Jesse Lozano

How has the Month been for Stillness –

So July was no June, but July was still rather productive for making progress in Stillness. my summer job and summer class have overlapped, crunching my time more than last month, or next month. Still, work got done, and I’m here to report it!

What I said I would do (and did it get done) –

• PLAYTESTS (Completed)
• Fully Implement Level 2 (started)

What got done-

So starting off, Level 2, The Mandala, did not get finished. The main reason  that “fully implementing” the level within a month was a dumb assumption, I shouldn’t have made. Quite a lot of work got done on it, but definitely not close to full implementation. the mandala, being a new area, needs a lot of new art, that I’ve been busy making. Example, here’s one of the completed rooms:

 

Looks nice, if I do say so myself. in terms of just art, I got about 2/3 to 3/5ths of the art done for the area. the plan for the area, is down pat, as I filled in the design outline I had for the area with a more concrete vision. so, all that is left is building in the puzzles and such. No new mechanics, or systems are needed for the area, so now, I get to see just how well the systems I built hold under new use.

One of the systems broke immediately. one I was not happy about needing to fix, and that was pathfinding. in the weirdest bugs you can get, the new levels I made did not work, while the old ones still did, with no noticeable differences in design. after several hours of bug hunting, I found the issue to lie in the order of the vertexes. if clockwise, they worked, if counterclockwise, they broke. Alex Dejardin helped me whip up a fix for that particularly nasty bug, and now pathfinding is working again.

of course, there were other bugs found, not from building, but from playtesting. a lot of softlocks, especially in the early game. that’s no good. also, while not a “bug” the completion of the intro was a bit unclear for testers, so that had to be worked on, to improve.

also took some time to fix up the progression system slightly, allowing to cover more game info in its task, and fixed a particularly annoying, if minor, bug with zooming in my node editor window. The zoom point was in the top left of the screen, and not the center. this is because screen origin stuff, and was rather annoying to get a workaround for, but its done now.

the phone system also got some updating, actually adding an options menu (finally), and adding a mood graph for the mood system in the mood ring app. (mood)

with this, I wanted they player to be able to get a general idea on their character’s mood, without giving hard values, hence this changing graph. The graphs changeability in scale was also something done in part by Alex Dejardin. Thanks Alex! 😀

Finally, I’ve also been ironing out the intro more. Giving it more detail, more build-up, and having it transition into the first proper level more seamlessly. which will be another thing to be playtested next month.

Time Spent –

the work I did, and what I clocked it as follows:

• fixed up intro/prepped for playtest – 6 hours
• fixed playtest bugs – 2 hours
• integrated battery/drain to progression system – 2 hours
• transferred over stuff like name and day to be easily accessible thru progression system – 0.5 hours
• built out mood graph in the mood ring App – 2 hours
• centered the zoom in node editor – 3 hours
• bug fixes – 5 hours
• Fixed pathfinding bug – 4 hours
• art work – 8 hours
• art work – 4 hours
• art work – 5 hours
• refactored progress nodes to allow more types, and allow easier updating moving forward – 3 hours
• expanded intro cutscene – 1 hour

What to do next-

so August, I feel, will likely be more of the same as July, playtesting, and implementing the second level. my goal is to have the 2nd level done before school starts up again, and subsequently, my progress will be slowed. I’m not 100% sure I can make that goal, but it’ll still be good to shoot for!

• Playtest()
• Finish Implementing Level 2()

Closing Notes-

my painting class has come to a wrap. had some excess paint, so I painted a concept piece for Stillness, here it is, Enjoy! and see you next month!