Week 1 hit the ground running. We made our team and decided on a game, writing a one page sell document to go along with it. We came up with a cool idea for a horror fishing game about being lost on an ever-growing lake. We called it Unfished Business. After getting the idea approved we made a five pager and a sell presentation for the game as well. I had a lot of jobs this week as I am still learning how to be a project manager and did not distribute the tasks correctly. About 50% of us actually did the work this week which made it feel completely overwhelming. I did the majority of work on the 5 pager and the sell presentation as well as working with Walter to make the gameplay demo in which I made all the basic functions of the boat, such as movement, switching between different camera angles, and interacting with your backpack and sleeping bag. I hope for the next weeks I can do a better job of making sure everyone contributes.
Week two was a major pivot week as we realized our project idea was not even remotely in scope. So, after class this week we sat down and concluded that it would be a better use of our time to switch games entirely to a grapple gun-based platformer we were confident we could make in the term. Although not quite as hectic as last week, there was still a lot to get done this week as we were very behind on the documentation side of things. I worked on making a new sell presentation for the game as well as a scrum presentation. I am not exactly sure how to make these scrum presentations or what they are supposed to hold but I think they will be a useful tool to make sure everyone is contributing. The big thing we had to get done this week was a first pass at the GDD which was not an easy task. Gratefully the work was split up amongst all of us. I did a little bit of work with Walter on the game prototype, helping refine some of the movement mechanics, but much less than last week.
I was away this week with no access to my computer nor the game build so there was very little I could do game wise. I did use this time though to work on my Gantt chart/Scrum skills and distribute tasks more effectively. While I was away I made all of the Gantt charts and scrum presentations for the week, although I am starting to realize that if I am the only one doing these they might not be super useful. Especially with the Gantt charts, this seems like a tool everyone should be involved in using.
Week 4 was busy. We had a pre alpha due this week so there was a lot to get in. I spent most of my time on audio design this week, creating and implementing sounds for running, jumping, grappling, and landing. I also made two levels for the game along with getting all of the Gantt and scrum set up for this week. I am really starting to realize that unless I divvy up some of these more game design related tasks up better I am going to be stuck doing to much work if I have to do the managerial work as well. Having to wrangle everyone to get there work submitted so I know what has been done for the week is exhausting and no one is filling out the gantt chart so I have no clue what to do. On top of all of that work I also had to implement everyone's levels into the game as no body knew how to use the level select system Walter made. I am going to have to be better about getting people to get their work in on time. I am not sure project managing is for me, I have a lot more fun actually making the game.
This was another large pivot week. This whole time the largest critique we have been getting was that we had a very fun tool, but did not have a fun game to go around it. Sitting down this week we thought we were going to come up with different food abilities, but by the end of it we have fully reworked our game loop. After getting approval from Prof we I sat down and started building a rough prototype for the game. Laying out the level along with some basic gameplay so there was something to do. I also worked on finalizing the scrum and sell presentations as well as helped everyone switch over to Trello for our gantt system because our trial for clickup expired.
I worked too hard again this week. On Sunday I built the whole delivery system and that was a lot of work. It has a lot of functionality to it as well. Each time a new delivery comes in it makes a new delivery object and populates it with everything it needs to know such as its difficulty, its delivery time, required quality, max payout, pickup/drop off location and a whole lot more. The system interfaces with the mini map and with the UI so the player can pick and choose which delivery they want to take and see exactly where they will have to go to pick the food up. I made the whole system be event based as well so it can be controlled from any part of the game. On top of that I also built a bunch of gameplay and complied everyone else's gameplay into one scene, brough all of the art assets in, helped with the scrum presentation, recorded the gameplay demo, and helped with the sell presentation.
Unfortunately, this week I was not able to get much work done on the project. A loved one had a medical emergency and I spent much of the week in the hospital with them.
This was a big week for level design. I spent most of my time this week working with the level design team to finalize the city. We started by all breaking apart and creating our own layouts for the city without any gameplay. We then got together and pulled out the best parts of each of our creations. I then compiled all of our favorite aspects into the finalized layout. I then split up all of the paths amongst us all and we got to work using the difficult metrics we had previously defined.
Thanksgiving! Woot!
This was our final week of production so obviously there was a lot to get done. I don’t think I could even list it all. My main job this week as project lead was as a compiler though. Just making sure everyone's assets got in, were functional, and we had a playable vertical slice at the end. I also spent a very very long time on the sell presentation this week as it needed a complete overhaul. Considering presenting the game is one of the most important parts, I figured it would be worth getting it set up as best as possible. In the end I am very happy with how everything turned out this term.