Week Summary - BA2b Week 6

Collaborative Game Project

This week started with some discussion about how the next week or so was going to go; we set a goal to have the game in a finished state by next Monday, ready to present in the tutorial and playtest in order to get feedback to help remove any last bugs or make final tweaks.

We also further discussed having the game move more towards the comedy than it had been previously. When making assets and talking about gameplay elements the parts that our team enjoyed the most were when we included self-referential jokes and pop-culture references, and these elements are what seemed to elicit the most engagement from our playtesters too. We realised that the game's charm really lay in the fact that it wasn't completely serious, but it also wasn't really going far enough to be comedic, so we decided to push that element a little further. That said, everyone on the team has a different sense of humour, so a balance has to be found to keep it universally funny.

A playtest with a tutor alerted us to some bugs that needed fixing and some textures that needed updated. There were also a few things that needed to be clearer for players, so we agreed on some changes to make to the player prompts.

In terms of assets, this week mostly involved making the last few decorations for a couple of exhibits; things like making small sprites for the display cases in the dinosaur area and a centrepiece for the Ancient Egypt area. The pyramid for this area is made up of four parts (all using the same texture map) which allow each part to spin independently of the rest. The sides of the pyramid are layered on top of each other on the UV map to conserve texture space and allow me add sufficient detail on a 256x256 texture.

I also made a few more sprites for the dinosaur exhibit to help out with the decorating. I particulatly enjoyed making the chunks of amber; the gradient was interesting to make in pixels. 

I also made a couple more assets for the death screens. After this, the game was pretty much out of my hands, and it didn't take long for the other team members to make the last few changes. We managed to reach our goal of having the game finished by Monday, and I think everyone came together really well to make sure we had everything we needed.

Personal Work

Since it had been a while since I did any animation, I wanted to refresh my skills a little. I tried making a short animatic in Photoshop using a podcast clip in my spare time, starting out with very simplistic rough layouts and building them up. It was the first time I'd tried making an animatic or animating to dialogue, especially something of this length, so it was a learning experience for me and one I really enjoyed.

I tried to focus on the overall gesture of poses and on conveying expression and intent, as well as providing comedy and making it entertaining. The end result I feel came together really well, and it's something I'd love to try my hand at again in the future, maybe even making something a little more fluid with more in-between frames.