Semester 3 Week 14

Game jam complete! The deadline was midnight, and we had the game finished and packaged in time. Unfortunately, the uploading took much longer than expected, so we technically missed the deadline. We got an extension though, so it's all good. The week after the jam is Thanksgiving break, so we can't test the game on the touch table until next week. I expect plenty of bugs, but honestly I have no clue how enjoyable it will be. I'm 90% sure that the tutorial graphics we created were never implemented, so players will have no way of knowing about the gesture-based spells they can perform, which will really hurt the depth of the game. I hope, but do not expect us to return to this project to polish it a bit and make an IOS port.

's far as the art goes, I'm proud! We made some sacrifices for time, but it looks mostly good and cohesive. The colors aren't perfect and the scaling has issues, but it's acceptable. There are some notable shortcomings, however. The shadow of the island on the sky/water is ugly and distracting. The camera angle is too low for precise spellcasting, and also too far zoomed out, and leaves a lot of dead space.

There are some art-related things I wish we could've done, but we didn't have the time for. For example, we wanted to make the terrain destructible, which would've been dope. We wanted to make things like the waterwheel and the windmills spin, but couldn't because of the fracture/destruction system we had in place. Lots of little imperfections, but it's a jam game, what're ya gonna do?

Since the semester is nearing it's end, reality is rearing it's ugly head. Compton's rule is that, if the game is not playable by the beginning of the 2nd semester, it will be cancelled. Playability doesn't guarantee continuation, though. We are technically playable at the moment, but that only means that VR interaction and movement is functional. Our standard for playability that we're aiming for is that the game's 3 day structure is in place. In other words, we need to be able to play the game from beginning to end, even if this means we use placeholder gameplay interactions.

This burden falls mostly on the programmers, but they sound confident. All the artists except myself and Huy are part of the pipeline for our character and creature models. I'm kinda worried about that. The assets are sculpted, then retopoed and uved, then rigged, then animated. All by different people. All complex and novel tasks. Lots of waiting. It seems that people remain pretty inactive while waiting for their turn in line. I hope I'm wrong.

For my part, I've been told to shift my focus from within the bunker to without. The majority of high-priority assets are finished, and whatever isn't finished can have a placeholder. To achieve a more complete version of the game, we need to have something to show for the climactic final scene that takes place outside. I'm excited to explore environmental art!