Prototype v2

Last week we posted our very first build for the prototype of our game Prison Chores. It had very basic gameplay features like movement, camera control and picking up laundry. Along with prototyping the multiple camera angles were also an option to allow us to test what would be best. For this prototype version we chose for the split screen version of our game and improved upon it. Implemented features are: animations, combat, ragdoll, weapons and stores, AI and score management. It was a busy week but we are happy with the results.

This week we encountered the following problems:

• Will we use the third person viewpoint or the top down view?
• How do we adjust the blockout for our chosen camera perspective?
• How do we implement certain gameplay features like AI, items and combat?

While we worked on the prototype we answered these questions:

• The third person viewpoint proved more fun. We'll be able to show more of the environment and of the character aswell.
• The level needed to become bigger. Because of the chosen viewpoint there's the option to look up. with the camera not being tot down we can implement verticallity in our level because the scenery will not block the character when he's under a certain level piece.
• For the purchase mechanc e.g. we'll use the same mechanic as Call Of Duty Zombies. You walk up to a wall where you can buy something and you press a button to buy it. If you have enough points to buy it of course. The AI is a more difficult topic. We encountered weird behaviors while prototyping the first guard. The AI will need to be redone. The combat will use colliders which will check for very precise conditions to not allow the player to smack himself in the face.

Programming

This week proved to be quite the challenge for the programmers. The issue that was encountered the most was that, since we tried to make our gameplay features really fast without bothering too much about performance, our code base was very messy. We lost time on trying to figure out where the bug which we encountered were originating from. Another problem we had was as previously mentioned the guard AI. It was capable of hitting each individual player only once if he did something wrong, ignoring this player for the rest of the game. When we ported the prefab of the guard to the final scene it completely refused to react to anything. We plan to completely redo the AI, from the ground up.

Art

For our artists this week went well. Our character got a texture and some animations from Mixamo, which we have implemented, and we have created a washing machine, which isn't in the prototype yet. There is also a particle effect which will be used by the washing machines once they are in the game. The rig used by the character still has some issues resulting in clipping and weird looking animations. Our prison was improved by remaking a block out scene with basic primitives which allowed our world to be a bit bigger.

This is the end of the prototype sprint, by next week we'll have started our first production sprint! We're planning on redoing a lot of the scripts we used to get our framerate back into an acceptable state. For the art we hope to make more props to properly decorate our prison and really get the feel we hope to achieve.

 We'll be sure to keep you posted!