Two Weeks To Go

Eep! Only two weeks left until we have to present our finished prototype! Where did the time go, seriously? I feel like I just got here.

We've made a ton of progress in the last weeks. The UI is integrated, as well as a brand new Fire Team field. Bryan has also been working on the narrative and background story of the game, which is awesome! I feel like things are really starting to come together.

The new Fire Team homefield, complete with lava, smoke, and a death sky. 

Chris experimenting with toon shading.

Alex and I also made an appearance at QA last night. It was really cool to see our audience playing, especially on the new field. Our feedback was also amazing.

"Rockin' sockin' robots. That's how I feel about your super fun game. <3"

"I really liked the game a lot. The full immersion experience"

"Awesome game guys keep doing, well awesome."

"Really enjoyed testing Mageball even though I was garbage at the motion controls. Concept is great and execution is coming along well."

"Alot of fun, played Mageball. It was enjoyable . . . Will definately play it in the future."

- Feedback left by our QA testers

They also said they were likin' the GUI. Since last time, it has changed slightly. We've added a texture that creeps in from the sides of the screen when your character is hurt. We still need to add in something that indicates what spells the player has chosen (players forget what they have equipped sometimes), something that indicates who has the ball, and I think we need an element that tells the players what half the game is in (like any real sport). 

We've received a lot of critique also. One of our professors had a lot of problems with our game, some of which we definitely disagreed with. He doesn't accept "magic" as it is in our game. Things being conjured out of thin air is just a big turn off for him (and certainly others). For example: instead of Dust Cloud appearing wherever it is cast, it would come out of the nearest smoking spire on the field. We discussed this, and dismissed it, because we felt it takes control away from the player. It's also less magey. I want to cast things and make them appear in front of me! That makes it cool!

He wanted the environment to do more in general. He actually suggested one spell that "does everything." It wouldn't actually do everything, it would do certain things depending on the context of the environment. This, we immediately disagreed with. It is a cool concept, but it is not the same game at all. 

But Chris (who spoke with the professor), took one point from it. One thing he came up with was air vents. The spell Air Blast (basically just Force Push), when shot into a vent, would come out of another vent somewhere else on the map. This way, you wouldn't have to be near someone to attack them. Our team talked about this one for a long time. Finally, we decided it involves the environment a bit too much. It could also cause problems with balancing. It was just more work than it was worth in the end.

What we ended up doing is making more "paths" on the field. We added more elements onto the map that make it possible to move around in more different ways. Giving players more ways to get around a map is important, I think. I'm glad we had the long talk, because this conclusion was vital to our level design.

So with only two weeks left, it looks like all I have left is 2D art -- GUI, textures, menus, the Art Bible. And, of course, getting good enough at our game that I can actually play it properly during presentation.

Fun fact about me: I started PC gaming when I was 12 and fell in love, so the last console I touched was a PS2. As a result, my hands don't understand controllers.

I'm really bad at Mageball.

Wish us luck in these coming weeks. We're going to need to find a lot of extra time to get this game where we want it, and somehow get our other classwork done.

ALSO!

HALLOWEEN SURPRISE: MAGEBALL COSTUMES!

Alex and I made Mageball costumes for Halloween, because we're that awesome. They were a huge hit!