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!