Impulse Post-Mortem

We presented Impulse to the makers of the Haptic controller yesterday, and it went pretty well. I was a little bummed that I wasn't able to get all of the puzzles in that I wanted, like boxes that you had to push around, and little robots that moved around the level that you had to avoid. Regardless of the lack of these objects, the main feature was there. The consoles and the doors.

This group started off pretty well, and I think that had something to do with the fact that three of us had worked together before in previous projects. I worked with George in prototype 1 and Ashley in prototype 2. Ashley and George worked together in prototype 3. We already had a feel for how we each worked. We had our regular stand up meetings whenever we got together and a sit down meeting at least once a week at see our progress thus far and discuss obstacles if needed. It always helps out when we know what we need from each other and Josh provided a way for us to do so. Another thing that helped was having some filler art from the start that was in the same dimensions as the "final" art would be. With that in hand George and I were able to make the levels and test out the motion and flow of the player. George and I got together and discussed what the game flow would be, and how we could break up the assignments so that we weren't stepping on each others feet too much. This helped a bit at the beginning so that we could get the program moving.

As far as set backs go, there were a few that mostly involved testing the code with the actual Game Controller instead of with our xbox controllers. Some of this was due to the fact that we only had one controller in the lab and we had to wait for it to be available in order to test it out. It's also very apparent that it is a new technology. We also had to compensate for a lot of "noise" that the controller had. For example if you pushed up, left, down, or right, the value of the thumbstick would still fluctuate anywhere from .7 to 2.0. Once one accounted for this variance the program would act appropriately.

I consider this project a success and I am very grateful for my team. We did well.

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.

Dress up Madness

So our new groups for our next prototype have been made, and our prototype has been selected. This time we are going to be developing a game for Siena Entertainment. They mostly specialize in ebooks (try them out, they're pretty entertaining) in the Apple app store and they want to branch out into gaming. WE are to use one their IP (Intellectual Properties) to develop a game. There are four groups working on this and they have four IP's. This where we hit our first glitch. There was one IP that was targeted for toddlers ( 1 - 5), one for preteen girls (8 - 10), and the other two were pretty open in there age demographic. We ended up being assigned the preteen girl game. Our other constraint is that we need to use Unity to develop the game.

So what we have decided is that we are going to be developing a dress up game using the IP we are working on. There are some other elements we are working into the game, but it is mainly dress up. We'll get more into the other parts later.

The main obstacles I see in this game are that the two programmers involved both have full-time jobs (this wasn't too bad for me before because I was very familiar with Power Game Factory and XNA, which brings us to the next part of that obstacle) and they neither of them have ever used Unity before. The other main obstacle I see being a problem is moral. Some people on the team aren't very excited about the project and it kind of affects the rest of the group. I think this will go away as we get more element worked into the project... minigames!

Yes we are trying to fit in some minigames. Charlie our producer and I sat with one of our Executive Producers and 'brainstormed' some ideas on what we can do to make this app less of a toy and more of a game. Hopefully this will excite the team a bit more.

As for the programmer obstacle, Felix and I are both looking at Unity and implementing things that we know we will be using in the project. That is menus, UI, and tap and move. I've also been making a list of what needs to be done by the Engineers (programmers) and how to divide that work up between us most efficiently. That will be fleshed out by our next meeting.

Our Artist (Michelle) in the meantime is starting to create assets for us.

Well keep your fingers crossed for us.