This sprint I completed 11 points of work with none left in assigned or in progress.
The first thing I started on this sprint was some movement improvements. Play testers of our first electronic prototype mentioned how our movement was very floaty, and I completely agree. I wanted to make sure I solved this as soon as possible as the issue was terrible. What is interesting is how I missed this. I spent so much time playtesting our game, refining the exact same movement system, and never noticed just how hard the helicopter was to control. There are a number of specific reasons I can remember rationalizing a movement system so difficult to control, however I think the main reason was due to the sheer amount of testing I have been doing, where levels and helicopter control was no longer difficult for me. I think this made it much more difficult for me to notice an issue as obvious and easy to solve. Overall this has simply given me a wake up call to exactly how necessary playtest data is. While I've known this for a while it can't be overstated. Reminders like this are always welcome if I want to be a better designer.
Next up I started tackling some ideas for our game. This card was my idea for our team, I saw our time to implement new ideas coming to a close as we approached sprint 4 and I wanted to fit in one last attempt at getting our team excited for mechanics. Everyone was required to write five ideas for each pillar of our game. In a few days we will meet to discuss our favorites and if any are worth making room for in the backlog. Jonathan and I will then discuss cutting things out of our backlog and optimizing it so that we can be sure we have a realistic goal and are on track for a polished, finished game.
I also have added in our final goober model. I started by concepting the goober and then sculpting a quick high poly mesh. This was quick and easy compared to some of the character work I do in my Advanced Game Development class. I found the concepting phase very important for our goober. While we often times will build models without a 2D concept piece, we often spend time sketching things out on napkins or Microsoft Paint before doing so, just so we can be sure we are on the same page. This same sense existed for our goober, however seeing our goober is this game's mascot I believed it to be even more important for a good 2D concept. It didn't take long, however we worked through many iterations to make sure the team and others liked the design.
The new goober's ragdoll however is not ready. I hope to complete this before our next sprint, but of course, ragdolls are never just "plug and play", so I will need to direct some special attention to our goobers next sprint. Heads up, our next sprint should have me paying special attention to our goober, so look forward to that!
I also made sure to complete some prop, tool, and building art this sprint. I think our art team has been struggling to find a style that is both low poly and consistent, so I wanted to make sure I stepped in this sprint to provide an example of the direction I would like the game to go. However I have known since the beginning of this class that I can't expect too much from my team members. I also knew this would be especially difficult in the art and modeling area since I tend to be very picky on these things. It's unfair to hold others to my own standards when I am a lead designer and my job is to build a fun game. I have been making an effort to accept art that may not retain the same consistency if I were to make it all myself. This is simply the tradeoff of having team members around to help, which is clearly a privilege. I also however work on my communication skills to show our members what I mean by low poly and how we should texture things.
That being said, our team has made great strides in moving towards a more consistent art pipeline and the models that have been sent back are being treated with great attention from both Patrick and Jonathan. I am very proud and lucky to work with these people as the effort they have put in towards such a silly and small game is amazing.
We all have discussed things we think we can improve on at the end of this sprint. I need to work on communication. I have done so by doing some workshops on how to texture, being available in discord, and bothering members more frequently about their work. I also have asked for more frequent screenshots from everybody while they work so I can keep tabs on progress and provide feedback if something is misunderstood. Finally Jonathan and I have a meeting scheduled to optimize our backlog and add more detailed descriptions on certain cards in their comments sections.
We also can improve on communication with our lead programmer, Pablo, so that he knows when something goes wrong with our GitHub. He has done a wonderful job improving our GitHub this sprint and is now very keen to keep it that way, which the whole team appreciates.
Something that also went really well this sprint was people's focus on work. We all worked on very important, pivotal cards, as well as maintained some motivation in the light of burnout. Jonathan has done a great job assigning some cards members are excited to work on. This means members receive a mix of "boring" and necessary cards as well as more fun cards that are just as necessary.
Finally I am really excited to see Patrick not only fix up models he has previously done but also dive into the audio for our game. This is going to really bring our game together for it's final builds. I am aware of how important sound is for a game like this, and I really think play testers will really appreciate them.
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