PPJ Blog

This term, the goals for the future production of Reformidant were to add more mechanics, more complex levels, and add unique art to each of the sectors to make them feel more distinct from each other. On the art side, we wanted to specifically add more 3D elements to the game. Furthermore, we wanted to incorporate more narrative aspects as well so the player can learn more about who they are as the user of the computer that has been taken over. We also wanted to ensure that

What Went Right: I'm very proud on how the levels turned out as a whole. Wells and I were able to collaborate and make a set of levels that fits really well together and flows naturally. I think we worked very well as a team again, especially with the team size being almost doubled. We split ourselves up into subteams again, but this time, every responsibility had at least two people working on it, so there was always another person to fall back on if something went wrong a

What Went Right: We have an awesome game that's quite expansive for 20 weeks of work and I'm excited to share it. With so many people we were able to redistribute and have Chris join Wells on level design (they both did a phenomenal job), Adli came in on programming with me, and Ben became our producer. I think this distribution was good. My biggest contribution to the game was the ghost racing system, and it really is quite fun. The fact that I can type in a few characters a

What went right: I completed all assigned tasks on time and met the game's requirements. I tried my best at communicating with my teammates, adapted to challenges and was able to contribute consistently through the process. I was also able to improve my programming skills in Unity. What went wrong: Early in the term I worked on a door-key mechanic. My version did not match what the level designers were expecting as I hadn't asked enough questions about how they wanted the

Tasks I did: Create actual 2D "ui" elements for the sector (2 hours) Sourced more temporary assets from other software (.5 hour) Total Hours for the week: 2.5 Hours Positive: The new images I've created to replace the placeholders look pretty good. They aren't exact recreations but they fit the theme well and I think they look pretty decent. Negative: Using illustrator is always a pain because I'm not great with the software, so a lot of time was spent fighting with the progr

Tasks I did: Implement Background Animations into Sector 3 D Drive (30 mins) Try to get transparent background animations working in engine (2 hours) Tweak Wizard rig (30 mins) Make 5 Wizard animations (2 hours) Total Hours for the week: 5 Hours Pictures of work: Positive: I really enjoyed making the animations for the wizard and I'm happy with how they turned out. Negative: This week was very frustrating for me since I tried again to get the transparent animations I had made

Chris Maguire, PPJ 16 Made minor standardization tweaks to some D: Drive levels (45 minutes) Added sound for when virus appears (15 minutes) Changed all time trial levels into virus levels (1.5 hours) Positive: The polish process is going good, and the game feels really fun to play. The project is really coming together. Negative: I was busier than I'd like with other classwork this week, so I didn't get as much done as I was hoping. Upcoming: Do any last polish changes befor

List of each task completed during the week (followed by number of hours task took) Add Medal System to existing levels: 1.5 hours Total number of hours completed this week: 1.5 hours Samples of work completed (art images, code snippet, animated gif of animation, etc.) Medal System in-game: Positive: What went right for you and your team this week? This personal introspection should be honest and constructive Things went well overall. I managed to add the level system to all

List of each task completed during the week (followed by number of hours task took) Medal System: 1.5 hours Total number of hours completed this week: 1.5 hours Samples of work completed (art images, code snippet, animated gif of animation, etc.) Medals Handler Script: Positive: What went right for you and your team this week? This personal introspection should be honest and constructive Things went well for me this week. I managed to make a system to save collected medals

Tasks I did: Implement Background Animations into Sector 3 (2 hours) Total Hours for the week: 2 Hours Pictures of work: Positive: Implementing the backgrounds was bumpy at first but after Skylar took a look at things, it went much better. I'm happy the background animations are finally done since I've been running into issues with them. Negative: At first things went pretty slow which wasn't great. After putting everything in, the models look a bit repetitive to me so I want

work on ghost/race system UIs - 3.5hr Total: 3.5hr Positive: Ghost system is working well. Negative: I'm concerned about the amount of stuff we need to get done before the end of the quarter. Upcoming: Working on whatever need doing; I think I was wrong about including deaths in the race mode so I may be redoing that.

Chris Maguire, PPJ 15 Made Sector 6 D: Drive levels (1.5 hours) Modified existing levels in response to feedback and to standardize (1 hour) Finished most Sector 6 D: Drive levels alongside Wells (2 hours) Gathered playtester data (25 minutes) Positive: We're essentially done with new levels, all we need is to finish the D: Drive level for 30 and we'll be complete. From there all we'll have to focus on is polishing and balancing the existing levels. Negative: I've noticed som

Tasks I did: Finish model tweaking and import - 1 hour Extracted assets from mockup and prepared for import - 1.5 hours Total Hours for the week: 2.5 Hours Positive: Model tweaking and import went smoothly. While the pngs for the new sector design are temporary until we get permanent ones, we now have the temporary ones to work with in-game and actually build out the new sector design until we can finalize the ones we want to use. Negative: Our references for the new sector

Tasks I did: Finish extracting assets for 2D sector redesign (1 hour) Finish importing models (.5 hour) Total Hours for the week: 1.5 hours Positive: All models that need to be in are in, and we've got the proper 2d assets to finish the sector redesign. Negative: I continued to have trouble finding high quality 2D assets. The software is so old and I was only able to find stuff in low resolution. They will work as a placeholder but not long-term. Next Steps: The art team wil

Chris Maguire, PPJ 14 Finished Sector 5 C: Drive levels (3 hours) Playtested Wells' levels (30 minutes) Gathered playtester data (15 minutes) Positive: We're all finished with the main designs of the C: drive levels, and almost all done with the D: drives. All we have left to do after that is polish and rebalancing, so I'm pleased with our pace so far. Negative: The Sector 5 levels have once again proven to be slow to make due to their complexity, so I didn't get to work on a

Finish ghost system (unique player codes, online storage) - 5 hours Total: 5 hours Positive: I finally finished the ghost system and it actually works quite nicely. Negative: I didn't really see the value of the level editor when we talked about it earlier in the term so I deprioritized it and I think something along those lines would be really helpful as we keep having to add objects like the virus or the ghost to many scenes. Upcoming: I need to clean up the codebase as my

List of each task completed during the week (followed by number of hours task took) Medal System: 2 hours Total number of hours completed this week: 2 hours Samples of work completed (art images, code snippet, animated gif of animation, etc.) Medals Handler Script: Track Compressions: Track Jumps: Track Time: Positive: What went right for you and your team this week? This personal introspection should be honest and constructive Things went well for me this week. I added a m

Tasks I did: Adjusted more 3d models (1.5 hours) Adjusted mockup of new sector design (0.5 hours) Model import (.5 hour) Total Hours for the week: 2.5 Hours Positive: No serious issues for this week. I've got the mockup looking better and I think it will look great once we have it in game. Negative: Nothing horribly bad, just when importing models I realized I had the wrong editor version installed and had to make a new Github branch and restart. Nothing more than a mild ann

Finished Virus System: 3hr Total: 3hr Positive: I'm super glad we got the virus system done and Adli hopped in and added a variable speed to it so we have more fine tuning options! Negative: The ghost system was still deprioritized, it really is quite late now. Upcoming: I will work on the ghost system.

Chris Maguire, PPJ 13 Made Sector 5 C: Drive levels (2 hours) Playtested Wells' Sector 6 levels (30 minutes) Positive: I'm very proud of the way level 23 turned out, I think it's a great way to show off the key-door mechanic and its fun and challenging. Negative: I spent all of this time on level 23, which was already a holdover from last week. While it's a good level, I am still only halfway through the Sector 5 levels. Upcoming: I'll continue working on Sector 5.