Alumi Panel

One of our final opportunities to discuss the possible future of our major. The enlisted alumni were interesting, provide a different perspective on the routes that they took. Where they ended up as a result, and additionally how they are doing now.

Some worrying topics were the lack of outside hobbies that the alumni had time to do (which was none). Worried about that part a little bit, I enjoy a break from the constant game. Also having something to take care of is beneficial for one's mental health. 

The featured paths of contract work, indie, or industry jobs all had unique work flows. From the continuous need to work and produce as a small indie team to not lose the focus. Or a triple A studio job where the pod group work dynamic is eerily similar to senior production. To the final just having the stars align, getting the lucky chance to be part of a game that become successful through steam green light.   

Overall the career path has many chances to fail and succeed, but the one thing to take from the panel is to be prepared to change and move around. Job security is a seemingly rare thing in the current Game Career fields. 

The final push/presentation

The vertical slice is coming together nicely, the final presentation to identify why our game is valuable is under way, and we are rapidly preparing for the formal oral presentation.

Necromanager has been an exciting project to work on, the team has at time butted heads (all in efforts to produce the best player experience). The stress of the quickly approaching final presentation was building.

So we put our heads down, practiced again and again, ensuring we would be knowledgeable and prepared to showcase our game to the public. All the way remember to breath, not allowing the stress to boil over. Allowing the team to be confident and ready for the public presentation.

The day of the presentation has come and we as a team and ready. A strong hope that our game will be selected to move forward, and we can begin the heavy polish phase with new members.

Great strides from Blocks to first Art pass

-The first art pass-

We were looking for a refreshing pass of character and enemy art to breath live into the project. The first pass was a nice attempt towards finding the look we want to reach. They needed work and we as a team knew this, so our artists are working with 2D for the basis of character development.

Pulling inspirations for particular games, Don't Strave and Plants v. Zombies. Looking at them for ideas on how to create a light-hearted undead creature and 2D art defined movement.

-The resulting art of the first pass-

Honestly it needs for work. So are plan is all in-coming is currently a WIP for the temporary future. We have solid environmental artist, who are provide the character art. They are making strides for the current game, but we would benefit from the support of a character artist.

-Planning ahead-

The future plans are feature lock, programming new code with crucial pieces, and heavy polish on art implementation and balancing the game feel.

Modifying the room blocks

-The fatal error-

During the previous, meeting which I created the additional room blocks the generation set. I failed to add the prefabs to the repository. Leading to a lost of rooms, but thankfully the learning curve was easy to master. Allowing me to jump back into the program and quickly recreated the missing room blocks.

-The second pass of room blocks-

Having ensured the last set of rooms were added to the repository, I continued to create additional rooms. I set out to define buffer zones without graves. Allowing hallways and empty area to give the player more time and space to build barricades.

During the process to mitigate issue with the spawning of room pieces, I would run the test demo repeatedly. Checking for missing fences, looking at the entire area, and making sure players could have space to move for each graveyard generation.

-The next step-

Review the current set of rooms and addition to room generation assets to develop variety and ensure the space spawn enough graves for zombies to provide a challenge to players.

Learning the new level building

-The Initial Learning Curve-

  Our programmer set up a module room block, to be randomly generated and connected together to build the space the player will explore. There was an initial learning curve to building out the room sets.

 Tim was gracious enough to explain the process as I built out my first room set. Learning how to use the room end connectors (the forward position), the scripting to apply, and the numbers to modify to ensure the proper layout.

 Having quickly picked up the process, I began making additional room pieces to get additional variety within randomized level build. I created six additional room blocks to add to the overall randomization level generation.


-The results of the first pass-

The room sizing had to be oddly numbered to ensure accurate centering of rooms during generation. This would allow the fence pieces to properly draw and contain the player within the defined space.

Overall the first pass was a good introduction to the established system.

Picking Enemies and Making Metrics

Research:

Looking at various lores and mythos of undead creatures, I found some unique and possibly cool enemies for Necromanager. Of course there are the well known zombies, skeletons, and vampires. Then there are the known but reference incorrectly, ghouls, revenant, and lich. And finally to fill out the group (so far) we have the Manananggal.

Pulling the classic creatures helps the audience easily identify enemies in the beginning of the game. Then introducing the new enemies the player will learn more about the ghouls, revenant, lich, and Manananggal. In addition to how the player must combat the new creature, since the old method won't work as well. Providing a different experience and more play ability.

This is the early creature types that we would like to experiment with during play to see how it effects the combat and how the player reacts. So we can work on balance and find what enemies need to be removed, switched, or replaced with new ones. 

Hoping to teach the player and provide interesting interaction for the graveyard with these new creature types. Which are to be implemented at a later date. Additionally more research is planned for new creatures and how the selected creatures may behavior. 

Metrics:

Speed, Strength, & Health. These are the metrics for the enemies so far. How they relate to combat is speed determines movement rate, strength determines damage dealt to the gate, and health determines the number hits before becoming stunned. 

A list is made for all enemies, but is still in early develop and is likely to change. 

Picking the Game

We Don't Need No Heroes! or Necromanager

The winner Necromanager!

Why:

We picked Necromanager as the game to move forward with. We see a lot of potential, many ways that it could go, and opportunities to showcase members skill.

Our first love was Necromanager, everytime we would discuss the game idea and various concepts the group was inspired about various options and cool ways that we could iterate on the game. For the other concept We Don't Need No Heroes! we saw potential but couldn't get as hyped or find the core of the game. We didn't know what was going to hold the audience with the second concept. Additionally the iterations that we did to the second game didn't quite get the game to the point we hoped. We wanted it to turn into something more, but it just never did.

With Necromanager, we knew the core experience, what would make it fun, and how to make it interesting for the audience. We knew where we were going and what the next steps we wanted to make. For us Necromanager is the game we want to work on and want others to enjoy playing.