Week 4 of Critiques

Heres the final paper prototype critiques.

Team Aquila was the first. They had a generally good quick presentation, which is something given the lengths so far, though the one guy really needed a microphone. They seemed to get good feedback from testing.

Chop Stick Chung definetly impressed me with the visuals- you can tell that production so far has been going strong on art assets. The idea for this project is one of the few that has potential for humor, so it will be interesting to see if that very difficult aspect to capture succeeds in this one. This project did seem a little behind implementation given they want to have several minigames.

Deep Field was another game that went with a more physical prototype then paper. probably a good approach given the idea, but I really would have liked more information on how exactly that will transfer to a digital game.

Dynasty's presentation had some interesting design elements. The one block of text with a few words highlighted in different places really caught my attention. Im not sure I like the thought of requiring research to play the game, but its hard to say how much of an influence this will have anyways. This was another project that I really couldnt tell how its going to transfer to digital.

Weekly Assessment

We are coming down to the due date for the digital prototype so alot has been happening for our project. Im finally starting to get some assets from my teammates, though I am still short of what I would like to have. Oh well I think I can work something out with what I have.

As far as what ive been working on- I have continued to make lots of changes to the program. I have finished most of the work on the AI system, and just today I added the ability to have multiple different types of terrain. Tommorow I am planning to expand the AI, as well as add more functionality in a debug sense to allow my teammates more ability to change things using what I have created to improve it.

We met last tuesday, and thursday, and were planning to meet tuesday again.

Week 3 of Critiques

Finally almost the end of the paper prototype critiques.

The Stick Ninja group started off. I have to say I kinda like the overall design idea behind this. The 'boring' office feel put along side the fantasy elements is an interesting combination. I didnt really see how they were going to take advantage of the digital format however. Their game seemed to me to be one that would be best as a board game anyways.

Following that was Zodiac War. Fighter games would be one of the worst genres to make a paper prototype so I am impressed that they came up with a workable idea. It even seemed from what I was reading that they had decent success with it in terms of feedback. I couldnt hear a darn thing the presenter was saying though...

Crack Quest finished the day. I have to say that their prototype was impressive for its stage of development. I definetly can see them not only finishing but having the time to improve it. However, irrelevant as it might be to the quality of it as a game, I cant help but think this concept is disgusting and tasteless. If they wish to do it, that is their choice. However this is certainly not a project I am at all interested in seeing developed.

Weekly Assessment

On my end the game is really coming along. I still have one remaining issue with collisions, but Im putting that to the side for now, to give my mind a chance to think on other issues first. The next issue I wish to delve into is creating the AI system to run the monsters. My intention is to create an adajcency graph out of the places the AI can potentially move from and to. This descretization of the world will allow me to apply Dijkstra's Algorithm to plan the shortest plan between destinations. Ill then have the monsters follow a base behaviour until the player comes close enough, then they will move along a shortest path towards the player to attempt to attack them. It should work fairly well, and shouldnt be too hard to implement I hope.

What worries me at the moment is that I have yet to see any artistic assets for the game. All I have right now is the stuff I created myself to be able to test stuff- this really isnt where we should be at this point and it worries me quite a bit. Integrating media takes time, and so I need time. With three artists and one programmer this shouldnt be the issue...