CAGD 377 - Sprint 4

                                                                     CAGD 377 - Sprint 4

Development Process

The development process during this sprint was fairly standard. A couple members of the team fell ill during the first half of the sprint, but recovered quickly. They still did a majority share of their work, so the sprint was not overly delayed. Overall, I'm proud of our team for being able to bounce back from that.

Problems/Solutions

Other than illness, we didn't run into many problems that we needed to discuss as a team. However, there is a current problem with publishing that is still unresolved. According to Google Play, our app has a device and network abuse policy violation. Tunnel Tribulations is offline and doesn't collect player data, so we're not exactly sure where the issue lies. We'll work to resolve this issue during sprint 5.

Sprint Kickoff

This sprint kickoff emphasized enemy functionality, the player character, a refined shop that fits the theme of the game, and some obstacle blocks. One of our goals was to get every basic feature in the alpha build that would be in the final version. Some features, unfortunately, weren't able to get implemented before the build. Enemies, which were our main focus, were able to get implemented. This still gave us valuable feedback and the next build should be feature complete and much more refined.

Work Completed

For this sprint, I worked on the UI elements for our shop. I matched the dimensions of our placeholder shop screen and constructed a mockup from there. I decided on making it look like something on a touch computer screen to match our sci-fi theme.

Shop Screen Final Result

I decided to have the main color palette be different shades of blue with the credit icon contrasting in orange so that the player would be drawn to the cost of the upgrade and immediately know if they can purchase it or not. We already have an element that displays the current amount of credits the player has, so I didn't include it. It will most likely be placed above the tools section. One thing I need to add is a highlighted version for "stats" and "tools" as there isn't much of a visual indication which tab you're on right now. I disassembled the mockup into separate buttons, each labeled with their purpose.

Separated Buttons Example

With these I could now work on the upgrade icons which used the same dimensions as they have in the frame. I decided to keep the same color palette and to go with a more simplistic look that would communicate what it needed to with as little visual noise as possible (no shading or layering). The upgrade icons may need to be brightened up a little to stand out against the background and not blend in.

Upgrade Icon Examples

The final thing I worked on before the end of the sprint was an icon for our bomb. I tried to mimic a similar simple style as in the menu, but I think the sprite might actually benefit from a little shading.

Bomb Icon in-game

Work Completed by Others

Some of the work completed by our programmer includes creating basic enemy functions as well as the three core enemy behaviors we needed.

Some of the work completed by our designer includes creating some of the obstacles blocks, such as lava and sand, and giving them functionality. They also got textures for water done and a pop-up text that tells the player which biome they're in when first entering.

Some of the work completed by our modeler includes the player character model and textures. They also made the drill the player character will hold and separated it so animations, such as the drill head rotating, are possible.

Current Work

What I'm currently working on is a way to communicate the objective to the player from the very beginning which may include a new screen with a "mission briefing."