This is the beginning of the end. Technically the end of the end.
Today - April 5th, 2017 - at 8:30:56pm (time may or may not be inaccurate) concluded the journey that was Dark Ages (our game that we spent the semester designing and developing (further discussion will be curated in the following paragraphs)), and - oh - what a journey that was. A great man once said that its not about the journey, its about the final destination. I m not sure who this great man was but I believe his words to be true. We reached this destination, as a team, as individuals and more importantly, we reached it together. I will continue this discussion after speaking about what we have accomplished as a team over the past week (the next paragraph is not a continuation of this).
Over the course of the week we fought (not each other obviously, were a tightly knit unit) and struggled with building out the remainder of Dark Ages. Most of the team dedicated their time to polishing the game were even the smallest fix can change the course of the project. We worked on including feedback from various play test and the feedback we received during presentations of the beta code. We significantly improved the user interface and even built out a boss level, wherein the giant eye - one you cannot hide from, for it sees you, and takes your life, eventually pushing you to the void - is neutral at first and once attacked begins to attack you back with its sharp, clawed hands. Aside from the direct implementation of different features and fixing bugs we also focused on adding smaller details that will truly help the game .... Pop. This included music and sound effects. I personally focused on creating the documentation (examples of this can be seen in prior blog posts and I'll also include pictures here as well) and helping around where I could.
Today we also presented our final game to a panel of judges and various members of the SIAT community. This was fantastic. Truly great. We enjoyed the players playing the game and being open to providing feedback. Many of the high school students who came said they enjoyed our game a lot, pointing out the ambiance, art, animations and affect ability. One however (one student), felt the game was designed for smaller screens, exclaiming "Is this a game for small hands?" We learned a great deal from the judges who provided us with open and constructive criticism, that we will take with us to apply to other projects as well.
Although I mentioned in the first paragraph that the third paragraph will be a continuation of the first one, I will do so here. We learned a great deal from reaching our destination, a lot about designing a game and a lot of soft skills including communication, management and accountability. One key takeaway for me was the learning the not to marry my ideas. Originally I had many ideas I felt were goo and could continue, one game idea was aptly titled The Adventures of Birdgirl and Glacierboy, a coop game with two people, but as I learned, bouncing ideas off one another often lead to a combination of ideas, an amalgamation if you will, meaning the final idea was something that included the ideas from everyone, into one giant idea that truly was amazing. I got my adventure. Often times the bouncing of ideas meant better ideas and working in a team meant we needed good communication. We used a communication platform, that allowed us to keep up to date with one another. As we neared completion, tired, hungry and exhausted we pushed forward with a surge of energy from a single seed of thought, a day may come when we can stop developing, but that is not this day, we must continue for Dark Ages.
I leave this blog on a happy note. We completed our game and although it doesn't have every single feature we wanted to include, and although it may not be the game we envisioned originally, and there may be some bugs, and it may have invisible buttons, I am still proud of what we have created. Dark Ages truly lightened this semester up. I can confidently say I've learned more from developing Dark Ages then I have in many of my courses.
I leave this blog on a happy note. I m happy.
