Final Post - Design

I kept forgetting to do the weekly posts, but at least I can provide a comprehensive list of what I've contributed over the course of this game.

• made designs for the skewers/sticks and reiterated upon the first pass based on playtest feedback 
• placed the marshmallows onto these skewers/sticks
• tested out different placements to make sure the marshmallows wouldn't roast all at once
• tested out different skewer/stick placements for the best visibility with the current designs
• adjusted and calibrated the camera angle all throughout the development process, tweaking it to suit changes to new assets (the fire pit, etc.) as well as feedback from playtesters 
• created a placeholder terrain in the alpha phase and later modeled the current terrain used in the beta build 
• worked with Clay in experimenting with a reflection shader after playtesters expressed a lack of clarity in marshmallow distance from the fire 
• we ultimately had to discard this reflection shader but the prefab still exists in the files 
• placed and arranged the environment assets from Heather into the level to populate the world and build ambiance 
• assets include trees, fire pit, grass tufts, and moon 
• adjusted asset placements accordingly based on playtest feedback
• designed the Start and Menu buttons for the main menu, as well as the night sky background
• animated the title logo after receiving it from Heather and John 
• had plans to animate the Start and Menu buttons
• also to make the stars twinkle in the background of both the menu and the levels
• this is all to make the menu more dynamic for the player if they linger there 
• collected some playtest data over the course of development from friends and family outside of DePaul

Final Post

What I worked on mostly is coding the mechanics for turning the hand. I also wrote code for making the hand move naturally. Other aspects that I worked on where putting the animations for the faces into the game and coding them to go along with the different states of the marshmallows. I also working on getting the particle effects working. What I would like to continue working on is introducing new marshmallows and adding more levels to the game.

Beta Download

Mellow Mallow Beta

Animation and Modeling: Heather
Programming: Clay and Matt
Design: Cassie and John
Music: John

Gameplay Link

Controls- Left and Right arrows rotate wrist. Up and Down arrows move closer or farther from the fire. Space moves to the next level.

Enjoy!

Game Download

Beta post 6/8

Everything is set for the beta. Ended up making a bounce for the camera, allowing the player to have more give over it all. I would say this game is about 30 - 40 percent complete with everything in it now. The fire still needs work and the loading between start menu and first scene is longer then I want. That pause may be from the size of the face images in the game.

Final Post - 6/8

I worked on several things in the game.  I originally had the idea to use the left & right buttons to eat/finish the level but we ended up changing that to the space bar for the final game.  I also originally found the fire pit that we had in the game that included the rocks, logs, fire and particle effects.  We eventually created our own logs and rocks to use but kept the particle effects.  I also had the idea of use Unit's terrain editor to add grass to the level.  We kept the idea of the grass in the level but used a Maya model for the terrain and grass instead.  I also came up with the logo for the menu.  Another thing I worked on was the signs that were in each level.  I found and edited the sound effects that were used in the game.  The thing i spend the most time on in the game was the music. At first I spent a quite a bit of time trying to find pre-make tracks to use but then I was tasked to try and create a original track to be used in the game.

week of 5/24 - 5/31

This past week I've been working on finishing up on a music track to use somewhere in the game.  I think it could be good for a title screen track.  I also created the logo for the main menu.  I started to work on modeling and texturing a sign to use in the game to display instructions.

5/24 Transitions and basic control polish

Next I have to work on is the fades out and fade ins to each scene. We want to have each scene look like its part of the same "area" without it clearing looking like its a new level.

I also have to change the controls to allow the spacebar to go to the next level when the arm is at a specific height.

I've been still working on a music track to use somewhere in the game.  We did decide on one of the existing tracks I found online to use so there is the possibility of maybe using both in the game. The one I'm making and the existing song I found.

5/12 Less Game More Art

I am going to take away the GUI and see how it feels when people have the choice whether to burn the marshmallows or keep them golden.

Also polishing the burning system.

5/10

worked on fixing up code and implementing a basic main menu will continue with putting in animations for faces and cleaning up code

Instructions:

Arrow keys to rotate, hold down both to take your marshmallows out.

Press spacebar afterwards to move on to the next level.

Alpha Gameplay!

Here is a minute of gameplay from our alpha for Mellow Mallow.

https://youtu.be/Ugs3Djoqrn8

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bx46YPed8njVNDZkMzNTbHRBQ1E/view?usp=sharing

5/4 update

I added some new songs into our shared drive to test in the game.  I'm still trying/testing LMMS to create an original song however I'm not all the musical when it comes to creating my own music.  My hope is that we can agree on a existing track I've found to use in the game that we all like and sounds good.  I will continue to work in LMMS to see if can come up with something.

I also was playing around with the grass textures and terrain in a separate file.  I found out how to transfer the existing terrain I created into our shared project. I will add the terrain I worked on into our project on perforce sometime this week so it can be added to our levels when we need it. I also uploaded some test grass textures I created/found/edited onto our shared drive.  I was trying to test different grass textures to see which one looked best.

5/2 Animations and Camera in Camera

Everything is starting to come together. Me and Matt have to look at the best way to add animations to the faces without over complicating it. Also it is not a neccessity, but I would like to try and implement a camera in camera feature in the game to help with the depth issue within the game. If the coding seems like it will take more time then neccassary then I will just look simplier ways.

4/26 update (1 day late)

This week I plan on continuing to work in LMMS to see if i can come up with a unique song for the game.  As a back up (since i'm not terribly great and creating original music) I am continuing to search for songs that may work in the game.  I have found a few more possible songs, some with lyrics that I found a method that could remove the lyrics from the song.  I also suggested adding terrain grass to the level which the team seemed to like.  I am also going to continue to looking into this as the one scene i created was just a test.

4/26 Percentage system = ON

The percentage system is working well and just needs to be tweaked to have a better timing when there is a perfected tan.
The next thing on the list is to work on a menu scene (nothing fancy, just to make a global object) and connect faces on the marshmallows according to their percentage/tan/burn.

matt 4/26

This week i worked on implementing a global object to carry data from scene to scene. I am going to continue working on getting the faces to change by how much the mallow is cooked. Also am going to implement a basic main menu for testing purposes.

4/18 Update

I'm continuing to work on finding sounds/music for the game.  I found about 8 possible tracks to use in the final game.  I am also going to look into LMMS to possibly create our own music.  I don't know how that is going to go but I'm going to watch some videos to see how it goes.  We created some test levels to see a few different speeds of tanning and burning to use in the game and came to an agreement about what felt good.

4/18

I continued to work on solving the problem with rotating the stick properly. The main goal for me this week is to get perforce working and to fix up the code to make future levels easier to implement.

4/18 Scene Selection

The main goal for this week for me is to set up the scene selections. To go from level to level is key in our game to help continue the player forward which will connect everyones work together.

Also, finally trying to set up Perforce for our Unity build (its about time xD).

4/18 Schedule

Viewable Schedule

https://docs.google.com/document/d/118xxWcSGJ6EPUHYdOQZl5c95UBMZiwjBitZO-07Bmi0/edit?usp=sharing

4/18 - Design Update

After testing to see how well the first pass on skewer/stick design fared in-engine, I've decided to redesign two of the three skewers/sticks we have so far in order to make them more challenging for the player. As it stands, our current designs are still too simple.

I'll hand off the physical prototypes of these new skewers/sticks off to our artist. After she models it, I'll test it again in-engine and see how the new designs fare. If I have to, I'll redesign them again based on how they perform. I'll also probably readjust the camera angles to accommodate the new designs.

I will also be working on designing a score screen that will fit our theme - right now it is just a simple GUI text box.

4/16 - Design update

I just got added on 4/16 so this post will be what I've worked on up until then.  I'll add a new post on Tuesday with more recent work.  I have been searching for and then added most of the sound effects in the game.  Several of them I've had to edit and tweak to better fit into the game.  I also found the temp fire pit we are using in the game.  We will most likely model our own but we may end up using the particle effects and the fire.  I originally did some coding for the two button press to eat the marshmallow but it refined by our programmers.  Based on feed back from the play tests in class, one tester had issues with rotating the wrist and accidentally hitting both buttons at once and eating the marshmallows when they didn't want to.  I suggested to the team to have the player hold those buttons down for a certain amount of time to eat the marshmallows.

4/16 - Art Update

As artist I have modeled and exported 3 of the sticks that our designer gave me, and the marshmallow model to be used in game. I've drafted the facial expressions to be used for the different levels of completion.

For this week I'll be working on finishing the final stick that was given to me and animating the faces. I also am going to talk with the coders about what would be the best way to export the expression animations. I may also update the logo during a break. I'm also going to continue looking up how to's on rendering a 3D model to look 2D.

4/16 - Percentages and Game Controller

The coding is now set up that stops the action of ending the game on accident (pressing left and right together at the same time must be held for x secs to end the session). At the moment there is a Star Scoring System that is being used to see how well the player is roasting marshmallows. This data is used to see if the player can continue on to the next level/scene. At least 3 stars are needed to continue on out of five.

Instead of using the Star Scoring, we will be moving on to a percentage system to show how far the player was to reaching a perfect score. This still has to be implemented along with a "still" time for a gold tan to allow the user a chance to get a perfect score.

A persistent game controller is also next on my list so an object can control what scene is what and which scene the player is currently.

4/6 - Prototype

I have about 75% of the prototype done on my end. Closer to the fire the marshmallow becomes black from white. Matt and I are working on a prototype each. I'm hoping i can get feedback on the programming early enough that I can improve it before class.
What i need to figure out is how to go from white to brown and brown to black. (Unity is still new to me haha)
Next thing I'm going to work on tomorrow is a skewer with multiple ends so it can show the effects of burning the marshmallows.

Roast Me Studios