Looking back on this week has been rather productive in the means of written work than working on the game. Due to the deadline being next week so I more focused on my written work and getting it ready for submission. As sorting out the written work I can give myself time to sort out any issues with my submission. I do feel a bit down that I haven’t done as much as I expect with the game in terms of producing assets. But as a group we have deiced to not stress out about the game and focus on our own work ready for submission. I am grateful of being put in this group as we understand each others strengths, weaknesses with helping each other and being relaxed with each other. As carrying on with the game is the best thing we have done as a group. With this it has kept me motivated and each other to see our game through to a playable stage. Even though we have had set backs with the development of the game due to the unforeseen consequences of Covid 19. But we have given ourselves a look at what our game could have turned out to be if we didn’t have the set backs.
With this I started off the week with my written work where I got my planning folder, Research Document and Research Report Proposal sorted. All I need to sort out with my written work is the Reflective journal in which I need to do my end of unit evaluation. With this out of the way it can give me more time to check over my work again in case I missed anything or fix any grammar/Spelling. With the spare time after this I can focus on presenting my work and organising my Submission. As with the extra time I can sort out any issues with my work such as submitting it to the one drive and the link for the VLE. With my focus on written work I still managed to do some work on the game in the terms of checking the assets and preparing to present them. With this I downloaded the most up to date master file of the game from GitHub. At first I thought it was going to be simple which proved me wrong as for some reason the file wasn’t working due to missing files or the wrong version of the unreal engine. With this issue I tried sorting out the engine version which I consulted the Dev team over Discord with what version we were using which is 23.1. With this I checked it which turns out it needed an update, with this sorted it still didn’t work. So with this I looked at what files I could be missing with this I turned to the Dev team which turns out the game is set up for C++. So with their knowledge I downloaded the up to date version of visual studio. This solved the issue of loading up the game however it was still missing all the files which turned out that I downloaded the game in the wrong way. Thanks to the Dev team (Jon, Cameron and Marc) they showed me how to re download the game through GitHub Desktop the right way and even explained to me how GitHub works. This gave me an interesting insight to how the Devs worked on the game and communicated with each other. Again I can’t thank them enough with helping me with understanding GitHub. With this I finally managed to open the game and start checking the assets in the means of having all the finished assets and if they needed sorting out the textures or any bugs.
With checking the assets I only found that we where missing a couple which were yet to be implement into the game. Which the Dev team were working on already importing into the game. With this the textures looked great when imported into the game. With this I then began to start taking images of my assets which helps me with presenting my work. Overall with the game it looks amazing even with the down grading of the game. Which I have said a lot about how this game should have looked and what it should of had. At the end of the week as a group we discussed over discord about when we should finish the game. As after this week we only have 4 days till hand in so we have decided to call it with the game at the end of this week. As we are all busy with written work and organising our submission. Where we don’t have the time to carry on with the game.
With checking the game in mind we managed to put out an up to date version of our game to the play testers and even got some of us to have our friends or family play it. As we haven’t done as much feedback as we needed due to being distracted with submission and the unforeseen circumstances. Even though its late with the feedback it can still give us an idea of what bugs could be fixed now and what we could sort out in the future if we carry on with this game as a group in our spare time. With the feedback its from two of Cameron friends (Screenshot bellow). I can use this to get an idea as to what assets I could have added/improved. As from the feedback for the games environment and asset its mainly about adding in more overgrown assets and more buildings. Which I have already started but I haven’t got around to polishing them ready for the game. With this it annoys me that I wasn’t able to do as much as I wanted to and finish some of the assets. Even though I won’t be able to sort it out now it can still be useful for my evaluation.
Just to recap I definitely feel like I have done rather well with sorting out all the written work. However I feel like I could have done more with my 3D assets for the game. As there are a lot of them that are incomplete in the terms of static mesh and basic textures where some of them aren’t in the game. With this I will still show them with what I have been working on and what could have been added to the game. Especially from the feedback from play test which I will take into mind if we carry on the game as a group in our spare time. But that’s something I can put in my evaluation and talk about it. But its nice to get feedback on the game as it highlights the positives and negatives which I can improve upon in the future. As its a nice way to end our game with feedback as to see whats good about the game and what to improve on.
Thomas Morphew Games art 