Hello! This week we continued to push our game in the direction that we outlined last week, and tried to incorporate feedback we got from our first playtest.

Progress

Programming

• UI
  • Created start a start menu screen and an end condition. The level now resets when the timer completes
• Resolved some bugs in the input system that were causing the controller to work incorrectly
• Integrated our changes from the past week. (Timer system, Springboard obstacles, new inputs system)
• Made some tweaks to  our level and movement based on player feedback (The player rotates faster when upside down, and the level was rearranged to make it harder to fall off)
• Worked with the art team to map out our sandbox level in further detail

Art

Our art team began to develop more assets for our sandbox level that we will use for our upcoming alpha. These included

• An animated springboard model
• Concept art for our interactable rune stones (Players can get points by jumping off of them and performing tricks)
• A rig for our main character
• A model for a fountain that will sit in the center of our village level.

Audio

The audio team has continued prototyping new variations for our main theme and menu music. We are using more fast paced songs from Zelda titles as inspiration. They also completed additional sound effects, including

• Sound effects for the front flip and backflip
• Sounds for the timer. (When zero is reached, countdown noises)

Challenges

• Programming:
  • Based on our first playtesting session, we will need to put a lot of effort into tutorializing our movement to be intuitive. We also will need to be more forgiving with our "death" system (ragdolling the player when they land on their head), as it seems difficult for new players to grasp.
• Art
  • We are trying to use Unity terrain tools to generate the majority of our level. It is challenging to work with both Maya and Unity to design our sandbox level.

Next Steps

Programming

We've outlined the following tasks we are aiming to complete before our Alpha presentation this Wednesday.

• Improve the Ragdoll/Physics system (Disable regular player colliders on Death)
• Better Respawn system
  • Manually place points around the map as viable respawn locations. This prevents the player from getting stuck in death loops in which they repeatedly jump into walls/ceilings
• Camera Controls
  • Prevent the camera from getting stuck behind objects
• Improve scoring system/UI
  • Score decay for repeated tricks
  • Add more variations for trick points (ex: off of walls, consecutive tricks)
  • Use animated text when accumulating score
• Collective objects
  • We want to scatter our level with collectible objects that reward the player with points, to incentivize them to move around the map
• Animations implemented for tricks
• Rail grinding feature

Art

We are aiming to have 2/3 main sections fully modelled by our alpha. These sections are the ancient ruins, and the village. The required assets (some of which are already complete) include

• Pillars (Done)
• Stairs
• Rocks
• Grass
• Logs/Stumps
• House models (Done)
• Fountain (Done)
• Skybox

Audio

• Complete the main theme and menu music

See you next week!