WORKING ON OUR DESIGN DOCUMENT & PRESENTATION WEEK

In our 3rd week, Katrina worked on the dialogue system using Unity and implemented the jumping mechanic with the platforms and environment which were found from a Free asset found on the Unity store. She also created a short quest, which can be found in our "Proof-of-Concept Update" blog. In this video/screenshot when players approach the house, there’s a prompt to talk to the person inside the house in which players are able to answer yes or no to the question presented. Later on, when said player goes up to a tree, there’s a surprise prompt that asks the players to help the tree grow. The items that the player received earlier through platforming from before can now be used for the tree to complete the quest. 

What we liked about this idea that Katrina showed us was the fact that the quest never explicitly said “go to the tree and help it grow” but rather through exploring the map there are hidden secrets that are quite wholesome and cute. No one told the player what to do or how to do it, but it was the player’s decision and own personal journey that brought them to this spot of helping the tree out. It was a cute idea overall and it really highlights our theme of the game.  In our game going forward, in the tutorial phase, players will be shown the basics of switching characters and the overall goal of collecting these gems to reach the top. However, what isn't told or rather, explicitly said, will be the way in which players choose to go about it. None of the quests in our game will be missable and the quests order does not matter. It's always based on the players incentive and own discretion. See an NPC ? Talk to them and see what they're about. See a chest? Jump and see what lies inside the chest. Doesn't matter which one comes first, the path is up to the players. 

Furthermore, we all collectively worked on the design document. Jimmy continued to test out the pixel post-processing method so that we had some experiments and images to showcase during our presentation. Michelle continued to work on the art assets and level design, in which included are some of the process work for that. Jason, Katrina, and Jimmy created the puzzles and quest-lines for our document.

Here, Jimmy continues to experiment with the switching mechanic -- making sure that the camera, when switching, does not clip through the tower itself but revolves around the tower for a smooth transition. 

We met again on Feb 10th to practice our Presentation.  We got a clearer understanding of the progression of our game, and with the quests and their stories figured out,  and the creation of the development timeline, it helped break down our tasks that needed to be complete.

After our presentation, we received great feedback. Steve gave us an idea on having a switch that takes one platform and moves it to the other side (essentially asking for more interactions beyond just dialogue), which we began to incorporate in our design document. While not the same idea, the disappearing platform is an iteration of his feedback. Another feedback we got back was about the dialogue aspect. Due to the fact that we shifted our attention to being a more dialogue-heavy game with NPCS and mini-quests for progression, Emma suggested that we begin to think about the characters’ personality, what kind of storylines NPCS have, and to begin writing scripts or a lore behind these moments which we have done so in our design document. We collectively worked on creating a temporary script for one of the quests (the chess one) to help get an idea of the tone we want.

Another change to our design document was that we decided to eliminate the "final puzzle" and to simply have the two (Dusk and Dawn) meet at the top. This means that our last, major, puzzle will be the ice sliding puzzle which will lead them to the spiral staircase heading to the top. The reason for this change was because we realized how heavy our middle phase of the game was (with a total of 8 different quests, all which needed their own unique dialogue and interactions). 

To end this week’s shorter update, I’d also like to mention that we have created our development timeline in which we will have bi-weekly meetings to catch up and discuss our development on each side of things. Alright, that’s all for now. 

See you in our next week’s post.