Game Development Blog - Week 3

Week 3

Progress Update

For this week, we continued work on our prototypes. We're hoping to challenge the next stage of development tomorrow, but it's been a struggle getting here. I'm not sure how things will go, but with luck all should go fine.

A Decision Reached

At the beginning of class last week, our team sat down and started arguing over which idea we thought we wanted to focus on for the next stage of development. The debate was lengthy and grueling. I wanted to do my game. Dustin wanted to do his game. Ryan wanted to do his. Tom stayed neutral. But finally, after talking of particle effects and AI, I convinced the programmers to switch their favor to my idea - the Reverse Stealth game.

Prototyping Problems

With the decision made, we returned to working on the prototypes. However, a new set of flaws showed up, many in number and few in solutions.

1. The Stealth Prototype was updated with the assistance of the programmers. However, the transition removed some features and altered others. This is a minor setback, of course - merely requiring some minor code tweaks - but a setback nonetheless.

2. The new focus on the Stealth prototype meant that the other two ideas had their prototypes virtually untouched. This left them in a state that was very poor for testing, although they were technically "testing ready."

3. Dustin brought up that, in testing and coding the prototypes, he found the reverse stealth game to be the most tedious to code, as well as the least fun. Personally, I  believe that the engagement will become more apparent as the systems are refined and tweaked, but it is an early red flag, so to speak.

These issues will need to be kept in mind as we prepare to challenge the next stage of development.

Moving Forwards

If all goes well tomorrow, then we will officially begin working on the reverse stealth game. I'll need to work a bit more closely with the programmers (and our artist) to ensure that all goes smoothly, but hopefully we'll be prepared and ready for what the rest of the development cycle holds for us!

Until next week!