Summary of the Week
This week we are wrapping up and trying to get ready for the play test after GDC. Since the majority of the group is attending GDC next week, we decided to finish as much as we can by the end of this week, mainly focusing on the core gameplay (light attraction) and the full playthrough because we would like to test the full playthrough after we went back.
Development
According to the internal playtest within our team. We found that the current routing system wasn’t smooth enough, there were some drastic turns between each section of routing. Also the bird wings were not in the right direction along the whole path so we decided to make refinements on these two. For the first one, Harry and Targy worked together and finally found a good practical way to smooth the path and then Harry took the responsibility for the bird wing direction. Targy continued working on the bird control system and started thinking about the light attraction mechanics.
Art
After the half presentation we basically decided our final direction. Based on our TA’s generated map, our artist starts to model some detailed buildings that we can put along the bird migration route. We chose four representative buildings in Pittsburgh downtown like the HighMark building, UPMC building, PPG building and so on. At the same time, we also built some normal style city buildings and skyscrapers, which we can reuse in our city map.
We are polishing the level by replacing art assets around the routes in the city. We tuned the lighting to create an luminous feeling of the city lights. We also implemented some cloud sheets and placed them in the background.
We implemented a light indicator that tells the player the range of light source. We would like to use this effect to teach the player about how they would be attracted by the light. However, we found out that this effect is very costly and consumes a lot of performance. Since we will place a lot of light sources in the level, we decided to move on and found other approaches.
What went well
The team made good strides on the path system and helped get it smoothed out. We also got the city buildings implemented which gave us a better idea of what our path will look like for our guests and how we can build upon it. It really feels like the world is starting to come together.
Next Steps
We will focus on the lighting system and how we are going to show how lights disrupt the bird’s path. We also need to implement more detail into the city with streetlights, trees and also think more about the skybox and what that will look like depending on where the guest is in the game.
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