CAGD 470 Sprint 2 Blog

For Sprint 2 of Monster Truck Alley's development, our team completed many tasks. These tasks included creation and implementation of VFX, player and enemy 2D models, powerup mechanics, and a functioning level. As the team lead, my involvement with the project consisted of managing tasks for team members, making sure they have the necessary tools needed to succeed.

Some other contributions to the project are UI elements.

This is a small overlay for displaying a few text items over a flag graphic. They are for informing the player of when the game is starting, when it started, and when it ended either through the player losing or winning.
Each text element is a separate image, as well as the flag graphic.

The health bar tracks how many hits the player can take before losing. Our team is not set on how many hits that is, though it will likely be three, so I made three separate sections. There are three parts to the bar. The first is just an empty outline, with two lower portions, one green and one red. When the player is damaged, a green section can be removed, revealing the red section underneath, which I feel is a great indication of damage.



For the next sprint, we will be creating new powerups, overhauling the powerup system, implementing additional VFX, and creating better UI elements.

A running issue I have encountered is not having much to do in the way of work to assist in the team's production efforts. Many tasks are taken by two of our members, leaving only a few things to be done for the other two, which realistically are done by one person. This makes me look bad, and there is little to be done in the way of solving this issue.

CAGD 495 - Sprint Blog 1

For CAGD 495, I was positioned into the 2D Concept Art Team, which is separate from other game production teams and will be requisitioned by them when they need design work done. For this first sprint in the project schedule, I produced some concept pieces for two different teams.

The first set was for Deadeye Desperado. One design was for an enemy type, a golem. The other design was for a revolver-esque weapon. Beginning with pencil sketches, I later made digital traces and put in some rudimentary colors.

The second set of designs are for Sensational. Currently, I am working on a design for a staff that the player character will wield. The requested design calls for a coiled body, so I will need to figure out a way to make a shape that is easily reproducible and not too busy.

CAGD 377 - Blog Post 2

In CAGD 377, my team is producing a game called Jellyfish Knight, in which you are an underwater knight tasked with collecting lost jellies while avoiding obstacles and aquatic adversaries in a rhythmic platforming series of levels.

For our first sprint, we focused on creating a paper prototype. This included coming up with a rule sheet, creating a game board and pieces, and figuring out how it all worked together. My assigned tasks were incredibly light; I just had to get some usable pieces and bring them to the playtest sessions. After completing this task, I was left with very little to do until we eventually begin work on the digital prototype, and in the meantime I focused on making some concept designs for characters and such.

Unfortunately, our group had issues with getting the paper prototype to function, as well as having everyone at scheduled meetings at the scheduled time. We found ourselves without a working prototype to playtest before the official playtest time during class, which is quite bad for the project's overall health.

CAGD 470 - Sprint Blog 1

Our team has created a paper prototype for our game, Monster Truck Alley. It uses a DnD board with dry-erase markings to denote important elements. The basic rules of play consist of the player using a turn to maneuver obstacles, after which their piece is moved automatically for a number of spaces forward. The goal is to avoid enemies and obstacles to reach the end of the level.

The paper prototype is the first real task our team has taken on and mostly completed at this time. Our team has done some preliminary playtests, but we will be doing formal playtests with classmates in the next class session.

As we have not been working on any digital aspects, the team has had very little to do in terms of tasks. This will increase upon the team starting work on a digital prototype.