Week 5

As this week moved forward we decided we wanted to attempt stage one in a hope to move forward into our capstone semester. We went with our Arena game as the one we want to move forward with, we thought that the mobile games development cycle would be a bit short if we wanted to move forward with the game as well as once we started getting the game play finished, because it was meant to only be played with the accelerometer that would be about the end of the difficulty going with it. Always has fine tuning, but movement and than some physics onto the ships and we would either have to add a bunch of features or one feature that as we looked at it we didn't want to end up doing that. So with the arena game we thought had a lot and we figured in the long run would be a better game for the development cycle.

We thought about AI vs Networked with the required four players and came to a conclusion that networking this game with my background with programming would be much less of a risk. Also we were debating whether or not we wanted a camera similar to smash, with the zooming and moving. Our professor is really pushing for it, as we came to the conclusion that our game is more based on the whole map awareness because there are no fighting people will want to see traps at all time not jump across map and accidentally hit a trap as the camera zooms out. With this we decided that it might have slight movement, but not close to smash, because our game is not based on fighting.
After this I had my faculty review with Professor Lawson, about both game. He feels that no matter what our group should create basic AI which makes sense, it allows rapid testing without the need to have testers when we are adding various game play mechanics and features. Overall going into the presentation we had a very good feeling about what was going to happen, we however missed one of the discipline reviews and a mobile testing session for our comet game. This meant we couldn't pass, but we presented anyways. We got a lot of well thought out feedback and immediately had a meeting to discuss what we needed to do to move forward in the weeks to come.

Week 4

When we presented they agreed the prisoners dilemma wouldn't work with our game play style, but still gave us some valid points that we would like to move forward with. We knew however we really needed to go to the drawing board and work with the players. After this week we have realized the three we have now plus a points system a charge system wouldn't all work together and we had to figure out what we wanted with the game. During the next 3 days we all needed figured out what we saw the game to be this way when we had the meeting we had 4 views of the same game and we could figure out which parts each person kept and start throwing out ideas none thought necessary. First to go was the extra point system. We had no use for it, and it didn't really do anything yet. We had purchase power-ups coming up soon based on class type, but it was more of something we thought wasn't necessary at all. We also took out power-ups too. We than moved forward and realized that the neutral guy seemed to had the short straw and didn't fit in. This is when we realized the the Brute and the Savior were directly opposing each other, but needed each other to work. This is when we changed the game from a survivor to a challenge based game.

We figured each role should have a different goal to win. This being the Brute now instead of pushing wants to short out peoples suit and make their charge 0. The savior wants people that their suits have hit 0 and wants to give them a charge of some sort that brings them back into the game. So we worked on two more people that had a similar relationship, they do the opposite yet they help each other be able to do their task more often. So we came with a sponge and a shield. The sponge works like a leech it gets close to an opponent and steals charge from them, and the shield would be able to shield a player and in return take some of the charge lost that the player would be dealt while the shield was on him at a fraction of what would be done to them. This we felt worked in a similar way as the others and together all 4 roles helped and hurt each other. This game us a strong learning outcome which was "In a competitive world we all have our own goals and self interests. However, working together and depending on one another is what allows us to reach those goals" With this we had a very good feeling for our game and wanted to present our new two character types and see what the class liked. I went ahead and dealt with the background of the game which was platforms and traps. Using the skeleton code I created two traps a shock trap that shorts your suit for a semi- random time, and in effect a burning trap that decreased your charge at a constant rate while you sit on it. Also I worked with recharging, by grabbing charge from all platforms. This allows players to keep getting more charge while running around the map. When a platform is drained it changes from gray to black. This will force players to run around the whole map to keep grabbing charge instead of staying on one side which would reduce the length they could stay alive.

Week 3

This week our concept for the arena game overall got bashed, there were mechanics they liked, but still a lot of questions. How those three roles would work in a game play and whether of not they could be balanced between the three. We were also told to look up prisoners dilemma and see if that could fit into our game concept. The basics of the dilemma tend to be used for when two suspects are brought into interrogation with no communication between the two of them at all. That initially brought some questions for our group because we wanted this to be a game you could play with friends and family close. Even all on one couch, there would be communication between you guys right away. We still moved forward with it and did the research. It went on about how, ratting on the other and the other saying nothing gave the person who ratted the best outcome and tended to get out with community service(depending on crime) and the other got charged with the full crime. If neither talked they got a lessen charge, but still quite decent time. If they both talked then they both got reduced times and plead guilty and made deals. So overall the best decision would be to talk for yourself because you have have no clue what is going on in the other room. I continued to work on the prototype and flush out what we had already because it was alright, but needed some fine tuning even for the prototype before we moved forward. Since the idea was changed a lot I was told to make more skeleton code than anything else.

Week 2

After the week two presentation of our games we went back to the room to work out our concepts. They really liked the idea of the space mobile game, but like us were unsure of were it would go. They also thought the arena game was very confusing and kept asking why. Why are there traps in the arena and why are they in there at all to start. With this we delved into the arena game to get a better understanding ourselves of why they were in there, and what they were doing. We met for a little over two hours a couple days after the class and started to spit out ideas. We came up with a hazard suit competition, by huge companies trying to prove their suit was the best. This pushed us in the right direction. Then we tried to figure out some game play issues. We came up with a weight and type system. We had 3 character types; Brute, Savior, and Neutral. Each had abilities that would be useful. We also started adding a coin system and a charge system for concepts ideas for game play. At this point we had a timed survival game where the brute would be pushing people around, the Savior would be picking people up who's charges have been hit at 0, and the neutral would just be avoiding traps. I went ahead and got a game that used controllers which is how we wanted the game played, and started with a prototype of charge and pushing between the players based on sizes I gave them.

Week 1

After our first capstone class we went to a meeting room and started to figure out two games that we thought we could move forward with. The first game idea that was liked was a comet or meteor game where you would be avoiding obstacles for some goal. This was still very basic idea, but we figured we wanted to move forward with it and try to see what we could do. We decided that the game fit with mobile and wanted to use the accelerometer for the motion. My first project was to get Unity Mobile set up and working with a nexus. This worked out well and I had a cube that would move on the screen with the accelerometer by the end of the week.

Next idea was a basic arena game, the mechanics were very flawed and convoluted to start, we figured we would pitch the concept in a basic state and see what the class said about it. There are robots of some sort and they are in an area with a bunch of traps that they are avoiding. This is about as far as the concept moved to start.