Week 1 (09/15/21)

Roles; Narrative writer, Level/Game designer

Summary: This week my group members and I got to know each other a little bit. None of us have partnered up in any prior courses so it was nice to get to know them. We set our expectations straight right away, and it paid off. We had 4 team meetings in a week, with roles clearly defined because we all emphasized our strengths and what we bring to a group. The proposal and presentation were all done at least a day before it was due, so there was no procrastination of any sorts.

Contribution: I voiced my passion and skill at writing stories as well as my experience in game/level design. After our first meeting, I spent a few hours formulating a compelling story that had an outer space theme. I tried to incorporate unique elements; I did not want just a generic sci-fi shooter. I ended up also spending time creating a backstory that sets up the main storyline well. Additionally, I introduced the ally and opponent option through dialogue choices.

Reflection: Overall, our first week was a success. We completed all of our weekly tasks early and everyone contributed a significant part (everyone wrote in our game proposal). Thanh showed great leadership and ambition, Gregory helped create important mechanics, showed us countless areas of inspiration on the internet, and drew some concept art. Kibi drew many sketches that impressed all of us. I am very confident in our game’s visual goals if she is at the helm. Finally, I created the entire narrative and backstory and everyone seemed to like it immediately. In conclusion, if we all continue to contribute as we did this week, making our game come to life should be no problem.

Week 2 (09/22/21)

Summary: After our presentation last week, we did not feel a need to meet up until right before class the following week. We scheduled a meeting right before class on Wednesday, and it went really well. Everyone arrived on time, and we spent over an hour bouncing ideas off of each other. In the end, we developed a fleshed out world with 5 subworlds, each with its unique mechanics and visuals. I also pitched many narrative concepts and got feedback from my teammates, which I greatly appreciated because it allowed us not only to be on the same page, but also helped me improve the narrative. My teammates also suggested many great ideas that I will consider adding into the story to strengthen it.

Contribution:

I contributed throughout the team meeting. I made sure to give feedback to as many suggestions as possible, and I introduced many ideas and concepts that made it into our next production phase. For example, I suggested our subwords have unique mechanics. A desert subworld has a harsh sun, and I brought up a shade and exhaustion mechanic, where the player cannot be in the sunlight for more than a determined amount of time. The shade helps cool the player down. Another idea was having each subworld having a boss that possesses a component of the spaceship. The player must defeat or convince the boss to give them the component. Then, the player is able to use a compressor gun to shrink the part so it can fit into the player’s bag. The last major idea was letting the player meet a friendly Athiktos creature at the beginning of the game, when they wake up from after landing. The creature would otherwise be hostile, but senses something different about the protagonist and decides to help him. This interaction will help transition into the character learning about the planet and its subworlds, as well as how to retrieve the spaceship parts.

Reflection: All in all, I think my group has great synergy, the team room feedback session was perfect for us to develop our ideas and I think we should do it more often. Every single person had multiple valuable inputs, and I think we are all satisfied with each other’s contributions.

Week 3 (09/29/21)

Summary: This week we had two group meetings, one on Discord and one in person, right before the lecture. We planned out to do the GDD on Monday and Tuesday, and everyone did their part and finished by 7pm on Tuesday, so I am glad we did not procrastinate. The meeting before the lecture was to create the presentation slides and practice our parts.

Contribution: I was responsible for creating the game’s universe, story and narrative flowboard. I started off by expanding on my story from the last presentation. I fully fleshed out the narrative as well as many characters including the protagonist, each region’s bosses and the final boss (for the GDD). Since we wanted a somewhat narrative-based game, I made sure it was very detailed all the way through, and included numerous in-game options that might alter the ending for a particular player.

Reflection: This reflection will be easier to write because it follows a critique session from our presentation. Many good points were brought up, but the main one is the scope of our story. I admit that I got carried away when creating the story because I was extremely immersed when creating it. As a result, I will be shortening certain parts of the narrative and removing some dialogue options. There will still be an element of choice, but less complex to fit our scope. Another good point was time might be potentially wasted if we decided to add a non-confrontational option for boss battles. All the time animating and creating the boss encounter would simply be skipped if the other option is picked. This is fine for games made by real companies as they have the time and manpower, but that does not fit within our time frame nor do we have enough people to execute that properly. In conclusion, I think we did very well for our GDD and presentation, as well as got a lot of valuable feedback. Everyone also did their parts both on time and with good communication, so I am happy with my teammates and with our progress. (348 words)

Week 4 (10/06/21)

Summary: This week is the first week we got to work on our game prototype. As a group, we scheduled two meetings on Monday and Wednesday. I would classify this week as a low production week, only because there wasn’t much to do in terms of deadlines. As a result, each group member did something that relates to their respective role. Thanh made a spreadsheet for the modelling requirements for our game, Gregory started on a usable Unity environment, and Kibi modelled our protagonist on Blender.

Contribution: Because of the light work week, as well as my role, all I did this week was review the feedback we got from last week’s presentation and adjusted accordingly. The most glaring problem was with our scope, so I added a small boss fight in the tutorial, removed the option to evade the first and second boss fight, and shortened down some dialogue from certain elements in the story. As a group, we decided to remove the centaurs as a whole. They never played much of a part in the story, and modelling them would only create unnecessary work. During the Monday meeting, Thanh and I quickly discussed what to remove from our game. Another area of feedback we received was the ambiguity in how a boss battle starts. To answer this, we added a certain number of enemies in any given region, as well as a locked door at the end of the region. Once the player kills enough Athikterians, the door will be unlocked and it leads to the boss room.

Reflection: In conclusion, this week did not have any deadlines, so we went at our own pace in advancing our game. I wrote down feedback from last week and changed our narrative based on that feedback. The upcoming week will see us flesh out our story, build a playable environment on Unity and create more models/animations.

The Narrative Flowboard from last week, showing a very detailed storyline filled with options. I made sure to slim down on the amount of options and endings to lessen the initial scope. Bosses will also be the same model as the common enemies, saving us time on modelling and animating characters that aren't used throughout the game. (374 words)

Week 5 (10/13/21)

Summary: This week, we added a new member, Noah, to our group. It was unexpected, but it was welcome because it lightens the load for the four original members. So far it has been very smooth; no problems with role responsibilities and punctuality. We all contributed to the First Playable submission and handed it in on time.

Contribution: Since this week’s milestone did not focus on narrative/dialogue, I decided to help Thanh out with playtesting. After he concluded his in-person playtests, he quickly wrote down his raw thoughts and feedback. I looked over it and . Additionally, I wrong the design refinements we made after internal review, and edited some sentences around the document to make them sound better. As well, I committed some time this week to begin my narrative dialogue tree. I started at the beginning of the game, creating the vignette slideshow writing, as well as the dialogue options up until near the end of the tutorial.

Reflection: Overall, we finished our submission on time without any problems. Noah assimilated quickly into our group because he has experience in Unity, and also expressed his passion for writing, so he will help me develop the narrative in these upcoming weeks. I made sure to make meaningful contributions to the First Playable submission due to the fact that it did not include any narrative-related guidelines. I used my strength in writing to not only create our narrative, but to also improve the quality of our writing in the design document and the playtesting report. Kibi created beautiful animation models of our main character and the creature, Thanh did excellent and extensive playtests to get fantastic feedback. He noted down everything so it was very easy for me to understand and build upon. Lastly, Gregory worked incredibly hard coding, making the game playable on Unity. It turned out great. (309 words)

This is a screenshot of the progress I made on the side while I was helping with the design document and the playtesting report.

Week 6 (10/20/21)

Summary: This week is midterms week, so everyone was quite busy with other courses. We did not have any meetings until after week 6’s lecture. Everyone in the group had a general idea that minimal progress was achieved this week. Therefore, we decided to have a quick meeting on the night of the 20th to go over our plans for the next week. We discussed the deadline for the Alpha Code, what we need to do, etc. Overall, we agreed to not to overwork ourselves and allowed group members to focus on other projects in order to do this one well later.

Contribution: For me, I have THREE midterms and the critique this week, so I have been putting up all of my focus on these other responsibilities just for this week.Thus, I have not done as much work as I would have liked for this class. However, I did dedicate some time to developing my narrative. More dialogues and narrative trees were written. I have also confided with my co-writer (Noah) about any suggestions or ideas he has to improve my narrative. Additionally, we collaborated on the specific dialogue choices (both stylistic and vocabulary) of our game. Noah joined the group midway through so by the time he got here, I had already created and fleshed out a narrative. I am ecstatic to have someone to bounce ideas off, it will only improve our story.

Reflection: There is honestly not much to reflect on this week for me. I made sure to inform my teammates of my incredibly tight schedule this week a few days prior, so everyone understands why I have not made significant progress. Additionally, my role (narrative writing) is not an urgent need this week; we had no presentation/critique session, so I will work diligently on finishing my portion of the work as soon as my midterms are completed. (315 words)

Week 7 (10/27/21)

Summary: My midterm week just concluded, so the bulk of my studying has also ended. However, there are still many assignments that are due for me in the upcoming week, so I have to divide my time correctly. To summarize what we did as a group, we had multiple meetings (4, in fact) to plan our progress and see how everyone was doing. I also had a quick meeting with Thanh, our project manager, to check up on my progress.

Contribution: Since one of my main jobs is narrative writer, I allocated some time during my midterm week to further develop my narrative and dialogue. Additionally, one of the meetings was a one on one call with Greg, our programmer and level designer. We collaborated (we are both level designers for this project). While I was busy with my midterms, Greg drew up a sketch of how our intro level would look. This included the crash site of the spaceship, as well as a tutorial level that leads to our main character meeting the NPC Vee. He showed it to me, and we spent an hour discussing each individual part of the drawing. I liked a lot of his concepts, and the world-building I did by creating the story, characters and environment really communicated with him effectively. It was very similar to what I would have created if I did it from scratch. The discussion included first impressions, what I liked and didn’t like (very little), questions for further elaboration on certain parts, and suggestions to make the level even better than it already is. It was an engaging and healthy discussion throughout with both sides contributing extensively.

Reflection: Again, there wasn’t anything crazy to reflect on this week, but I know for sure that we all have similar mindsets when it comes to our project. Greg and I worked really well together, so I will be sure to confide with him, as he is the lead programmer and can change things the fastest. I have concluded that my world-building has been effective in conveying its desired aesthetic and environment, so that will make me more confident as I continue to detail the dialogue options of our game. (368 words)

The first screenshot is an image of the developing dialogue options of our game. The second screenshot are the notes I wrote while talking to Greg about our intro level (The level we are displaying during the presentation.

Week 8 (11/3/21)

Summary: This week, our team prepared our Alpha Code along with a presentation. We scheduled over four different meetings, but most of them were not mandatory. I attended all of them, and most of the group attended them as well. We spent a lot of time discussing our game and transferred that to the GDD. Because Thanh had surgery the day after his playtestings, we were unable to get the most information. If he was with us during the presentation, he would have gone in depth into our playtests. Regardless, I, along with the rest of the group, think we did quite well with the presentation. The two game designers along with Eric gave us invaluable feedback that we will make sure to incorporate with our next iteration.

Contribution: As for me, I steadily continued with the progress with my narrative dialogue. This game will have context-sensitive inner monologue pop-ups, so I have been doing that along with the dialogue. Next, as the due date for the Alpha Code approached, I collaborated with Thanh to complete both the Playtesting Report and the GDD for the Alpha Code. Since Thanh conducted the playtests, he wrote down his thoughts quickly and I proofread and edited them so they sounded better. Lastly, I took the project manager role for the presentation. I created and wrote the slides, directed which person to say what, and overall was a leader there.

Reflection: Overall, it was a really productive and successful week. The presentation went well, I felt like I articulated the game concept and prototype well to the audience and the game designers. Then, the prototype demonstration had everything that we intended to have in this iteration. The positive feedback we received was overwhelming, and the areas that we could improve on were easy to resolve. For example, our scope of five regions may be too large. We can simply just change it to four or even three regions to make it easier for us. My last thought is how relevant the idea of having non-combat, explorative areas is. I loved the idea of the player exploring to find an oxygen tank before theirs runs out sounds spectacular. (363 words)

Week 9 (11/10/21)

Summary: This week, we had around three team meetings to make sure everyone was doing what they were supposed to. It was a much more individual-focused week for everyone, but we were all still productive. Thanh made sure we were on top of our work with the frequent meetings. I personally confided with Kibi and Gregory because both of them were working on things that involved my writing.

Contribution: With Gregory’s concept sketch, I was able to follow the tutorial’s flow/progression and added appropriate monologue and dialogue. I made sure to make the monologue interesting and sometimes funny, while being relevant and interesting. On top of that, I completed the writing for the vignette, a slideshow we will be putting at the beginning of the game to give the player backstory and context. I made sure it was extremely detailed so Kibi could have enough information to go off of when drawing the actual pictures.

Reflection: Overall, all group members have been working hard on their assigned responsibilities. Thanh has been great for our productivity; he makes sure we meet at least twice per week so no one is missing anything. Kibi’s drawings and animations have been amazing, and Noah and Gregory’s Unity levels have been everything I have imagined when I first created the story. I do feel like we could have collaborated as a group more this week, but since a lot of the work we are doing is individual, it is just easier to focus by yourself and do everything the way you wanted to. Our meetings have mostly just been progress check-ups, so next week we will be sure to do more than that in our meetings. I will be talking to Noah and Gregory about future dialogue (for the levels that have not been created yet). I’ve decided to go ahead and start writing the dialogue for the next level so I can stay productive. Any changes to the level, I can simply modify the narrative so it fits. (335 words)

The writing for the Vignette.

Week 10 (11/17/21)

Summary: For Week 9-10, a lot of us, as usual, had large workloads for other courses. Since I have 5 deadlines this upcoming week and there is no submission for IAT 410 next week, I decide to allot most of my time to my other classes so I can complete them in time. As a result, I did not do an extensive amount for this group project. Again, I informed my teammates of my work situation this week. I still made sure to get started on the next level’s dialogue. We had two meetings as a group; one online and one right before lecture. The meeting before lecture was productive because we set out the upcoming week’s goals.

Contribution: Like I mentioned earlier, I did not do as much as I would have liked this week. However, despite the workload, I brainstormed and conceptualized how dialogue would flow in Noah’s level. Noah is currently working on two separate levels (the mushroom level is almost done, and the desert is next), and I will be consulting with him prior to the Beta Code submission. Since he created both levels from scratch, he will be the most familiar with them and will answer any questions I have. I will either play the levels myself, watch him play it, or watch a pre-recorded video of the map and design the dialogue accordingly. Also, I will be doing a portion of the GDD for the Beta Code submission.

Reflection: All things considered, if the week doesn’t have a 410 submission, our productivity and communication goes down a little bit. This is only natural, as everyone has other obligations. As long as a week before the submission that we have clear objectives and frequent team meetings (like this week), it causes no problems. We will probably schedule at least 3-4 more meetings from now until Tuesday night. (312 words)

Week 11 (11/24/21)

Summary: This week we arranged a few more meetings to get on the sage page for our Beta Code GDD. Thanh conducted our playtests on Tuesday as that was the day when all of his playtesters were available. Kibi worked on the vignette, Greg and Noah worked on their respective levels. I continued my narrative development work. For the GDD, Thanh was able to do the playtesting report, as he was the only person in our group present at the playtests. Our lecture was a presentation from a guest speaker this week, so there was not much to discuss after. However, we did set up our week’s objectives after the lecture. I will collaborate with Noah and Greg for the remaining map levels, as those maps do not have complete narrative flow yet.

Contribution: I assisted Thanh with the playtesting report as usual. He did most of the writing, and I did the rest, proofread and read, formatting, inputted data and data graphs. I helped take screenshots of the game to show the visual cues in our GDD. In my own time, I tweaked and wrote some more of my narrative, but since it was not required in this iteration, I was not in a rush.

Reflection: I think this week’s lecture, as well as last week’s, gave me and all of my classmates really good insight in the game industry. I’ve been aware of the mistreatment of employees in the game industry (e.g. underpaid, overtime, disrespect, culture, etc.). I’ve also heard warnings for people who think working in the game industry isn’t the same as playing games. Just because you enjoy playing games does not mean you enjoy making games. I have heavily considered both of these red flags, but I am committed to it because I think I would hate any other job more than any job in the game industry. I would be willing to overwork for something I believe in. (325 words)

Week 12 (12/1/21)

Summary: This past week has been much more quiet compared to other weeks for our group. For one, everyone is dealing with imminent deadlines for other classes, and finals week is approaching so lots of people are also occupied by that. This includes me, as I had five separate things due this past Monday. We held only one meeting on Wednesday night, where we discussed the upcoming final week. The levels from Noah and Greg were coming along nicely, and the plan is to collaborate with them on Thursday to figure out the narrative and add the dialogue.

Contribution: This week I continued to do my usual. I focused on my other classes’ homework because they were due sooner, but I made sure to make progress with my narrative regardless of the amount. Once my deadlines were met, I dedicated a larger portion of my time researching and writing the narratives of the next two maps. I made sure to attend every meeting we’ve ever had, and talk in those meetings to express my opinions and communicate with the level designers so we can work together on Thursday and the weekend.

Reflection: Overall there wasn’t much to reflect on this week. I still have both guest speakers’ presentations

weighing heavy in my mind. They touched on a lot of topics and I am still considering and contemplating on what they said. Also, I’ve been reflecting on how our group approached our game project the whole semester. I think we all did a great job communicating with each other through the months. The frequent meetings kept us on top of our work, and our camaraderie with each other definitely factored into the lack of hardships. The workload amount is not related to our social dynamics. Additionally, everyone stuck to their roles and no one fell behind with their work. We never had to talk to anyone about pulling their own weight. In conclusion, I have had a pleasant experience doing this project, and I cannot wait to finish off the project this coming week.