On the Peak

End of Sprint 7: 12/14/19

Release Trailer

For the duration of the final 2 sprints I was assigned a total of 9 tasks. These ranged from creating final marketing assets such as a poster and a trailer to sourcing and implementing various audio and SFX for the game. I was also responsible for making sure that my team was on track to wrap up development by the publishing date. I completed all of the tasks on time, which helped create a much more polished feeling game in the end.

Marketing Poster

The main issue I faced with the tasks related to audio were based on budget and sourcing difficulty. We had zero budget for this game which forced us to find free use audio. This was very limited based on the quality and type of sound we were looking for. The other problem I had was that most of the soundtracks I found that were free use didn’t fit the tone of our game very well. After some deep digging on the internet I found a couple tracks that kept the feeling and tone that we had initially planned. I placed the sound effects to play based on the character interacting with pre-determined triggers built by my lead programmer. I set these around the scene to compliment the various parts of the map and pacing of the game.  

Control Scheme 2D Asset

The marketing materials was also a challenge for me because I am not much of an artist in the traditional sense. I used some of my Photoshop skills to create a poster and game cover for the project. I recorded some gameplay footage and used Premiere Pro to cut together a trailer for our release. This was pretty fun because I was able to create something that I felt delivered the feeling of the game in a 40 second trailer. 

Overall I had a ton of fun working on this project and learned a lot about working in VR. I also learned how important it is to have a vision holder on the team to drive direction and scope. This was an issue that we had early on and it took some time to iron out the specific details of the game, but once we did development moved much faster. I can’t wait to implement the things that I’ve learned from this game on future projects!

End of Sprint 5: 11/10/19

For the last 2 sprints my tasks revolved around sourcing and creating assets for the Level Designer to use in the scene.I was assigned a total of 7 tasks, these included flora and particle effects that will be used for various things. I was also responsible for sourcing textures that the level designer could use to paint the terrain. I was able to complete all but 1 of the tasks which was sourcing ambient audio and SFX for the game. This task is currently in progress but it is not fully completed.

Tree Model

One of the issues I faced during these sprints involved the creation of trees and bushes. I had planned on modeling and texturing at least 3 variations of trees and shrubs for the level designer to use as props in his scene. I quickly realised that because I was not a very good modeler these seemingly simple tasks would take me far too long to complete. 

Shrubbery

After evaluating the scope and schedule of the project, I decided to shift gears and find an asset package that I could use to generate these objects instead of modeling and texturing each variation. I found a package called MTree which allowed me to manipulate some settings on a scriptable object and quickly and easily create multiple variations of trees and bushes. This  allowed me to complete these tasks relatively quickly and refocus my attention on collaborating with the other members of the team to fine tune gameplay elements.

Winning Pyrotechnic Effect

Overall I feel like the last 2 sprints have gone very well and, based off of the feedback that we received in the most recent playtest, we are on the right track as far as scope and vision of the project.

End of Sprint 3: 10/13/19

For the duration of this sprint I was tasked with a total of 3 cards for this sprint which included some 2D art and modeling. After finishing the 2D artwork that was assigned to me, I ran into a design issue that caused some problems with the project development as a whole. There was a disconnect between me as the producer and the original vision holder of this project. I had interpreted the pitch of the game as something that was more of a simulation than a game, which wasn’t entirely accurate. 

Decal Sheet for additional texture on the bike model

After some discussion amongst the team I sat down with the vision holder and person who originally pitched the game in order to hash out a development roadmap for the project. This allowed me to create much more accurate agile cards for the team and will ultimately lead to less confusion during the development of the game. I also worked with the vision holder to create a feature doc that defines what we decided would be primary, secondary and wishlist feature of the game moving on. This was another great tool that came out of this meeting that will only further the development of a great project.

I spent the majority of the last sprint reworking the design philosophy of the game to ensure that the product that is being developed, is in line with the vision that was originally pitched. This caused me to not be as productive from an asset creation/ implementation standpoint, but was necessary in order to realign the development cycle. Now that the team as a whole is on the same page and we have a clear vision and a chartered development path, I feel that the upcoming sprints will be far more productive than previous sprints have been.

End of Sprint 1: 9/15/19

Kicking off development for On The Peak, I was assigned 3 tasks for the duration of the first sprint. I was able to complete 2 of these before the end of the sprint, with 1 being left in progress and not completed moving into sprint 2. I was responsible for creating a main menu, an options menu, and a speedometer UI element that will be used by the player in game. I was able to complete the 2 menus before the end of the sprint, but I ran into some issues with the speedometer based on implementation in VR.

Example of  The Different Buttons and States.

I wanted the menus to match the look and feel of the game, so I decided to create custom button art that would reflect the games overall vision. I made several buttons for both of the menus, each of which have a default state and a highlighted state to indicate which button is currently selected by the player. I ran into an issue while creating the speedometer based on the fact that the game is in VR. This presented the problem of how I would design and implement this piece in game. I decided to put some more thought into this aspect of the game to ensure that I would be able to create an asset that was both necessary and useful for the game. 

Main Menu

Moving forward into the next sprint I will be working towards finalizing the speedometer UI element that will be used to provide players with some visual feedback for their momentum. I will also be working on creating a world space menu to utilize the VR aspect a bit more than just a traditional canvas menu. This also includes scripting the functions of the buttons so that they will work correctly when the player interacts with them. If I manage to finish these other tasks I would like to work on some light modeling to add some assets to the level.

Options Menu