Contributions on the final product

My Contributions:

• Combining original prototypes into one
• Worked on some of the particles and trails on their first pass
• Implemented some of the UI art that Malik made.
• Wrote the first "tissue test" with our playtesting data.
• Implemented animation and new models for the reaper.
• Different balance tweaking and technical stuff throughout the quarter.

The only thing I can immediately think of that we used off the web was the miximo animation for the reaper casting and being idle. I'm sure some sounds and music were used, but edited heavily before use.

Final Game File

https://tinyurl.com/y9qv7mkc

Final Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnvJqgK6SBc&feature=youtu.be

Contributions

Original:
-Mechanic design
-Soul school and behavior design and implementation
-Contributed to soul and hook code behavior
-Balance tweaks, game feel tweaks (many times)
-Game feel implementations (Hit stops, lerping)
-Sound implementation (sounds were decided by Xuan Chen)
-Bug fixing, code implementation
-Assisted in implementation of game UI elements
-Assisted in Main Menu implementation
-Lighting pass
-Acted as Producer, documenting and assigning tasks and schedules on Trello

Used:
The PostProcessing stack plugin that provided our motion blur, AO, etc was a publicly available free plugin. I created the PostProcessing profile for the game.
-Mixamo rig was used for Reaper
-Mixamo animations for frisbee throwing and 2handed sword idle were used on the Reaper
-Unity Standard Asset Pack was used
-We learned how to do multi-camera rendering that allowed our UI elements and souls to render on top of everything else here: http://answers.unity3d.com/questions/878667/world-space-canvas-on-top-of-everything.html Debani's post is the relevant one

My Contributions

This was a pretty challenging game for me to work on but I really enjoyed it.  As far as my contributions to the game go, I did:

• The original casting mechanics
• Bug testing and fixes on essentially everything
• Some sound implementation
• Assisted where needed with coding, most notably with souls, their collisions with things, and the way the hook interacts with them.
• Starter UI Elements (Replaced by final versions)
• Sound feedback and ideas
• Other various small things

As for downloading things offline, the only things that I really downloaded offline or got from somewhere else were placeholders.  Things like sound effects and background music in original builds were from offline.  Other than that, everything was mine.  Some of my code was based off of old projects, but they were projects of my creation.  

Overall Contribution

I did some of the programming. I set up the scoring code. I did a few pieces of concept art. I redid the appearances and ui effects of the souls, which is what was seen until the final build when Malik finished his animated souls. I did the main menu, editing the art assets to make it fit, and to make the animated logo. I did playtesting every week to make suggestions and changes for the game. I also did the final playtest report. I spent a few hours trying to help find sounds also, so the endless mode music is the one I found off YouTube.

Contributions

This was a great team and a fun project to work on. These are my contributions:

• 3D Model for the Reaper
• Rig from Mixamo, Skin Weights done by me.
• Individual Soul Particle Effects
• Charge Bar UI Asset
• Timer UI Asset
• Some Concept Art 

Contributions

During this project, I learned a lot about the process of making a game and had a great team to work with. In this project, I helped in the following things:

I created the meshes for the environment.
I created the meshes for the scythe.
I created textures using substance painter for the environment.
I created textures using substance painter for the Grim Reaper.
I created textures using substance painter for the scythe.
I created the art assets for the main menu and help menu.
I helped texture the UI that Malik created using textures from textures.com (https://www.textures.com/download/rockrough0058/4408)
The fonts used in the game were from dafont.com specifically from these two links.
http://www.dafont.com/ghost-theory.font
http://www.dafont.com/hacjiuza.font

Final blog post + Contributions

Sound effects are complete. The hardest part was looking for fitting background music to go with our game (I have spent at least 7 hours everyday each weekend trying new things), since the setting of the game is supposed to be dark-ish themed, but we are going with a arcade styled game; I'm still a bit unsure about whether the music fits or not, but it's the best I could come up with.

I have done all of the sound effects in the game, including the background music.

Things that I did not make but downloaded:
- Menu screen music
- Timed mode music
- Endless mode music
- A few sound effects were obtained from DePaul's sound library

Other than that, the majority of the sound effects were created and edited by me.

This is it

This week I did the final playtest report. I also finished up the art for the main menu and got that all put in. Made the logo have spinning souls. Malik or Corey are going to whip up a control page for the help option of the menu and then that will be done 100%. I'm mainly looking for bugs and things that need polish or tweaking at this point. Looking at a little bit of everything.

Continually Iterating on Art

This weekend I have been working on texturing our Grim Reaper model in Substance painter as well as tuning up the Main Menu art assets. I also added some textures to help make the UI not as flat and add some additional flair that it needed based on feedback. Will be continually iterating on other art assets based on criticism given and help Malik in any additional tasks we have left for the most part.

Where We Stand

Things are coming together fairly well.  The UI and aesthetic of the game is constantly evolving, based upon playtest feedback and feedback from our class.  The sounds also have undergone a fairly recent overhaul.  I personally have been trying to find and fix any bugs I can.  There is one bug that has been popping up constantly, even after we "fix it", so that is my current project.

Final Stretch

Sound effects are complete for the most part, some need minor tweaks. All there is left is the background music for the intro screen/end screen, as well as a timed mode music, will work on those throughout the week.

Final Playtest Report

We conducted the playtest with one recurring playtester, and four new playtesters. In regards to UI, it was still a bit iffy to them. There were lots of things popping up at them with each soul, so trying to keep up and interpret it at the same time was hard. As Brian said also, the +/- souls were hard to tell how much they gained/lost exactly. We had mixed results about the diegetic ui, some saying it was fine, others wishing it stood out more to them.

In terms of sound, they said it was okay, but also still lacking and not blending into the game well. Some sounds were louder or much more apparent than others. There was confusion about what style of game it was intended to be (arcade, relax, rush) because of the sound feedback.

Overall game feel went well. There was unanimous approval of the environment aesthetics and understanding of what the game was about (Grim Reaper catching souls). Several made comments about the Reaper being green from lighting, but that was the only “complaint.” A couple mentioned that they liked the options to do manual/auto and timed/endless. One said it was like a practice kind of thing where they could sit back and get a feel and try to come up with strategies (if there were any).

It seems our biggest focuses in the last stretch are going to be spent on polishing/finalizing the UI. Getting the sounds in place and bug free and hopefully meshing them into the game world better. Sound has been worked on as a priority the past week, so that is updated. And UI is constantly being switched around and tampered with to try and find a good layout that feels good and makes sense for the game and for the player.

UI

I worked a bit on UI and the overall layout of it. I did trial and error with some of the existing art. I put in the menu twice, but we ended up going with different builds. So I will have to put it in a third time.

Art and Game Feel

Further work has been done to implement more art. With the exception of the souls themselves, our art is nearing its final state.
There have also been further game feel and performance optimizations. There has been plenty of tweaking to make hitstops feel right, and the detection for catching souls has been refactored to be more efficient and consistent.
The game also now properly uses the launcher, where you can remap controls and pick between intentionally designed visual presets.

Menu Art Pass

I worked on the main menu. I edited the original art for the menu that received negative feedback in our playtests. I simplified it, and redid the button placeholders we had set up. I also added in a button for choosing endless mode or not.

Implementing Art and Balance Changes

This week, it was time to step things up and make the game a lot more complete looking.
The focus was on implementing the vast majority of the art and making the game feel better overall.
Changes were made to the various schools, to make them more deliberate in how the player would interact with them, and the hook now takes time in between hooking souls to give the player a chance to follow the action. A hit stop is also included for game feel.

Sound effects complete

Sound effects are complete, will tweak anything if needed. Mainly need the background music now, which is working in progress.

Reducing the chaos

The big focus for this week is to continue to make the game clearer in how it works, and to make interactions with the clusters of souls more interesting. I have been tweaking the spawning parameters to make there be more distinct groups with clearly ideal ways to interact with them.
Some of these will need to be redesigned, as there are often too many souls on screen, particularly Penalty (red) souls.

Particles/Colors

This week I went and played with the particle systems and color schemes we had going. I lowered the overall range of the glow the souls had since they were becoming too cluttered. I made them confined and bolder colors to represent each soul. I also went and shorted the trails of them a little and modifed the colors of them to match the souls. I did this for all the prefabs and the school groups.

Polish sounds, etc

Most of the sounds are done currently, all there left is polishing the sound effects, as well as the background music. Still debating on what to do with the BG, will come up with it in the next week or two. Tone down some sound effects that buried other sounds as suggested.

Balance Tweaks and Communication

This week the focus was making the game feel better. This meant lots of iterating variables based on feedback we received. What I did to make the game feel better:
-Souls can slalom to give a greater sense of more dynamic motion
-The soul generator spawns souls more often, but now it spawns less schools per spawn. This is to encourage players to interact with individual schools and not get overloaded with information
-Penalty Souls now penalize less than Bonus Souls reward. This is to cut down on "Anti-Fun"
-Cut mechanic in which you would hook things while reeling in. This could sometimes cause the player to instantly lose if they reeled while Penalty Souls were coming in off screen. It also was the source a good deal of bugs, so for the sake of time we've removed it


To Do:
-Hitstops on hooks and add slight delay before a hook proceeds
-Slight camera shake
-UI pass and possibly icons for soul effects

Tweaking and testing

This week I conducted more playtesting. The results are explained in the tissue test post. But a lot of our concerns were solidifed, and going forward we need to work on balancing and somehow showing the players what each color soul does. A suggestion was a small chart on the side of the screen. We are still getting mixed results for auto/manual rotate.

Beginning UI Design

I have been doing concepts for the UI elements. Specifically the counter for the score and souls currently held and the points they will award. That along with a design for a charge bar. Since we're going with auto turning (?), the only bar that needs to be addressed is the Power bar. After running that by the team we could align the final designs of the UI to match the game's aesthetic.

Tissue Test

Over the past week or two, we’ve been able to get a good amount of playtesting in. Due to some of our group members being in the actual Playtesting class, this process was made a bit easier.

We’ve done a few iterations on how to approach the horizontal rotation and aiming for the fishing cast, and we’ve come down to either manual rotation (left and right using A and D, respectively) or an auto rotation where the game stays true to the original two-button requirement. This was one of the major things we playtested for. We’ve had almost all of our playtesters try both modes, and have gotten mixed feedback. In most cases, we started the players out using the auto-rotate, and they wondered what it would be like to play manually. The interesting thing is that one would think that manual would actually make the game easier, but this wasn’t always the case. We found that players actually took more time to figure out their aim and ended up wasting time when playing manually. Because of this, we are more than likely going to stick to the auto-rotate.

We also got some feedback that it is pretty difficult to tell what each soul in the pool does. To fix this, we’re going to add some sort of asset to the souls to make it more obvious what you’re reeling in. We also briefly discussed having some other kind of visual feedback when a special soul is reeled in.

Last week, we added in a few more souls to the pool - one being a penalty soul which cuts 10 seconds out of your limit; the other being one that adds 10 seconds. This added some flavor to the game, but also a few issues. Some of the testers casted out into a group of penalty souls, and instantly lost because of it. Others were able to make the game last in the upwards of 10 minutes by collecting a ton of bonus time souls. The best way to fix this would be by strictly tuning down the effects of both souls, as they were initially both set at 10 seconds for testing purposes when we first implemented them.

We got mixed, but mainly positive, reviews about the aesthetic of the game. Most people loved the overall look of the game, but a few people thought that it was a bit dark, and that the light contrast in the water made the Reaper easily forgettable.

To sum things up, this is a list of changes and tuning fixes we are going to work on:

-Stick to auto-rotate, or make manual a setting in-game

-Create some sort of assets to make the effects of the souls distinguishable

-Tune and refine penalty souls

-Sharpen up pathing on the souls

-Work on light and color contrast

-Refine the border mesh around the pool

-Smooth out the reeling mechanic, as sometimes the scythe will get stuck in the mesh

-Tone down or refine spawning habits of certain souls, so that insta-Game Over doesn’t

happen when reeling in a red pool

-Change a few UI elements and remove the old Strength/Horizontal variable counter

from the screen

-Fix collision on souls so they don’t leave the map (ties into refining the mesh)

Solidifying an Art Style

During this week, we have been working to create a unified art style for the game. Originally we were going to go for realistic textures for the environment but after much thinking we decided to go for more of a painted texture style using the program substance painter. Along with deciding an art style, we worked on making a rough scythe model as well as creating the environment terrain in Maya to make it easier to texture along with easier time to create hit boxes.

Below are some of the art references that I really enjoyed and show what kind of look we will be going for.

More sound effects to be implemented

More souls came up as we design the game, including time increasing/decreasing souls, and reeling in faster, so I need to thought about what kind of sound effects would be needed. Other sound effects are finalized, and background music is still working in progress.

Playtesting and again

This week, for me at least, was dedicated to playtesting the two different iterations of the game and getting feedback.  This was actually an assignment for the playtesting class, but it was obviously helpful for our class.  A few notes from the session: people were split on controls.  Everyone seemed to like the manual controls, but people seemed to either love or hate the automatic controls.  Also, souls and combos were not very well received.  Or rather, it was hard to tell what they were and what was happening.  We are currently iterating on them to make it much easier to tell.  Lastly, people liked the aesthetic of our game and the way the gameplay contrasted it a lot.  There was only one negative comment but it was more related to controls than it was to actual aesthetic and gameplay.

More Mechanics

I've worked more to make the game a bit more compelling in response to recent playtests.
As per the suggestion of Brian and other playtesters, there are now more types of souls and schools of souls that are designed in a specific way. These schools are meant to reinforce an intentional risk/reward relationship. Reeling in souls now also takes time, and is no longer instant. A new soul type can speed up your reeling temporarily.

Basic sounds complete, needs polish

Basic sound effects are implemented into the game, a few are still somewhat placeholders, but I will continue working on the final effects, which is set to be due by next week.

As for background music, I will not be able to produce my own, so I will either try to find someone who can mix music, or obtain a license to use the music and possibly remix them.

Art Stuff and Plans

I updated the models I made, still looking for uses for them, the terrain looks good enough at the moment. I've done sketches for UI concepts, will have to run them past the programmers to see if they're do-able. Planning on making some 2d animations to show off how the UI will move and react to the game.

Playtesting

This week I focused a lot on playtesting the game primarily. Testing the auto and manual mechanics, the visuals (including feedback), and watching for bugs to be fixed. Finding the best feel and combination of it all will be the test for upcoming weeks.

Environment and Additional Details

Over the weekend I created the overall environment for our game consisting of a mountainous terrain with a lake in the middle. We felt this was the most appropriate look for the environment because it conveyed a feeling of death and somberness but also keeping a sense of peacefulness with the use of the night skybox and aesthetics of the souls. I also finished making the buildings and simple textures for them to be placed underneath the lake along with some pillars to be placed around the lake to make it feel like a portal to the real world. Next step is to refine the objects in terms of detail and textures as well as modify the terrain to add some additional challenges for the player.

Blog 2

This week most of us got outside playtests on our game so far. We got a lot of new art assets and environmental things put into our newer builds and got a good amount of complements on how it looked so far. I spent a bit of time getting particle effects to work on the souls and scythe of the reaper, and got some feedback on our two builds. This week I'm going to work on a new "penalty soul" that will either reduce time left or reduce score when hooked. After that, I'm going to work on some more bonus souls and tweak numbers on the current ones.

Production Plan

It is always important to have a plan and be prepared. I've built a production plan on Trello that categorizes tasks by Week and person(s) responsible for the task. You'll notice almost every week has playtesting and QA - it's important to get polish in this game, and that takes time and dedication to the details.

The plan is available at this board: https://trello.com/b/E3tkCP4L/reelgrimfish
If you need to be manually granted access email me at jon.r.sayer@gmail.com and I will get you access to the board.

Creating sound effects, background Music

Placeholder background music is complete. It's copyright free, so it can be used if people like it. Else, I can either compose or find something else I can use. Various sound effects also implemented into the game, including the soul sound effect, chains, etc.

More sound effects coming for next week, fixing the chain sound effect, or scrap it (depending on the direction of the game). Will create more sound effects as needed, and help teams with concepts of the game as the core mechanics isn't set in stone.

The profound effect of pace

After 2 feedback sessions, it's clear that the tone and pace of the game need to be more concrete. Just a simple change from a fast pace to a slower one could change the game dramatically, from a frantic experience to a slower, meditative one. This is a point John Groot was helping to make abundantly clear.

It is our plan to tweak many of the parameters of the game in regard to pace and come to a conclusion through playtesting and iteration which approach feels best. There is certainly a possibility for middle ground, in which the game is a bit slower, but big satisfying combo moments can happen to keep things interesting. Additionally, this could allow the player to approach the game to their own preference, where they can choose to maximize score quickly or kick back and relax.

Strength and Reeling in

In thinking about prototyping, we were all given something that we were to do.  I was given making a display of the power/direction and making the casting system work.  It wasn't too difficult (I over-thank it way too much and someone else showed me the error of my ways) so it went fairly smoothly.  We also iterated on what we all made.  A few notable changes: the display of power and direction went from a number on screen to a bar that better showed off where the hook would go.  I also made a few changes to the catching of souls so you could actually reel in and keep playing, which is implemented.

Combining and Combonatorics

The past two weeks, I've swapped around what I've been doing a few times. On the design front, I worked on getting our builds combined into a single prototype, which proved to take more time than anticipated. Before that, in week one, I spent some time on the powerpoint and discord discussions, but my main contribution so far was working to get our builds combined and making a sound script for the prototype.

Brainstorming and Concept Work

It's been a fairly busy weekend for me due to work so I wasn't able to work on too much sadly. However, I've been looking at various art styles and concepts for our environment to get a general feel of where I want to go with it. It'll be fairly simplistic when it comes down to textures. It'll mostly rely on some ghostly, smoke particle effects that glow to make it really feel like youre in a place that the grim reaper would live in instead of just a normal lake. Implemention of fog, other particle effects, and color are going to be the most important things to be focused on. Here are some images I found looking around that have a similar feel that I was going for.

In order to liven it up just a bit so that it doesn't just feel like so moody, I might go about adding some additional elements such as fireflies floating around to give contrast to the mostly blue world.

I'm looking to create parts of the environment by Thursday.

More Concept Work

I am still working on different concept pieces to get a feel for the game's visual style. I do not have a very clear picture of the game in my head so sharing more and more concepts with the team should help us all understand what the game will eventually look like.
What I plan on doing next week is getting designs for the Grim Reaper himself, that could be a good starting point for the rest of the designs to be built around him.

Sound stuff

Looking for placement sounds will be the initial phase for our prototype, and later on we will use more refined sounds for our game. I was debating whether to use a casual background music where the grim reaper is just doing his daily job (which is fishing for souls to bring to the underworld, of course), or go with a eerie ambiance. 

For next week, I will attempt to create/edit some sound effects that can be used for our game. 

Starting Design

Trying to balance concepts with mechanics and visuals. Thinking of a ways to get our theme across in an understandable way, while innovating on mechanics as well. Changing the way the meters work a little, and changing the setting of the game as well based on feedback from the first pitch.

Design Design and More Design

As a programmer and designer, my work will be divided up evenly.  However, since this past week has been all about concepts and getting the pitch down, it's been all about design and figuring out what works for everyone.  A lot of stuff hinged on what made sense and what would be feasible.  After Tuesday, we edited our ideas a bit to be more in line with the suggestions we received during our pitch of the game.  We edited how the game would look, and also changed the core mechanic of the meters, now making it more timing based and skillful as opposed to just waiting.  As for the next week, programming will take the front seat, for me at least.  As the prototype is due next week, I will be focused on helping get the mechanics working.  The power and direction meter/meters may provide a bit of difficulty, but it shouldn't be anything too bad.

There's a lot of fish - how might you build it all?

Fishing involves fish. And water. Lots and lots of water. 

What initially seems like a pretty simple environment quickly becomes much harder to accomplish due to the fact that water has fairly complicated physics.

Thankfully, accurate water physics are not essential for a game about the Grim Reaper. Instead, we've floated some approaches to bypassing water physics and the problems it poses: 

1. Water physics is ignored and instead is rendered as a flat plane with an animated texture with the code causing the hook to drift around a little bit (randomly) within the water. It works, and certainly would for a prototype, but it might not end up looking super nice.

2. The Water is instead approached completely differently - with the "water" becoming this sort of ethereal nebula-looking body - It bypasses the need for surface physics (and waves) and supports the visual theme of souls, ghosts, and the abstract concepts of death. Potential pitfalls of this approach are actually rendering it (Using fog rendering techniques is a possibility, though potentially difficult) and causing player confusion. Some players might wonder where the water is or understand that what they're looking at is the "water." It would need to be like water, but entirely like it. It might cause more problems than it solves. 

The rest of the environment can be done with meshes of rocks - rock meshes are extremely versatile and they also support the visual theme. 

While it may seem like an overly granular and specific question for this early in the process, I think it makes sense to approach these ideas quickly, since they might require special attention. The two solutions listed above, for instance, are not interchangeable and have different technical, art, and production demands. Understanding the "development costs" if you will of these solutions will be essential to forming a proper production plan. 

Initial Phases of our Art Design

When deciding on how we wanted the art style of our game, we were thinking of ways to efficiently and effectively create the appearance of a soul that the player would be fishing for. We decided we would be creating this game in a 3d environment and our souls would essentially be 3d spheres. The different types of souls would be differentiated by particle effects that trail behind or pulse around the 3d spheres. We may give the souls different shapes as well depending on how much time we have left. Here is a photo of some of the different soul designs as well as a design of what the environment may potentially look like. 

-Corey Hansen