Overview
This week was all about dev time and polishing. We had a meeting with our instructors Heather and Jonathan as well as our consultant Ralph early on in the week to show off our progress. Our game now has an official logo and title screen. We have also added a new type of interactable to the game to allow for more environmental storytelling. We’ve continued with polish and implementation, this includes the full implementation of our animation state machine in the game, credits, UI, and low-priority environmental assets. Along with the credits and title screen, we have the first draft of the resources page up on the website. This will be linked to for our call to action at the end of the game as well as in the game’s title menu. Looking into next week we hope to have a new build and animations implemented before the break.
Game Logo and Title Screen
Project Ecotopia has an official logo! This will be used in the game during the title screen as well as the credits. It will also come in handy when we are creating an iitch.io page for the game as well as submitting it to festivals.
Below is the logo in the mockup of the title screen.
Inspectable Items
One area of feedback we had gotten from some faculty as well as playtesters was that the world could often feel sterile and lived in. We wanted to add more character and context to the world as well so our solution to these problems is the new inspectable item interaction. This will also give more reason to go off the beaten path in the environment rather than being funneled through by the main gameplay. Small items are placed around the game environment that when interacted with Mirri, the player character, will comment on. She will mention characters and their use. These items will range from garden tools to laptops as well as a few other surprises. Take a look at a few below as well as a sample of the accompanying text.
Polishing and Implementation
Animation
The animation state machine is up and running in the engine, which is another major milestone for character art. This will be applied to all characters and will allow them to react to different dialogue choices and moments in the story. It is all modular so the animations can be slotted in and out if there are any future changes that need to be made. Take a quick look at it up and running.
UI Polish
More UI is also being put into the game. Take a peek at how the new camera will look in the game.
Low-Priority Environmental Assets
More environmental assets have been implemented. This includes the inspectable items, a new photo spot, as well as other touches that will help show off the celebration taking place in chapter 3.
GitHub Issue Tracker
To keep track of all the small things that need to be done we are using Github’s issue tracker. We’ve set up a few tags to help with prioritization as well as the type of issue. This will help keep everything centralized as we move into the final weeks of the project.
Resources Page
We have added a resources page to the website. This space will be linked to in the game and will give players or visitors to the website access to resources to check out. The main purpose of this is to help with our call to action at the end of the game. We hope players will check out the resources to find out how they can help with climate change on a community or personal level. It will also host all of the sources for the research of the sustainable tech featured in the game.
Click here to check out the resources page!
Looking Into Next Week
Next week there will be a shorter blog post as we are heading into Thanksgiving break.
- Implement final animations
- New build
- Break