Team Progress Our team began breaking down the features of our game this week, from the mechanics to the aesthetics and narrative, to assess what we would need to get finished for the Alpha Code milestone. As such, we held a meeting this week to talk about what areas the player will encounter at the introductory stage of the game and how we could enhance exploration through the environment and gameplay. Aside from this, we talked about ways to reward the player and motivate them to do what they need to do throughout the level, making sure that these ideas fit with the story and theme of our game. We were able to draft a layout of level 1's map, which will then be translated into visual assets to be prepared in the next few days. My Contribution My primary role this week was to discuss the details of level 1 with the team. This meant going over our implementation plans for the map, gameplay, and narrative. To start things off, I created a Google Doc outlining what we've decided to include in the deliverable so far. I also came up with some suggestions on certain aspects of the level, such as what kinds of interactions could occur between the player character and objects in the environment (and how this could relate to the story). During our in-person meeting, I participated in making sketches for the level 1 map layout on top of deliberating the details about what we were going to implement. To help us better understand what we want with our game, I referenced the games Inside (2016) and The Last of Us (2013) as example inspirations for some details about our narrative (i.e. setting) and how areas in our map can transition between one another.
Reflection We were able to do good initial work this week for our first level. I'm confident that tomorrow's meeting will be more fruitful and that we will be able to fully solidify our plans for the upcoming milestone. An issue we encountered this week was figuring out where and when our level "ends". This was a matter of determining which areas of the map were able to stand on its own as a level, which was a topic of debate among the team for a bit of time. This is something we will be able to resolve by continuing our in-depth discussion of the level, which will resume in tomorrow's meeting.
