest more for them to do so we stil have a consistent workflow and stay updated on the progress of the project.
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Over the Easter break, I will work on the designs for the sky for the background of the game and implement what we have so far in the unity build. Once we are back, on the 12th of April, we will have three week of development of assets and game build, before we start play testing. The last three weeks will be reserved for implementing final features such as lighting, UI and sound and this time will also be used to make any necessary changes or adaptions to the game.