10/5 Progress Blog

All: We all met on Saturday 9/31 to discuss our game and work together as a group on our individual tasks. We also created a playtest survey, led by Kelly, to obtain input from other people not involved in our game. We intend to have players fill out the survey after playing the game, and then we will use the results to write a playtest review by 10/10. 

Mark: I continued to work on finding more sound effects and editing them down to fit the animation or make it sound better. What I've been also looking at is music for our game. Originally we were going from a cutesie style of music then once the child gets bit it turns to heavy metal, but we decided to scrap it and stick with one style of music. The tough part for that is finding music that doesn't sound like elevator music but still sounds happy. I've been also looking at the animator and getting reacquainted with it to help Justin and Alex with animations they may be having troubles on

Kelly: I fixed the sprites/animation for the turtle, giving it more movement and life so it feels complete and satisfying (I added movement to the feet and tail). I also started working on the hand UI animations and sprites. I created all the needed sprites, but will continue to detail them as we move forward. I also continue to update the schedule as we move forward, adding and altering goals and milestones. And finally, I created our playtest survey form on google drive.  

Justin: I worked on implementing a simple menu system for our game. I also created a new manager to control music and sound in our game. I continued to update feedback the player sees when playing the game in order to make their actions seem more meaningful and powerful. I also did a lot of small bug fixes.

Adnan: Finished the key poses for the remaining Zookeeper actions, started animation templates for all the kids' animations. Either the kids or the Zookeeper will be fully animated by Tuesday of next week. 

Alex: Helped corporate animations ( came up with a few issues), as well as work on progressing the overall UI design. We ended up re-thinking some of the technicalities within our game. In terms of how the game play works and other aspects such as the overall speed, and how we want the turtle reactions to function.

Team Schedule:

Key: Programming: Justin, Design: Alex, Art 1: Kelly, Art 2: Adnan, Sound/Design 2: Mark

Due Week 4: 9/28:

Programming: Basic prototype with children walking in and out of the gamespace, working snapping and holding mechanic (keyboard mash), and 2 basic zookeeper reaction mechanics. Make it so that each different mechanic has a different probability of the player, the turtle, getting caught. Make likelihood of getting caught increase for each different zookeeper reaction as time goes on with the turtle biting the children.

EG: zookeeper looking at phone is one reaction. He has a 75% chance of going back to sleep, and a 25% chance of looking up and noticing the vicious turtle. As each second goes on, the percentages change to make the odds more difficult. One second makes the 75 go to 65, and the 25 to 35, another second it goes from 65 and 35 to 55 and 45, so on.

There will be different zookeeper reactions with different likelihoods of getting caught.
Make turtle animate and hold/shake so the game reads better.

 

Design: Basic UI concepts-What does the play screen look like? How does it animate? Is there just a play button, or is there an instructions tab? Where are they located? Do we have a pause screen during gameplay? Where are the points listed on the gameplay screen? Why? Time limit?

Type out ideas and post a file on slack and drive-make sure you have solid concepts-try to have everything set-no maybes
-draw/sketch out ideas

Art 1: Turtle animation concepts (at least 8 frames of movement), environmental layout concepts with layers for easier programming later on, screenplay layout for most effective gameplay
-revise and plan schedule
-make sure schedule meets group standards

Art 2: Zookeeper reactions-at least 3 different actions! (eg: checking phone, picking nose, reading book, etc).-sleeping state, 3 reaction states, and an alerted/aware state

-these can be simple frames! No real movement needed yet-we just want the idea across-literally just 5 drawings

Sound/Design 2: sound effects for more effective game-choose and edit sound files to show to the team-pick most effective-don’t rush every sound in at once-go from most necessary to least-make them really strong-make all sounds crisp-don’t half-ass any of them

Due Week 5: 10/5:

Programming: (some overlap from last week because of difficulty) Add in more zookeeper reactions and their difficulty changes as the turtle continues to bite down on kids’ hands-each reaction should differ to add more interesting gameplay-some of the keeper’s reactions will result in getting caught more quickly, while others are less risky-have at least 3 reactions solidified and working with little issue-ensure that the game gets more difficult the longer you hold onto children's’ hands, but also add in the randomness to make the game exciting and fun.

Make losing feel better and more final by finishing up zoo keeper reactions and making them feel effective and complete
Make each zookeeper reaction feel unique to add some strategy
Add increasing difficulty as score goes up: make zoo keeper reactions even faster OR decrease alert>reaction timing as score goes up

Design: Draw out ideas for UI and instruction screen-add basic color and font style-make stylistic decisions to solidify a concept-everything should appear strong and unified-it doesn’t have to be beautiful, but all ideas should be easy to describe and show to the group-layout should be on point-font styles should be consistent and add to gameplay

Art 1: Finalize turtle concept and animations-make it fluid but consistent with the game’s style-put animations in order with instructions for the programmer and designers-make all turtle sizes/animations easy to adjust in the game format-bigger should be better, not pixelated-all sized need to match up-one frame should not be bigger than the next
Keep working on schedule/make revisions where necessary
Hand animations for UI

Art 2: Start working on the children and their animations-finalize at least one child-make them walk, reach their hand out, and react to being bitten-make it look polished-really focus on just the one kid this week

Name the separate PNG files accordingly: Girl_Walk_1, Girl_Walk_2, Girl_Reach_1, Girl_Reach_2, Girl_React_1, etc. (that is just an example, but make the labels make sense so the programmer doesn’t have to guess how they fit together in engine)

Sound/Design 2: Keep working on sound effects after getting feedback from teacher and peers-start editing the sounds to make them most effective in gameplay

Due Week 6: 10/12

Programming: Add the animated turtle AND the more polished child into the game, with their reactions and all. Make the child work with the zookeeper and the turtle. All the mechanics should work together to make for effective gameplay. The animations should be working almost fully.  

Start working on score and point system-use the hand system

Make game more difficult as time progresses in the game-the more points you have, the harder the game becomes-the keeper’s reactions are even faster
-Make animations work
-get sizing for child and keeper and turtle correct

Design: Start putting the UI together in photoshop. Use images from the artists to help sell the game. Try to have a good final layout for the intro/PLAY screen. If you are missing assets that you want from the artists, leave the space blank, and leave room for the missing pieces. Don’t remove pieces because they haven’t been drawn yet, just leave room for them where you plan to put them.  

Art 1: Fix and finalize the environment/layout for the game-make all the different pieces of the environment different layers so that they can be overlapped in the game engine-name everything accordingly and save them all as PNG files for the programmer to implement

EG: Background, Trees, Pond, etc.
Tell programmer how things should be layered, including the children, turtle, and zoo keeper
Fix Hand UI

Art 2: Finish two more children for the game-complete their animations and reactions, and label them accordingly for the programmer

Name each child appropriately so that the programmer can easily add them to the game. See above example for the previous week

Sound: Start working on game music-we want a sound that makes the game unique and interesting-make it fun and cute to contrast the horrible sound effects

Due Week 7: 10/19

Programming: Add in the new environment layers to make the game look more polished-make everything layered correctly so that the game looks nearly finished in regards to its layout-add a more polished point system so players can earn points-game should feel like a game by now

-earn points, increasing difficulty, lose state, different randomized keeper reactions with some skill involved
-add in the 2 new fully animated kids
-polish point system

Design: Make the instructions screen in photoshop-keep style consistent with the game and the play screen-make the writing fun and effective-it should work with the game and everything should feel connected and cohesive
-keep adding to the play screen

Art 1: start working on blood effects and animations-work on gore effects
-help the designer animate the play screen/UI
-fix art on UI screens if needed

Art 2: Finish the last two children for this week-fully animated and moving-there should be a total of five kids now, and they should all be polished and ready to implement into the game

Sound/Design 2: send polished sound files to the group-label them as polished and final-these sounds should be ready to go into the finished game
-there should be sound effects for everything to make for an effective game
-music should be finished and unique
-label everything and say where each sound file goes so programmer can implement next week

Due Week 8: 10/26

Programming: Add in the last two children to the game and add sound from the sound designer-let the sound designer help and tell you where everything should go-you shouldn't have to be guessing-make game feel complete-we will make revisions in the last 2 weeks after feedback

Design: Put your finished UI/PLAY screen into the most recent game file. Make sure it works and leads into the game-talk to the programmer to ensure everything is functioning and flows nicely

Art 1: change any designs to match the other artist's work-make changes appropriate to feedback-finalize the UI with the designer

Art 2: Add in the more polished movements for the zookeeper-actually animate him moving into his reactions-before he becomes fully aware, give him a tell frame to give players time to stop biting

Sound: Help programmer properly add sound to the game-make sure everything is where it's meant to be and balanced

Due Week 9: 11/2

ALL: Polish in accordance to class and playtest feedback

Due Week 10: 11/9

All: Finish the game!

9/28 Progress Blog

All: We all met on Friday 9/22 to attempt to finalize an end goal product after receiving tons of feedback. We concluded with an idea that attempts to combine some skill with some acts of randomness to make for more interesting gameplay and replay ability. Essentially, the game is now about watching the zoo keeper's movements and actions and deciding what to do in accordance to them. Some of the keeper's actions increase his awareness of your actions as the turtle, so you must plan accordingly. However, there is still some randomness involved because each zoo keeper instance has a probability of him noticing your behavior, and the probability of him noticing you increases as you hold onto children's arms for longer periods. That being said, if you get extremely lucky, you can keep beating the odds and remain unnoticed for quite some time before being caught.
EG: One of the zoo keeper's actions is him looking at his phone. When he looks at his phone, he has a 75% chance of going back to sleep, and a 25% chance of noticing you biting children. The longer you bite a child, the more narrow your window of not being discovered becomes. One second makes your odds go from 75/25 to 65/35, and another second reduces your odds to 55/45, etc. You have the chance of getting lucky even as your odds become more difficult, but the randomness adds more difficulty and intensity. There is thrill in not knowing exactly what your actions will do.  

Mark: Continued to compile sounds to the library. Though it has gotten larger, some of the sounds have to be edited to be usable. For this upcoming version of the game Kelly has asked to focus on specific sounds and make them sound good. Examples are the child screaming and the sounds of the turtle snapping. Also talking to the others they wanted to add VO to the game to indicate things like streaks of the length of time you are holding on to the child. Finally I cleaned up and compiled the most needed sounds that we set to be due this week. 

Kelly: I played around with our environmental layout and game screen, trying to get the most effective view for the play style. I want the game to be correctly proportioned for the most satisfying gameplay, but also not too clustered to make for unnecessary distractions. I also tried to harmonize our environment with our turtle more, wanting to make the styles match more fully. Each week the style becomes more pronounced, but there is more work that can always be done. As producer, I also helped to keep our team on track and keep our game idea in scope. We were given lots of great feedback, but in just 10 weeks, we need to choose the battles we can afford to fight rather than accepting every great idea thrown our way. We need to stay in scope, and it's one of my jobs to try to keep that possible while still taking feedback into account. I also started to make our team shcedule, which is posted here on Blogger as well.

Justin: Fixed some bugs in the programming and clarified what type of feedback we want to put in as a team. Also put in a new scoring system as well as updated the animations for the zookeeper. The zookeeper's animation now directly affects if the player is going to be caught or not.

Adnan: After we decided to make the Zookeeper character's signals to the player more diegetic, I worked on the Zookeeper some more and got key poses for all of his reactions. The foundation for all his animations is done.

Alex: Focused on fleshing out the main UI mechanics. Worked on possible meta game implementations with the kids in the game as well as how we could further enhance the game play surrounding the zookeeper. Created a mockup screen of what the final game might look like with UI.

9/21 Progress Blog

All: We all met on Friday 9/15 to further discuss a polished game idea and flesh out an end goal using the feedback from the class.

Mark: I compiled a list of what sounds we need and might need and got those sound assets. I also looked for music that can suit the game both really nice and happy music and heavy metal sort of music. Some sounds are still rough so I'm going through all of them and figuring out what needs to be edited for the next milestone.

Kelly: I fleshed out the turtle design more fully, and created extra sprites for his movements/animations. I drew about 7 or 8 separate frames for the turtle in total to help the programmer add movement to the prototype. I also created/drew a basic environment to help layout the game as a whole. And finally, I helped manage the team's time and assign tasks for milestone completion.

Justin: I programmed out all the basic interactions that we are going to have in the game, as well as some basic feedback for the player. Although it is really crude right now, I have implemented a few managers already that will allow us to easily iterate on the game in the future and make future iterations quicker to program. I also threw in some of the art and animation that has already been done we can get an idea of how our game is going to look. This is my FOURTH TIME writing this because BLOGGER REFUSES TO SAVE MY WRITING WHEN I CLICK UPDATE.

Adnan: I finalized character designs and got some assets completed so that we can begin fleshing out the prototype. Animations are rudimentary, but I have the keyposes for our child and zookeeper characters. We have one child character with standing and reaching poses, and the zookeeper with sleeping, alert, and awake poses.

Alex: Fleshed out UI design ideas (such as turtle interaction and where the placement of the interaction would be). Began writing an early mockup of what our splash home screen would look like, in addition to our instruction page.

9/14 Progress Blog

All: We met up on Tuesday evening and: created both a Blog and a Slack, brainstormed our ideas into a pitch PowerPoint, and appointed a producer, Kelly.

Mark: I was not able to be at all of the meeting on Tuesday, but I was able to keep up to date with them in our chat group. I did help with the brainstorming process and I drew out the screenshot for the power point.

Kelly: I organized all of our websites (Slack, Blogger, Google Drive), added all of our team members to said websites, and put the essential details on the sites. I also set up the basic layout for the presentation, wrote the obnoxiously long gameplay slide to organize our thoughts, and drew the main character, snapping turtle, for the game.

Justin: We all meet on Tuesday to flush out our final pitch and what we wanted to get out of this course. During the pitching process, I was in charge of keeping the project in scope, programming wise. We also created a team slack and blog in order to keep things organized. We started to create the powerpoint for the pitch, and I was responsible for creating one of the slides.

Adnan: I met up with the group on Tuesday and was part of the brainstorming process. I also concepted the characters for our turtle game.

Alex: We all met at Kelly's place to flesh out our game idea. I think we all genuinely had great ideas but we ended up settling on the one that would be easiest to perfect in 10 weeks. I helped with fleshing out our primary game idea and what our main mechanics would be.