We presented our progress, vision and direction this week during our halves presentation. We worked on showing a demo of what we have achieved until now for the world as an example of what we are planning to achieve by the end of the semester.
Apart from this, we iterated on the previously tested acts of the level and made changes based on the feedback we got. For our demo, we showcased the gameplay mechanics like jump, double jump, dash and vision change abilities, the blockouts for the acts that we had iterated upon, the VFX for the abilities and also the overall feel of the level by showing the environment art by integrating it in the Act 1.
What we did this week?
Programming:
- Gameplay:
- Implemented the AOE attack and integrated it with VFX.
- Remade the basic attack with a better auto-chasing function.
- Added the ice model & VFX and explosion VFX to basic attack.
- Implemented the new vision change ability with VFX (not finished yet).
- Improved the dash ability – the player can only dash once in the air.
- Added falling damage to the character.
- Keep working on the health system.
Level Design:
- We made changes to the acts 1 and 4 based on the feedback from the playtest session as well as our SME.
- We worked on adding interactions to act 4 before the player gets the vision change ability.
Art and VFX:
- Environment Art
- Imported all the props made in Maya and Zbrush into UE to replace blockout for act 1.
- Designed the overall environment in Act1 according to blockout in the style of ancient Greek architecture.
Production:
- We created a 2D map of the entire level to present it during our 1/2s presentation.
- We clearly defined the whole flow of our level in terms of narrative and the art direction so that our presentation was clear.
- We created a timeline for the next half of the semester.
- We also created a plan for work during the spring break i.e. the next week as some of our team members were planning to attend either SXSW or GDC.
Some challenges we faced and their solutions
Programming:
Problems –
- Gameplay & VFX:
- Vision change: The dissolving VFX had an area limitation and could not reach the range we actually need.
Level Design:
Problems –
- The building in the act 4 needs to be important in terms of narrative but it was not striking as important to the playtesters.
- The vision change ability still seemed a little bit unsatisfying in terms of the enhancement that it provided to the players.
Solutions to the problems –
- We decided to make the composition of the building better so that it seemed larger and important.
- We also decided to add some buildup before getting the vision change ability by increasing the complexity of the puzzle to give a feeling to the players that they earned it.
Art:
Problems –
- Environment Art
- Prop’s collision volume was a bit different from blockout’s
Solutions to the problems –
- Environment Art
- We recalibrated the collision volume of the prop in UE
Things to do for next week:
- Work on improving the composition for act 4.
- Start working on blockouts for the remaining acts.
