Milestone 1

Over the past week, the group had ran into a bump in the road and unfortunately one of our group members had been pulled from 3rd year GDW. The group is still searching for a new member to join us.

Aside from that bump in the road, the group is on track to have milestone 1 completed on time. The commitment document has been completed as well as my individual list of tasks that I must complete for this year's GDW. At this point everybody knows what their jobs are and what's left is to go through and edit the documents, and do a group meeting to make sure everything has been covered and no task has been forgotten.

For me this year, I will be doing almost the same stuff last year for the programming department. Some items on my to do list include: save/load system, 3D sound, controller input, particles, plan group meetings, and help out with some of the business documents that need to be written.

The design of the game/levels is for the most part complete. However, nothing is really 100% final yet and there will still be some tweaks here and there before the design is final. Levels have been planned out and the art department has also started working on some concept art for some of the levels. On top of that, sketches have also been done for the characters since it was part of a modelling assignment that was due last week.

New School Year = New Game

It's a new school year and that means it's time for a new game for the game development workshop. For this year's game, our group is creating a puzzle/strategy game. Here's some info about the game we have planned:

• 8 stages
• Ghosts for some characters (player will need to use voice to figure out what kind of ghost they are and perform the appropriate action)
• Items will be more "factory style" (example: wrench, flashlight, screwdriver, etc.) and there won't be guns/swords/blades or weapons of that type

Each team member's roles are pretty much the same as last years with a few changes made.

Currently, the team is working on a list of things that will need to be done so that everybody will know what needs to be done for the game and will have something to follow on for the rest of the semester/year. The design of the game is still in it's early stages and some members feel the game's design in its current state is more of a horror game than puzzle/strategy while others find that there is a balance between the two.

In order to stay on track (and to meet assignment due dates) concept art for the game has already been given the green light and some members are working on concept sketches for characters while others work towards finalizing the game's design and finishing a to-do list for everybody so they know what to do.

THE END! of gdw

The version of the game that will be for marks has already been submitted..........2.5 hours late. During this last week everyone gave it that final push in order to make the game even better. Unfortunately, there are still components missing from it that would make it feel more completed. Although any new features won't make it in for marks, the team is still going to continue working on the game adding bits and pieces to it before the presentation on Friday.

Most of this week for me has been filled with writing, writing, and more writing (along with some sound recording). The people originally working on the documents fell behind and a lot of people from the team ended up having to stop what they were doing and help with some of the documents. With the sound recordings, I helped record a few sounds for what is supposed to be "asian mode", although I'm not too sure on whether or not this mode actually made it into the submitted version of the game.

 Again, I haven't had the chance to play games this week. On the + side, now that the game is "done" with and there's no pressure to rush in order to add anything into the game, I will definitely take some time off during the week and play a few games :D

April 5th Post

Time for another weekly update :D. Unfortunately I haven’t had time to play games this week since I’ve been busy programming for the game. I’ve been working on adding in new sounds that the sound department has given me throughout the week. Also, I’ve been working at adding them with the master copy thinking the game would be due. On the + side, the game due date has been extended for another week, which gives us more time to add to the game. On the other hand, it’s also a bit frustrating to find out last minute that you get more time since everyone’s been pulling all nighters to try and get the game finished.
One thing I did get to do was go to the Level Up event in Toronto and got a chance to try out some student games. I have to say, all of the games were very fun to play and my personal favourite was Figure of Breach. It was fun to play but would’ve been better if there were more shapes since it was very easy to see repeat shapes. I certainly would have loved to participate but the notice was really last minute and we didn’t have enough time to get the game to a level where we felt confident it would get us great reviews.
Currently, I am helping with the menu, HUD, and collision boxes. Once these are done, I will most likely stop programming for a day or two and help out with the business pitch and other reports required by the other profs.
Overall, I am a bit unsatisfied with the current progress of the game. I think if we did a bit more planning and everyone worked a bit harder we could be a bit further ahead. However, these last few days have been very productive since everyone thought the game would be due. Here’s a screenshot of what the game currently looks like:

THE END IS NEAR!

With only a few days remaining until the project due date, everyone in the group is busier than ever (especially the programmers). The group had a lot planned for the game but the delay we had with the art side means the programming side has fell behind as well. The basic course requirements are almost done and we’re not too worried about not being able to meet them on time. The biggest problem is probably with getting all the other stuff we had planned together. I’m sure the game will turn out great even if worse comes to worse and we can’t get everything in there for the submission due date.

I’ve been busy getting the audio to work, fixing up the particle system, adding what happens when cars die, menu, and HUD. One of the programmers has been having trouble and so his work has been put onto my plate unfortunately.

During the week I’ve spent some time playing the game ‘Punishment’. I have to say, that game is VERY punishing. Having to run back to the beginning at the start of every level and then make it back can get frustrating at times, especially in the higher levels, where there is a pole the player must precisely land on. The music for the game is okay for the most part, but is very annoying on some levels, most notably the blue background level. The game has good design since the levels provide a fair level of frustration but is still passable as long as the player doesn’t give up and keeps working at it.

As usual, here is a gameplay video:

Weekly Blog Post

For this week, the game that I got to play was Yakuza 3 for the PS3. I haven't played a PS3 game in a while, and I have to say that this game kinda sucked in terms of its core gameplay since it involves a lot of running around and reading blocks of scrolling text. Although the game is heavy on the reading, I did enjoy the game as the story had many twists and turns to keep me interested as well as a wide variety of "random" activities. They activities themselves also keep the game interesting. The graphics for the game were decent, but I think they definitely could have been better. Audio was on the lower end of the scale, since a lot of the sounds were repeating and weren't as real as I had hoped they would be.

As usual, here is a gameplay video:

As for the update on the game progress, the programming side seems to be the farthest ahead but there is still a lot of work to be done. Having all the models completed only a few days ago means we have more work to do. To add to the work, a lot of the rendering work now has to be converted so it is done in the hardware rather than software because of the lag. We still have to do menu, glow, power ups, as well as putting them altogether (throwing in sound and particles into the main version). There's a long way to go over these next 2 weeks but I'm sure the game will turn out great.

Weekly Blog Post

For this week the game I'm going to talk about is 'Coin Dozer' for the iPhone. This game is pretty much "that game" from the arcade where you keep putting in coins into the top, it drops to the bottom, and you try to get the machine to push your coin off the surface in order to win points. Aside from coins, the game has prizes that you can collect as well as special coins that give you bonuses for a few seconds.

The game is great in that it loads almost instantly and you're in the game. There are no menus to go through which means no wait time. On the other hand, the lack of instructions may make it hard for some players to figure out what to do. The sounds are nice but seem a bit unrealistic.

For the most part the game is fun to play and the ad is placed in a non-intrusive location. The biggest problem with the game is the occasional crashes that will reset the game surface as well as the 4 coin limit. The game does not allow the player to drop more than 4 coins in a row which seems to take out a bit of the fun.

As usual here's a gameplay video.

As for the update on the GDW game, the due date is almost here and everyone's working hard to get the game "completed" on time. At the moment I'm working on repulsion/collision detection as well as the main menu. On the down side a lot of the stuff depends on the art dept team members which means if something goes wrong or someone falls behind the programmers have less time to work with piecing it together. Overall, I think we're making good progress as we have a running game that is playable, particles are done, the physics of the game is almost correct, and most of the sounds needed for the game are already recorded. All that's left are shaders, piecing everything together, writing a mountain of reports, and finally polishing it.