With this week its was an independent study week which at the start of the week on Monday we went into uni to have a team meeting in person to discuss how last week went, our targets for this week and bring up stuff about the game and group. In the team meeting we decided to go over the the scheme for work in which we used a Spiral model to display how we are going to work. The reason for doing this is to make sure every one in our group understand the layout in how we a going to do our work so we don’t run into problems like last week. With this Spiral model shows how we should be working in which we work on our target and when it is finished we talk to the rest of the group to get feedback and once everyone is happy with it you can move onto your next task. With the Spiral model sorted we then all signed it as an agreement to make sure every one follows this scheme of work.
With this sorted we discussed way on how we could improve our game from its mechanics to its fun factor for the player. As from our feedback we got told that it could do with more challenging mechanics for the game and could do with a tutorial as many of our game testers were left confused on what they should be doing in the game. So with this feed back we all discussed ideas and ways of how we could improve the game. With the tutorial we all agreed with my original idea but improved it. With the tutorial we come up with having an AI for the city that instructs the player what they need to to complete the game. With this AI it will pop up on the player HUD telling them the tasks and some background history of what happened to the city. With this we came up with a map stand that a robotic peacock statue as the cities AI (Concept Art bellow).
With this idea it will solve the issue of giving the player a tutorial and tasks for the game giving the player a purpose to clean the city. The next issue was making the game mechanics more challenging/ fun for the player. So we came up with a variety of solutions for the game mechanics such as with picking up the rubbish it will stack up on your back making it more difficult to control the character and if they bump into anything the items would drop all over the ground with these ideas we consulted our devs to see if it was possible and the scope was achieve able which they said was achievable. After this we discussed our last week targets to see if we have achieved them and our next targets for this week. So that everyone knows what we are all doing for our targets and if we could help each other.
With the team meeting sorted I carried on with my tasks/targets for this week which were to carry on with the list of assets, finish off my previous assets UV maps and upload the updated assets to the google drive. For the devs to import them into the game. Also with my assets I check them over for any glitches as I have had it happened once the previous week. To solve this I will check my assets myself by importing them into the unreal engine to check them over. Looking back at my targets I think that they turned out rather well with the outcomes as I finished off the UV maps on my previous assets and made some new assets from the list. With the new assets they turned out rather well with the building which next week I will work on making different variations that are damaged such as the roof caved in and chunks of the building missing.
However I do feel like I could have produced more assets this week as the previous week I had produced more assets than this week. But thats mainly due to sorting out the UVs for nearly all the assets. As with some of the assets I had difficulty with the UVs as I wasn’t to sure if I was doing them right so it took me some time to work out if I was doing it right. Also on top of that I was sorting out my Journal/ reflections as I was starting to fall behind on them which is something I can improve upon with my time management. Overall this week has turned out well in how we have organised the work scheme to make the work flow smoothly so we don’t end up with any more problems that can be avoided. To improve for next week is to push myself to produce more assets for my group. As I don’t want my group to wait on me for new assets even though we are doing well with building up the environment for the game.
Thomas Morphew Games art 