Development Diary ​
Game Project 2

Day 1, 20-03-2023:

The day started off with the kickoff early on and all the teams were introduced to the sprint review and milestone schedules that were planned for the upcoming 9 weeks. The teams were placed together and our team had it's first meeting and the members got to see what the game was about after which responsibilities and roles were picked. Artists were finishing up their personal projects, while programmers had a meeting with their teacher. We also met the sound design team and also help them familiarize with the game. The GDD was started on and Milanote was set up for task to be distributed.

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Day 2, 21-03-2023:

We had our morning scrum at 9:00 and the artists had a meeting on art direction and the assets needed. The programmers also had a meeting, getting started on their flowchart. A team takeoff was scheduled and all present members of the team were meeting with Lotta for it. As the team take off concluded, the designers had a meeting taking more about the upcoming week, responsibilities and team roles.

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Day 3, 22-03-2023:

Being responsible for the world building and level design, I started the day off by creating a mockup of a possible language that our alien world can have. While doing this, I tried expanding into where this language can be utilized in the game and so we took a look into how the two of the levels can be designed. So a mock up of the main character's house was made by the artists. More modules were introduced and ideas were bounced of off each other. One of the artists had also started on test props for Greg's cereal kit.  

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Day 4, 23-03-2023:
It was a half-day for me and when I got here Calle and I came up with more modules so we have the option of expanding and having new modules for us to choose between. Spent the rest of the day cleaning PC, downloading engine and setting-up Git. 

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Day 5, 24-03-2023:
After having most of the team setup Git, the Unreal VR was set up and we got to see how it works and a couple of us got into the process of seeing what would be the ideal controls for the game. We looked into the standard VR controls and tried to get the initial scale down. 

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Day 6, 27-03-2023:

Calle presented the first sprint review. After that a roadmap was made for the 9 weeks and we also communicated with the sound engineers as to what we could do with the music & SFX and we will be talking more with them soon. I spent a lot of the day working on the GDD. There was also the first line of team name and we have votes on different names.

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Day 7, 28-03-2023:
Sick day

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Day 8, 29-03-2023:
Sick day

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Day 9, 30-03-2023:
We started with a bit of fun task today, which was voice recording. Calle and I went to the sound studio provided by the school and attempted recording some voice lines. We learnt the process which will make it easier and faster for us in the future to push out voice lines.

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Day 10, 31-03-2023:
Worked on the GDD and then prepared something to show for the sprint review for the next week. We had made a prototype of the home level and threw some props together for the teachers to see. I put temporary audio to every module that needed some sort of feedback (as a debug) and Viktor was working on an audio system for later which lets us switch between home environment and work environment without sacrificing the 360 audio.

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Day 11, 03-04-2023:

The team started with preparing for the sprint presentation. After the sprint we focused a bit on the UI and what kind of look and feel the UI should have. We picked out fonts and styles that suit our game. This also prompted discussions of the logo and so Calle and Marcus each designed their logos for our team name - Trolley Problem Productions.

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Day 12, 04-04-2023:
Firstly, we voted and picked out Marcus' logo which is really well-made and now official. We then got our first wave of SFX made by the sound engineers that were very clear and well made, if not also weird (in a good way). Put them all in engine and after that tested the new grabbing and pick up mechanic. Anton also figured out how to utilize the haptic feedback on the controllers and so I played with it a little bit to see how it works.

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Day 13, 05-04-2023:
Sick Day

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Day 14, 11-04-2023:
Back from easter and started on an animation and prop list to help the artists with organization and also to keep things more clear with what is priority. Then made myself a plan for how to proceed with the upcoming weeks and how to meet the aims. Also started on the day to day progression of gameplay.

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Day 15, 12-04-2023:
I worked the entire day designing the gameplay and the flow between levels and what mini-games the levels possess. I made 5 level designs to choose from as we plan on doing 3 levels in the game.

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Day 16, 13-04-2023:
Worked more on the level design, tweaking and adapting to the feedback I got on it. After that worked in engine with placing around props and make the room feel more interactive and visually easy to navigate. We were supposed to record some voice lines for next week but turns out we have company week so we will be losing a week. This means we will have to replan and adapt a lot as we cannot have everything we want in the game. 

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Day 17, 24-04-2023:

Back after having the presentations from the companies, a very eye-opening week for the team. Not only did we replan we also changed the way we will be working and approaching the upcoming days until gold. We have set strict plans for every day and week until gold presentation and made it analog and interactive which makes it more fun and visual. The team seems happy with the slight deviation in direction. We have BETA this week and everything we are doing is in interest of making a successful BETA presentation. I looked into the TV in the home level and tried to get it to play some of the videos we have.

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Day 18, 25-04-2023:
Started the day with helping Calle record all the voice lines we could. Ended up with a ton of voice lines to showcase for the beta. Then we had a little hiccup as we had no real script for the voice lines. Until this point we relied on the randomness of the voice lines but then we realized having some scripted events might make it more fun as there would be somewhat of a story that the player could follow. So, I started writing a script for the three days and recorded some voice lines for that.  

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Day 19, 26-04-2023:
I continued on the  script and worked on that pretty much the entire day, helping others here and there with in-engine work.

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Day 20, 27-04-2023:
We needed a plan for all the events and modules in the game (basically gameplay balance) so I updated and worked on the the gameplay and designed the timeline in way to work with the modules we currently had and tested it to make sure it felt clear and well-paced for a new player. 

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Day 21, 28-04-2023:
BETA day. We held the BETA presentation had some slight issues with it but we got feedback on how to fix it. We planned on holding playtesting for outside members to get better idea of what to do to improve in-game communication with the player.

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Day 22, 02-05-2023:
Sick day.

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Day 23, 03-05-2023:
George and I had multiple people try our game and give feedback on it. We saw that most people enjoyed interacting with the environment and saw how people wanted different reactions between items. The core gameplay (the minigames/modules) seemed confusing for the testers with the lack of knowing what something is supposed to work and what the player needs to do to complete a task. We will be focusing a lot on balancing and feedback.

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Day 26, 08-05-2023:
I spent the morning making a day-to-day visual progression to try and tell a story with the environment. I gave it to the environment artist, Victor, where we then discussed and experimented with the rooms to create our ideal ambience.  We had the sprint and we received advice on feedback again and so as we did before, we plan on really giving proper directions to lead the player to know what to do. 

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Day 27, 09-05-2023:
Started on the tedious yet important work of bug-fixing and testing and we have planned on continuing until the Gold presentation. We have all the pieces we need to complete, we just need to put them all together and make sure they work well together.

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Day 28, 10-05-2023:

Testing & bug-fixing.

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Day 29, 11-05-2023:

Testing & bug-fixing.

 

Day 30, 12-05-2023:
Testing & bug-fixing.

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Day 31, 15-05-2023:
The last week and my entire focus was shifted to the trailer which I found out I had to make when I came to school. I started out with a little list of what I wanted to show and collected some opinions on what other might want to see. I then took the list and expanded it into a brief timeline of how things will go down. To know more exactly what I wanted to do I needed music and so I went fishing for some free songs on the web and I hadn't found anything that matched my idea. At a random conversation one of the sound designers heard we were making a trailer and was very keen on making the music for it. We then discussed and planned and as we spoke a small teaser lasting 40 seconds turned to a full blown 2 minute trailer, which maybe a tad over-ambitious but I am excited about it. 

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Day 32, 16-05-2023:
I started with downloading and exploring Adobe Audition as I am not familiar with it and then recorded some gameplay. We found that when you screen record from the headset, it only records from one eye, giving it somewhat of a fisheye effect and after hours of battle we had a primitive solution of me holding and directing Calle on the VR and getting somewhat a decent perspective. But bigger issues came up when I couldn't find any of the recorded videos and this took me a while to figure out and when I did they were all in the wrong format. But it was hard to re-record it as I needed the help of another person and everyone had their hands full. So I got an add-on for audition which let me use the videos but the add-on was slightly outdated which made the videos play on really bad frames making it very difficult to edit. On the bright side, the music was made for the trailer and hats-off to the team they did a wonderful job and it sounds great.

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Day 33, 17-05-2023:

Last day before Gold presentation, I learnt a new way to convert the format that made things much easier and I spent most of the day editing. Got some more footage with the help of George and Calle to add to trailer. Hope everything goes well and people enjoy the trailer and game.

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Day 34, 19-05-2023:
| GOLD PRESENTATION |
Today we held our presentations for the representatives at SONY, the school and anyone else who had the pleasure of being around. It went well and was really exciting to see all the work being shown and even more exciting to see them enjoy the game and the trailer. All the groups did a wonderful job and I am really proud of everyone to see how hard they worked and how talented they are. Truly impressive to see how much the team did in just 9 weeks. It was a very new experience and a great challenge for everyone working with VR for the first time and to see how well people performed is just heart-warming. Good vibes all-around!