Team Progress Our team worked intensely this week to finish the Alpha Code that was due. Luckily, we weren't starting from scratch as a lot of our game's functionalities were already coded in the first prototype. Therefore, it was just a matter of modifying the first playable's code to suit our new design for the game's first level. All new assets for the player character and environment were made for this milestone and they are of higher fidelity as well. Meanwhile, our coders implemented these new assets into Unity and wrote / modified scripts to integrate the features we wanted present in the level. The resulting Alpha Code had fully functioning core mechanics, initial UI elements, and a draft of sorts for the dialogue and object interaction features. This prototype was used for 5 playtesting sessions, which were insightful to the development of our game.
My Contribution As usual, I was in charge of creating all the environmental assets featured in the game world. As the level consisted of several parts and areas such as an underground home, forest, and cliffside edges, plenty of assets were needed to be made prior to the coders being able to begin coding the second prototype. On top of this, I also created the elements for the game's UI (i.e. pause screen, game over, dialogue, tutorial prompts) along with the journal mode's entry pages and a collectible that is featured in an optional area. Besides visuals, I did internal reviews of the code throughout its many iterations to find bugs and issues with gameplay and also conducted playtesting sessions with the prototype. Lastly, I wrote content for the revised GDD and playtesting report, as well as made the presentation slides for the Alpha Code presentation.
Reflection It week was an extremely hectic week due to how much the milestone required and how divided our schedules were. It was difficult to align with one another's availability to work on the game and we were not able to allot sufficient time for working on the Alpha Code in the days leading to its due date. An issue the team has to face right now is how to really establish exciting and tense gameplay for its player. Although this is something the second prototype has improved on, it is still lacking overall. The team must dedicate enough time to really cleaning up the code, optimizing its performance, and coming up with more effective ways to get players to feel what we want them to feel while playing our game.
