Production

Sprint Goals

SPRINT 10
Done

Submit build to Steam for review
Polish environment
Polish Riven fight
Performance optimization

SPRINT 9
Done

Fixing bugs with Riven fight
Final pass on player mechanic polish
Getting VO in
Getting the environment assets in game
Getting the Beta build

SPRINT 8
Done

Additional pass on the level
More bug fixing and polish
Polishing the Riven fight
Polishing the spear mechanic
Finishing environment assets
Riven texture

SPRINT 7
Done

Bug fixing from the QA log
Polishing the player mechanic
VFX effects for better readability
Additional pass on the level, especially the on-boarding section

SPRINT 6
Done

Polish Alpha Build for EAE Play

SPRINT 5
Done

Interfacing player mechanic with Goliath
Polish "Hard Light" with visuals
Polish game loop
Art asset production
Audio concepts (pass 2)
Goliath AI (pass 2)
Level (pass 1)

SPRINT 4
Done

Polishing Goliath components
Polish "Hard Light"
Game Loop
Art asset production
Audio concepts (pass 1)
Goliath AI (pass 1)

SPRINT 3
Done

Finalize high-level design
Art direction finalized
Iterate on grappling
Get animation references
"Golden Path" - Stage 1
Goliath - Stage 2
Player and Goliath are "killable"

Sprint 2
Done

World and props concept art
Functionality for environment intractables
Player concept art
Move into production phase
Player movement implemented - Unpolished
Goliath concept art
Goliath components prototypes

SPRINT 1
Done

Establish company culture
Establish strike forces
Construct product backlog
Player and world concept art - Ideation
Evaluate component Goliath design

Prototyping
Done

Prototype
Pitch to Cohort
Gameplay vision video

We are BACK!

We hope everyone had great holidays like we did. One of the things we did during the holidays was QA. We played through our game multiple times and reported bugs. We took this step, so when the team comes in they are ready to hit the ground running and start polishing the game.

Going First Person

This was a very last minute pivot of deciding to go first person with our camera. It came out of curiosity of what the game would be like to play in first person. Testing it out we found out that it actually is better than a third person camera for our intended experience. From a production standpoint, since we have only one animator, going first person reduces a lot of character animations. Thus, giving him more time to focus on the Riven. From a design standpoint, it allows to provide a more immersive and awe inspiring gameplay. It bolsters all our design pillars even more. From a technical standpoint, it helps us solve a lot of readability problems of getting the spear to work visually, with such high paced and agile movement.
It definitely caused a small trickle effect where, the level design had to be changed hugely. We are still trying to find what other things it might affect, are there other design decisions or features that need to be revisited due to this change. Some questions still remain unanswered and we are hard at work to find the answers to them.

Alpha Goals

Our alpha is on 11/27/2018. The alpha goals agreed upon are as follows:
1. White box level (tutorial + arena)
2. Player mechanics polish
3. Visual feedback and indicators for hard light and glide mechanic
4. Riven movement AI
5. Riven behavior AI
6. Attacking weak points and bringing down Riven.

Design Pivot - Core Player Mechanic

After not reaching our goals for the grappling mechanic, we had to consider our steps going forward. It was time to have that crucial conversation to analyze if grappling was even possible at this point. Having a chat with designers and engineers we concluded at this point we need more time than we have to polish grappling. Hence, we pulled the rip cord on grappling.
The next challenge was to replace it with a mechanic that would still align with our design pillars, fit in our development cycle with the resources and time we have. This is a time where we turned our production problem into a design problem and thus the mechanic "HARD LIGHT" was birthed.

Hard Light: This mechanic allows the player their primary movement ability, their offensive mechanic, and their defensive ability all wrapped into a convenient package. By pressing right trigger. a spear of light shoots forward from the player. What the spear hits determines how it functions.
- If the spear hits a wall or stationary object, the player uses the spear to stick to the surface. Releasing the right trigger will cause the player to leap off the spear in the direction they are pointing. This can be chained to move quickly throughout the level.
- If the spear hits as destructible object, the spear simple destroys or damages the object.
- If the spear hits a projectile, the player latches onto the projectile and goes into an aim mode. Releasing the right trigger will fling the projectile in the direction the player is aiming. And, the player will leap in the opposite direction the projectile is flying.