The first step of this journey was forming the team based on skills and areas of interest. Once that was squared away, we began work on our concept, one pager, and eventually five pager. I worked together with the team on the narrative of the story and conceptualizing our theme. Our first pitched concept was a Lovecraftian fishing horror game, however, this concept did not stay for long.
This was when the team realized that although we were really excited about making our Lovecraftian game, it would not be feasible for us to make it with the resources and time that we had. So, after much brainstorming and evaluating where our team's skills were strongest, we shifted to a pitch for a Grapple-gun-based platforming game instead. So after reworking our one pager, the team began work on the GDD. I focused on the asset template part of the GDD along with the rest of the art division. We made a list of assets that we would need for the game, which included a written description, reference images, and any other important information about its design or purpose.
The group continued to work diligently as all of us were pushing to keep up with deliverables and stay on schedule. Struggles with using Perforce became very problematic and created pipeline issues for us. For this week, the art division was tasked with creating first-pass models from our asset list. I modeled the low-poly paper bag and a building and applied basic UVs and textures in Maya. After completing them, I updated the asset template with screenshots of the models.
As we approached the half way point, the team switched its focus away from coding to level design and a audio production. We wanted to make sure that our game was not missing any key elements. This week, I worked together with Will to make two buildings, each split into three unique chunks so that they could be randomly assembled into different looking buildings. They had to be the same scale and be able to snap together. After discussing the specifications and appropriate scale, we each modeled three separate building blocks that could be combined and stacked together with the others.
This week the team focused on doing major updates to all of our documentation and organization. Each of us needed to update our blog posts for our website and work on the GDD. For the GDD, I continued to update the asset template section for the assets I created. I added orthographic screenshots from several angles of each asset, as well as information regarding the pivot points' locations. I also modeled a new bridge asset and added that to the asset template too.
For this week I created the textures for two of the building sections, specifically the top and bottom of building 4. After struggling with Plastic for some time , I was finally able implement most of the other textures done this week, including the 4 other building section textures. I ran into issues when trying to add the texture for the bottom of building 4 and the car texture. Finally, I kept updating the weekly documentation.
This week I focused on creating the icons that will be used for the mini map. I created 10 in total, two for each of the four food carts (Burger, Pizza, Halal, and Noodles) where you must pick up the food (one version with just the food and one that included text around the food stating the company name associated with it), another one for the player that indicates their position and direction, and finally a home icon for where the food needs to be dropped off. When coming up with the theoretical names, I tried to riff off of currently existing food chains or pop culture references to keep with our silly naming of future companies such as our already established Foober Uoods. After tha, I uploaded everything to the Unity project and updated the Asset Template/List with the new icons.
This week I reworked some of the icons from last week working from the feedback I got during class. First, to avoid confusion between the Burger and Halal cart icons, since they are both similar in shape, I changed the Halal icon to be more rectangular. Another change for this week was the thickness of the noodle used for the Noodle cart icon. To make ensure that the noodle could be seen even when shrunk down on the mini map I increased the thickness of the noodle. After making those changes I replaced the old icons in the Unity project with the new and improved versions.
For this week I implemented and lit the new food truck assets. Will's plastic is still down so I took the assets that he modeled last week and textures this week and put them into the Unity project. Upon importing the package he provided, the materials were all pink, so I had to upgrade them to the URP render pipeline. After that, I realized that the lighting in the scene wasn't bright enough to see the textures on the cart. I added a spotlight for each cart and then you could properly see the textures. Some of the metallic parts of the food truck were a bit so reflective for the spotlight so I adjusted the materials slightly.
The final week has arrived! This week was all about polishing what we had and adding any extra juice we could still squeeze in. So, I made 4 iterations of logos from the Foober Uoods company and one for Grapple Grub itself. I was struggling a lot to create the Grapple Grub one, but after many hours of tweaks, color changes, and scrolling through fonts I finally made a combination that the group and I felt good about. In addition to that, I did some minor updates to the GDD and made sure that my models were in the asset management spreadsheet with the correct information.