The Next Big Thing

Our new groups have been decided and we have been presented with what we need to do for our next Prototype. Essentially we are going to be making a game using a new type of controller that has Haptic feedback called "flesh stretching technology" or "tactors". There are little nubs on the joy sticks of the controller that move under the thumbs, giving the players a new output from games. We are to utilize this technology. One thing different in this prototype is that there will be a specific person in the group that will be the official game designer. The choice of designer was made by each person pitching a game that would use the "tactors". After each person in our group made a pitch it we decided to use my pitch.

The game we will be making is a puzzle game. A person is trying to breakout of a facility by bypassing several locked doors. The doors can only be opened when the player "inputs" the correct code using the thumbsticks of the controller. The code is found in consoles throughout the level and given to the player through the tactors. So if the player feels the "tactor" under their left thumb go right then up, the code for the door is right then up using the left thumbstick. As the player progresses through the game the codes become more complex and even broken up into different parts in separate consoles. The consoles are color coded and the door has a pattern of colors depicting the order in which the codes need to be displayed.

I'm really excited to work with this group of people. I've worked with our Artist Ashley previously on the Repelzul project and the other Engineer George on the Germinators project. The only person we haven't worked with before is Josh the Producer.

Prototype 3 Post-Mortem

Before I get into the actual Post-Mortem I'll describe a bit more about the work that was done on the project itself. We were scheduled to present the project to our "clients" on Tuesday at 1:00PM. This later changed to be Wednesday, Much to our relief. Before the presentation Felix was able to get music added and I mae a countdown for the game. I also added Sparkles to the main menu so that it wouldn't be so static and lifeless. When we finally presented the game the "client" seemed to be fairly pleased as they realized that we had a pretty difficult IP to work with and they were wondering how we would be able to turn it into a game.

Now for the Post-Mortem
When the group was first put together and we were told that we were going to be making an app on Unity I was very excited. This excitment was stunted a bit when we were given our IP. It was for an audience that we didn't really relate to in any way. The agony in turning the idea into a game was very long, and we went through days of not knowing where we were going. We knew that there were some thing that would be needed regardless of the game and worked on those in the meantime. Felix, and I worked on making the menus, configuring the objects for texture changing, and getting familiar with Unity. Michelle started to make art assets of for the character and the environment. Charlie shot us with his NERF gun. There came a point where we had to know what the game would be before we could go further. We got the "Simon Says " idea and went with it. After that had been decided the game came together pretty smoothly. I had to take the reigns and Lead the design in the end in order to get things really progressing.
If we were to do this over again, I would definitely take the reigns earlier. We were stumbling a bit there. I think that we did extremely well with the obstacles that we had and the game turned out good. I am actually proud of it and I think it's kinda fun.

The Working Model

We needed to have a working system to show to our EP's this week. This was a bit of a challenge because we had changed the game so many times. From the beginning Felix had been working on the side bar (where clothes are selected) of the game and I had been working on the actual visuals (menus, models and texture changing, randomization of the outfits, etc..).

In preparation both Felix and I got our specific parts of the engineering done, and then we worked a bit on combining them. We both had a working version of the game that we then integrated together. The outcome turned out pretty good. We just need to add music, and some things to make it "sparkle".

The Dynamic Game

So, this week after further discussion with our group and the Executive Producers it has been determined that we will have only one mini-game. At first we were trying to add a "I Spy" type game to the closet so that the player would need to find articles of clothing in order to have it available for the dress up portion of the game. That idea fell through. It is proving difficult to put the game in this toy.

We came up with the idea of having a roulette spin and show an outfit for a few seconds that the player would need to memorize and then match. The time would for matching and seeing the goal outfit would decrease after every level making it harder to complete the task. After talking with our EP's yet again we have changed this to be a "Simon Says" type dress up game.

It sounds good. We'll see how it goes.