studio-gameOn

Today we finished all assets for the first stage and began work on the second and third stages. We made significant progress in bug fixes and are nearing completion on complex contextual actions.

The heat is on, as studio management, and the respective teams, ponder the reality that this is really the week EVERYTHING should be in place.  Sure we still have another week for tweaks, improvements and polishing the final product, but by Friday afternoon, all game levels are expected to be ready.

Such is the state of things that on Tuesday, Duncan and Marco of 3 Blokes Studio volunteered nearly two hours of their precious time from 7:30 in the morning to meet with the programmers and help resolve a few issues.

This week, we began upgrading the precariously balanced player state system.  It had grown out of hand as the design team kept adding new features, but now that they have provided a new and improved (and final?) player state/action design document, we have unleashed the typhoon upon the original house of cards … and spent the last couple of days reintegrating it.  Not ideal timing, considering that play testers are coming into the studio already, and the features that were working last week were not ready for them this week, but it had to be done.

However, today I virtually finished restoring those features to their former glory (ok, if you try hard, you can still make him somersault up the stairs … for now it’s considered “a feature”), while Alex developed some of the newer features so that the player can vault and perform other new stunts.  Josh was busy incorporating other map objects, such as the stage coach, improved exploding hay stacks and, nefarious villians and … well, we can’t give too much away.  All of which now leaves the programming team on the verge of completing, and not a moment too soon … LEVEL 1!

Furthermore, the designer (and temporary producer while Rory is MIA), Ian had previously been instructed in the basics of level production, and he began incorporating barriers into levels 2 and three.  Josh also began working on the features for those levels.  So while a lot is yet to be done, we are making progress, and, with a little good fortune, we may be a little closer to reaching our milestone than many would suspect … which is a good thing because I suspect now that the designers are receiving feedback about the game, there are plenty more changes on the road ahead …

Colin

Today was loads of fun. It all started with a one hour pack up of our place at the glasshouse and a relocation to the loft. After we got to the loft, we once again started programming. The first stage is now almost complete with a few minor issues still to be dealt with. We also redid the player movement classes to cater with our many player states that we now have. Player enemies have been inserted into the map and we were also working on exploding hay bales.

Josh T

As predicted, the latest merge unearthed plenty of new issues.  When I arrived in the morning, the plenty of post-it notes covered the URGENT part of our our ‘to-do’ wall.

Though the day was voluntary, all 4 programmers were in today, and fortunately, within a few hours, all urgent items were fixed … save possibly one.   Somehow, the designers managed to jump backwards, leaping whilst already in the air.  Given the recent update, this could be due to bugs in the feet contact listeners or the player state system, which is growing exponentially more complex all the time.  Whatever the case, this bizzare bug seems so rare that nobody can replicate it … except for some of the designers who were not there today.

Today, Christina aided me with the state code, Alex dedugged the listener, and Josh continued to improve the scoring bar system.  Christina brought a friend, Con, in to help, while Kyall, a friend of several studio members, voluneered his programming talents to create a particle fountain which will hopefully be implemented for some enhanced effects.

Colin

Week 4 has flown by, and every day feels the same … so much effort, so much work, yet SO FAR to go.  One thing we have found with this project is that for such a long time, things seem stagnant, but once we put it all together, we can see just how much work has really been done.

Josh continued to put in new objects, and make them interact, such as the first enemy NPC and his table as well as putting in the scoreboard.  Alex, who every day seems to struggle to recall what he was last working on (despite being quite productive), invested his efforts into fixing the interpolation code required to facilitate the deliberate ‘canned’ movement of objects about the stage.  This was essential for us to be able to include the remaining player actions, states and scoring system.  Additionally, Alex put in the first music tracks for the game … I am certain we’ll all be sick of the tune in no time at all, with all the testing we’ll be doing, but it is good to have some sound incorporated.

Christina and I continued working on the states system, improving the swinging and kicking action states.  There are now over 20 player states incoprorated into the game, and another dozen (precanned animations mostly) still to come.  Each state must be finely tuned, to ensure it is only triggered when required, it ends when it is required, and it leads into the next appropriate state when it is finished.  Hopefully those will fall fairly quickly next week since they are all similar in nature, but only time will tell.

This afternoon, all the work done since our last industry board visit (Tuesday) was compiled and released for testing.  No gold stars for those who find bugs, however, since this build was rushed, and we haven’t had time to fix anything since.  Tomorrow, the programmers will be in again, fixing and improvingthe pletora of new bugs unwittingly introduced by merging so much code.  Hopefully by afternoon, it will all be looking polished for uploading for the industry board’s approval.

Colin

Today we made further progress in the player’s motion archetypes. We included more states, including swinging while hanging on an object and a basic kick, both of which we will need to polish up tomorrow. The hardest part is the interpolation for moving the player when they use the action key.  We also started work on the action bar for scoring, added NPCs and table trigger for the bar.  Improvements are made on the bottle interaction, haybale’s mass and adjustment.

~Christina

Today we began implementation of advanced player sensors to allow complex interactions. We delivered a new build which was distributed to the team for feedback and we have edited the program accordingly. We also oversaw our first focus testing session which proved most valuable. More interactions have been included in the first level with the hope of completing the first level by the end of the week.

Alex A

Today we once again had a visit by the industry board. As always they were very insight full and gave the team more direction. The programming team started the day by adding all of the objects needed for the first stage. We also changed the colision detection system by using hexadecimal masking and once again improved some character movement. This carried us into the afternoon where we have started merging all of the new game elements created throughout the day.

Josh T

Attendance today was voluntary, but there is much to do and time is short.

As far as I am aware, programmers Alex and Christina worked from home: Alex busy preparing the audio, and Christina … I am not sure, but she may have been working on the menu system.

As for me, it was updating the game player states to meet the requirements as outlined in the still evolving movement design document.  Today, it was out with the player rolling, and in with the player sliding, ducking and crawling (again, fortunately Abbey was on hand to whip up some quality animations to match).  I also updated the first level’s boundaries to match the design specs. Producer Rory is doing a good job of updating the design doc as we go, in particular reducing ambiguity, but I am continually running into situations where there are no clear guidelines, such as:

“If the stuntman slides to an edge, does he fall, stop, or does he have a chance to catch himself based on the player’s skills?”

“If he slides into stairs, does he crash, simply stop or automatically start walking up the stairs?”

“Should the player really be able to push bails of hay through the entire level?”

As these sorts of decisions are not mine, I am constantly asking designers what they want the player to do under these circumstances … fortunately one designer, Pixel, had also volunteered to come in.

That leaves us with quite a bit to do on Tuesday before the board check things out.  Bugs remain in the collision system, there are minor issues with the crawl state to fix, the objects Josh was working on need placing in the map … and a whole slew of new states, linked to the activation zones (which I am not even sure are ready for Tuesday) need to be incorporated.  Rory updated the document today to incorporate these new states, which will speed up the process by eliminating unnecessary coding.

Having tested everything on this first level (playing through dozens of times), I am itching to finish this first one.  A new background environment to run through would be nice (I had a glance at some of the new level backgrounds … quite refreshing).  Even though it feels we are behind in the programming, the good news is that once these last features are in, they will be reusable, meaning that the remaining levels will be developed much faster.  Not only that, but we have been training one designer, Ian, to make levels as well, which should expedite the process.

Three weeks down, and only three to go!

Colin

Another week draws to a close … apparently!

This week’s aim: to have completed a perfectly playable movie 1, level 1 ready for Tuesday’s visit by our honoured Industry Board (Monday being a public holiday as we celebrate our beloved nation).

The programmers were mostly divided into two subgroups this week.  Josh and Alex revamped the prototype, particularly the player object, and incorporated sensors into the map, allowing the player to activate and deactivate barriers by triggering locations, and enabling the incorporation of a wider variety of object types that can be used in the game world, such as simple objects like barrels and tables, to more complex entities like enemy cowboys and the hilarious stagecoach (great job art team on that one!).

My primary role this week (well assisted by Christina on her studio days), was to take the basic player state system from crude animated prototype to a polished, responsive, fluid avatar motion.  The more states the player has, the more complex the linkage between states, as players can suddenly employ new moves and courses of action on a whim, all while expecting no animation or unexpected activity breaks during each transition.   Producer Rory kept us honest, by repeatedly attempting to break the animation sequences.

This task was made a little easier by the art department; particularly the character’s animator, Abbey, who, despite a seemingly endless schedule, efficiently delivered several crucial transition animations upon request.   But fine tuning the player states to a flawless level, such that under absolutely no circumstance would player action/animaiton illogically break, is no simple feat … particularly when executive design decisions take more backflips than the game’s protagonist.

This shouldn’t be a problem down the track … there was a heated little discussion when it was finally revealed to the programmers this morning that a feature one programmer had just finished investing hours implementing had been dropped earlier in the week.  The impact of the incident steeled the design team’s resolve to lay down the final movement set for the game (which was readied by the afternoon) and ensured that all design documentation would be very strictly monitored and adhered to.  This incident reminded all members of the team of the importance of strong communication, and will likely result in a greater sense of teamwork and cooperation from here-on in.

Today, Alex’s main focus was on the audio aspects of the game, which he hopes to have ready before Tuesday.  Josh was busy preparing the majority of the animated objects for placement and player intereaction into the level as they became available.  Once the art team delivered a new background for the first level, as well as more animated objects, all 4 members of the programming team worked on merging previous code into a new build, and re-establishing the player and camera boundaries to fit the new level.

But the week doesn’t end there …

Tomorrow, Christina and I (maybe other programmers, along with several artists,and the designer Pixel) will be going in again.  That list of animations and states I previously mentioned, while finally set in stone, now invalidates the current settings.  While I suspect this is not the final backflip (Q&A will likely dictate more tweakage) we will modify the system as required, and ready it for a final push on Tuesday morning, where all the latest objects (prepared by Josh) with all the latest states/action sequences (finalised tomorrow) will be incorporated, with Alex’s sound, into the final version of Movie 1, Level 1.

Colin