Hey there, sorry I have not been updating my blog recently. I have been loaded with work from Final Project. It defiantly is a life changing experience. For some it is a good experience most of the way through for others it can be a very long and painful process. But all we can do is our best so do not lose hope. During APD Don Smith, Jason Hinders, Joel Carroll and Patrick Kelly lead us to Core by having us type up all the technical documentation, such as the Tech Doc and Asset List, we would need for our game, Shopping Cart Derby. In GP1 and GP2, The guys from APD and Mike Lebo guided us through Alpha and Beta as we worked diligently around the clock in Blackmoor Studios, which was dedicated to Dave Arneson, one of the creators of Dungeons and Dragons.
During Core we built our Engine using the Game Object Component model which the Unity engine uses. This architecture is different from Object Oriented which we were taught at Full Sail. Instead of treating objects as a hierarchy of functionality we treat object generically and add components which hold the functionality. This new architecture created a steep learning curve for our team but we managed, with help from Derik Hughes, to wrap our minds around this new way of thinking in terms of game programming and make it to Alpha on time.
In Core we also have to take an Interpersonal Communications class Online. I learned a lot in IPC however I felt that it was not the right time in the program to take such a class. Having Final Project is enough stress to put on someone and when you add IPC it just raises the stress levels even more. We learned how to communicate differently and relay different meanings depending on who we were communicating with. It was an interesting subject but the material was a little dry and the scheduling of this class with Final Project made it very hard to retail the information.
In Alpha we continued to struggle with GOC. With our architecture all the systems and components communicate via IDs and Events which made it very hard to debug at times. We were able to get Animations in though a little late and got all our held items in to make our game more fun. I had worked on an Effect Editor during Spring Break, with help from Zach Helms, who is a month ahead of me, which replicates Unreal’s Cascade interface. I did this because our Artists have only used Unreal to create Effects before. I was able to give the editor to all the teams in the studio as well as some team behind us. In the end we were able to make it to Beta but we lost our Internal Producers.
Alpha
Boba Effects
In Beta we knew what we were doing with GOC and used LUA to expedite our production process. We still had problems with debugging but we were able to track down the issues with enough effort. We were finally able to get proper collisions and AI working as well as a new level which made our game really feel like a game. We also got some cool menus which fit the theme of our game. We wish we had more time to get features in but unfortunately we had to cut a lot such as multi-player, however the game turned out fun and simple which is always good. We were able to tweak movement and increase the abilities of the powers-ups which really added to the gameplay and feedback. I worked on making the skid marks, as well as the other effects, look awesome. We passed Beta by the skin of our teeth. We crashed during presentation because of a missing asset and were on our toes till feedback a few days later.
Beta
Final Project is no joke it is a hardcore simulation of what crunch would be like at a video game company for 5 months. I have seen good workers fail, even to the point where they cannot even get a diploma if they pass eventually they just get a certificate of completion. It sucks because if you fail anytime during the process you have to go back to the beginning of Final Project and sometimes whole teams fail and games get cancelled. But the important thing to remember is that teamwork and communication are the two most important aspects of success (as well as working hard). Even though sleep and days off were nearly unheard of in our team we still prevailed by staying strong as a group and giving our all.
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