studio-gameOn

This morning, it was all eyes on the programmers!  Today, it was all supposed to come together … all the design, all the art, all the code … all 4 levels … in one massive working game.

It has already been a week of early starts, late finishes (for those without work and urgent family commitments), insomnia and exhaustion in general.  Adding to the frustration is the fact that many others in the studio have so little to contribute now … so while they start playing games other than ours and mingle nearby for chats, we’ve got our eyes glued to the screen and continue to code this game into existence.  It’s not necessarily their fault that they have little to do, and there were others who were still working … I’ll just say that this team could really have benefited from one more programmer and one less designer …  ’nuff said on that …

At these late stages, we could certainly have benefited from Rory being available, but for the most part, he’s been ill or tied up with co-op work commitments, and he has put in an effort to contributed where he can.

On a programming note, Pixel seems to have split away from the design team sometime during this week, and has tried his hand at menu programming as well as putting together many of the audio elements which has been very helpful.

After recent changes were merged, Alex began incorporating the end code into level 2 and Josh polished level three.  Meanwhile, Christina and I began eliminating QA bugs from level 1.  By the afternoon, all serious bugs, and a dozen more superficial ones, had been eliminated, but a few still remained.  During these later stages, Josh and Alex turned their focus to the main menu system and the linking requirements.

I had to leave for a couple of hours that afternoon to deal with other commitments, but when I went back there that night, Alex and Josh, with morale support from studio manager Sheryl, were still at it.  I continued to tinker away on level one while Josh and Alex continued to argue (in a very lighthearted and humorous way) over the compilation of the game.  At around 8:00, Rory arrived and helped resolve the final issues situation.

So, after working at it all day (all 6 weeks in reality) by 9:00, it was time to start putting everything into the game … all three main levels were complete (though bugs existed, particularly in the second) and the tutorial level needed it’s ending code.

However, only level 1 made the final cut … for now.  Linking in the other levels as well was just required too much work (and is nowhere near as simple a process as it sounds).  While we would very much like to have been able to have done more, we had started before 9:00 am in the morning after coming off the back of a hectic week) and the midnight (the deadline) loomed menacingly close.

But all hope is not lost, and the programming team can feel very proud of their efforts.  Next week is tweak week, and the ultimate deadline is Friday.  We are certain to have all levels in and well polished by then.  We have been relentless in fulfilling the programming requirements for this game … we’ve put in countless extra hours, we’ve dealt with the ever changing design requirements and we’ve worked very hard, together as a team, to pick up a new language, AS3, to build this game and do justice to the incredible art assets we’ve been provided by five very talented artists.  And when that curtain closes next Friday night, everything will be ready.
Can we build a fully polished game in 6 weeks?  It’s THAT close, it’s unbelievable!  Can we do it in 7 weeks? No doubts here!

On a final note, today was Josh Taylor’s final day in the studio before entering his co-op placement.  I met Josh when we first started this course nearly 2 years ago today, and I have nothing but enormous respect for him.  We have worked together on many occasions together, and regardless of the task, the attitudes of others in the group, or the circumstances, he has always been relentless in getting the job done to the absolute highest standard possible … a standard and attitude he has maintained throughout this project.  He is a pleasure to work with, and a very good friend.  Good luck with co-op, buddy, and thanks for giving it your all!
Colin

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 14th, 2009 at 2:44 am and is filed under Development Blog, Programming Team. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.