WEEK 11 – POST-MORTEM

Overall, it was a good experience. I really enjoyed working on art and the initial conceptualization of the game.

WHAT WENT RIGHT

I liked the fact that the team met regularly, and as much as possible, we tried to be on the same page at all times. Earlier on, the communication between all units wasn’t as effective, but, down the line, we were able to communicate better and that was good. Also, the game environment has a fairly polished look and feel, thanks to those who worked on modeling, texturing and lighting, it turned out looking nice, not withstanding the short period we had to create all the assets. Also, working on creating the GUI elements was fun.

WHAT WENT WRONG

I think we would have made a lot more progress if we had known much earlier exactly what our game was. It took us a lot of precious time to get to that point, and I feel like If the game design goals were communicated effectively across the board, much earlier, we may probably have had a more functional prototype than we do now.

WHAT I LEARNED

Scrum! This was my first time of actually seeing this development methodology in action and being part of a team that used it, and this is one of the huge takeaways from in this class. I think it’s a very effective way of keeping track of managing multi-disciplinary design projects. In the future, before working on any project, individually or as a team member, I’d definitely be asking , “What development methodology would be most suitable for this task?”. Also, the Silicon Valley clip that was shown in class made me fall in love with the series and aside the occasional vulgarity here and there, I’ve actually learned a lot from it.

Also, the importance of Team Communication at all points in the development pipeline proved an important lesson on this project. Things started moving forward quicker, once we started communicating more effectively. I’d definitely keep this one in mind moving forward.

WEEK 10 – WIN/LOSE SCREENS & SOUNDS

For this week, I spent some time creating and revising the win/lose screens according the needs of the game. I created different variations as well as a final stats page for the end of game. I also worked on shortening sound also, after Anna reviewed them. The summary of the weeks tasks are below:

1. Win/lose screens – 2.5 hours
2. Sounds – 1 hour
3. Meeting – 2 hours –  Total – 5.5 hours

 

POSITIVE

The team worked really hard and the game is in a much more complete state than it was.

NEGATIVE

Nill.

WEEK 09 – EDITING SOUNDS & FINISHING UP GUI

For this week, Based on Kai-lin’s recommendations, I edited all the in-game sounds I and Ethan found to fit the length each needed to be. I also, finished work on the UI and exported all the elements as .PNG so they can put in the game.

A summary of the task included:

• GUI: 2 hours
• Sound editing: 4 hours
• Meeting: 1 hour

POSITIVE

I was able to complete my tasks in time. Overall, I had a positive experience this week.

NEGATIVE

 

SOLUTIONS & FEEDBACK

We had originally designated a lot of unnecessary sounds. For example, on the asset list, we had sounds for a long object hitting the wall and a medium object hitting the wall. It was really hard to distinguish the sounds according to the descriptions and really difficult to find some of the matching sounds, so I instead suggested that we have just a single sound if anything hits the wall. This simplified the process and reduced the number of sounds we had to fit in the game.

WEEK 08 – MUSIC PRODUCTION & UI

For this week, I created an alternate soundtrack for the game as well as a Win/Lose sound for the game. I also finished up the UI mockups and colored those in as well.

 

Below are the pages for the UI:

Music and Soundtracks: 4 hours

UI: 3.5 hours

Meeting: 1.5 hours

POSITIVE

Anna suggested a weekly scrum-style check in on Saturdays, which I think is a great idea to keep the team moving forward quickly. Our meeting was productive as we reviewed the general direction for the game and identified bottle necks.

 

NEGATIVE

I think we are in a good spot.

SOLUTIONS & SUGGESTIONS

As soon as I finalize the sounds and UI, I will be available to help and assist other team members who may already have too much on their hands.

 

WEEK 07 – MUSIC PRODUCTION AND UI

For this week, I focused on implementing the feedback I received for the UI elements I had created last week and also on Sound design. I assisted Ethan in finding some of the sound effects we needed for the game, as well as creating custom background music for the game. In summary, the tasks for the week were:

• Finding various SFX sounds (1 hour, 30 minutes)
• Creating Background Music – (1 hour)
• Iterating on UI Design – (2 hours)

You can find the background music below:

https://soundcloud.com/user-848415205/background-music-lobby-catch-some-zs

Some Explorations for Color in the UI

POSITIVE

I had fun working on the background music. Subsequently, I will be creating a few more so that the team has more varied options to select from.

NEGATIVE

Wasn’t able to complete the character orthographics for the mosquito character. I will be completing that this week and handing it over to the modelers.

SOLUTIONS & SUGGESTIONS

 

WEEK 6 – MOSQUITO CONCEPT AND UI

For this week, I created the orthographic drawings from the concept art for sleepyhead in preparation for modeling. I also created different iterations of the mosquito concept. I also began work on the UI wireframes and the flow for the user experience while playing the game.

1: Sleepyhead ortho – 1 hour

2: Weekly meeting (1 hour)

3: Mosquito concept ( 4 hours)

4: UI Wireframes (3 hours)

Iterations of Mosquito character

UI Flow

NEGATIVE

Wasn’t able to get to the Sound design, because mosquito concept took longer than expected so I just focused on UI Wire framing instead. Will work on Sound design for next week and creating orthographic for mosquito.

POSITIVE

Really happy with how the wireframes came out. Can’t wait to creating the UI assets.

SUGGESTIONS AND SOLUTIONS

Work quicker and smarter to be able to meet deadlines.

WEEK 5 – CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT/LEVEL DESIGN

For this week, Ethan and I met and we worked on the layout and level design for the game. We spent a few hours brainstorming the kind of space and ambience we wanted to create in the game and discussed how each character, Sleepy head and the Mosquito would navigate around all the different assets to complete their objectives. We drew up a floor plan (As seen in Fig. 1) of the layout and attached units to each of the primary assets in the environment.  These units were then translated into a greybox prototype in Unity for, ready for the programming team to build around. (2.5 hours)

Fig 1. Floorpan showing units

Also, I focused on the development of our Characters based (See Fig 2, 3) on the game design’s descriptions and decisions. A lot of things were taken into consideration including the color palette for the characters and how different lighting conditions may affect their visibility.

 

 

 

Fig 2 Sleepy Head Concept & Fig 3 Mosquito Concept

POSITIVE

I feel like we are much closer to defining the overall aesthetic of the game. The art team did a great job with providing us with a variety of styles and aesthetics to choose from. I also enjoyed working on the character concepts.

NEGATIVE

Still need to work on the mosquito concept. It doesn’t seem to reflect the overall aesthetic of the rest of the game yet. I also need to provide the modelers with orthographic projections of the characters so that they can go ahead with modeling.

SOLUTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

More work!

 

 

WEEK 4 – ART DIRECTION & SOME SKETCHES

• This week was mostly spent getting up to speed with the team and some of the design decisions that had been made. We had a team meeting yesterday where we clarified all the high level goals for the game, some of the game mechanics we were deliberating on and we also tried to nail down some things such as the art style. After Kai-lin provided us with a description of the character, I quickly made some sketches to explore how this character may look. See Figures below.

 

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POSITIVE

Our team meeting yesterday was really productive. Our producer, Anna came really prepared and organized and she provided us with very specific information on how production files and deadlines should be handled. Also, the design team (Ethan, Kai Lin, Joe and Josh) did a great job with nailing down and describing what the game is.

NEGATIVE

Didn’t really have any negative expereince this week.

 

SOLUTIONS & SUGGESTIONS

I think the only issue is maybe keeping everyone i the loop. For example, if a part of the team meets and some other members weren’t a part of that meeting, it would be really nice to maybe provide a summary of what decisions were made in that meeting so that the rest of the team could catch up and we could all be on the same page at all times.