#teamblog

For the Beta code submission, our project made improvements in the user interface and and level design. For example, we added inventory icons, tooltip to switch between thief modes, texturing on models, more furniture, and implemented split screen over multiple displays. The goal this week is to add more visual cue and hints to the objective of the game without having a member of the group in person to explain the mechanics of the game. We received great feedback from Eric, Shubhra, and some of our classmates, suggesting us to add in some form of navigation system: a world map, in game meta component guidance pathing, and / or mini-map notification and navigation. We will also be spending our final weeks polishing up our in game assets, texturing and scaling proportionally to have a finished game for showcasing. By the playtesting results, we can see that these changes have resolved some of the issues our players were experiencing from the previous playthrough: not knowing the character’s abilities from looking at the HUD. For next week, we will be improving navigation methods for our players through a map based system that is to be decided. 

Rain Deer used the time after lecture to define more parts of the game. From player mechanics to the setup and win condition which were poorly defined. Taking the feedback from the greenlight presentation and making several changes to our game. For example, we are adding more interactions between the two players through adding more dynamic mechanics that will require more reactive decision making instead of only setting traps (passive) before the game begins. In addition, we will be including more gameplay mechanics that make use of game AI to make the downtime between player actions interesting.

We began by familiarizing ourselves with the MDA framework and Yee’s model of motivation in games, in order to narrow down what type of game we all wanted to create. Consensus was that we wanted a game focused on competition, fellowship, challenge, and discovery, with a hint of roleplaying. We wanted a game that people would be able to drop in and enjoy without a lot of backstory and buildup. This led to one of our major decisions to make this game a two-player game (1v1). The addition of fellowship/social aspects to our game would allow us to create unique fun situations everytime that wouldn’t be dependent on a short premise. We wanted to go with a unique gameplay, that wasn’t simply button mashing/fighting/shooting, and so we iterated till we ended up with a 1v1 puzzle game, a challenge between the two brains rather than on muscle memory and reactions.

Next week, we plan to further iterate on our base narrative and core mechanics to come up with a feasible starting point for our entry into the game engine. By deciding the necessary features that define our game, we will be able to choose the best game engine for us, so that our team can begin learning the necessary skills to develop our game.

finally there , we as a team were finalizing all the bits we have with the micro mouse, testing of the programming and the power point presentation.

We finally have the infrared board working however there are still some things that are not quite right, we as a team are working hard to complete the task to the fullest before going on to something new

In addition to completing the infrared sensors we are also trying to get as much information on the (Proteus8 professional) program that we will use to build the board in we are hoping to continue at this pass and maybe even go a bit faster, there for we will still have time to trouble shoot if we need to.

in addition to that we also have finalized most of the website structure and we will add news as we see it .

We will start on the white line sensors as soon as we can .