Author: jfiggy27

Completed:

• Updated Fire Implementation (1 hr)
• Updated Electricity (1 hr)
• Catapult fix (1 hr)
• Other Fixes (1 hr)
• Playtest (2.5 hr)
• Total (6.5 hr)

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Other fixes included an opacity change for the sun beam and a fix for the lamp fire.

What Went Well:

• Particle changes look cool

What Went Poorly:

• Some changes came in too late

Upcoming:

• More updates

 

Postmortem

Things that went right:

• The Scope – the scope the we set up early on this term feels just right considering we managed to get all the major aspects of it with little time to spare. The coders, mainly Jeff, were always stressing out so I think any more to the scope may have killed them. In terms of FX, they were mainly finished around week 7-8 which left those a lot of time for updated visuals.
• Teamwork – Everyone got along while making this game. Communication was solid most of the time. People kept each other updated via our discord channel and whenever someone needed help or someone was falling behind they were able to easily contact teammates.
• The Effects – A big focus of my work this quarter was centered around the particle effects for the different blessings. I spent quite a bit of time learning more about particles and using that information for the different blessings. Honestly I have become quite fond of it.

Things that went poorly:

• Playtesting – every few iterations was a battle to find enough playtests. We would generally end up scampering around trying to find enough playtests, and the few official playtest sessions we had were generally only net us around half of what we needed. I wasn’t able to net anybody myself since the few people I knew never could.
• Late Term – As the term entered its final weeks, the amount of work I had became more and more limited. The majority of my time at this point was spent on visual upgrades of a few particles. At some point most of my work began to revolve around making the sun beam look better.
• HackNPlan – The HackNPlan was scarcely touched by most people and generally touched by the same people. I was not one of the ones who touched it despite the frequent reminders on discord. I feel like people were content with posting progress on discord.

Completed:

• Sun Beam Update (2 hr)
• Lightning Update (1 hr)
• Playtest (2 hr)
• Total (5 hr)

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I really wanted the sun beam to have more of a “beam” feeling to it rather than just the scattered rain type of look. I tried to accentuate the cylinder  by making it more visible and making the sparkles the extra effect. I also made the cylinder grow and deflate as if the clouds are opening and closing. The bolt was only toned down in color since the new lighting made it look really blue.

What went well:

• I am more satisfied with the beam, and I feel like it is at least close to what it should be.

What went poorly:

• I tried to alter the look of the bolt, but didn’t find a satisfying change

Upcoming:

• Fire particle change
• I plan to look up how to make particles converge on a point (an idea I have for the bolt)
• Any other alterations I can find

Completed:

• Targeters are done (3 hrs)
• Destruction Anim Dust (1 hr)
• Total (4 hr)

Once again, instead of revamping particles I found other tasks that I could complete. The dust is meant for towers that have been destroyed. The targeters from top and left to right are for Isis, Seth, and Sekhmet. They come in colors for both sides.

What Went Well:

• I found some tasks to complete for this week
• Particles were well recieved

What Went Poor:

• They all were made too later to be implemented

Upcoming:

• Revamp particles (possibly)

Completed:

• Tower Death animations (1 hr)
• Tool tips for blessings (1 hr)
• Total (2 hr)

The death animations aren’t anything special. They’re just like the Keep and are mainly meant to prevent them from just popping out of existence.

What Went Well:

• My stuff is in, although not in the beta build.

What Went poorly:

• I did not get around to revamping any particles

Upcoming:

• Revamp particles
• Make a death animation for the priest tower

Completed:

• 2 lane map ideas have been drawn out (2 hours)

Work has slowed down at this point in production. With all the particles done it has been a bit troublesome finding work. The above 5 images are the ones we will look at and likely implement.

What Went Well:

• The above maps were received well.

What Went Poorly:

• I don’t think I had enough to do this week.

Upcoming:

• Revisit some older particles to revamp them.
• Add a destruction effect for towers.

Completed:

• Geb Blessing FX Started (1 hr)
• Priest Tower FX (3 hr)
• Sobek Blessing FX (1.5 hr)

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What Went Well:

• Sobek Blessing has brought up new ideas regarding targeting.

What Went Poorly:

• A lot of time was spent just figuring out what to make the priest tower look like.
• I am running out of particle effects to make.

Upcoming:

• Finish Geb’s particles
• Draw up new maps

Completed:

• Particle Effects Edited (4 hrs)
  • Edits were made for most of the effects
  • Lightning (1 hr)
  • Tornado (1 hr)
  • Sun Beam (1.5 hr)
  • Health (0.5 hrs)
• Advantage/Disadvantage Particles (2.5 hrs)
• Total (6.5 hrs)

This week I only touched old particle effects and made the new one for advantages/disadvantages in combat. The red one going upwards is for the advantage and the blue one for the disadvantage. The bottom right image with the swords is the original idea for the advantage particles but we are either going to re-purpose it or not use it. The Bolt was given some blue to its color while also being narrowed a bit. The (newly named) Khepri heal was given the cross look instead of the default particle effect. For the tornado, I simply added an orbital effect to the dust.

What Went Well:

• Learning what Unity 2018 has to offer in terms of particle effects is proving to be interesting. So far I have only used the new orbital effect for the dust in the sandstorm.

What Went Poorly:

• Most of the work I did this week was not difficult so I feel like could have gotten more done.

Upcoming:

• New Map Layouts
• New particle effects for new blessings

Completed:

• Rescaled Particle effects (4hrs)
  • I had to go through each particle and alter their sizes without touching the scale. This proved tedious since I had to tinker with multiple parts of each individual particle system and not just their start size.
• Modeled/textured new reticules (4hrs)
  • We have been meaning to update those for awhile. We are aiming for a jewelry sort of look.
• Fixed some other scaling issues (1hr)
  • Scaling issue involving the catapult and a spawning issue with the rubble dust.
• Total : 9hrs

What Went Well:

• Re-scaling was not that big of an issue.

What Went Poorly:

• I did not finish the Battle particles that I was supposed to do.
• The reticles are not quite what I want.
• It seems like dividing the work between everyone may actually be a hassle due to the extra people.
• I am now working on 3 different game projects at a time.

Upcoming:

• MORE AND MORE PARTICLES
• Reticle needs more work

Working on this game has been quite the experience. In all honesty, the progress the game was making compared to the other team made ours feel lackluster, at first. As the weeks went on an everything began to come together, it got vastly more enjoyable. Not to mention that learning new programs was neat and useful, and I even discovered a new joy in particle effects. Working on a larger team is far better than working in a small group of three.

Things the went right:

• Team communication was pretty solid throughout the 8+ weeks that we were working together. The other team members and I kept up with each other on Discord. We displayed our progress to each other and went over solutions to problems and gave opinions over art designs. Granted at first it may have been a bit shaky and questionable but it was quickly remedied.
• Progress was steady through most of the weeks. Each week felt like the group and I were making steady progress in our work. I was able to accomplish the tasks given to me for each week, for the most part.
• Learning new programs like Substance Painter and learning how to effectively create particle effects was fun and easy. I was uneasy about learning new programs and skills but luckily I had someone to teach me how to use Substance Painter, and particles were far simpler than I had imagined. By the end, I managed to learn both under a week after starting.

Things that went wrong:

• Some ideas took way too long to be decided on. A lot of time was spent on the map design. Although I made many possible designs on the map, we only used the original design that I made in the first week. We did not plan on things working out like this and honestly it was a necessary cut, but I still think it would have been better to decide that sooner
• Rewired was not implemented from the start. Implementing Rewired immediately would have saved both the programmers and me a lot of time. The time they wasted making controls in Unity for the first half and the time I wasted going through the code to implement Rewired could have all been avoided. Going through the code to replace certain variables with their Rewired
• Finals and midterms were hell. During both occasions I poorly managed my time and found that I focused more on exams and other projects, while putting this project more on the back burner for my free time. I still managed to pump out work but at the cost of my own sanity.