EAE Capstone - Update 21-31

So it sure has been a while! As kind of a quick update, here's everything that has been happening over the past two months.

Feb. 9-15:

                Mass production of assets for our game, to make it look pretty. Only problem was the memory for our game. The engineers researched and fought for any and all ways we could manage our memory better, so we can have beautiful scenery without the lag.  I, myself, started on the opening story for our game. Rebecca gave me the concept art she made for it, and then I developed it from them.

Feb. 16-22:

                Our team had a Level Jam, where everyone came up with levels alongside the design team. We gained a lot of great levels from it, and our game is beginning to really come together.

    In addition, the opening story was finished and implemented! Got a lot of love for it too. :)

Feb. 23- Mar. 1:

                We were all pretty much running ragged this entire week, fighting to get our game finished so we could submit it for review at the beginning of next week. A lot of play testing, a lot of last minute calling and working, but in the end, we managed to finish off enough to call it a full game!

Mar. 2-8:

                Submitted our game to PSM for the first time! Afterwards, everyone took an impromptu break for that week.

Mar. 9-15:

                We got a response back from PSM, telling us of 2 problems that needed to be fixed. They were taken care of quickly (including removing the Back button from certain pages, due to conflicts with how the Vita is supposed to work) We wanted to have a mostly completed game to bring to GDC next week, so we also finished off things that needed to be done still! From me, I fixed a few things in our menus and opening story, mainly button and text placement.

Mar. 16-22:

                GDC was this week! We didn't have class this week, and for the most part, we recovered from getting our game done.

Mar. 23-29:

                Utilized feedback from GDC to fix various issues with our game. Sent in our game to PS Mobile for review again. Cory made our game a unique font, based on our logo.

Mar. 30-Apr. 5:

                I began work on our ending story. The idea of in-app purchases was also pitched at this point, and is being looked into. We had another Super Saturday to get everything done as well. I also finished the ending of our story. I also altered all other menus with the new font, updated our instructions screen, and created our credits screens.

Apr. 6-12:

               Took critiques from PSM and we fixed our game. Credits screen was fixed up to include missing items and new font. Also, in-app purchases have been finished and are working!

Apr. 13-19:

                Our game was approved and getting ready for release on PlayStation Mobile!

Apr. 20-26:

                Our game has officially been released on PlayStation Mobile! If you've got a Vita, make sure to stop by the PSM store and get our game! We’ve already got a few purchases, which we’re all really psyched over.

                                

In addition to this, Thursday is EAE Day at the U, which is when we premiere our game. We'd love to see you there! Check it out here: EAE Fest 2014 

We are planning on continuing our game afterwards, but for now, we’ve made it! Can't wait to see where it goes from here~

EAE Capstone - Update 16-20

Week of Jan. 6-11:

So it's been a while since I have updated this blog. Christmas break was busy and exciting for me, between family vacations, my internship with Fat Loot Games and my engagement! That being said, there wasn't a whole lot of progress made this first week, mainly because we were all trying to get back into the groove of things. We went over all the feedback we got from our alpha testing in December, and discussed where we would go next with our game.

Week of Jan. 12-18:

I created a bare timeline sheet and brought it to my team so we could discuss what happened in our game at specific points of the day. Our game goes through an entire "day" in game, from start to finish; it starts in the morning and ends late at night, with a storm blowing through during the evening.

We decided to focus on at least getting the "day" part (as well as any and all of our remaining important mechanics) into our game before our play test on Feb. 6, and then we'd see what else we could get done after that. We have to get our game finished before mid March, so this should be interesting....

Week of Jan. 19-25:

We had an in-class play test, where each team walked around and played each other's games, and got some more feedback from them. Specifically, we got some good feedback on the new dragging motion that a lot of people wanted, but it ended up not being very good for our game. So we took it back out. Maybe we'll put it back in later, but for now, it just doesn't fit well.

What's even better is that our water now reflects what's going on in the sky! Cory made some clouds that would move above it, and I worked on making "tile" pieces for our sky. In case we manage to get the full day in, every section has been made. This means that the backdrop for our sky will at least be able to go from morning to night. Plus the flat tiles can be used as many times as needed. Hopefully we'll be able to get this far with our game!

Week of Jan. 26-Feb. 1:

We had a huge workday on Saturday. Almost everybody showed up so we could pump our the important parts. I worked on the scroll image that is going to be used for our various menus, instructions, ect.

Additionally, I did a few concept sketches for our title screen. In the end, my team chose the first sketch, so that will be the one that's going into it's final stage.

Week of Feb. 2-8:

This week was our big play test with family, friends and just about anyone else we could manage. There were probably about 30-40 people who came to test out our game, and it was a lot of fun!

Before our play test, I made sure to finish off our title screen and instruction pages.

The logo became a bit of a problem, and it will need to be fixed with a better resolution version. In the meantime, I made another version of the test in our logo as a more clean version, thinking it'd get chosen as at least a stand-in for our play test. Funnily enough, I think the engineers used the original instead, since it had our logo on it, but oh well. The screen on the Vita is smaller anyway, so it wasn't that noticeable of a problem.

What is a problem is that our game lags on the Vita, and we definitely need to fix that, but at least our graphics are working well on it!