CAGD 370 - Sprint 1

 CAGD 370 - Sprint 1

Development Process

Compared to other projects and assignments in this program, I feel that this development cycle has been a very self-guided one. We are still following the iterative process from earlier courses, but this time we are going beyond the paper prototype. This means we can take a step into the actual development process of making a game by creating an electronic prototype. Usually, I would have a concrete idea of what needs to be done and it would be short-term work. This time we must create our own schedules, for the most part, and prioritize tasks based on what we need to get a functioning digital prototype. As for what our team has focused on, we've been working on the paper prototype as well as documenting the feedback from that. We've also been hashing out a lot of the technical details for our gels and platforming. I believe that as time goes on, our focus will shift from the design process more towards the programming process.

Problems/Solutions

One problem I encountered was trying to configure the gel combinations. The bounce and speed gels were easy to combine, but something like the sticky gel and speed gel seemed to counter each other. When I thought about how it seemed counterintuitive to combine them as they had opposing effects, I thought to reverse the player's direction. My thought process is that the sticky gel would act as a sort of slingshot that wouldn't let the player stick since they're already going at a high speed, but provided a buffer for the player to hit against which would launch the player backwards. This effect may be changed later on as it might not be as applicable as I'm believing it is currently. It could still be used as a way to kill player momentum in order to avoid a cliff or enemy attack.

Sprint Kickoff

Our sprint kicked off with focusing on the paper prototype and nailing basic mechanics. The focus was more on the basic effects of the gels rather than the concepting of combining gels effects as mentioned above.

Work Completed

Gel Interaction Patterns

My work has mostly consisted of figuring out the gels by making a physical drawing of what each gel does. I've also helped complete work for our weekly assignments. Unfortunately, I was sick for the majority of last week which meant I couldn't attend class and missed out on a lot of information. I tried to stay in contact with my team about how we were progressing and giving them an update as to my status. I hope to get a lot more done this sprint and to see significant progress made on our digital prototype.

Work Completed by Others

One of my group members handled the paper prototype while the other handled matters related to task scheduling and weekly assignment completion. Ryan Early is our producer and handles much of the Trello-related tasks and Izaiah Broadhead managed to create the paper prototype in concept and execution.

Current Work

Currently, I am working on a basic player controller that will allow the player to move, jump, and look around. We currently have an Unreal Project and have a repository set up for all of us to contribute to. We're using the Unreal blueprints system since it is what most of us are more familiar with. So far, I've created a very rudimentary controller that allows the player to move and look around using the mouse. I'm hoping to get the basic jump down as well as to make the movement more smooth in the coming week.