Flowchart truly finalized

Yeah, I know it's taken awhile to get it done, but I finally gotten lvl 1's flowchart reformatted and document friendly. It's about the same length as the level 2 flowchart and has a lot more jumps between the seperate pages.

I will bring in the original visio file as well as a jpg of the files. Also, just to make everyone's lives easier, here they are for your viewing pleasure.

Flowcharting

Level 2 flowchart is done, however, I NEED assistance with the first level flowchart. I have too much on my plate right now and very little time to get it done. So if you have spare time, Visio 2007/2010 let me know and I'll send you the doc.

Documentation notice

As far as level design documentation, all that's needed is flow charts. I know I need to fix the level 1 chart as it's too confusing. However, I am unsure of how to actually clean it up. If you have suggestions PLEASE post them. If you feel like altering it yourself, all you need is the flowchart and Visio 2007/2010. But do let me know if someone is going to modify it.

In terms of level 2, that flow chart is in progress. I don't think it will be as confusing as Level 1's flow chart as I broke down the level into five segments. This one I think I will be able to keep organized alot better.

So my milestones are mainly to documentify the flowcharts some more and that's it.

See you guys next week!

P.S. I propose that we take time on Tuesday to practice our presentation as well as on Thursday.

Max, you and I have to figure out how we're going to present our stuff seeing as we were both working on the same thing.

Max's Milestone

So Trevor has gang-pressed myself into proof reading the entire design document for gramatical errors, flow, and structure.  I will be proofing the document on Tuesday before class and obviously I will be reporting and correcting any issues that I find.

Max out!

Level 1 documentation complete!

Well near complete, pending on Max's stuff being completed. I got the flowchart finished for Level 1 section one. I do apologize that it's a really huge file, but I couldn't condense it any further without it becoming insanely confusing. But they are in Callery's Drop in the 6-29-2010 folder.

If you want the original PSD or VSD file let me know through any means you feel.

Level Design milestones

So we're nearing the end now. For the most part level design is nearly complete. At least as far as level one is concerned. We have to run some fixes on the documentation we currently have. So now for your viewing pleasure, our milestones!


Saturday: This is probably the most intense of our milestones.
               - Fix level one documentation. This includes the following:
                     - Color code wireframe content (paths, labels etc).
                     - Create a legend to help explain documentation
                     - Fix the flowchart (I'll need some pointers, I know I pretty much gotta switch to regular boxes and change the diamons over to the questions (ex: Pick up Shiny? would be in diamond), also word consistancy.)
                - Narrow down survey questions so it isn't 30+ questions
                - Still more testing


Monday: - Level 2 Flowcharting
               - Level 2 Wireframe
               - More testing


Tuesday: See Monday's milestone listing.


So I'm open to more advice on the flow chart. I'm still not great at flowcharting but I understand it for the most part.

Level Design Team Update

Lance will be continuing with the scenrio flow charting of our first level.

I will be continuing with the wire-frame map of the first level.

As this is mostly documentation, we will have these documents by the critique for thursday!

Survey Update

Hello again,

So I'm pretty sure you are all tired of me updating the blog like crazy. But I promise this will be the last post for now. So I'm proud that everyone has gotten their survey questions in on a timely manner. You are all gentlemen and scholars. Now I would wait for Jordan's questions but at this time we don't really have any animations at the moment other than the hammer swing.


As far as obtaining the updated survey, you can use the link from a previous post. But for the lazy minded (meaning all of us) I have the links right here for you guys.



Warnutz! Survey 2

Warnutz! PC version

Trevor: If you can, could you make a mac version of this and upload it to the same location as the Windows version.

Update on surveys

Yes, I already have an update for you guys. I have already started composing our full survey and it's about 20 so questions at the moment. I will continue updating it through tomorrow night. The cutoff for new questions is 11:30 PM tomorrow night. No new questions will be accepted as I plan to have it finalized at that time and sent out to my testing group. Below are the links for you guys to share when it's time.

On another note DO NOT edit the survey files as that very well may throw me off. If you have suggestions throw it in the comments on box and this post so that I can make the required changes if needed. Thanks for taking the time to post your survey questions in a timely manner.

Testing Survey 2

Warnutz! Testing Prototype 2

Survey Questions - Level Design

As you know due to me stressing the fact. I want you all to have some questions together before the end of the day tomorrow (tonight preferably). Five per group or individual. more questions are always welcome. I will be composing the full survey tomorrow night and sending it out as well to those I can get to test.

The survey will be a .doc file (I'd say .docx but not every one has Office 2010). Also we will be testing on the build that was reviewed tonight, I will be uploading the .exe file to the box under the Level Design folder for you guys to link to. Now also as promised here are my questions for the survey.

-------------------------------------------------
(Mandatory at this point): Have you played a previous build of the Warnutz! game?

(Another mandatory thing for the end of the survey): Please include your comments, questions, and concerns you may have in regards to the game.

1) Were you able to obtain all the 'shinies' in the level? If not, explain.

2) In terms of health and upgrade pickups, were there any that you felt could be placed better? If so, what item and where? Why do you feel that way?

3) Were there too many enemies in comparison to the number of health packs?

4) In terms of accessibility, were there areas that were too difficult to reach? Areas you wanted to go but couldn't? Explain.

5) In terms of difficulty, how would you rate this level on a scale from 1-10? Explain.

--------------------------------------------------

I look forward to seeing everyone's questions and be sure to send out the survey and test when they become fully available.

We can make this game better, we have the skills, we just need to push ourselves further. I for one would like to continue development on this past the term so we can get a full game up.

Also, on a side note: What are we doing for the promotion. Website or box art? Also who would build the website or draw the box art. We should have considered this weeks ago and we're running out of time. We NEED one of those two items.

Level 1 nearly done

So at the moment I think that we have a finalized version of level one. the only things needed for this is the re-addition of the player and enemies as well as a fourth shiny. We also need to add a real grass like layer instead of having a generically bad green bar at the bottom. Otherwise we are nearly complete with level 1 and work has begun on a second level.

I do have my doubts however. While we have started work on a second level, I don't think it will be ready by the end of the term which is a bit of a shame because I almost feel that the second level is much better than the first level in that we take advantage of the y axis more than we do in the first level. So for Thursday's critique Max and I are going to be working on the level flowcharts and finalizing them for both of the stages. Also we are going to be editing the stat sheet big time so that there is more challenge. One hit kills with the base weapon is dreadfully boring and defeats any purpose to upgrading your weapon.

On a side note, I feel that picking up an armor boost should automatically fill your health up to a certain point. Let's say you got full HP when you pick up the sherlock outfit, you're health is auto filled. However if you have some damage that will be reflected with the upgrade.

ex: Nerd HP = 8/10 ---> upgrade to nerd ---> HP = 18/20

That way, players aren't wasting their health pickups on restoring health that they didn't actually lose during combat.

another level 2 concept

Here's another concept for level 2

L2 Sketches

For everyone's viewing pleasure! I came up with a few level sketches for our beach level.

Level 2 concepts and future ideas

So part of our milestone was to concept out some level ideas for the second level. For me I decided to concept some beach level ideas out and was curious. Is it possible to do the following things:

Considering it's a beach level we should let the player do some swimming in all directions, and we should have a breath timer for the squirrel (like how Sonic can't be underwater for a certain time period or he dies). How difficult would it be to incorporate multi way swimming and a timer?

I know it's more work for animation and programming, but I think it would be cool to have for the beach level.

Another thing I wanted to bring up was for a future level based on the level select screen. For the volcano stage I thought of a fairly cool idea to add more challenge to the level. What if in the background player's can see a volcano erupting every so often and shortly after it erupts volcanic debris falls down in the playing field and the player has to avoid it. I think that would add some much needed challenge as well.

Just some ideas to mull over. I think they're nifty ideas that will add some challenge.

The Entity's Milestone List

The Entity (Max & I) have nailed out milestones for the next two weeks. For the most part I think these are milestones that we will be able to complete within reasonable time if not finished by their intended date. Below is a listing of all our milestones.

Friday 6/4/2010 - Fix/finalize level 1 flowchart

Saturday 6/5/2010 - New Survey question set
                                Level 2 Concepts

Monday 6/7/2010 -  Start level 2 flowcharts

Tuesday 6/8/2010 - Level 2 flowcharts complete

Thursday 6/10/2010 - Level 2 blockin begins

Sunday 6/13/2010 - Begin the finalization of Level 1

Tuesday 6/15/2010 - Finish the first level finalization
                                 Finish level 2 blockin

Thursday 6/17/2010 - Update documentation

Also as a side note. We will be continuosly testing from here on out. Feel free to send out the survey and the most current game at anytime. If you want to add to the survey go ahead, just don't overwrite any previous ones we have, and DO NOT under any circumstance save as a .docx as our testers may not have Word 2007 and therefore won't be able to open it. If you do add new survey's be sure to let everyone know either by facebook, blogger, email, etc.

Go Team Inside Voices!!!!!

Some Test Results

Over the past few days I have sent out the testing materials for Warnutz. I have only recieved three results back despite the fact that I've had discussed testing with them before and they were eager, but they still haven't responded. Below are some notes I've gathered from the results I did get.

- The background could be more 'dynamic'.
- DIFFERENT JUMP SOUNDS! (common across all three)
- Background music would help.
- Enemy placement was fine.
- No 'Thriller" squirrels (the backwards squirrels)
- Too many health packs, fine for first level though
- Didn't know there were sub-bosses/regular bosses.
- Better locations/hide the golden nuts
- Decent difficulty for a starter/first level
- Golden nut locations provided reason to fight bosses.
- Nut counters didn't function properly (they need to be removed at this point as far as the regular ones).
- Didn't like the fact that enemies really didn't notice the player soon enough.
- Could easily obtain Golden Nuts without actually fighting enemies.

While there isn't too much to go off of here, it provides some info on what needs to be done to fix our current game.

Testing not going so well...

I thought everyone should know..  The testing Lance and myself have been doing hasn't really brought us any REAL results.  Either its the questions we are asking or the level flow is satisfactory.  The questionnaire we are using is posted on box for everyone to look at.

Talking with Jacob I realized we don't necessarily have to reuse the assets we were working with before.  Knowing this I kind of feel this entire week has been a wast of time.  I still don't think everyone in our team has even viewed the newest version of the level!

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