Last Minute Design Decisions - 27/4/15

The first and most relevant decision I made in regards to this blog is not doing a blog due to time constraints and making other more important decisions that are relevant to the game.

WILL UPDATE AFTER THE GALLERY.

Thanks for reading.

Perfecting and Beautification - 20/4/15

This weekend I had lots of work. Which is good. I like money. It's cool. It also pays for things.

Oh, you mean relevant to the degree. Gotcha, well basically I spent a lot of time making the game look nice and adding lots of details to the world. I also added 4 corners to the map which has probably added about 40-50% extra content to the world. I feel like it looks pretty nice.

I added new buildings like a hospital and a parking lot. I also added a flat parking area, a large fountain area and increased the size of the dump. Aside from this I added lots of little details to the world and a few easter eggs.

The programmers worked on making the game easier to understand which I feel has been successful so far but we still have some work to do, but I'm stoked with the progress.

Speaking of, we found an interesting game that looks a lot like ours. Jim posted it on Facebook last night. Here's link to the video.

https://www.facebook.com/carlotta.tatti/videos/10205821203504955/

I will add some screenshots soon.

Fountain area.

Car park building and park.

Car park and hospital.

Thanks for reading.

PS:

Here's a link to a beta test of our game!
http://jacksoncoll.itch.io/birdlife-beta-test?secret=jfPIjhLvnrnw6iB7mb140SNGwI

And here's a link to the Google forms questionnaire:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1-TZLWy4LpU6qpVby2E9h5FXcte5XgyxSC716A8TEZlE/viewform

The World of Birdlife - 13/4/15

This weekend I've been working hard to make sure our world looks and feels how we want it to. I don't want little details to distract the player from the overall experience. Adding lots of little things to the world to make it feel more natural, more real.

Little things like opening the lid of a trash can to littering the floor around it with trash.

To making a bus stop so that the street doesn't feel so empty.

To adding water to the bird baths around the city so that if a player inspected it would feel more genuine.

Even adding chimneys to the factory in the town.

As a designer, I know these things aren't necessarily crucial, but I know that as a player I always appreciate attention to detail. It does two things, adds immersion to the game, helping the player to enjoy the game far more than they could have without, and it also shows that you actually care about your craft. 

Little things like this also make the overall experience feel more rewarding for myself. I really enjoy looking at a world I've put together and feeling proud that it came from my mind.

Of course, I could not have done this without my amazing team of programmers, audio students, graphic designers and animators/modelers, they have all done an amazing job and without them this game would be nothing, but as a group we've created something I feel all of us can be happy with. 

Now, the question is, how do we polish it enough so that the message we're trying to deliver is powerful. That is what we will likely be focusing on in the coming weeks and I'm looking forward to it.

Thanks for reading.

Potential! - 5/4/15

This weekend I worked on quite a few things as well as working on Saturday and Friday. I was also really strapped for time due to some personal reasons that I won't go in to, but I feel I did a lot work this weekend regardless and for that I am proud of myself.

Firstly I went ahead and got temporary sounds for the game just in case our audio dudes for some reason are unable deliver. I have sounds for many different chirps, a few enemies and a few bits and bobs also. Definitely enough to work with if things don't go to plan.

I also worked more on 3DS Max and I created a very simple door for my game. Actually, it's more of a cube and circle, but I made it in 3DS Max and I watched a little bit of a tutorial. Either way, here's a picture of the door in-game.

It didn't need to be anything special due to the style of graphics we're going for. (Geometry and very simple.) I feel it gets the job done. I, at least, can tell that that is indeed a door with a shadow behind it.

I also started putting the actual level together rather than just using the greybox we were originally using. (As beautiful as it was.) This weekend I just focused on setting out the layout of the town. Obviously it will be more appealing when it is finished, for now it's just mainly about getting everything in the places they need to be so that I can go in and replace and update each piece/area as more content is delivered. Ideally, this will be completed by the beginning of next week but worst-case scenario as our gantt chart suggests should be the end of next week.

Other than that, I really didn't have much time to do anything else this weekend, didn't even have an opportunity to play any games aside from 1 or 2 tetris games. You know when someone says that they had a sad, frantic weekend.

Thanks for reading.