U.I. Flowcharts

I completed the flowchart late Saturday night. I am sorry for not posting the new flowcharts then. They are up on box in the U.I. -> Flowcharts folder. Please let me know if the flowchart works for everyone.

Milestone is done.

I completed my milestone for this week, also I adjust all sound files for the game.
The files are on box net for the team to view and comment. I adjust the squirrel jump
sound it is low. The attack sounds are high theses sounds are the attack swing miss,
melee hit,and shovel hit. Wood bat hit, wood bat tack hit and hammer hit. These sounds are loud and are all set at the same level. The squirrel walk is set to a medium high not as loud. Please comment I want to know what you guys think, also remember the sounds have to be test in the game to see how it work.

Level update and test versions

I have just uploaded a new version of the level in .exe format. The source files are too large now to be uploaded to box. I will bring them with me on Tuesday. There is one major flaw I noticed, and this is the Interfaces build. When I added the enemies and items back in, they were not obtainable or fightable, if that's even a word.

So I have uploaded this build to box under the level design prototype folder and the survey is under the level design survey folder.

.exe: http://www.box.net/shared/rx0hlrkt28

survey: http://www.box.net/shared/xqu8hn0jf8

A solution would be nice, the sooner the better.

thoughts on the new level

I have taken a look at the new level design Max has posted. After looking at it, the level seems to flow "straight" and not so much up and down. I think this has more to do with the face the all the bosses are on the ground. I do not think the player will be inclined to go up at all and collect the health at all.

Also I have noticed that there are no upgrade locations. Additionally, I am not sure if the player will be able to jump over the trash can. If they cannot, the the player cannot move beyond the first section of the level.

I have a thought to the health pack though. Based on the current placement and level flow, the player may collect more health than they need. My suggestion is to make the health packs part of the inventory. In turn, this will have to be added to the main menu HUD so the player will know how many they have. Additionally, the health packs will be used via a hot key so the player and apply the health pack as they see fit.

One other thing to possibly add to the HUD is a little indicator to let the player know that they have something new in the backpack / inventory.

New Level PSD

The work in progress flow chart of the level! Redesigned; let me know what you all think!

Flowchart2.psd

Updates from Lionell

We know our milestones, lets hit them and move on.

I decided to make a word doc of the changes we made on Thursday "based on Trevor's pictures".

Also I came up with some interesting thumbnails for the mini boss and big boss it's going to hard trying to decide which one to pick.

I hope everyone is pacing themselves, because I don't want anyone passing out from exhaustion.

Mwahaha

Pictures update

Just a small update, but all the pictures from last night are up on the gallery. There is also some pictures from Interfaces up there as well.

The results are in

After gathering all the play test data, the whiteboard was filled with issues from it. Thought the list had some repetition of issues, it was enough to convince us we had to change our game to fit the target market. Personally, I will say that we have all done well in getting our mechanic to work, from the paper prototype, to the digital prototype.

Now we know that the mechanic is solid enough, we have started to add a story, better objectives, and better goals. We have taken out the cannon upgrade all together. The shop is no longer part of the level, but will be made a part of a pause menu instead. Bosses and mini bosses will be added, as well as health packs, upgrades, and items. All of theses changes effect everyone, some more than others. I think this is really a first new iteration of the game as a whole.

Christian Allen said that we learn game design by failing at it. We made our ideas, our reasons to support them, and we stood behind our reasons, daring the testers to prove our reasons wrong. In the end, the testers proved us wrong. In a way we failed, but not to the extent that will kill our game completely. Our only failure was not testing our game sooner.

Now we know why testing is important. If we test the next iteration of our game the same way we did, we will have as many, if not more, results we can use and move forward with. We are going to take what we learned, take the test results, and bring our game to the level that the target market wants! We will not falter in our ventures!

I believe in everyone on this team! I know we will make this game successful!

I am still working on updating the flowchart for the U.I. changes. When it is done, it will be up on box.

Testing works huh?!?!

I wont say I'm suprised by the fact that all our results were almost completely the same... but it is kind of funny.  Next time anyone thinks there is a huge problem with what we are doing say so... that way we dont get 14 weeks into a project and have to change obvious stuff.... lol

Ohey... Milestones are done..

well, I got all of my milestones for this week done in the course of 2-3 hours, so I guess I should get to work on that animation system huh?

prototype_v1.swf

More talk from Perry

Let's continue to work together and make our game impress everyone that plays it in the future. Our focus as an unit will be making an completely finished level and taking our experience making the game to the next level. We have accomplished great things for our game over the last 14 weeks. I know that we can do things even better now let's make this happen. Working with all of you guys is help mold me into a better person. I'll follow all of you to whatever directions we need to go to be an successful team. Me and my 9 brothers together will make it happen. I have the confidence in all of you guys.

Great Job Today by Perry

Today we got lots of stuff accomplished with our game. We finally have a goal made for it and also have an objective. Due to all the testing we did to see what adjustments that need to be done for our game to be closer to being an better complete game.

Milestones for me this weekend will be to create thumbnails for our main bosses weapons and sketch them. Tuesday the sketches should be finalized. I'm going to have lots of fun making some more melee weapons.

Milestones and more testing

So testing didn't go that well for me. Despite having about ten people accept the job of testing, only one of them actually returned results. The results I did receive easily coincided with the results that Max had obtained solidifying the data we did receive.

Now going off of that we have made several changes as others may be detailing. Which most of the changes are definitely affecting the level design. My next milestone will be taken care of Saturday. Saturday my job is to enhance the level with new objects and enemy placements. Once the level has been refined it will be all about testing for the rest of the weekend through next Thursday.

Milestones For The Weekend of 29th and 30th

As far as my milestones, I will be Flowcharting new level design around the new boss mini boss system for Fri. 28.  I will be passing the revised level flowchart to my partner Lance who will be revising placement of boss and mini boss placement, health pick ups, and shiny object placement completed by the 29th.  Testing of the revisions from Mon. 31st - Thurs. 3.  I concider this being the first trail of implimentation and testing of the new changes, and we will bring our results back to the group.

milestone for this week

As the audio sound guy my milestone are to adjust the current sound level. Saturday adjust the jump sound file and the walk sound file. Monday adjust the attack sound file. Tuesday give the sound files to Paul.

game test

I tested ten people for our Squirrel Warnutz game. Will show the results to the team in class today. may 27, 2010 Tuesday.

Testing testing, is this thing on?

After Interfaces on Saturday, we received a lot of feedback about our game. Some of the feedback we received was related to a known issues we were working on. Then there was some feedback that I did not even expect. Just one example was whether we were going to add multiplayer to our game. That caught me off guard. Multiplayer never crossed my mind at all, and I am in the target market range of our game as well!

From the feedback, we have created question to help us make our game more toward our target market. Right now we are taking the questions we have come up with to help us with our future decisions. Once we have acquired that data, we will then make up our milestones based on the results.

I know that we have to wait for the results of our testing to come back, but there are a few ideas I would like to toss out there.

• Have a mini boss by each golden nut.
• Remove melee weapons completely. Shop for armor and canon become available via pause menu.
• Cannon comes in via helicopter after collecting the golden nuts.
• Player can swap between weapons/cannon at any time. Can only carry one weapons, armor, cannon at all times
• Player can climb trees
• After destroying the tree, the boss falls from the top of the tree. Player can only use the cannon to kill the boss. Resources for cannon randomly drop

These are just ideas. Let's get the test results back first and go from there.

The RIGHT prototype

I dont want anyone to freak out... but the WRONG prototype was on box until just now. The game was never recompiled as a .swf after we updated because we were running a .app durring the presentation. Well the old .swf was posted last night. I've fixed this AND put up a .exe for people that dont have flash at home... but it looks like a lot of you have already downloaded the older version...

WARNUTZ.swf

Time for Testing

I have sent out emails to at least ten people already within our target market age range with a copy of the survey and access to the swf file. I did this to make sure that I can get some results considering how busy I am from now until Thursday.

I have asked my managers to let me commandeer one of the pc's in the managers office for testing purposes, but they refuse as they are concerned that it would possibly take more than 15 minutes (standard time for our breaks) So now I will be playing the waiting game until said results come back. Hopefully we get some good feedback!

Yay Testing

Hello all,

I am in group #2 with Max, Lance, and Jordan. We are taking the questions on pages 3 & 4. I am downloading a copy of the swf and start making a plan to test the game.

That's all for now,
Phil

ready for the final run

now that enterface is gone I am ready to help improve our squirrel game.
The ambient sound is ready. The enemy laugh sound file, trash can and bench sound files. are finish they were not put into the game for interface. because other stuff needed to be fix. Hopefully they will be put into the game.

Interfaces

I am pleased to tell everyone that our game is ready to go on my laptop for tomorrow. It is even backed up in to more places than I wish to count. Jacob, Lionell, and myself have worked hard on getting our presentation ready to go.

Jacob has made the home and enemy trees stand out more. The background to the menus has been updated from Thursday nights critique. In addition, I have made the Level Select button on the Main Menu work and I have changed the new game screen to go right in to the game and not in to the Level Select screen. I have only commented out the code for these areas so we can put them back in. I have added an "or" statement to the "cheat" Paul had implemented for presentation purposes only. Since I do not have a numeric keypad, I added the key code to so it will work on my laptop. Also, I have added a line of code to the cheat function to give Golden Nuts to the player to show off the cannon.

That is it for changes since Thursday. I know that I am posting this a little late, but everyone needs to be at Interfaces at 8:00am so we can help set up and set ourselves up to make sure everything works. If we can, I like to go over the presentation one more time.

LET'S DO THIS! (insert really awesome Modern Warfare 2 Spetsnaz or Army Rangers spawn music here)

The Big Speech_Lionell

Today me Jake and Trevor went through the speech. I feel very confident about our speech and can't wait for Interfaces. Upon reviewing the game Jake made the home tree and the enemies tree stand out more. We also went through the design doc and fixed some errors as we read through it.

The presentation took about 16 minuets including the game play-through. We decided to meet at interfaces at 8:00 am, so don't be late.

Remember White collar shirt, black pants, and a tie (no color choice).

Ugghgh!!! By jophilli.

I am very excited and also nervously anxious about tomorrow as I am sure we all are. I feel like we have something to offer to Interfaces this year because our game is probably one of the most successful ones as of yet for any Team Project class.

Regarding game design issues, Paul had an idea in which we ignore the Nut cannon altogether. I realize that this erases one of our core aspects of play, however, there were some logical reasons as to why we should. But that is something that should be discussed over the next couple weeks.

Concerning my job as an animator, I feel like I should have just started the actual Flash work a week ago, but I was convinced that we needed all the storyboards first. I mean, that's what Kim wanted, haha. I spent three hours last night just working on the standard walk animation, however ONLY for the Nerd body. I would need another 3 hours to finish the animation for ALL the outfits. I can see that the separate outfit system is causing issues for me, but I don't see another way around it without some completely rewritten section of code.

I also am completely irritated with my work place. I was told that I only had to come in at noon today (Friday), but lo and behold, they didn't bother telling me that I had a second shift at 6pm. Bah. I am very frustrated that I could not spend most of my day with the team. There were a lot of things I wanted to do today, but it went out the window.

Anyhow, good luck to all of us tomorrow, let's put on a good presentation! See you all tomorrow.

The BIG DAY by Perry

Hello everyone tomorrow is the BIG DAY I'm so excited about our game being looked at by people in the industry. We've all come a long way in the 13 weeks since team inside voice has been created. Everyone has taught me something new about how alone we could create something great but together as a unit out team will be able to make something AMAZING. I will continue to grow as an concept artist. When this Project is done I will take away the memories of how we grew as an TEAM. I'm proud of all of you and I will continue to give everything I have to improve our weapons for our game.

fix two sound files

Today I fix two sound files open door sound and enemy squirrel laugh. I gave them to Paul to put in the game before Saturday May 21.

Almost There... to Interfaces at least.

So, by some random stroke of luck level design work managed to get fixed and running properly. And it's looking better than ever before. I myself think the current assets look better than the previous assets. They kind of have that crayon colored feeling in a way. So while the asset pipeline has been cut off for Interfaces, I've already started working on some concepts for the next level. As far as the next level is concerned, I'm glad that the level select page gives an idea of the types of environments wanted and needed for the next stage.

This makes it a little easier on the level design team in my opinion as we won't have to argue so much as what the next destination should be, we'll just have to argue about which of the listed stages we'll be working on. However, that's not too say we're finished with the level we currently have at the moment. In fact we're still no where near saying it's finished. For the most part, it's asset complete. But we still need to do some testing on it with the general public and see what everyone else has to say. Once we receive some sort of actual feedback other than 'it was good' we'll know what direction to go next and if we need to do more with the current stage we have right now.

Interfaces is less than 2 days away, it's time to get psyched about it, at least I'm psyched about Interfaces. Good luck in preperations to everyone and see you guys bright and early Saturday morning.

Shop Update

Hello All,

I just made the changes that were suggested in class. The spaced out the lettering, changed the cost of the cannon, and took out the attack speed and added names of the outfits. I 'm still having trouble lining up all the text perfectly.

I will be helping Jamie at the conference center at 10am tomorrow and then work at 2pm. So if you guys need something, shoot me a text and I will call when I can.

Later,
Phil

BG for us

Yo, I created a sky picture that we can use for our game. It's up on box so if you think I could do better please let me know.

Menu Progress

As of now, the Main Menu design is finished. The background just needs to be updated to the correct color style in the game. Phil and I have been working to get some placeholder screens for the other menu's for Interfaces. Hopefully Thursday we can make sure everything works, give a copy of the game, design document, and presentation to everyone, and practice.

The one major issue we had was not being able to extend the level beyond a certain point due to the Flash IDE restrictions. It has been fixed and the Level Designer have been able to do their end now. Another issue that is still in the works is the character blending in with the background. Some of the assets have been colored differently to make the character stand out more. The last major issue is the Store menu. In it, the text size and location changes. I will take a look at this to see what is causing the issue.

During Interfaces, I hope to set up our game somewhere and have the attendees test the game. This will give us a fresh pair of eyes looking at it, not to mention the amount of data we can use to improve our game. If all goes according to plan, we will then move forward by resolving the issues address from the presentation and the testing results. From a U.I. standpoint, Phil and I will be working on getting a better design for all of the menus.

Couple other notes while I have your attention still. Todd had asked me what our dress code will be for Interfaces. I say that we should keep our dress code the same: White shirt, tie, black dress pants, shoes, and socks for our presentation. I am just going to toss this idea out there and see what everyone thinks. I am pretty sure we all have received Interfaces shirts. Maybe we should all write "Team Inside Voice" on a blank sheet of paper and tape it to the front of our shirts and wear it instead of a white dress shirt.

While one the subject of Interfaces, I am willing to have my laptop set up and ready to display our game and presentation. Also, I think it would be in the best interest of the team to be there at 8:00AM, one hour before the conference so we can set up and make sure we are all set to go. And also so we can help set up stuff as well.

One last thing, Jake, Lionell, and myself will be meeting up at school at 1pm on Wednesday. During this time, we will be putting together the last of the design document and preparing the presentation. Also, and correct me if I am wrong here, Jake, Lionell, and myself will be doing the presentation. If anyone has an urge to speak, please let us know and we will work on getting you a part in the presentation.

Yet another level update

I have uploaded to box.net an updated version of the level. This one has approximately 30 regular resources (total cost for every thing in the store is about 28) I have also placed in 3 golden resources. I wasn't sure if I should add in more or not, so I left it with the initial standard.

I have attempted to test this but my computer lags a little bit making it harder to judge jumps. So I had some trouble. It may play smoother on a different machine though. Also some of the platforms don't seem like players would notice them. So some of the resource placement was made based on the decision to give the player an idea of where they could jump. I also think some kind of indicator like a more detail bushel of leaves would help in said platform identification.

As far as enemy placement, I know that they'll walk off platforms when chasing you. However, if I didn't place enemies in the higher locations then the upper half of the level would be kind of boring because all the action occurs on the ground level. Anyways, I really like the new art style for the assets. Almost seems as if it were colored by crayon instead of digital. Keep up the good work everyone.

Level Update link: prototype_5_18b

Level Select Screen

Hello All,

I just loaded up the Level Select screen on to box. I got Lionell, Trevor, and Jacobs opinion on the levels. I need input from the rest of the team to see if we all like the levels.
Take a look and let me know.

Phil

No More Pinks

I re-colored all the pink assets... they are now this reddish brown. We'll have to see how it works with the other assets...

Fence.png

scaling levels

Okay, so I've just scaled the level assets by 30% and that has made certain jumps more difficult. We are going to have to place in more assets to make certain jumps a little more reachable. I have one or two suggestions for new assets. Both of them are signs one would say "Do Not Touch - Fresh Paint" or "Stay off grass".

Also there are still placeholder assets that need to be changed out. But in my opinion, scaling the level didn't really do much for making the character stand out more so. So as a remedy we should go with the white wash fence and the fresh paint sign.

Squirrel walk

I went back to work today and came up with in ideal for the squirrel walk sound. It works finally I have the sound of a squirrel walking the sound is low and quiet. I name the file squirrel walk it is in the sounds folder on box.net

Fix for level design, basic AI

http://www.box.net/shared/402gnv5cep

this is not the multiple movieclip method discussed in the other posts, instead, I added a second "empty movieclip" to the level to act as the top-left corner of the level. this (theoretically) buys you twice as much room as before.

the main reason I did this is because not only is this a quick fix, but it also too much of the main code assumes that the entire level is inside of a single movieclip. More than that, it assumes that each level (including future levels that do not exist yet)is on it's own frame within that movieclip.

EDIT: I also got a basic enemy AI as per Trevor's specifications (looks back and forth, only chases the player if they are close enough AND the enemy is facing them) though I have already noticed a couple flaws that need fixed (try walking up to the enemy with the cannon equipped), it is a start.

Maybe?Maybe Not Weapon? by Perry

Here's a new design for our acorn bat if you guy's like it?

As it stands..

After all the discussion about the current level situation, Lance and I have decided to keep the level as is for the most part but breaking the design into 3 movie clips!

As for how these movie clips interface with each other that a programming issue.

Trevor and I, from what we researched came to the conclusion that for the levels needs; the 3 movie clips can be spliced together with a code interfacing kinda like a trigger I believe.  Hopefully implementing this should be a easy few lines of code for Paul.

Lance is currently allocating the various assets into the 3 sections, we will more than likely be continuing the work on Tuesdays class.

SLOW DOWN THERE NELLY!

Ok... we ran into a small issue, but that doesn't mean that the entire world has to come to an end and we have to remake the entire game over night. 

The Issue: 
Movie clips can only be so long and our level is longer....

Simple Solution:
Use multiple movie clips to create the level...

We DO NOT need to change anything about the design or the gameplay out side of platform placement at this point.  And platform placement MIGHT be fine right now... we dont know because we need the prototype with the bigger assets working before we can find out. 

Everyone take a deep breath and relax.  I know this is putting LOTS of stress on Max and Lance because they were in the middle of their milestone when this hit.  But now we have a solution we can start working towards. 

The Changes:
What this DOES change are a few peoples milestones.  Because of this issue,

Max and Lance are going to need a few more days to hit their milestones.

Without a functioning prototype, Phil and Trevor cant put their new menu's ingame.

Perry and Lionell cant test out their new artwork in game

Todd cant check to see if his sounds give us the right feel yet.

Paul wont be able to test his AI and the character swapping

and with the delay, we might not be able to do a team critique on Tuesday in an attempt to fix things before the REAL critique on Thursday.



Take a deep breath and relax.  It isnt the end of the world.  Paul, Max and Lance need to work together to fix the issue and once that functioning prototype is working again, then EVERYONE will be happy and we can go back to being happy.  BUT... that prototype should be top priority right now...

In-Game Hud by Perry

You just need to readd the acorns where the grass is.

Level extension issue findings

I have taken the liberty to do some research in getting the level to expand. From what I have found, we have run in to a width constraint with Flash. According to my findings, the size of a movie clip can only be go from -2400 px to +2400 px in width, giving us a total of 4800 px to use. Somehow, our level is 5300 px  and still functions fine.

Now, I am pretty sure that everyone has looked at the level design flowchart from a prior team project game. I believe that their level is way over that limit. I can see a couple of options here: 1) Take the current level we have and beef it up to make it more interesting and have longer in play time. 2) Shorten up the current level for a Tutorial Level. 3) Make smaller movie clips and expand the game level through code.

If we went with the first idea, then we would have to come up with some extra challenges to keep the player interested. The second idea would make it hard for the level design team and, depending on our decision, can cause them more work to do before interfaces. The third idea I do not believe would be presentable for interfaces.


As for presenting this at Interfaces, I think we should run with what we have after our milestones for this week. When we present, we will tell everyone that we are in our very early stages of our beta and that there were some unforeseen issues that we are currently addressing through critiques, testing, and IDE restrictions. I think we should say something along those lines before we show the game that way we sound professional about it and not judged to early on.

I now ask all the team member to pick one of the options so we can move forward with it:
1) Take the current level we have and beef it up to make it more interesting and have longer in play time.
2) Make smaller level movie clips and expand the game level through code.

This decision needs to be made asap as it effects a lot everyone on the team. Personally, I am for the second option.

post the sound files on box.net

Thanks to Max I was able to post the sound file on box.net for the team to view.
Go to documents and to the new folder name sound files. Go to the zip folder name fix sounds.

You fine the files open door, jump, cannon, pick up. Walk, walk on wood bench.
Extra files such as the squirrels sounds, trash can chain sound for the swing set.
Metal bat,shovel hit.

Problem with the "ENGINE"

Max was putting in the "bigger" assets and ran into an issue... the level is too long.. and flash doesnt wanna let him finish the level... I dont know flash that well so I dont understand what is going on here.  But Max and Lance cant do their milestones until that is fixed. 

The entire "new level" issue that we are running into by sizing up the assets is going to be put on hold because we cant test the new level. 

Sound Files Update

My milestones for Saturday May 15, 2010 and Monday May 17, 2010 are done. I made improvement to some of the existing files. I created squirrel sounds for both the hero and enemy squirrel. They will not sound like humans when they get hit or die. I wish we have larger storage space on Box.net to post the files for everyone can view.
these are the file names Cannon sound, Dooropen, Pick up sound. Jump sound, squirrel

pain scream, enemy squirrel laugh. Enemy squirrel get hit, enemy squirrel dying.
Hero squirrel dying, hero squirrel get hit sound, metal bat hit1. Shovel hit sound,
walk sound, walk on wood bench and trash can sound. When the squirrel jumps onto the trash can it will make trash can sound. When the squirrel jumps on the bench and walk
it will make a walking on a wood bridge sound.

Game-Changing Idea

I just had a crazy thought. What if we removed the whole "use the cannon to destroy the enemy tree" thing altogether? At this point, it feels like just a tacked-on remnant of what this game used to be. In it's stead, I suggest we make the goal of the level to collect the "shiny objects" mentioned in the story; that everyone is supposed to be fighting over anyway. This would also mean removing the cannon aspect, and many other things I can't think of at the moment. But overall, I think Warnuts would benefit from it.

Hello Everyone by Perry

I noticed a huge difference in our game when I changed it to 15 FPS. I know our speed before was super fast but at 15 FPS you can barely swing your weapon. I checked it at 20, 24, 29 and if we had to choose one of of these speeds I don't think 15 FPS will work for us. Maybe we should at the very least use 20 FPS for our weapons sake. We really need to vote about this but you need to at least see with your own eyes before making a judgement.

No More "trash"

I've noticed that the "trash" on the ground looks bad... and is the only asset of the kind... so I'm making the trashcans with garbage in them... instead of trash on the ground.  I'll still make the box, since we need that platform next the the can

Shop Update

Hello All,

I'm done with all the buttons. The problem now is that I'm having alignment issues with the buttons. Inside the movie clip the lines are in the exact same spot. But when you rollover all the buttons the slightly shift in size.

I loaded the SWF file onto box.net. I still can't download the FLA file.
I need suggestions on how to fix this. Thanks.

Phil

color changes

I've had to change a lot about the art assets I've done... the biggest challenge I'm having right now is my indecision... I can't decide if the assets I'm doing look good or not... so please check them out on Box and give me your instant feedback...

I'm NOT pleased with the fence but I'm using "reddish" colors without going super saturated and vivid...

In game HUD by Perry

Here's a start I have so far I will be posting other images too .

Interfaces preperation

It hurts me to hear that we really did not hit any of our milestones. However, this is the first time that we have actually taken a step back and looked at all the aspects of our game as a whole, not our individual parts. I am going to type up an excel file with a list of issues, the date that it was addressed, and the date that it was resolved. I will divide it based on department also to keep things simple.

As of yesterday, there are a lot of issues that have been addressed and we have come up with a way that we are going to resolve them. First off is the frame rate of our game. Currently it is set at 60 FPS which is way to high. We have changed the frame rate to 15 FPS. There is also going to be a 30% increase to all in-game assets. I believe we agreed to increase the character size by that much also, though I could be mistaken.

There is one portion on my milestone list that I forgot to write on the board and that is different font styles for the team to chose from. If everyone is okay with the font type I have picked, then I will pass that on to the programmer to get the font to work in-game also as there is variables that are not the correct font type.

Moving forward towards Interfaces, there is many aspects that need to be improved before then. Like I mentioned before, changing the frame rate is key. It effects the animations, how our cannon is fired, sound timing, and moving in the level itself.

Over the past few days, I have redesigned the main menu over all. It is now complete and in the game. I just have to make a few minor changes to get it fully finished and working.

Stat Update

I just wanted to inform all parties concerned, that I updated the stat list to include purchasing values for all the armor types and weapon types.

Refer to the stat document for the updated information.

Player Stat. Chart.webdoc

The Road to Interfaces

So apparently we didn't really hit our milestones and A LOT of issues have been brought to our attention. One of which involving the level itself. One of the big complaints was that the character blended in too easily with the fence in the background. Also the sky background needs to be enhanced in some respect.

So during the next few days there will be enhancements of some sort made to the level. First thing is to scale the current assets in the level up by about 30% or so. After that testing will be needed to determine if we will need more platforms or not. The easy answer is that, YES, we will need more platforms. But again that's all determined based on the scaled up version.

Once we find a good balance we will start reimplementing the final assets back into the level, with more testing. We hope to be able to get a group critique on the updated level by Tuesday before everything is handed to Paul. Which the scrum meeting will be used for.

Overall, this past week, I think everyone did a good job. Some improvements needed here and there for every department. And I think that Max, Jake and I were successful in pacing our milestone goals so that we weren't overencumbered in one class' worth of work.

Well good luck to everyone in completing your respective milestones. This is it we're nearing Interfaces. There are no exits or detours on this road now, so don't waste your time and procrastinate till the last meeting. We want the best possible product we can have for Interfaces!

Way to go guys...

Okay, because I need to get a flowchart done for the level extension I had uploaded prototype 5_11. The colored version was 5_11a. When I went to get the blockin version (black and white) someone overwrote my file with a newer version of the prototype.

When uploading DO NOT OVERWRITE ANYTHING!!!!!!

This has made my job a little more difficult, luckily I have it backed up. If there are multiple versions of the prototype made in one day start with something like the following

prototype_5_11
prototype_5_11a
prototype_5_11b

so on and so forth.

Revamped shop

Hello all,

I uploaded a new version of the shop with the weapon labels on it. I'm still playing with the scaling of the text, but you get the idea.

Need input, take look and lt me know.

Phil

Maybe another extra weapon for a Bat by Perry

If you guys want an extra bat for our level this idea came to me, so what do you guys think? It's a bat that has an acorn that's attached by a nail.

Prototype Ready!

I have implemented (most) of Todd's sounds, fixed the problem Perry pointed out, plus everything I did Tuesday night. This will be the version we are turning in Thursday.

http://www.box.net/shared/yq0anirq3x

final change to the sound file.

I made the last and final change to the sound file. Taking Perry imput for the background music sound. I found a sound that is fit for our game. I test it by allowing Lionell to here the sound he like it. I am going to use it. the web address is www.digitaljuice.com

Main Menu overhaul

Since last term, I had decided to redo the Main Menu design. The initial design was to have a birds eye view, but due to the perspective and design of it, I changed it to be top down. As time went on, the level assets and art style clashed with the main menu design. I have now designed a new interface for the main menu with some critiquing throughout the design process.

I spent a good amount of time coloring the menu to fit with the rest of the game. This was achieved with great success, at least in my opinion, from the color style guide.

The main menu, as well as the credits and shop screen, where the three menus needed for this milestone. The shop is completed, with a few minor things being added. As for the credits screen, it is a basic framework for now and shall be revisited.

We have about a week and a half before interfaces. There is the options screen, and tutorials screen that still need to be designed. Between Phil and myself, I feel it would be best to at least come up with the framework for those menus to show that we have thought about the design of the menus.

For the shop and wind/lose screens, I think that they should fade-in while dimming the background. I believe that this would alert and shift the players attention to the new screen so they do not try and continue to move the character around.

In the next version of our game, I would really like to have the space bar be the jump button. I find it hard, even in the new version of the prototype, to make some of the jumps.

 During class on Tuesday, there was multiple people with the "current" version of our prototype. At one point in time, the new level clashed with the old one, and I believe that it caused some issues after that. I am trying to think of a way to better streamline the process of getting our parts in to the game. The only thought that comes to mind is to have one computer with the current prototype on it and open. This way anyone can have access to it to make the necessary changes without trying to merge two or more flash files.

Last but not least, I have seen and read the audio document that contains the sounds and a description of where they will be used. I have not seen a sound prototype of any kind yet as stated in the milestone list from last week. Hopefully that sound prototype will be there when we present on Thursday.

Level Milestone 5/13

Max and I have managed to reach our milestone goals for May 13th. Our goals included four different objectives that needed to be completed I myself was tasked with finalizing the player mechanics data. This includes what the controls are, what they do, and some basic code for the programmer to utilize.

I also had to create a rough blockin for the third part to our first level. This area presented some challenges at first but were quickly remedied upon closer inspection. The issues involved the player falling through the ground upon starting the level, the camera not scrolling further, and lastly the enemy tree not responding to the player's actions.

To remedy the collision issue, first the aesthetic ground was hidden revealing a collision box that wasn't to scale. Apparently when I did the original transform it didn't keep. This was a quick fix, but still didn't fully fix everything. Especially the camera, which is what was tackled next. With Paul's assistance he had shown me how to expand the camera's range so now the entire level can be played through.

The final hurdle for me was to get the enemy tree to respond to the cannon. Due to a change in what the enemy tree looked like I had to figure out how to get the enemy tree to respond properly. To fix this it was first a challenge as the new tree first needed to be converted to a movie clip and replace the original tree. It didn't work at first as I wasn't working in the actual Enemy Tree movie clip but once again that was fixed with some input from others.

All that's left now is just updating the documentation.

update audio sound file

I created a new audio sound file. It show the name of file with a description about the file. these sound files will be used in our warnutz game. I posted the file on box.net for the team to view.

Uploads to box

The additions to the level are finished and ready to be uploaded. However I don't want to risk the files integrity at this moment due to power outages so they'll be available when I get to the school. As far as platform placement goes, I'll take a look at that however, I want to test the level using the space bar as the jump button instead of the W key. I think that many players have trouble with that because of the reaction time when it comes to jumping. I myself constantly try hitting the space bar instead of the W key resulting in botched jump attempts.

Lastly I don't think that the fence itself would be a viable platform. It would potentially take alot of the challenge out of the level as the player can just climb on the fence and be able to reach all the primary resources easily. If we do follow through with that I have a few remedies to what Jake brought up in a comment. How would the player get down to ground level? Well there's the possibility of being able to hold down for a short period to fallthrough (such as in Mario) or a down jump. Another possibility would be that if the player wants down to ground level they'll have to go to one of the actual gate openings to fall down.

Level Assets Ready for the Prototype

All the colorized level assets are in a FLA under "Artist/Level Assets" and ready to be added to the level. If there are any questions call me, text me, email me... I'm not feeling well today and might not be able to make it in later so keep in touch if you have an issue. I can work from home if needed

LevelAssetsCOLOR.fla

Urgent Metting Tuesday 5/11/10 at 4:00pm in room 233

Seeing the last few post and comments on here, there are issues that must be dealt with and quickly. Here is the list:

• Art style
• Enemy Health location
• Jump / landing points
• New level assets

First off, it has been suggested that the art style needs to be changed due to the character not looking good in game. My thought to this is to change the screen size of our game from 800x600 to 1280x1024. I believe that this could allow us more room on screen and to scale up the character size and assets. 

Second, is a suggestion that we put a health bar above the enemies to indicate damage. I think this a good suggestion. As for the programming of it, I think the health bar would have to be inside the enemy movie clip. So the code would go something like: 

guardEnemy.healthBar = guardEnemy.healthBar - hammerWeaponDamage.

I know that there is a better way of coding the math to that though. 

Third, I have found that the some of the jump points are sometimes out of reach. Now this could just be because I want to press the space bar to jump and not the "W" key. I think we either need to change the jump button to be the space bar, or give the player an option to use both.

Fourth, I have not seen the new level assets yet (or I haven't looked for them on box.net yet). It has been suggested that we use the new level assets to add jumping and landing points in the level. I also think that the player should be able to use the top of the fence to walk along and the gate areas would be the fall points. 

So this tuesday at 4:00pm in room 233 we will have a meeting to discuss the above issues and resolve them quickly. We have less than two weeks before Interfaces. These decisions now will effect what we show at Interfaces. 

Weapons in Color by Perry

I just put the final colored weapons into a zip folder.

UI Guys

Yo I was thinking maybe we shouls have the enemy have a mini energy bar so the player can know how much health they've taken

Urgent Message!!!!

Sorry to tell you guys this but...

I think the art style needs to be changed.

I just tryed to put the character in flash and it looks like shit!

Comment on this as soon as possible.

Filling in the gaps

So I was playing the prototype the other day and I couldnt make a lot of the jumps...

ALSO... Lance was pointing out to me that some of the new assets are kinda' strange because the bushes arnt all over the level...

MIX THE TWO TOGETHER... we can use some of the bushes to fill in the gaps in the platforming.  TADA!  um... yeah so if you like the idea, we can figure out where they need to go and implement them.

update on sound files

I got all the sound files for our game some are cartoonish. I got the bat,red neck bat,hammer.Shovel,axe and cannon sound file. Extra sound files the music file I try to post it on box.net I could not because it is to big. I like the song it fit our game. The music is call Blues Backing Grass. It is royalty free the song got almost the same beat like "Bad To The Bone" song in Terminator 2 the different is it has no singing. I want the team to here it and comment, I need everyone say on the music first. If everyone like it I will put the song in the game. I will play it on Tuesday
in class.

Damage and Store

alright, I fixed up the damage system; characters now have a brief invincibility period between taking damage, and just for fun I made the sprites flicker.

the in-game store is also in and functional. Though nothing visual happens to the player yet, the stats do change. also, I used the 2.0 store as I could not find a .fla of the 3.0; but it will not be hard to swap out later.

I uploaded the whole prototype (.as, .fla, and .swf) into a compressed .zip folder in the programmer's > prototype folder; but I also put the .swf by itself in the working prototypes folder if you can't download the .zip. Though remember the box.net flash player messes with our game a lot since it uses a different resolution and framerate.

STAT CHART ***REVIEW STAT***

**EVERYONE REVIEW THIS**

I'm giving everyone a chance to review the stat chart before its finalized by tonight

Post your comments as I will be reviewing it later today

Player Stat. Chart.webdoc

Player Mechanics v2

I uploaded a new version of the player mechanics for all to view. The only thing added was the function for accessing the shop. In case we go with a key command to access the shop, that would be assigned to the 'E' key. Also I added in psuedocode for only accessing the shop. Not buying anything. If you guys want me to add that psuedocode in as well let me know and I'll take care of it. In the meantime it's time to start the block in for the third section of our level.

File relocation

Due to several requests I have moved the Player Stat Chart and Player Mechanics document on box.net over to the Documents > Design Docs folder. If you need to look at them you won't find them in level design anymore. Hope this aids in keeping the box all nice and easy to navigate.

sound file report

I have found over 45 sounds for our game. Some are extra and cartoonish I laugh hearing them. Today is Saturday May 8, 2010. I will do another search today. My sound search will end on Sunday May 9, 2010. I will keep the team up to date on my part for the game, I wish my team members great success on their goal.

Main Menu update

I have started on getting the new Main Menu into Flash. It is still a work in progress. I am using a previous Main Menu idea that I have and have made some thumbnails to make it better. Also, the font size has changed for readability, but the font type will remain the same. The one thing I must admit is that I have not followed the process exactly. However, I fine it better to visualize and see it in Flash, then go back to drawing and make the interface better.

In the end, the process will show correctly and will be put in to the art bible. There is two small request I have:

Jacob: I believe you have the most recent (version 11) of the design document. Can you please post that on box?

Lionell: I need the Warnutz title/logo so I can added it to the Main Menu please? Put it in the UI folder under Menu's and label it "Main Menu Title".

There is one objective I have this term and that it to keep Box.net organized. That being said, I have made folder for everyone to post their stuff. Up on box is a file called "Follow the box rules". I think this will make box more efficient. Feel free to update it if you think it would work better another way. I am not trying to confuse anyone with it, just trying to keep thing organized and easy to find for everyone.

Since we have to look at the big picture from now on, personally I would like to have all of the menus to have a framework at the very least. The design of the in-game screen is good, we just need to make it all pretty.

Shop Version 3.0

Hello All,

First of all, great job to Lionell. The shop looks great.
I just added the real weapons in as the buttons. The roll over with the weapon info just has to be added. And once Lance and Max figure resource cost for the items we can add that in as well.

Keep up the good work guys,
Phil

Tree 5... all the way LIVE!

I have all the new assets from the extension of the level.  I posted them up on Box in a fla. with them all as graphics.  I'm going to get an early start on the colored final assets.  I dont know if I'll manage some extra work, but I'll try.

Shop v2.0 and v2.0_plain

I went overboard. v2.0 has fancy art and v2.0_plain has vector flash art "not fancy".

We need to take a vote on which one we will keep.

PRO of v2.0

It looks good.

CON of v2.0

All the other UI have to be that good.

PRO of v2.0_plain

It matches the rest of the game.

CON of v2.0_plain

Its not fancy and doesn't look that good.

MAKE A DECISION BEFORE TUESDAY!!!

Shop UI "fancy"

I just put some art into Phil's UI shop. Tell me if any things wrong with it.

U.I./Menus/Shop 2.0

Yay for Assets

Well I finished the asset list, and its up on Box... I played through the level and tried to come up with EVERYTHING that there was but it is possible I forgot something... If you can think of anything let me know. 

Also I get to digitize a few assets for Max and Lance today and tomorrow... I'll put them up on Box once they are done.

Weapons Update by Perry

Yesterday I started to change all of our weapons down to the size of the default squirrel's. I also put some color on the weapons not shaded yet. I was working with the color board which was created and the bazooka I don't want it to get lost into the background. I will continue to get our weapons color finalized so Paul can put into our game. I will be up at school today when I wake up a little more.

U.I. Shop Update

Hello Again,

I just uploaded the prototype shop on box. Click the movie clip in the Library to see it. The yellow blob is the place holder for the shopkeeper. Lionell is going to draw him up. The armor suit are the buttons. The star shapes are place holders for the real suit icons. Lionell is drawing them also. The weapons are buttons as well. I think we can use the actual weapons for the buttons, but I have place holders for now. I'm meeting up with Lionell tomorrow to keep working.

I look forward to feedback,
Phil

U.I. Update 5/6

Hello All,

I just updated the u.i. screens. The screens are as follows, Credits, Win, and Game Over. Press the x on the layer to see the screen over the back drop. The acorns will be the buttons to press to go to the next screen. Press one layer at a time or you will overlap the screens.

That is it for now, I look forward to feedback.
Phil

Goals for Tuesday

Max and I have hammered out a schedule of goals that we need to complete for the upcoming deadline on Tuesday the 11th. Overall we plan to have the third extension to our first level completely blocked in. We broke this down into individual 1/3rd milestones landing on Saturday, Monday, and Tuesday respectively.

For Saturday we plan to have our respective documents (Mechanics and stat chart) completely finished for everyone's perusal. After that we'll be focusing on completing the final part of the first level. By Monday we'll definitely have some major progress made on it. The following day, Tuesday we'll be polishing it up and testing it to make sure that it works and every place that the player is supposed to be reachable can be reached.

After that all that we'll have left to do is to update the design document with our new content. Overall I think we'll be able to hit our milestone for next week.

Jump Cycle Keyframes

I believe that my first milestone is to have finalized animation storyboards by next Tuesday. I have put up the keyframes on Box here: http://www.box.net/files#/files/0/f/42131488/1/f_429737146.

Lionell and I have decided that I will create the keyframes so that he can colorize them. From that point I will finish the tweens for the animations and have the fully fleshed out animation cycle storyboards ready for the first milestone.

U.I. Screens

Hello All,

From our meeting on Tue, Kim wants three U.I. screens finished for Interfaces. The Main Menu and In-game Screen are are a must , but we need one more. I'm thinking we need our Credits screen to show the industry our contact info. The other screens to vote on are the loading, level select, tutorial, shop, or credits.

Place your votes gentlemen.

thanks,
Phil

The Level Expansion...

So I have drawn out a nice expansion for the level... It reuses a few assets from the beginning (the lamp post and the trashcan) but I also have to change some of our existing assets and create a few new ones.  While the rest of the level team works on the stats sheet and etc, I'll get these drawings caught up to everything else...

I'll post the pictures up here as soon as the scanner is available

Color Style is posted

The color style is in the design doc folder under guides.

the black and white pics are "How To Draw Trevor Tutorials" and the "to color" one is how to color like the color style.

hopefully this will help and if you don't understand it just ask.

Player Mechanics updated

I've taken the liberty of removing the previous mechanics doc I posted Tuesday as it wasn't anywhere near what it was supposed to be at all. I've posted a new version that lists the key command, what that key does, and some psuedocode that would be associated with the function. I'm going to need Paul's input to help me make sure I covered the psuedocode in a concise way that conveys what the code has to do. If you guys still want the previous version of the mechanics document (the one describing the action as if it were a page from a manual) I still have it and will gladly re upload it.

So far it seems that we may be able to hit our milestone for next week at this rate. Now I'm not sure if it's required at this stage, but for a truly complete stat chart Max and I need a list of enemies that would be in the game. However since we're still on the prototype level I'm not sure if that will be required immediately. It would be nice though so that the player won't be fighting the same enemy for the entire game. My suggestions for that is to create other variants of squirrels like the white-collar squirrel that throws paper clip spears at you. Also there could be other enemy types in the environments such as raccoons or dogs as well.

Now there's the matter of the store availability. For a while we've been designating the tree shack to be where the player can upgrade their weapons and armor. This too served as the location to obtain the cannon after finding the three golden nuts. The other option we would have would be that the player can spend the resources they've collected after each level to upgrade something of theirs. Doing this sounds better in general. I would rather not have the Metroid effect at the beginning of every stage, and I'm sure many players would feel the same way. For those that don't know what the Metroid effect is, at the beginning of each game something happens where Samus (the protagonist) will lose all of her abilities except the basic blaster that doesn't charge. So the player will have to find their abilities again throughout the game such as morph ball, missiles, etc. Still this idea needs to be tested out to see which version will be more useful for the player. The sooner we can test this, the better.

As far as other objectives that need to be completed all that's left right now that I need to focus on is aiding Max with the stat charts and whatever else someone needs help with.

programming progress

I got an extreme basic form of damage going now, a "dummy enemy" that damages the player 1hp/tick; and when the player attacks, damages the enemy on contact for 1hp/tick. simple and basic for now, but I will continue to upgrade it so it is not constantly damage, but just instant damage.

I have also went back to the "multiple player movieclips" format so melee-attack animations can be preserved. also, I began implementation of the player's equipment (weapon, outfit).

lastly, I improve how the right and lower limits are defined on a per-level basis, this will allow graphics to overflow outside of the level without the screen scrolling to see it when the player approaches the bottom and right-most parts of the level.

SCRUM

Looks to me like I will be starting off the first blog of this new term and round two of our team project class. We have been requested to answer specific questions this time for our blog post. With that said, I will do my best to answer the questions without making it seem like I am just answering questions just to get a grade. With that said, I move onward. 


As of yesterday, we went over what everyone had, or had not, worked on over our one week break. We all know where we stand now and what we have to do to move forward. I have taken pictures of everything we discussed last night and I am currently upload them to my web gallery. The pictures are going in the same place still, so I hope that everyone has bookmarked the gallery. If not, here is the link to it again. The most recent pictures will always end up at the bottom of the gallery.


There has not been any drastic changes to our game mechanic since last term. Paul did work on getting a guard A.I. framework setup for us. As for how the guard will work, here is how I would like to see it. The guard will stand near the resource that the player must get. It will look in one direction for x amount of seconds, then look the other way for the same amount of time. If the guard sees the player, it will do x amount of damage every x second. For example, if the guard sees the squirrel, it will do 1 damage every 5 seconds that the player stands there.


The other change we are still discussing is how to implement the store. We have juggled between having the option for the player to buy upgrades from the store before starting the next level. Item bought in the store will not be lost after each level. The other option we have is to have the store in game. The player will lose all upgrades when they start the next level. Both ideas can work, but until we get it in the game and test it will we really know which is the better option. Personally, I like the idea of the store being between each level.


Since the new term only started yesterday, I cannot really say what has and has not worked until we do our weekly milestone presentation.


Here is a list of what needs to be improved and put in to our next game iteration. I have consolidated the list in to one since there were duplicates on the board last night.

• Basic kill program
• Three interface Screen put in to the game (either new or improved)
• Sound Prototype Finished and in to the game
• All weapons in color
• Finalize animation storyboard in to document
• Finalize attributes and mechanics in to document
• Finish style guide and put in to document
• Add colored character in to the game
• Asset list with actions and sounds

As for what I have done, I did the U.I. flow chart for the store. I have also updated it so it goes down nicely and flows nicely too. You can view the updated flowchart on box.net in the U.I. -> Flowcharts folder. The next thing that Phil and I have to work on is getting three U.I. screens in the game. Kim has told us that it doesn't matter what screens we do. Also, she has informed me that I need to work on alignment for the Main Menu. So that is one of the screens that I will work on. Phil and I will discuss tomorrow the other two screens we will work on. 

Okay, I think I have said my fill for now. I will be back another day hopefully with a slightly shorter blog post, or longer. 

Stat's Chart

I would like everyone to take a look at the Stats chart I posted on Box.net.

As far as I know, the stats chart is looking like the bare bones of the mechanics chart in the sense that the values represent the base-line for most of the assets currently in the game.  Lances mechanics document breaks into more detail as to how the stats mathematically apply to the assets and mechanics.  Lance and I will be continuing with polishing both of the documents!

let me know if you see any issues with how I have it laid out!

CS4 upgrade

I forgot to mention this during class today, but as of today we are now working in Flash CS4 so all assets do not have to be saved in compatibility mode (which converts all motion tweens to frame-by-frames, for example)

More weapons by Perry

Do you guys like this ?

More stuff from Perry

More stuff from Perry

These aren't colored because lionell is the Color weapons Guy ;)

Work during the break.

Over the break I have taken time to fix the platforms in our digital prototype. I have also composed a list of the different player mechanics and the process for them.

While I have these completed you all might be wondering why they haven't been posted to box.net yet. I have tried every day since finishing those things to upload them to the box. However I have gotten connection issues of some sort and haven't been able to successfully upload anything. Yet I can still download content from the box. I will have my stuff uploaded Tuesday before class starts.

Hope you guys had a good break and are ready to tackle the next portion of Team Project.

update Audio Document

I update the audio document file made a few changes, the file is posted on box net. For the team to view.