CAGD 377 Mobile Game Development

So our group The Three Farm Boys are getting to the end of our game development. We have recently textured every object in the game. All scripts are being finalized, especially the WaveSpawner script. I have edited it to allow more different types of enemies to spawn within a wave. So instead of one type of enemy spawning in the wave there can be many types to help entertain and challenge the player. The script allows the developers to customize the types that will have the chance of spawning in the wave and the number of enemies as well as the number of waves and then loop the waves once every single one has been played through.

Some of the issues that were being experienced was the terrain tool and how the texture was looking on the created terrain. Took some altering, but it is looking better, still needs work. Additionally the work that has gone into the wave system has been a lot and a learning experience. I have created separate scripts for the timer, the counter, and the enemy spawner but all are connected as well to the enemy behavior script. Though I am proud of how the scripts came out and have had help from one of my teammates to find the errors or how to make it work with something else. Overall it has helped the game to become what the team has been wanting it to be even though the idea has kind of evolved for the best since the beginning, which is the exciting part to see the game just manifest into what it is now.

So far the process of developing the game has changed from scripting to just texturing and looking into setting up sound for the game so players can have sound effects and music to listen to. We will be restricting ourselves to No Copyright Songs and sound effects to avoid claims against the game. The texturing part has been interesting as most of the texturing was taken care of by one teammate but the other teammate and I have had down some texturing which we have worked to unify so that players are looking at a mismatched style.

For recent work I have also done and am still working on is revamping the tutorial to be more entertaining for the user to read through and have an understanding of the game. To do that I am adding images of weapons, towers, and enemies so that the player knows what to look for. I am retyping the text so that it is not a wall of text. Additionally I have added a background that is white to all the menus so the text remains readable from the background image. I have also textured and built a terrain for the map to allow the user to have a more 3D environment to explore and experience instead of a bland 2D map with 3D enemies and player character.

It has been an absolutely amazing experience and it certainly has given us a good look of what it is like to build a game. It is also amazing to have the teammates that I have to help create this game that we are all excited about. This is by no means the whole experience. Though I do look forward to our future projects which one will consist of a 15 designer team which will be fun to be a part of. This project has given me a better idea of the planning that needs to go into the game and using the feedback of people outside the team to improve the game.

Designing Blast dem’ Bugs has had its exciting moments and then it has also had its frustrations. Personally I have worked hard on putting together some of the scripts to run into issues with the script not showing any errors but does not do anything as intended. Having teammates working on this group project together has been great because if I run into an issue I can go to one of them and have their help to solve the issue. For example one of my scripts was throwing an issue with missing a bracket and after counting and finding the right amount of brackets and still having an error, I went to Hunter our Programmer and asked him what the matter was which it turned out it was an extra bracket that was not needed. It was not that I was missing a bracket, it was because I had an extra one...it's funny sometimes the mistakes I make in programming can be so simple to solve.

So from my last blog post I would say things have gotten a little tougher with the tasks that I have taken upon myself. I took it upon myself to create a script that pops up a menu when you click on a build plot to purchase towers, which with the help of Hunter really helped finish the script while also evolving it to only needing to click a button on the UI to buy from plots that are on the buy menu so you do not need to go to them. Scripting can be tough because of how silly the mistakes turn out to be which is funny to me that I have to laugh to myself. Other times its where do I even began, so I have taken the tasks on some of the smaller scripting tasks because it's not a big task though the script to open up a menu with a click of one of the plots did give me trouble to the scene overlapping on top of the the games scene just making a mess of it. Thankfully Hunter was able to help me out on finishing it and then he molded it into what it is now with an easier way of purchasing towers for your defense.

I am currently going back and updating the tutorial menu with images as some play testers stated they would have enjoyed having visuals along with the text so that they could visually see what was being talked about. Additionally after the final scripts are integrated I plan to update the overall menus with images of the game and more exciting fonts for the texts so that the game looks more exciting than having a solid color background for the menus. With the scripts being currently made are to create waves that spawn so many enemies each wave, another script that visually shows the player when the next wave will start, and the last script being what wave they are on currently. The wave spawning script is almost done but it is not spawning the enemies, so I have asked my team to take a look at it to see what I am missing so that we can get the script to work how we want it. Then the following scripts should improve the quality of the game by providing the players with the necessary information.

I am looking forward to how the game turns out. Hunter and Pola have been great teammates to have and to work with because we seem to have a really good time just talking about the game and what we want to do with it.

The work that has gone into Blast dem’ Bugs has not been much different from the last project that I have been on. What is new to me is designing this project for Android phone. I am on a really good team so the work that we have been doing together has been fun and exciting. Another thing that is new to me is that I am a lead this time around. So I am keeping track of the work that the team is doing and making sure we get the assignments that we need to complete done on time. I’ll send out reminders for assignments that need to be done and I will also send out reminders for meetings because life does get in the way and we sometimes forget about the other things in our lives.

At the time of typing this blog I have completed 20 tasks, 3 tasks in progress for the remainder of the sprint. So far a lot of the tasks have consisted of User Interface work. So I have set up the menus so that when we do playtests the players can navigate the game, pause the game, return to the menu, and quit the game without force quitting the game. The other tasks were for the paper prototype which was to prove that the game could be fun as a board game. Which it is fun but there some quite a few things to keep track of but thats other board games too. I am planning on setting up an inventory system that allows the players to change out their weapons on their mech as well as the upgrades that affect the mech. I also am going to program the building spots on the map to be interacted by the player so that they can purchase buildings on those spots. Which I will also program one of the buildings called the Barn to have it passively provide income after each wave of enemies. For the tower spots I will be programming to allow the player to purchase a tower type so that they can build defenses around the map.

From the information that has been gathered from the two playtests there are some things to improve upon. From the paper prototype we had gathered that players felt that the prices were reasonable to almost too generous for purchasing upgrades and towers. Another thing was that the aerial enemy unit appeared to be too powerful because of the range and ability to avoid obstacles. In our second playtest which this one was a digital playest showed off our UI, player controls, firing mechanics, damaging the enemy, and showing a working running application. From our players feedback we learned that the tutorial needs to be reworked because it is just a wall of text so that will need to be made more user friendly so there is not a lost of interest. Additionally we have some collider issues that will either launch the player into the air, send the player across the map in such a velocity that it is hard to stop, and or clip into buildings.

I am excited for what my team has been bringing to the game and I am excited to see how this game progresses and turns out. I believe the progress that has been made is quite impressive because of how the game is working and functioning. Polawat has designed some incredible models for our game and Hunter has provided the best scripts we could want. They have been and are an excellent group to work with.