Introduction
Welcome to our progress report for our upcoming game “Happy Horrors”, what we will be discussing about is the component that I was a part of in the implementation aspect such as Particle effects, programming, sound & level Design. Within these components I will be breaking it down into 3 categories what went right, what went wrong and how I can improve upon this and lastly will finish this up with a conclusion about the future plans for next trimester.
Particle effects
What went right in the particle effects side of Happy Horrors was creating an asset that draws the players attention with being bright and moving in a pattern and adding to the game that doesn’t hurt the performance of the game and isn’t too much at once for the player to handle.
What went wrong during the aspect of particle effect was particle effect when the sprite it attaches to had an animation which affects how the particle effect should feel and act which took away for the experience of the player because it looks out of place.
How can I improve from this would be to embed the particle effect into the animation or changing the particle system to fit into the sprite depending on the animation(if any), and to ensure the quality of particle effect does its job, I will have to do research into options within Unity’s particle system and used that to create the right effect for the right sprite.
Programming
What went right in the programming side of Happy Horrors was the player(s) controller which I transition it to take in 2 players while setting up the input system. I create the based script for the water puzzles which does what is intended but …
…What went wrong was the water script is buggy in the sense that it doesn’t stop when required which makes it look out of place, since the physics that we use is custom made ( with the player script) what made things more difficult any question that would be direct to the programmer because of absents(due to reasons) made something that would take 5 minutes to answer takes way longer to acquire the answer.
How can I improve upon this has already been solve we been given a programmer plan which shows how to set up the mechanics for the player and brief description of how it doing which has benefit me a lot so far. what else I can do to improve the output of the programming side would be to read and inquire the physics in the system so I can get a better understand when designing a mechanics or puzzle or etc for a system that I have a understanding of.
Level Design
What went right within the level design was the planning, design as a team felt really strong as we had the entire team discussing about layout, how the puzzle will function and requirement to progress with teaching the player(s) mechanics that they will need throughout the level.
What went wrong was the balancing of the puzzles that makes both players have equal contribution towards that solution of the puzzle. Reason why this went wrong I believe that we didn’t have any experience in design a game that not a single-player experience so we didn’t incorporate enough of that co-op solution into the initial design of the levels.
How can we improve from here would be to keep track of how many action each player is doing? how impactful that action is? and ensuring that it is essential that both players are equally participating in the solution of the level. Another way that I will be active in ensuring that we avoid the wrong again would be to delve deeper in the design of a couple/multiplayer puzzle but focus on what the player is doing and then look at how the puzzle is being set up which should allow us to create a stronger co-op based puzzle to build upon.
Sound Design
What went right within the sound design aspect of Happy Horrors was the thematic and design of the SFX. The method that I was using to create the sound effects was effective and can be rather quick and doesn’t require a lot of time to set up.
What went wrong with the sound design aspect of Happy horrors was my uncertainty of the visual of the sprite, I know what was our theme is for the visual but not exactly what the asset would of look like. What I can do to improve upon this would to set up a meeting or have more discussing on what the sprite is going to look like and plan accordingly with how it should sound like.
what else I can do is embed the audio into the sound effect for a few reasons being able to test the SFX with the animation quicker and more efficient and allows for quick changes to the animation and sound without going through half the project to locate that SFX or animation.
Conclusion
My plans for the upcoming trimester is to fix my scheduling that way my team knows what time/day I will be doing tasks which should help with the availability of communication of assistance. another part of my plan is to build my sound effects into animation to improve the clarity of prefab build and make it feel better as well and last part of my plan is to create particle effects that feel and look good and make sense within the game logic and also ensuring the levels are balanced in the sense of the puzzle requires 2 players to do equal work.
Damien Steger 