We made it to the final week! This blog post will be a bit on the longer side, as we discuss what we have done this week, as well as comment on our project as a whole.
Starting with what was done this last week, we had edited level 1 as well as fixing a large number of bugs that were present in levels 2 and 3.
With level 1, a more cheerful background music was added to it compared to the nature ambiance and lantern sounds heard in level 2 and the chase music in level 3. We also added a large number of dialogue events to help the characters learn the mechanic, but also to start learning the stories between the father and daughter. In the level, the daughter walks through a path to collect pine cones hoping to feed some squirrels, and the father walks through his path to shoot logs and collect a key. This key opens a gate in the clearing, and leads to the level 1 to 2 cutscene.
The level 1 to 2 cutscene was drawn out and colored, showing scenes of the daughter running ahead of the father, and then another scene of the daughter leaving her father and going through a small hole in a gate, thus separating the father and daughter and moving into level 2. There is also dialogue added in this cutscene, and shows the conflict between the daughter and father occurring. The dialogue includes the father telling the daughter they must leave the forest and go home as it is getting late, but the daughter does not want to go home. She tells her father that she does not have enough freedom, and runs away. This then leads to level 2.
In level 2, there were no large changes made, but multiple small changes. The first change was that invisible walls were added to ensure that the father and daughter do not stray too far out of the path and become unable to finish the level. We also increased the speed of the monster,as earlier the daughter would be able to outrun the monster by a significant amount. We added more dialogue as well to further push the story between the father and daughter. Another small change involved the numpad and gate the father uses. Originally, the father would open up the numpad UI immediately after he approached the gate. Now, there is a particle system (the same as the one used for collectible items) that the father can interact with to then open up the numpad UI. Multiple bugs were fixed, such as the wolf encounter, in which the father could throw the bone before the daughter would hide from the wolf, and therefore would cause the level to not finish. Other small bugs include the father being able to shoot the logs from far away, and removing dialogue that would appear when it shouldn’t.
The level 2 to 3 cutscene had stayed the same, except for dialogue added to the cutscenes. This dialogue has the father and daughter happy to see each other, but also has dialogue where the daughter tells the father there is a monster in the woods and she hears it nearby. This then leads to level 3.
There was one large change made in level 3, in which when the daughter collects all 4 keys and interacts with the fence, the screen will now change to full screen with a background of the daughter facing the gate with the locks. The lock and keys UI then appears, and the game has a focus on the daughter, and the father player is then able to watch and support the daughter as she goes through this final task. Other small edits and bug fixes include adding invisible walls, fixing lighting issues, adding the jitter movement to the monster, as well as adding more dialogue events. The game ends once the father and daughter approach the truck, and the final cutscene plays.
Full Screen Daughter Moment in Level 3
This final cutscene wraps up the story with the father and daughter running away and entering the truck. The monster follows until they reach the edge of the forest, and then the monster turns back. The father and daughter then reconcile, and the story ends. Like all of the other cutscenes, music is also added to this one.
Some other bugs that were fixed that do not depend on a specific level include fixing a bug regarding controller issues where the players would have to reconnect their controllers after every level. This could cause the players to switch if they were playing the father or daughter, but has now been fixed. There was also a lot of dialogue issues that needed to be resolved, such as the font and font size. Another dialogue issue occurred where dialogues would play at the same time and cause a jumble of letters to appear, which has now been fixed. Finally, the menu UI underwent some changes to make it more intuitive and interactive.
As a group, we had learned a number of new techniques and programs.
Asumi, the producer, learned how to manage hers and everyone else’s time, as well as ensuring that no one was overloaded on work they had to do for the week. She also learned how to do a large number of small tasks that range from programming, animation, and design. She also learned the process and amount of work and cooperation it takes to create a game and is glad she had a wonderful team to bring this game to life.
Gary, the artist, learned how to use After Effects and cut down on his time spent animating. He also learned to consider the character’s movements when animating. For example, using the puppet pin tool in After Effects allowed some jerkiness into the animation that felt appropriate for the monster.
Joshua, the sound designer, learned how to use Ableton Live, Audacity and Midi keyboard to compose music and sound effects that fit the game theme, and also how to use FMOD to control music and sound effects in Unity. Joshua also helped in programming, in which he learned the syntax of C# and how to program in a more efficient way in Unity, such as using coroutine, delegate, singleton, and serialized parameters to make the code clean and efficient. He also learned some basic GLSL shader coding, and pure C# coding to implement the same shader effect, as well as learning the new input system for Unity, sprite animation, and UI. Joshua also contributed to 3D modeling, in which he learned how to use Blender and put them in Unity, and created particle systems to generate glows and fire. Regarding teamwork, he learned how to express his ideas in English as a non-English speaker, how to cooperate and understand the importance of team spirit, to trust, help, get help and learn from teammates, and to work as a team in a way more efficient way.
George, the programmer, became better at writing clean code. As Asumi and Joshua also contributed to some portions of coding, he made sure to include a lot of comments so it is easier for them to understand what is occurring. He also learned how to use Unity’s new input system. This new system was confusing if there are 2 or more controllers involved, and therefore had to learn this new system. He also created PlayerInputHandler.cs and CutsceneInputHandler.cs to interact with the PlayerInputManager.cs provided by Unity. Finally, he learned about writing shaders for Unity’s default render pipeline. He had to write a posterize post process shader and a red hue shift post process shader for this game.
Finally, if we had more time, we would have liked to fix additional UI bugs and also add some better dialogue, as sometimes the lines do not flow best in the game and can come out strange. We would also have liked to edit the monster animation and movement to match the new animation that was created but never implemented. Another edit we would have liked to change is the level 3 camera angle, as we had tried multiple fixes, but could not figure it out, and therefore had to leave the camera angle the way it was before. We would have also liked to optimize the code more and have the game run smoother, and create more 3D models to use in the game. We also would have liked to edit the pacing of the story, to make it feel more cohesive.
Before we sign off for the last time, we would like to show you our game trailer! We hope you enjoy!