Week 03: I'M LATE OH NO

OH NO, I was supposed to write this Thursday but didn't. Holy moly but here I am. I'm in a meeting with a DIFFERENT game group.

I'm not sure what we really realized about our game this week. We talked more about our angle and hopes for our game's completion. We'll have a good prototype soon with some basic art so that's exciting! Hopefully that will help decide our next evolution of the production. Right now we can't totally decide if a WarioWare angle is the way to go with our game, or if a Mario Party aspect is the better choice. What we need BEFORE we can really test for this is a basic skeleton of one mode at least. Then we can see how long our gameplay sessions last, how interested people are in the play, and if they actually find it fun or not. We want to push the "fun" meter as far as it can go. We want to reach the PEAK fun if you will.

I have high hopes for our game. Once we really start playtesting I think we'll find out a lot about our gameplay. I'm expecting one game to last about 30 seconds, but perhaps this will end up actually being shorter or longer. I GUESS WE'LL JUST FIND OUT WITH TIME. YEEHAW I'm excited.

Week 3: The Art of UI

This week, I feel like we're arguing a lot less, which is phenomenal! (I kid, we yell for fun)

Last week, as a group, we were still solidifying the routes that we wanted to take. We all brainstormed a ton of possible modes that we could work into or from our core mechanic. There was cooperative boulder avoiding and competitive coin battles, etc.

This week, has been all about pinning down key interactions and their information... so like, UI. Charles and I have been going over it, and I think we've got something that can work in regards to scoring, but will need some testing to make sure that it hits home with players.

Otherwise, I'll be making a fancy start button for our game. I'm thinking old timey illumination letters?

Week 03: *Insert inspiring title here*

Since we have figured out what direction we are going in, we've come up with a thousand new concepts to work with within this multiplayer game. And then we sat down, yelled at each other, and figured out the basic five we'd like to do. It went something like this:

Justin had originally uploaded this when we were all arguing.

But I think we have our game modes down. Now it's just a matter of "arting" them and designing a functioning UI system that makes sense and is not too in the way. Oh and actually making the modes.

Getting Out of Hand

After assembling our projected format for the game (but still no formal title), we have gone to our respective corners and commenced our duties. It is in these early stages that I suspect our communal sense of team unity will face its most gruesome challenge, as demand for quality product will intersect with conflicting vision. 

In other words, we'll be totally fine if I stop acting like such a weenie.

Home is where the heart is.

In the short term, most of my objectives are going to entail determining the best course of action regarding player feedback and conveyance of info. This process is muddled considerably by the nature of our premise- it will be hard to see most information we place on the screen if the overwhelming majority of  it is consistently covered by a mob of overlapping hands. For that reason, I feel we should alter the competitive aspects of the game such that very little information is required at all, and try our best to let audio cues do the heavy lifting.

Speaking of audio, I'm going to try to have a musical theme ready by the end of the week, but it has been slow going thus far. I have a reasonably substantial musical background, but backing tracks for party games are a beast all their own. It'll be a neat challenge, but I might need to call in some favors in order to make it happen.

Week 02: Baby Balls

I need to think of a new name for what the circles in the finger twister game could be called. They definitely should NOT be called baby balls but for some reason that's the only name I've got in my mind for them currently. Hopefully a team member helps fix this today at our meeting.

I'm really proud of us. We finally settled on an idea and I think it's for the best. As many of the team has said, we can make a good game no matter the idea we choose, which I think is true, but I also think that finger twister allows for the most room in development. That being said, it also is probably much more of a headache for Justin, so Justin, I'm so sorry. YOU'RE A TROOPER!

Wow so this blog post is mostly just me talking about how we picked an idea, but I guess that's a big deal. There's something I really like about our team dynamic, it's calm but also ready to "do things", which I particularly like. I know the development process is going to get messy, but here's me saying in writing that I like our team. I like you guys as people. Hopefully we all still like each other through the process but if not, at least it's here in writing that that once was the case. Personally I think we'll all like each other by the end though, so I'm rooting for that.

I'm excited to start working on concept art and just WORKING on this project. WE HAVE AN IDEA, and that's what matters.

Mario voice "Here we GO!"

Setting Sail

Alas, we scorn our cephalopodal roots in favor of a tablet game centered around the awkward entanglement of hands. I have little doubt that this decision was for the best, though my sentiments hinge, of course, on our ability to properly utilize the immense talents we find at our disposal. Though the squid concepts (all 500 of them) have been left behind, they will commit an enduring vestige on the progression of this new game, perhaps in more tangible form than we presently suspect.

We hardly knew ye.

I am highly optimistic about our prospects for our new game, however, as there are very few restrictions on the direction we can take- the world is our oyster! Devising myriad game modes and mechanics can escalate this idea into a real hum-dinger, without a doubt.

First?

I could probably make a game about pulling teeth with all this experience I racked up... but its settled. Finger Twister it is. Now I only have to figure out how...

You see, I spent hours wokring out that the new Unity Buttons removed their hover functionality and traded that in to the event trigger management system, which means that right now, its a button, with a trigger, with collision, with point effects, with a spring, with a rigid body, with a sprite renderer, with an image renderer too for some reason because its not used but required for the button which is not used but required to trigger the events. Oh and the event trigger still does not have a do while pressed or hovering function, so it's up to clicking it and not removing ur finger or leaving its area. But if you do it will go down, or double down, in short it doesn't know when you lift your finger while outside of the button, so it's possible to go perma negative score. I will need to write raycasts for all fingers every frame and not blow up the framerate somehow or find a new solution. Yay!

Unity you suck.

At least its fun so far, but next the plan is rolling little sleeping animal balls up and having them wake up and wander around. Not sure if its cute or mean to be poking sleeping puppies.

Week 02: The Debate Continues...?

It's quite impressive that the desire to choose one game ends up spawning several more ideas.

On one hand, I'm loving the group dynamic of being able to spawn ideas off of each other. Everyone brings something new to the table. A new mechanic. A twist on the original. A different style. However, this process is not without its qualms. The longer we debate, the less time we have to produce. But then again... If we nail the idea down now and fully flesh it out, we might be better off.
I really do believe that no matter what we choose we can make something impressive.

So what have we done in the past week?
Lots of talking and unpacking ideas. There's never enough time in the day. It doesn't help that we all have odd job hours or classes that throw off our meeting schedules. But we're making it work. Hell, we have some of the best artists and designers shoved into this team. We got this.

In the meantime, please hold enjoy some thinking music:
Can't slow down by Reaktor Productions

 Just keep swimming

EDIT ( a few hours later):
WE DID IT GUYS. WE CHOSE A THING.

Week 1: Title in progress...

Today's class consisted of presenting our little fledgling ideas to the world, and then subsequently getting their feathers plucked by the masses. (Just kidding, the class gave really good and kind feedback. ^^)

Past week: We individually and collectively amassed a big word document of possible ideas. There were some pretty sweet gems that we had to pass on, ranging from cooperative egg cracking to be a sneaky clown in obnoxious shoes. After much debate and turmoil, we settled on what I call Mr. Squid-game and Keyboard Twister.

This week: So we're still not sure which of the two ideas we want to pick, so we're researching each idea more thoroughly and seeing what paths these ideas can take. We've already made some tremendous progress in that regards. For the end of the week, we're going to focus on making some prototypes to get a better grasp on the ideas and see which may prove better in the end.

And that's all for now! I think that our team is able to make a stellar game, no matter the path we choose.

Week 01: Too Many Game Ideas

Which is not a bad thing.

Many were great ideas but we couldn't figure out a way to implement them within the given constraints. Others were extremely over-scoped.  We managed to narrow it down to two ideas, (okay in reality, there's game idea #1, #1.5, game idea #2, #2.1, #2.2, and #2.3 -due to trying to simplify and adjust). We'll see where this takes us.

In the meantime, there's prototyping and art testing. Seeing what works and what doesn't.

Current Challenge: Picking ONE idea.
(or ya know, mashing things together)

Week 01: The Egg Dies Before it Hatches

I don't care about that egg game, I'm glad the egg is dead. The egg idea had nowhere to go, but these two ideas do and I'm excited.

We presented today and got some good feedback. While we don't have a solidified idea yet, we have two ideas in the works that we are going to put more time and research into this weekend. I'm excited to see where we can take these ideas, and to eventually choose one of them to put all our efforts into.

While it would be nice to have a clear direction as soon as possible, I don't mind taking more time this weekend to think it through and make sure our concepts are possible and plausible. I want us to make the best product that we can, and doing extra research ahead of time is never a bad thing.

I'm not sure which idea I prefer, I like both of them equally for different reasons. Basically, whichever idea we choose, I'll be happy, which is definitely a good thing.

We're gettin' ready to blast off.

We have an inkling of an idea...

Hi there! I'm Charles, and I'm one of the designers from kalamari inC.

Here and now, on September 14th of 2017, we are going to pin down the premise of the game that we will then proceed to develop over the following 8ish weeks. Many lovely ideas were hatched, but some simply cracked under scrutiny. The final two ideas that remain are as follows:

- A soothing game in which players control a squid that leaves an ink trail as it orbits flowers and the like. Leaving the orbit at variable times will alter the travel path of the squid, which may or may not inhibit the squid's ease with which the next flower can be reached, etc.

-A funky semi-cooperative business simulator that involves crowding large amounts of players around a single keyboard and awkwardly struggling to hit their required keys under the veritable swarm of hands.

The latter retains an entertaining, seemingly unique gimmick, but fails to employ the tremendous artistic talent our team possesses to great effect, and may have balance issues when considering several convergent systems. The former maximizes this talent, but is a bit lackluster mechanically, and may fail to stand out when compared to titles of similar mechanical merit.

I am truly lucky to have landed, yet again, in a team so chock full of exceptionally skilled individuals such that I have complete unwavering confidence that our game will turn out fabulously regardless of our decision.