EMMA TETHRAIN
Menu
Today we talked a bit about the HUB island and decided to put a "Candy Land" theme to it. So today I looked over the HUB island to see how many assets we need to replace the ones that are there currently. And also started to create a list and added some assets to the Trello just to give the artists some base assets to start off with since at the moment the art list is almost completely empty. I helped Magda with doing some research for how to make a waterfall VFX. We had our BETA presentation today. I started to fix on the problems that I had written down from my short play test of the Night Level yesterday. To get the ones I could do out of the way so I could continue playtesting and going through the entire Night Level. One being: "The hill after the first hanging bridge gets the player stuck when walking to the left of the shell." So I went over the entire platform and sculpted the entire landscape so it looked nice, since I noticed more problems, like the landscape sticking out through the rock asset. I red more about how Landscaping works since I found a rectangular hole when I moved a shell that was placed on the hill so I could create a whole landscape and replace it but I couldn't manage to fix it today. Added rocks to the left side of the beach.
0 Comments
Today I started out with updating myself of the games current state and of what needs to be done! I took on the role of taking care of UX, playtesting! I started with going through the Playtesting Feedback Form Melinda had made. I had one playtest today, it was Magda and they played some of the Night Level. I took note of when they played and I also checked the layout of the Playtesting Feedback Form to see if there should be more space for the play tester to write in. I also started to play through the Night Level myself to take notes of what needs to be fixed. So If it's an asset I can inform the artist about the issue so that they can fix it and so on. There are a lot of issues so I didn't manage to get past the the starting area even. I made a Bug Document where I can keep all the bugs I find and where I can check off the ones I fix. I made a new Playtesting Feedback Form based off of Melinda's. The new Playtesting Feedback Form template! I'm going to use this layout for now and see if all of the points are needed or if I'm missing something, if so I'll adjust it in the future! I made sure to keep the layout simple and scaling down on text for the play tester to read. I will be with them when they play anyways so I can guide them through the document. It feels like there are too many boxes on the second page so it's not fully ideal but it's fine for now I think. I also play tested some of the Playground Level and the entire HUB level, so that I know how they work. So if the play testers have any questions I'll hopefully be able to answer them. I have a few unclarities about the Playground Level, but I'll ask Melinda about them tomorrow! I wasn't fully happy with the Playtesting Feedback Form so I went back to edit the document. I felt that the black boxes where the play tester will write their comments were too "noisy" to the eye and were more distracting than helping, so I changed them to a lighter grey and it looks much better. I'm happy that I went back and revisited the document because I spotted a spelling mistake that I fixed. Then I went over all of the text and rewrote some of it as well. The final result!
I came down with a bad fever so I was gone from 18th-20th.
The following week (23th-27th) I had Donna Day so I was away for the entire week. Progress on the Night Level today: - Added Gloomy Loomies, and adjusted their speeds. - Added a Nav mesh. - I had to reattach the platforms to their navigation point again. - I also added a falling platform under the Heart Vial (which is the replacement for the Dreamcatcher) and made sure that worked. Then Fork didn't want to let me push my stuff so I had to delete it and redo it. We also have a functioning player running animation in game as well. I redid the progress I had done.
I started the day out with having problem with Fork so I had to redo what I did this morning. Fortunately it wasn't too much work. This is the last of the block out on the night island. I tried out doing landscaping today in a new open world level. I added the current Playground Level just as a size reference because it was hard to see what the scale of the world was with only the landscape itself. Right now the world is too big so I will have to adjust that. I added the night level as well and put it in a "cave". Makeshift cave to the right of the Playground. I'm not happy with it yet, but it's a start.
I continued to work on the new area I started on yesterday in the Night Level. Adding a simple, platform and pull the lever to open the door to progress obstacle. Later I added the Night Island to the Open World map to see what it would look like. I also adjusted and added more placeholder clouds to get the feel right. I removed the new area that I had done yesterday and today in the Night Level and just made it a plane for now. With an arch that would lead the player to the bouncy jellyfish area.
Progress on Night Level. I decided to redo the right side of the night level with some more platforming elements. I also worked on my portfolio today.
I spent today working on a portfolio piece.
I also helped out with tech issues in Fork and advised people on what to do with tasks in the project. Today I worked on a piece for my portfolio.
I also attended a meeting where we decided the replacement for the Dreamcatcher, which will be a heart flask! I continued working with the jelly fishes too. Today I rearranged a bunch of Jellyfishes in the jellyfish bouncy area in the night level. I also had problems with Fork that I had to solve with the help of Albin. I took note of how he solved my issue so I could do it myself in the future since this issue has happened before. So basically to be able to go back in Fork to then pull and push others progress without mine interfering. I think it's because people are doing something in the night level while I work in it, or if they update an asset that is in the level while I'm in it Fork just doesn't like that.
Magda had a similar problem with Fork as well so I had to help them. It was a messy day. We had the Alpha presentation today. Today I changed the layout of the platform in the Jellyfish bouncy area. I also talked with Kielo and informed her which parts were ready for her to start decorating, and when I had finished what I needed to do I handed the level over! Kielo's progress on the night island!
I added placeholder clouds around the entire Night Island. I replaced the placeholder moving platforms with the blueprinted ones and adjusted their movement. I also started to add place holder Loomies around the level to get a feel for how it would be. In the jellyfish bouncy area I added a walk way back from the "Dream Catcher" to the beginning so that they player doesn't have to jump all the way back if they don't want to. I will edit it more in the future but this is good for now.
The Night Island progress I made today. Kielo showed me her Jellyfish bouncy pad asset she has made, and I had added a section earlier today in the level where the players could kind of race against each other if they wanted but it would be just static pillar platforms that the players would have to jump between, but seeing her jellyfish I decided to make it into a race where the player would have to jump between floating jellyfishes and bounce around. Jellyfish bouncy pad race area. Viktor who has programmed the bouncy pad and the moving platforms was sick today so Melinda helped me with adding the bounce pad blueprint to my placeholder bouncy pad assets. She also helped with adding the right mesh too! Albin helped me and fixed the problems I had with my Unreal project file so now the gameplay works so I could finally run around in the level without any problems so that's awesome! I also replaced the walls in the statue room to a cylinder instead of several cube assets that had been stretched out to act as walls. I cut out an opening in the cylinder as well for the door opening. I also cut out a roof light.
I added a platform asset to the Trello board for the artists. I also went over the gameplay assets and made sure the ones we need are in the board and are labeled with high priority. I worked on the Night Level today. I had issues with my unreal so Albin tried to help me but we couldn't solve it. But I can still work in the engine so for now it's no problem. However I can't playtest so that's a problem that we need to solve. I had a discussion with Melinda and Kielo about when Kielo could start to add do landscaping and add assets to the level, but me personally want to make sure the gameplay is mostly decided when it comes to how certain platforms are placed. Depending on the jump height and glide ability length I will have to move certain blocks, I want them to be in place so it doesn't turn into wasted work or more work for us to do if we have to make adjustments. I said that Keilo could get access to decorate on Friday at least. New area. I added texts to explain at places what needs to be done or what gameplay is to be happening there. The bottom left picture is going to be another exit from the "secret" area inside the waterfall, so that the player can directly go to this area and use their glide ability to progress to the next "Dream Catcher (placeholder title)".
We had our sprint presentation today. It felt really good! We took Martins feedback about sprints from the sprint last week: that sprints are not about presenting for the teachers; but for presenting our progress to our group so that everyone knows where we are in development. I continued to work on the night level today. I had a epiphany that the "secret" room's walls could just be a Cylinder instead of a bunch on flat walls put next to each other to form a circle. So I replaced the walls and made cuts in the cylinder for all of the entryways.
|
Archives
November 2023
Categories |