Team Summary:
For this final week before the gold code is due, our team was working hard on finishing level three and refining level two. We did not formally meet as a team because we knew our individual roles and responsibilities for the gold code. We met up once just to settle all the content and see our progress so far, however it was rather quick. We relied solely on group chats and one-on-one meet-ups with each other. Averi was working hard on creating cut-scenes and updating previous shell menus and more assets. Fahad was working on the documentation. Eva was working hard on the code. I was working on creating assets, animations for the boss and updating the boss gameplay.
My Contributions:
I was focused on creating the boss assets and animations. Some of which are for making less work for the code, while others are for aesthetic and gameplay. I designed level three in terms of gameplay and visuals. In the beginning the map for the boss was twice as big, however animating assets in those scale was too taxing for my laptop and the Spriter software I used to make animations, therefore the map is to the same scale as the level one and two. I drew a framework for Averi to follow for the boss map and she painted the environment for the boss (crystal cave), while I created the rest of the visuals in the cave, such as the background, roof sights, boss body, boss tentacles, boss’ three types of irises, pupil and eyelids. At the same time, I was also refining the level three gameplay to simplify it and to have more visuals for the player. To make the code easier for Eva, I created the animations for “calm open/close eyelids” and “angry open/close eyelids”. In terms of code for Eva, when the boss closes its eye, it switches between calm and angry eyelids, as well as iris.
I also animated the red, orange/yellow, and green iris. The green iris’ animated inward glow tells the player to throw at the iris. The orange/yellow iris is for aesthetic and to show the player that the iris has significantly changed and danger is coming. The red iris is animated glowing in three stages (by the third stage, there will be a laser covering the entire map). Each iris is inspired from three types of animals to show that the boss has evolved into the Earth environment (green iris is human, orange/yellow iris is an octopus, and red iris is a feline). The colours are inspired from the stoplight colours, which indicates safe, warning and stop. The green means “go” to kill the boss (Eva helped me realize this), yellow means “warning” to warn the player that danger is coming (this is good for the situation where the player just experiences orange/yellow iris for the first time from green), and red means “stop” to stop what you are doing and hide behind the fallen stalagmites assets made by Averi.
For further aesthetic, my design intent for the map was to contrast the eternal darkness of level one and two. This shows that the boss is above all Sights previously encountered and to emphasize “difference”. The boss is able to switch between three types of irises because it has evolved into a larger and more supreme being by observing animals in its prime. For further aesthetic, I created a cluster of sights above the boss to show that the map is also a lair for Sights. I animated the backdrop to show a psychedelic and other-worldly environment for the boss. The tentacles were supposed to have grotesque eyeballs animated on them (like the ceiling Sights), however I was pressed on time so it was replaced with a bloody tip. Other content I created that were consistent throughout all levels are the assets for the cursor, Solis’ death animation and animated interactive indicator circle (in the actual the game interactive indicator frames were cut to only show the circle getting bigger then disappearing).
My Reflections:
In terms of the boss level, there were other plans that were not made because of time pressure and workload. I created a test animation for when the boss opens its eye for the first time, for more “creepy” factor, however the iris is separate from the animated body of the boss and there was not time to find a way to smoothly transition from an animated iris to an individual iris asset. Another animation I wanted to do was the death animation for the boss. For the death animation I wanted to either explode the boss into slime pieces, or simple small explosions while lowering the opacity of the boss, or different facial expressions for the boss. In terms of the actual game, phase two where the boss will cycle between the green, orange/yellow and red iris was not implemented, therefore the players won’t experience the red iris boss gameplay.
Even though not everything we wanted were implemented. I feel proud and glad that we made it this far into our game regardless of our past differences, team issues, course workload and lack of experience in creating professional assets and code. Despite of all these problems, we finished most of our plans. This course was a good practice for the gaming careers outside. It helped us learn the pipeline of creating a game, game content, player psychology, finding and using good feedbacks to better our product and gaming team workflow and better communication. Although I wish we had more time, the course also practices us to be more efficient and to help us choose how to prioritize the things we have to do to meet the deadline with as much promised content as possible. Overall, this course was a good simulation of how real gaming companies actually work, and it was great to experience all of this with a team of friends. Everybody did their best, and that’s what counts in the end.
