The Work This Week
Prototyping
We determined what our vertical slice will look like by halves.
Muzi, Aiden, and JD began the formal development of our space game this week. Since we’ve pretty well implemented the API for backend question support, we were able to focus on implementing some rudimentary gameplay such as star map and trading system. In the meantime, Evelyn and JD were working on the worldbuilding slides suggested by Chris, who helped us a lot determine the backstory and more importantly, pointed out the direction we should go when designing planets and aliens. Andrew was mainly working on the trading system which now uses a bargaining system other than fixed trade. Liangzheng was still fleshing out various game systems, as well as some UI stuff.
Logistics
The team finally had our logo, poster, and half-sheet done!
We talked with faculty instructors about the project process. They urged us to start creating art asset list and game design documentation to get things better organized. On the other hand, the team will need to probably have more communication to keep everyone at the same pace and determine design details.
Client Meeting
We showed the latest game prototype to our client during the meeting, as well as several design/art slides. We received positive feedback from our clients, who also pointed out some possible improvements to the “friendship” system.
On the tech side, we asked an issue related to WebGL and rendering in Safari. The CMU team was close to having the API for the inventory and friendship amount finished, though it might take some additional back and forth before getting finalized.
The Plan for Next Week
Next week, we will be working hard on implementing game systems since many details are getting confirmed along this week. The artists will begin initial art prototyping.