How has the Month been for Stillness –
I graduated from DigiPen this month, so that and wrapping up classes took up most of my time. 😦
I did however, get some SFX assets from Grey Davenport this month, so Stillness has some sounds now! plus, on the down time, I wrote some stuff.
What I said I would do (and did it get done) –
- UI/UX fixing (sorta)
- Playtest (nope)
- Polish Level 1 (nope)
- Stretch: (nope to all but one)
- Finish level 2
- Start level 3
- Mock up more conversations scenes (some serious progress was made)
- Paper prototype the emotional control mini-games.
What got done-
So, as stated, there are sound effects in the game now, provided by the gracious Grey Davenport. with those now in, that should hopefully seriously improve the UX of the game. I have to implement about half of them still, but I have them. has meant I need to actually set up and test my sound systems, so thats, good.
Another thing I wanted to actually get to, is the actual conversations that I want in the game, as they are to be a core element in the game, but not a single true one is in yet. this is, as I have diagnosed, a pacing issue, as the first conversation as I have it now, doesn’t happen until the end of the 2nd level, which is honestly, way too late for an element that is meant to be a core element.
as such, I looked at it, and decided to expand & refactor the opening dream sequence, to be an interactive conversation, as to A) have the core gameplay as soon as possible, and B) tutorialize the mechanics more in pieces earlier, so the original 1st conversation (now the 2nd) isn’t an info dump of mechanics (now it will mostly just introduce the pace mechanics, and mood mechanics).
The scene has also proven to be, in my opinion, a rather good thematic start to the story, and a stronger hook, to the original sequence I wrote, which is basically a cliff-note description of what I have written now. we will seen, when it comes to playtesting.
On other things, I updated the input system I was using. 1) to actually use unity’s input system, for easy changing for players. 2) I also changed how clicking to the next line works, mostly to avoid accidental double clicks. my mouse was getting sticky, and in general, I want to avoid such accidental double clicks, given line pacing is an important element.
Other things I did were animating the phone battery, so it drains with the battery life, and fixed some display errors, and finished the dream editor updates I started last month.
Time Spent –
- changed input to match unity’s system – 15 min
- changed next line action to avoid double clicks – 30 min
- animated phone battery – 1 hour
- fixed thought display canvas errors – 20 minutes
- Finished updating the Dream Editor – 1 hour
- Writing the new dream sequence – 5 hours
What to do next-
Finishing the new opening dream sequence mock up, test that a bit, then implement it, to further test. Then of course, there is finishing implementing the sounds I got from Grey. that is a solid task to get taken care of.
Following that, The entire first level of the Apartment itself is going to need some serious touching up. more clickable things, as well as reworking the puzzles, as the puzzles in the apartment should be more dead obvious, as it is the first level, and right now, they not hard, but their not obvious either.
so, in list form:
- Finish rewriting the intro dream sequence
- implement all the SFX
- Playtest
- Polish Level 1
- Stretch:
- Finish level 2
- Start level 3
- Mock up more conversations scenes
- Paper prototype the emotional control mini-games.
Closing Notes-
I am now a DigiPen Allumni. Woo! :3
Jesse Lozano 