By Week 7 required us to make major structural changes to the playable area which has seen work being pushed back slightly. The walls and walkways had some scale issues and instead of working round this we have had a complete overhaul of the area. Examples of the problems encountered include slight issues with the size of doors and walkway connections so to make life easier long term an overhaul happened this week. This probably does not fill anyone with confidence but we are happy the issue has been resolved earlier than later!
Other activities to report include a continued asset dump into the level, we now have a relatively complete open area of the mall (sectioned off) and two or three stores mid way complete. For clarity for those who are not up to date, we are working on a demo version of the game and we expect the demo version of the game to feature a quarter of the mall (the mall is pretty big) with 4 accessible stores as a minimum as well as a basement area where a chase scene will occur. We are setting the foundations now so later on this is easily scalable. This includes programming AI which will work everywhere in the map and the blueprinting of stores so they can be swapped and changed easily. Part of the long term plan is to have stores which change position game to game, so once this is in place a lot of the work will then come down to modelling and creating unique situations and gameplay within the stores.
Hon ot all work has been structural and some of the assets below have been created and added to UE.
Previous
Next
We have to coincide our goals with major university milestones so as an overview (and to be transparent) we expect the following to be complete at the set dates below.
Wednesday 30th March – University Lightning Pitch
- Completed first sector of the mall (or near completion)
- AI migrated from external level into main and core gameplay
- Stores in position (includes Arcade, Laser Tag and Sports store)
- Lighting fully set up
- Completion of adverts and posters found in the first sector of the mall
- Food area complete (upper level) – note these stores are not enterable currently.
- In addition to the above we may have music to share at this point (unconfirmed as we are working with someone externally for this)
The next milestone will be the end of the University year which is sometime at the end of May. By this point we expect to have
- All of the above
- Completed stores and a DIY Store on top of those mentioned
- A collectible system which will enable progress (more on that soon)
- Multiple ‘jump scares’ or moments of interest
- Patrolling informant AI (not the Nutcracker, again more on that soon)
- Chase scene in basement
- Cut scenes which help tell the narrative
- Sound and effects complete for the demo level
- Demo release to public for feedback (or selected partners)
Post university we have Tranzfuser which will be refining what we already have. The most progress is expected at this point due to lack of uni commitments and because more is at stake as we aim for full release and funding.
From the above dates you can see that progress will be quick and vast from this point onwards, with the next major milestone just two weeks away. We will keep you all updated along the way. Until next time!