Finished Turn In

Well, we got checked off by John with minor issues. He only broke the game about 3 times which is a definate improvement from last sprint. Now we are delegating who is doing what for this sprint. We are all very proud of the game now that it doesn't break all the time.

And...Time!

With one hour left until final turnin for this sprint, I'm feeling very confident about our position right now. Ian's got his particle effects and sounds working in the game, Shawn's model and camera transitions are awesome, Scottie's got some really cool interfaces for the various menus, and Kelsey and I got the game's core working with only minor bugs. Our biggest issue right now is the fact that our Arcade build crashes whenever player 2 tries to shoot, but there's really nothing we can do about that at this point. All that's left is some last-minute bug testing, and burning the disc.

When things come together

Tonight after I completed my Camera work, I was tasked with making the models in game move over time instead of instantaneously moving to their new positions. Thankfully this was accomplished in no time at all and I was able to balance my time back with what I had planned. The camera unfortunately took over 14 hours to complete, including bug testing! Tomorrow is the turn in day for Sprint 3 and we're about 7 hours away from burning the CD to turn in. I hope everything comes together.

Wearing thin...

Tensions are high and patience is wearing thin. Tonight is the last night of development on sprint 3 and things are getting crazy. We all spent today bug testing and quickly typing line after line of code. A lot of work remains for tonight but I'm sure we'll pull through. We've come this far haven't we?

The glass half full

With post one of the day taken care of and no one else around to pick up part two, I suppose that responsibility lies with me. The rest of my group spent today doing various tasks that individually make the game that much better. Ian worked on maps and sounds. Scottie worked with menus and particles. Kelsey worked on getting the arcade build working. Cory spent the time fixing various bugs that we encountered while also helping Kelsey. Overall today I would say went very smoothly. There were a few issues that we encountered early on in the day thanks to a change in code that caused our Exit functions to stop being called. This caused many things to stop working and a fix was quickly implemented. Tomorrow is expected to go off without a hitch. Sprint 3 is quickly coming to a close. With tomorrow being the last day of development, I think that we are well on our way to completing everything that we need.

Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?

Today during development I swear the bugs were avoiding me. I worked on a much better camera transition to make our game look and function better. Six hours were spent debugging just 6 lines of code! The reason it took so long was because of the process to get to the bug. First I had to start the game and traverse the menu system. Second I had to deploy my units and get them within firing range. Lastly I had to shoot and (hopefully) kill the units of the opposing force before checking if you could cycle through the remaining squads without the index into the vector being out of range. This was made even harder by the fact that there were also preexisting bugs in other parts of the code that would occasionally break me from the game about 30 seconds away from getting to where i needed to be. Also, on many occasions I was just unable to kill a SINGLE unit in either army. The game would just be over with a TIE game screen and I would have to start the process completely over. This experience really gave me a look into what it takes to be a QA tester for video games. I now know how tedious, repetitive, and frustrating that job is. Much more of my respect is given to the brave individuals who undertake that position.

A beautiful nightmare

Art in games is really taken for granted a lot of the time. A great deal of my time spent today was in Paint.NET constructing a quick template for a HUD that I could change into three different "race specific" HUDs used in game. They will make the game look a lot better in my opinion but I truly underestimated the design choices necessary and the graphical knowledge needed to make something visually appealing. Another thing that added stress onto the ordeal is the fact that they aren't just something that a user can pan over quickly. They represent the HUD. The main display in-game that separates the game world from the information displayed. These need to look, preferably, amazing. I feel as though I did a very good job in the 6 hours I spent working with them, and I hope very much that it adds the visual spark I was seeking.

Crash Course

Well, I've spent the past two days working on fixing our numerous bugs and issues, and we're really seeing a difference in the game. Crashes are almost nonexistent at this point, and the few that we find are fairly minor and easy to avoid or fix. Now, with any luck, the pieces that my team members are adding won't create further issues.

Full Speed Ahead

Today was the first official development day for sprint 3. Already we've knocked out a decent number of hours off of our schedule and things are looking good. I've personally already written out 3 armies worth of xml files to load into the game. Thankfully they were quick and easy so I could move onto bigger and more complex issues. During the next week we really plan on this game growing exponentially into something everyone can enjoy. The visuals will continue to improve and the gameplay will be smoother and much more enjoyable. It's going to be a rough couple of days but I know that we as a group can pull this off. Ready... Set... Go..!!

VS-40K - The Beginning of the End...

Well, we've started up development for the last of three sprints on this project. Our primary goals this week are fixing any game-breaking bugs and updating the visuals and sounds to make the game look really professional. I'm in charge of fixing some of the more prominent bugs, and will eventually also be doing the loading screens that transition between the menus and gameplay. I'm looking forward to telling you all about my progress in taking our game from good to great!