Week 4 Dev Log: Feb 11th - 17th

Feb 11 - 17

Week 4 - Dev Log

This week we had a short check-in meeting to see the progress for CS, Art, and Audio. In terms of assets, things are progressing if not a little slowly. The rig and animations for the player character had to be redone because there were issues with the posing. The CS team had some bugs with the player character and the level rotation, but managed to get it fixed before the level prototype showcase. The audio team is still working on samples for music and VFX and should have some ready by week 5.

Accomplishments:

• Player rig + animations redone
• Various VFX (e.g flames, smoke)
• Assets for first level (e.g castle walls, castle gate)

This week the CS group has completed the level prototype for the first interior tutorial level. In the level, we have included:

• Character model & animations (walking, jumping)
• Rotation of level and “freeze” animation & motion of character during rotations
• Checkpoints and player deaths/respawn prototype (missing animations)
• Collision detection for checkpoints
• Title screen w/ music!

• Grey boxing for first level
• Music + SFX
• Health UI
• Environment Textures

Issues: 

After discussing with among the team, we have noticed a few minor issues with the current mechanics:

• Character does NOT rotate as level’s gravity rotates, making the character to land face-down or face-up onto the ground
• Current camera angle and general “feel” does not fit design
• Rotation can occur multiple times in midair, which decreases level difficulty unintentionally.
• Horizontal rotations MUST only rotate camera, rather than level, as some level designs require this, especially the “stationary” platforms.

To address the above issues, the NEXT STEPS are:

• Add character rotation when level rotates
• Limit airborne level rotations to 1
• Increase camera distance, lower camera height AND add fading wall shader, to avoid camera obstruction
• Change horizontal rotation mechanics to camera rotation

Next Steps:

• Implementation of 
• Setting up a tutorial
• Player orientation indicator
• Refine level & camera rotation mechanics

The CS team will be working on polishing the mechanics of the game and implementing some changes to how the game works. The art team is still working on assets such as textures and VFX. And the audio team is still working on SFX and music samples for the game.