Synoptic Project

Project Brief:

The Brief for the Synoptic Project stated that we were tasked with creating a physics-based multiplayer party game that captures the essence of emergent fun that people have when playing games like fall guys, QWOP and getting over it.

My initial idea for a game was to make something similar to Gang Beasts as it is my favorite 3D Physics-Based Party Game which I play on a regular basis with my friends. The wacky maps with crazy scenarios they throw at you makes the game very thrilling and exiting to play, I would take this idea of extremely dangerous and action-packed environments and implement it into my own game but at a larger scale with more gripping and entertaining maps.

21/01/22 – Synoptic Project Pitch:

22/01/22 – Pitch Review:
The pitching went well as I explained all of the main points clearly and I believe it was easy to understand as I spoke as clear as I could and attempted to keep everyone’s attention by being very vocal and enthusiastic towards my project. People seemed to take a liking towards my project as I used bright colours well and had eye catching visuals throughout my pitch. I could have made the pitch more interactive and asked for peoples opinion on certain ideas however I did not have much time so it would have been to much of a stretch to do this.

I really enjoyed June Reay’s pitch about a 3D puzzle physics party game as the pitch contained many prototype models and block outs of potential levels which is why one of my votes was for her project as it seemed very fun to work on, I also voted for Roya Taylor’s game as she pitched a space themed third person party game which had many possibilities as it required a selection of different minigames to be programmed so I thought it would be challenging but also seemed very fun.

Preparation:

Deadlines:
Prototype Version: 07/03/22
MVP Deadline: 25/04/22
Beta-Build: 09/05/22
Finished Project: 16/05/22
Presentation: 06/06/22

Games Design Document:

Asset Lists:

Trello Board:

Pre-Production Documentation:

Scrum Sheets:

Burndown Charts:

Pre-Production:

24/01/22 – My Team
Our class was assigned into different groups to work on the most liked projects which were pitched on the 21/01.22. My game was one of the games which were going to be created for the synoptic project and I was given a team to work with during this project. I had never worked with the people on my team before however I was exited to work with them to create a polished and complete game over the next few months. I instantly created a teams group ready for Tuesday when we were in college so I could communicate with my team and begin the Pre-Production phase of the project more efficiently.
I was happy that my team mainly consisted of 3D artists as the main aim for Krengs was a good map layout and a clean/polished 3D environment art style however I would have took another programmer on the team as the code for the players active ragdoll and the all of the scripts which control the game mechanics will be very difficult to code like the map selection, combat system, movement etc. Overall I couldn’t be happier with the team I have been paired with as they are all hardworking individuals who I look forward to spending the upcoming months creating the game with.

All work featured in the upcoming weeks was created by me unless stated otherwise.
As teamwork is a large part of this project there will be many assets and contributions made by multiple team members, the featured creations on this blog will all be made by me and I will keep everyone’s work updated once a week on the blog so you are able to see what the entire team is working on.

25/02/22 – Tuesday
On the first day we began working on making a start to our documentation, I created the first scrum sheet and then began working on the trello board with June Reay. We started by creating a simple hierarchy of labels we could attach to different tasks on the board.

We made other labels to help us keep the Trello board organised by categorising different tasks to specific members by placing their Trello profile picture on the card and giving tasks individual roles towards the project such as Programming, Animation, 3D Modelling etc.

We even created a Scrum sheet list on the board with the template document saved as the first card so each team member can create a document really easily each week, we did this to make creating Scrum Sheets an easy tasks and so no members of our group had an issue making them.

I also created a simple staircase which I would use the following day to test how the ragdolls movement interacts with the environment it is placed in.

For the prototype version of the game we needed complete for 07/03/22 we as a team decided the 1 stage that will be featured is the Crane level. This environment will showcase the hazardous environment we want the players to survive and fight in, this stage includes a Crane in the centre of a city which has began spinning violently out of control, your aim is to be the final Kreng standing by throwing your other competitors off the mast of the crane.

26/02/22 – Wednesday
I created a simple Player model for the Kreng which you will control in game and gave him active ragdoll physics, I was very pleased with the model as it was made up of very simple shapes but had a cute look which made it a likeable character. This also opened up the possibility to create even more customisations on the character and even select a colour for your Kreng so you can tell your character apart from your friends.

I then placed his body parts into the hierarchy so that all of the separate parts of the ragdoll are connected by joints, this took time to figure out which certain parts go into where but once I discovered what is responsible for controlling different muscles in his body then it was not too difficult to create the correct order of hierarchy in his body.

I then added a configurable joint to each piece of his body which allowed them to stay connected, as all of the parts connected to the centre of the character, which is the Kreng’s hips, I made the anchor of the centre of the ragdoll have a really high value in order to hold up the rest of the character. this worked well as no matter how you dropped the character he would always get back up.

27/02/22 – Thursday
Today I focused heavily on documentation as we only had an hour in lesson and I wanted most of the projects documentation completed so that on the 28/02/22 I could focus on game design and animation towards the player. I was even considering starting to code the players movement script the next day so it was crucial that all of the work was completed towards the projects such as tee Burndown Chart, the Asset List and the Game Design Document (GDD)

I began by Tasking Robin Sear with todays Scrum sheet and told him to hold off on making his 3D model at the moment as the Scrum Sheet was an important task for him to complete so I could focus heavily on other documents which needed to be recorded for the project. I needed the asset list to be completed in order to begin creating the burndown chart as our team was still unsure the amount of overall tasks and how many 3D assets needed to be created for the prototype version of the game. The Burndown Chart consisted of 15 different assets which we would aim to have completed for the prototype version of the game. We also gave each asset a different complexity and priority to better help the members of the team to decide what assets they should tackle first and in which order they should complete their tasks.

I finally made the first week of the Burndown Chart by writing the amount of tasks we needed to have complete by the 07/03/22 and stating how many tasks we aimed to have completed at the end of each week. I believed this was the correct amount of work that needed completing every week and knew it was achievable as my group was already making a large amount of progress.

28/02/22 – Friday
Today I made a large amount of progress towards the characters movement by assigning him 5 current inputs which allow you to move around the scene.
W- Moves the Kreng forward
A- Moves the Kreng left
S- Moves the Kreng right
D- Moves the Kreng backwards
SPACE- Makes the Kreng jump

I began this by creating a new C# Script called Player Controller and then began creating different variables which I would attach to the player in order to make him move, I created a float called speed, strafeSpeed and jumpForce. All of these values would determine how much force we give the player in which directions depending on what inputs the click.

As I decided to use a rigidbody on the character this did not take long as I have previously made all my movement scripts in 3D by using rigidbody physics. Once I had created the script I went back into the unity inspector and assigned all of the variables to Game Objects and gave them all the correct values.

I finally had a Scrum meeting with my team and created the Scrum Sheet, everyone was happy with the project and believed that we were making good progress. I really enjoy the Scrum meetings as it gives me the chance to talk to the team and really see what everyone is working towards and if they need any help regarding the project.

01/02/22 – Tuesday
Today we only had one lesson where everyone on the team was able to work on the project however we do not have access to any of the applications and software we need in this lesson so we used the time we had to ensure everyone was up to speed on what is going on with the project so far. I was able to see what everyone was working on and how well it was going, this lesson greatly helped with the groups progress for the rest of the week as everyone was assigned the tasks they needed to complete and everyone could shoe off what they created.

TEAMS WORK JANUARY

Robin Sear was creating the main asset we needed for our first level which was a crane, he had already made a great start and he was very good at making sure the style stayed consistent with the rest of the game by constantly checking in with others to ensure the overall visuals of the model fit well.

June Reay was working on creating a solid logo for the game and she made multiple different variations of styles, the team decided to use the first logo as we believed it to be the most appealing and eye catching, we also asked other classmates and they all agreed that the Blue and Pink colours compliment very nicely.

Dean Gray was creating the 3D assets which the player will be able to interact with in game, for the crane level this was the Steel Girder and Wooden Crate, the player will be able to throw these items and use them tactically to reach higher locations to outsmart your opponent.

Erica Bain was creating the concept art for the game, she was tasked with creating the character design sheet for how the Kreng should be presented in our game with its different colour variants and skin variations.

02/02/22 – Wednesday
Today I completed the game design document as it was the only piece of documentation that was not fully complete however now we have a reference we are able to look back upon when we need to ensure the assets we are creating are the correct style. As I have used GDD’s on other projects I have worked on it was very simple to complete and I made sure to include all the relevant information on the Project so that all team members could use this document efficiently to assist with workflow towards the game.
I also spent lots of today helping robin with his Crane as he was almost finished and was just making the layout of the platforms for the players to fight on the correct size, as this was the center piece for our first and only stage for the prototype version of the project it was crucial that all of the sizes are correct and the scale of the crane is perfect.

03/02/22 – Thursday

Animation is one of my favourite aspects of game design, I am not the best at it yet seeing your character move is a great feeling so I began working on the ragdolls movement as the characters movement will be what your eyes are always focusing on while playing the game, if the animation does not looks smooth the player will not enjoy controlling the ragdoll.

Creating the animation was going to be difficult as I want the ragdolls animation to interact with the environment, I was unaware how to do this however after multiple tutorials and reading different peoples struggles on the topic online I learned it is actually very simple to allow an active ragdoll to have physics animations.

I began by creating a separate player model by duplicating the current character and removing all scripts from this new one, I named it {NAME} and began giving a simple walking animation to the model. Once I created a simple walk I then needed to copy the body part rotations from the second model and applying them to the first model to allow the original models animations to collide with the environment. If you just give the ragdoll an animation his limbs do not collide correctly with the ground and walls which leads to very clunky gameplay and unsatisfying movement.

Once the original ragdoll was mimicking the other model and the animations had been carried over I began testing the movement and was very happy with the result, unfortunately there are still many issues however I was pleased with the progress I had made considering I had never tackled anything like this before. The ragdolls animation is such an important part of the game that I need to make sure I get it looking smooth and as polished as I possibly can but for now I was very pleased with the result!

04/02/22 – Friday
Today I created a second player Script by changing the players movement inputs to use the arrow keys instead of “WASD” as I wanted to test 2 player physics and how the ragdolls interacted with one another. I placed the two controllable ragdolls in the same scene and asked June and Robin to play test out the movemnt with me. Unfortunately the collisions between the two ragdolls was not working because in the collision hierarchy I made the layer Player not collide with player so I will need to create another layer named Player2. Overall the 2 ragdolls fit really well into the scene and I could definitely see them fighting in the scene.

{Insert Player 2 Script}

I also created a simple working Title screen, Main menu and an Options / Settings menu. I created this simple menu so that there will be a working game loop for the prototype build, this main menu will not even feature a Credits menu as it is not a requirement for the earliest version of the game.

I began by creating 3 buttons on the menu with the same font which we are consistently using throughout our project “PhillySans”. These buttons were a Start button, an Options button and a Quit button. I Wrote a few lines of code to allow the start button to start the prototype stage so that we could now begin gameplay from the menu, I also used the on button click functions in the inspector to allow the options menu to bring up a separate menu which will later feature multiple settings like volume and graphic settings, for now it will be blank as it does not need to be completed until the core gameplay is implemented.

I finally completed a Scrum Sheet after our team Scrum meeting which went very well as everyone was working very hard the whole day so we each had a large amount of progress made through the day and lots of good work to share with the group, we are all very pleased with the progress of the project so far and are looking forward to seeing where the game will be at in a few months time.

05/02/22
Although it is the weekend I needed to organize the Trello board, so me and June Reay went through and ensured all of the correct tasks were in the right lists and that they were all assigned to the correct team members. This did not take long but was a necessary step to take so that the projects organized for Tuesday.

08/02/22

Today me and June Reay began working on the first stage for the game (Crane Level), this stage consisted of a crane which span in the centre of a city. We began by creating a simple layout for where the buildings and roads would be placed and the imported Robin Sears crane model into the scene.

As I began to work on the Crane and its animations June started to develop the buildings in the city so that you could see many streets with cars driving around in the background of the stage while players are fighting. I started the animation by selecting the top half of the crane and over a short period of time made it rotate around the centre of the cranes body, while playing the game I want the crane to rotate faster as the round goes on.

09/02/22 – Wednesday

Today we continued Working on the Crane Stage, Erica Created a simple playboard to showcase how the game may look, I continued to help June with the city while also importing the character to the Crane scene to see how he Interacts with the cranes animation, unfortunately the Kreng falls off the Crane so I will need to make a script that attaches the player to the ground.

10/02/22

By this point June had finished the city so the overall decoration of the Crane stage was completed. This meant I could begin working on other things, we decided it would be funny to create skins based off real life TV shows and Movies which you could use in game as your Kreng Character, this is when I decided to create my Kreng skin KrengMaker which is clearly a rip off from peacemaker however this obviosly would not be an exact copy we are just using it as inspiration and to give the players more funny skins to wear. We want to make many original skins and do not want to steal anyone elses work we just believed it would be funny as other games have done this in the past in order to make users want to play as their favourite character.

I began by creating the Krengs Helmet in Maya and then applying a texture to it which gave it a reflective style. I then Imported it into Maya and adjusted the helmets material settings so that the light in unity’s scene reacted with the helmet in the way I wanted, I finally put the helmet onto the Kreng model and changed the colours of the body so that you were able to see a clear resemblance between the Kreng and Peacemaker.

11/02/22

After completing a scrum meeting with the team and helping Robin Sear with a part of a 3D model he was working on I decided to write more documentation and blog work however I also quickly created some artwork for the Kreng I had made as June Reay had made a Kreng based from Neon from Valorant, along with the model she made some artwork for the character which gave me the idea to do the same thing for my Kreng based from the HBO Max TV show Peacemaker.

I started this process by placing Krengmaker into a new scene and placing him in the way I wanted him to stand on the poster. I then placed a green 3D wall behind him to act as a green screen for the screenshot which I could chroma key out in photoshop.
I then created a nice little poser which I could use somewhere in the city map and potentially show on the character select menu.

15/02/22 – 18/12/22 CAMERA MOVEMENT

For all of this week I focused on the new camera movement I wanted to implement into the game. Currently the player only moved with WASD and you could not control the camera in anyway, I believed if this was the case the game would be too similar to the popular game Gang Beasts as it was already our main inspiration. This was the main reason I wanted a third person camera however I also believed it would give the player more freedom to control and move the character in the way they wanted.

I began by creating a new C# Script and named it CameraControl, this will be the script which controls all of the cameras settings and will make the camera work smoothly with the player. I then created some variables which I would use and reference through the script, I created a public float named rotation speed and stomach offset which will be editable in the unity inspector. I also created float of mouseX and mouseY in order to allow me to control the camera in the script.

As you can see I used unity’s input system to control the rotation of the camera using the x and y axis with the mouse, the reason I used this input system is so I could eventually implement the use of a controller into the game as it would be more easy to control and a lot more user friendly.

I then attached the Script to the camera and set all of the variables values to the correct number so that it worked well with the game. Once all of the correct joints had been placed in the correct areas I tested it out and it worked perfectly, this was exactly how I wanted the game to feel so I was extremely happy with the turnout.

On the Friday at the end of the week we also had a scrum meeting which went well, There was no issues on my part arising and the next thing I wanted to start working on was an interactive main menu with a cool style and nice UI buttons and colours.

Half Term

01/03/22
In todays lesson I caught up with the team on what everyone was working on along with starting to lay out how I wanted my blog page to look for this month. As the deadline for the Pre-Production stage of the game was upcoming in the next few weeks I needed to ensure everyone in the group was on task and knew what they were working on.

TEAMS WORK FEBRUARY
I did not make any of these models

Robin Sear continued with the biggest assets needed for each stage, he created a broken bridge which the players would fight on and attempt not to fall into the water. The 2 bridges in the middle are connected with a wooden plank which the players will use to walk to the other bridge.

June Reay worked on creating a new skin for a Kreng while also creating 3D assets and level design, the TV she modelled is used in the credits menu to preview everyone who worked on the game.

Dean Gray created 3D assets which we would use in the Main menu and the Broken bridge stage, these models will be destructible and some will be able to be carried.

Erica created some map concept are for the crane stage which is based from the crane robin modelled, you can see the crane rotates in the centre of the city.

02/03/22 – 04/03/22
Today I started working on the UI for the game along with June Reay, we began By making A simple garage where we wanted the UI to be, we then added the buttons along with the krengs logo. The buttons changed colour when highlighted and selected which gave the User Interface more of an interactable feel to it.

We then added another button and began working on the other parts of the street where the buttons would take you when clicked. using a cinemachine camera I programmed it so on click the camera transitions to a different camera smoothly allowing the user to control where they wish to go.
We then completed a Scrum meeting as a team and then I finished updating my blog.

Once I added all of the areas into the game I overplayed UI into the environment allowing the user to return to the garage menu and select other buttons, we currently had a credits, options and quit function in the menu. I was overjoyed with the outcome of how it looked and couldn’t wait to see how I improved upon it in the upcoming weeks.

Production:

08/03/22 Production (MVP)

Scrum 1 Overview:
First Scrum meeting, after the production stage of the game has concluded, went very well. Some team members were distracted and were clearly not focused on their work which caused a major delay in certain aspects of the project this week, the concept art took longer than it should to arrive and some models were not being completed to a high standard. The team members who were participating to their highest quality made a substantial amount of progress towards the project. Overall the beginning of the MVP production stage of the project is off to a smooth start and I am looking forward to seeing how it turns out.

Scrum 2 Overview:
The first week of the MVP stage of the project has went well, compared to last week all members of the team are fully engaged towards progressing the project further. No major issues took place this week, everyone is working at their own pace towards their designated tasks. Overall, all team members have made a vast amount of progress and created a nice workflow.

My work:

The first feature I wanted to implement into the game this week was a game timer, this allowed the game to end after a certain time limit was reached, I wanted the timer to be displayed in the top left corner and for it to count down from the specific time I select. Then when the timer hits 0 I will create a win screen allowing the user to restart the stage or return to the main and in the future I will add different rounds.

I later wanted to add a camera fly through of each map to show the player what environment they would be fighting in, this meant I did not want the timer to start until a certain time. I created an empty game object named “timeroff”. I set this object to animate over the course of 5 seconds from x position 72 to x position 0. Then I only set the timer script to enable when the position of this timeroff object was set to (0f, 0f, 0f).
This was the easiest way I could think to give the game time before it starts to showcase the map.

Burndown Chart Overview:
In the first week, the actual amount of assets completed is much higher than the team expected, this puts us in a great position because as of next week, we will be ahead of schedule which means any further tasks we complete will be adding to the next weeks expected goal. Overall, we have already established an amazing workflow which if we continue, we should have all tasks completed before we reach the deadline.

Overall Week Reflection:
What Went Well-
As this was the first week back I spent a large amount of time talking with the team and we made decisions about what we wanted to make next, we decided on making sure we had a large array of levels as well as a game loop as soon as possible. I made large progress mainly on the programming aspect of things by rearranging different pieces of code to look more organized as well as completing the game timer so that the game now has a way to end and restart.
What Went Wrong-
On Wednesday some team members were not communicating, alongside not working towards the project in any way, this was very frustrating however after having the scrum meeting I believe it made them realise that they needed to participate more with the group and work harder, providing team members feedback helps them to understand what they are aiming to create, also reminding these team members that there is a deadline for their specific tasks pushes a sense of realisation that they must work harder in order to have the product delivered on time for other team members to use.

15/03/22 Production (MVP)

Scrum 1 Overview:
Todays scrum meeting went extremely well, the entire group was in a great mood and everyone was happy with the games progress over last week and cant wait to start work this week. No one had any issues this week however June wanted to ensure the team was still on track. Everyone was working on a different part of the project and people seemed happy with the parts that they were working on. The rest of the day went very well after this and everyone was exited to come back into college and continue working.

Scrum 2 Overview:
Again this week progress was going smoothly and everyone seemed to be in a good mood, we had to do this scrum meeting later in the day as we had lots of work to do so I could tell team members were tired however everyone still seemed highly motivated towards the project despite this. No one had any issues today and everyone continued working very well.

My work:
The player had no way of dying, this meant that the oly possible way for the game to end was by the timer being set to 0 however I made a box collider which had the tag “Death” and then in the player script I loaded the death scene when the player made contact with the object, I then set the object to be slightly below the map so when the player fell off the Bridge / Crane / Boat it caused the game to end.

I also added a Script which causes the cursor to be unlocked when the current scene is not equal to a level or if the player is dead, this was because when loading the new scene the curser was still locked in place due to the third person camera settings I had made.
Cursor.lockState = CursorLockMode.None;

Burndown Chart Overview:
Continuing into the second week of the production stage of our project, we are still ahead of schedule, everyone on the team has been completing tasks non stop giving us a very big lead and hopefully allowing us to finish this stage of the project earlier. As you can see we are aiming to have around 19 tasks next week when in reality our expected tasks next week should be around 23, this shows how much of a lead we have. Overall our group is ensuring that all tasks are finished on time.

Overall Week Reflection:
What Went Well-
I was able to complete a large amount of programming this week as there was very minimal distractions, I also had a good week discussing ideas with the team, I was exited to implement the fighting mechanics into the game which would come in the upcoming weeks but as the player is now able to die we now have the option to add different ways for the player to be eliminated from the round.
What Went Wrong-
Everyone attended this week however progress was slow as we had a new teacher as well as many lecturers being sick with covid-19 which meant we were limited with the amount of assistance we could receive. This did slow down progress slightly as Robin was having an issue with Maya and as we had no lecturer for one lesson this made it very hard to fix however we managed to make it work and we have made substantial progress toward the project this week.

22/03/22 Production (MVP)

Scrum 1 Overview:
As this week begins the entire team is working on their current tasks very well, there are no current issues and all team members are very happy that the project is going so well, we are currently ahead of schedule and as long as there are no issues then we will continue to be ahead of schedule.

Scrum 2 Overview:
Unfortunately June Reay was absent this day which meant level design was stopped temporarily however as we were ahead of schedule this was not an issue, we proceeded to work on the project and everyone in the group was very glad we had no exam to work on which meant we could focus purely on the project and not case study revision.

My work:
This week I wanted to focus purely on the look of the game, more precisely the lighting using, because we are using unity which has no where near as good lighting as Unreal Engine this meant that making the games lighting look good would be difficult. I placed many different lights in the scene and tested the effects of using different strengths and colours and how they interacted with the environment. One issue that was occurring was that the skybox was blue which also turned the surrounding area blue too, in order to change this I went into the environment settings for each scene and set the lighting mode to a solid colour and made it a light yellow as if the sun was slightly effecting the map however you could still see the cartoonish style of the game being displayed.

I also worked on the games splash screen and icons so that when we publish the game to itch it looks more professional, this was very fun as I got to decide what icons the game would use that matches our style nd I enjoyed the process, I kept it very simple by making a Krengs head as the icon and the games logo for the splash screen on a black background, this made the game look very well made and was fun to add.

Burndown Chart Overview:
As you can see on the Burndown Chart we are almost exactly on Schedule, no tasks were completed this week as everyone was working on blogs and we also had an exam on the Wednesday, the only real day to get work done was the Friday however all team members who were present were working on in progress tasks. This was no issue as the team was already far ahead and we would complete many tasks next week.

Overall Week Reflection:
What Went Well-
This week was a very simple week in regards to what happened, we had many other various tasks to do and everyone on the team cracked on with blog work or continuing making their current asset. Although one team member was absent we had a good working week and hopefully it continues this way.
What Went Wrong-
We were not able to do as much work because one team member was off and we had to do an exam yet this was not much of an issue as we still managed to complete a good amount of work, one potential issue which could take place next week was the automatic unity services update which changes the Unity Collaboration tool to Plastic SCM which the college has not taught us how to use and it is blocked so it will be annoying to fix but hopefully the lecturers sort this out as soon as possible.

Mid Project Reflection:

The practical aspect of the project is mainly focused towards gameplay and art at the moment, making the project look nice and have a very smooth gameplay flow has been the main focus of the team with Dean and Robin creating the Models and texturing, June with level and environment design and Erica with concept art. I have been doing all of the programming, working with the characters ragdoll and also making a functioning main menu with nice user interface.

As a team we are working extremely well as everyone wants to see the product succeed, the only issues we have run into is that some members of the team were not working very hard at certain times however now the entire team is dedicated to doing work. Another problem that is still occurring however is not much of an issue is that some team members lack communication skills, they can talk on teams however in person they rarely contribute to the scrum meeting no matter how much we try to involve them. This is not a problem as long as we know what they are doing and they are doing the work however it would be nice if everyone worked as a team.

29/03/22 Production (MVP)

Scrum 1 Overview:
As the week began everyone started cracking on with work, Erica was off sick but we contacted her on teams and she was still doing work from home. I was mainly focusing on blog work on the Tuesday and Wednesday however everyone was getting slightly annoyed as many teachers were ill, this meant we had limited help.

My work:
That

Overall Week Reflection:
What Went Well-
The team worked well considering we didn’t have joint access to the Unity project.
What Went Wrong-
The main reason not as much work was completed this week as could have been is because the Unity collaborate feature is disabled which means we have to use Unitys new collaborate method named Plastic SCM as I have mentioned before. The first issue is no one knows how to use this application but the main problem is that the college blocks this application from being used so there is no way for all 3 people on my team who have access to the unity project to use it. While it is blocked we decided to work on 3D models and Artwork towards the game.

Final Month (MVP)

Week 1:

I will showcase all work completed this month by me and how I used a project Sprint to ensure all parts of the game were completed. The first order of business was making a way for the player to live and to die, currently the game includes 3 complete maps and each one had a separate way to die, I implemented a 60 second timer last week which was used to show the player how long they had to survive the location, and this allowed me to add hazards to the environments we had created.

Flash-Flood Stage (Water Rising)

The first animation I made was for the bridge level, we already had a water placeholder so I added an animation that lasted 60 seconds, this animation changed the position of the water making it rise at a steady pace giving players the challenge of reaching higher ground. The idea for this stage was that there was a flash flood forcing the players to climb the broken bridge and reach the highest point of the map.

Container Stage (Boat Sinking)

I then animated the boat to sink over the time period the player has to stay a float by finding objects to stand on, I believed having a map where the player has to avoid drowning in the water would be fun as it causes you to panic and look for a way to stay afloat. I took references from other boats that have sank, the titanic being the most popular is what gave me the idea to tilt the boat at an angle as it sinks.

Construction Stage (Crane Spinning)

The final stage was my original idea I came up with which included a broken crane spinning out of control in the centre of a city, When I told robin to model this I showed him exactly which parts should be separate making it much easier for me to animate, I set the pivot point of the top half of the crane to be at the back where it connects to the base, this meant the crane span around the centre of the object. The animation I made span the crane in different directions making it hard for the player to determine which way to go in order to not fall off.

This week as a team everyone else mainly focused on environment of levels and polishing the assets as well as continuing skin creation. We worked well this week as we all knew we had limited time left on the project and had to prepare the game soon. I did see the most teamwork so far overall throughout the project during this week as everyone was working together tirelessly making sure everything looked good, the team also ensured if anyone needed help with a certain aspect of work that they would be helped.

I made this short video to showcase how each map attempts to eliminate the player using its dangerous environment. The player can use a variety of techniques to survive these hazards and there are many possible outcomes that can arise from playing these stages of our game.

Week 2:

The game now had a way to win and lose however it was very easy and did not have any competitive values, this was why I knew it was important to add a scoring system, this also meant that I could add in a leaderboard in the upcoming days if all went well which would make players more invested in playing the game while attempting to be the best. To add a scoring system I wanted to add a collectable so I created a Coin Asset in blender, I didn’t want to just create a yellow cylinder so In blender I added the mirror modifier onto a smaller cylinder to create the krengs eyes and placed them on the base cylinder , I then extruded the outside of the coin in and added the bevel modifier to give it a more detailed edge.

I wanted the coin to glow so I added a bright yellow emission to the krengs face, for the outside of the coin and the eyes I selected a more dark yellow to give it a gold look while also increasing the metallic and roughness value to make the coin more shiny and reflective while still containing a low poly look that fits in with our games overall style.

Finally I imported the FBX file into Unity and Animated the coin to spin so the player could more easily locate the collectable as well as giving it a box collider which makes a noise when the player collides with it. I was very pleased with the look of the coin and it was perfect to begin implementing into the game. Firstly I added a Script to the coin named CoinPickup which would be used to determine the current score and then display it if you survive all 60 seconds.

Week 3:

We were told that at the end of this week we would be pitching our games to an industry professional Stephen Hey who would evaluate our pitches and give our team feedback, this would be very helpful as we will all need to have good pitching skills in the future. This meant we devoted our entire time to making sure everything was complete for the pitch. I decided I would create the project pitch and I believe it came out great. I added a slide detailing every part of our game and we gave a great presentation in front of the class. Below you can see the feedback we received from Stephen Hey and Matthew Hall.

I was extremely happy with our feedback, some areas we definitely could have improved on was the trailer June made did not show any gameplay and was very confusing, but mainly I did now showcase the level hazards clearly enough as it is a core mechanic of the game yet I mainly focused on showing the character movement and environments however apart from these minor issues the pitch went very well and it was very fun to meet Stephen Hey.

Week 4:

I was really interested in adding a leaderboard ever since we added a score system, I created a new User Interface for the win screen which had a variety of textmeshpro UI pieces like a button, text and an input area. The input are will be where you enter your name after surviving the round. Your score will then be entered to a website as soon as you click submit, this was the easiest way I could find to create an online high score system without spending hours coding, a website links to the code which checks the players KrengCoin count after a round ends and then once the player submits their score it places them at the appropriate position on the board.

This was using an external website so I did not program the script which links to the website I did however implement the code to work with our game, I then proceeded to work on the main menu as I wanted to create a leaderboard that could be interacted with in the environment by selecting it in the main menu, I really like how this looked and the scrolling worked perfectly. I was very pleased with how the leaderboard looked and I began letting my friends test the game and see who got the highest score. (It Was Me)

Synoptic Page Retrospective

My personal biggest achievement towards the project was implementing the ragdoll and physics mechanics that I pitched in my original idea, as the player was the core focus of the game it was very difficult to get the right balance between easy to control and ragdoll style player however once I learned about the bone structures you can create for your character in unity I spent the first few weeks perfecting the camera and the character movement. As a team our biggest achievement was getting 3 of the level ideas I came up with into the game in the time frame we had, this meant Erica had to come up with concept art and after I had approved the style It was up to robin to model the main asset and for dean to make the extras, I would then take the model after it had been textured by robin and add all of the functionality / animations to it and then let June design the level environment and location in the scene. I only thought we would manage to have 1 map done and 2 at a push however we got all three implemented with a large amount of time left to polish and improve upon them.

I have learned how important documentation is on this project, creating Game Design Documents along with setting up a trello board for the team to use and track progress, the trello board helped a large amount with time management. Communication was also very important on the project so using a messaging platform like teams and discord helped us see how we were working and how much work we had left to complete. I could improve my programming knowledge even further if we did this again as well as what features of a game are enjoyable, after adding the maps I have learned trying to outrun water is more fun than trying not to fall off the map as you have a more clear objective so if I was to redo the project I would create more tense and fun situations for the player to be in.

The teams project management has been extremely good this project as we have used the trello board for our main management method which has kept us on track and reminded us what needs to be completed for the different stages of the project, I often went onto the trello and reviewed the different assets Alice and Robin were submitting giving them feedback and ideas to improve upon the models that more suited the game.

Project Overview:
I had lots of fun with this project and I am so happy that the original ideas I came up with were implemented into the game, all of the hard work that has been put into the project has finally been paid off and it feels amazing to see my game which was a simple thought a few months ago in action, everyone has worked very well despite the ups and downs and I could not be more pleased with the results.

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