A UNIVERSITY CAMPUS SUFFOLK GAME

Dean

Roles Since Previous Milestone Ryan Avent Level development More Art Renders for press pack George Daters Built a import parsing system for new levels Developed map mode Memory management Bug fixing Ryan Avent Level development More Art Renders for press pack George Daters Built a import parsing system for new levels Developed map mode Memory management Bug fixing Dean Leeks Project Management Level development Playtest data collation Roger Creyke Building the game level editor Compiled press pack Interview with IP1Zine Bug fixing

Progressometer OctoberMay Alpha

Roger

Old Level Design Pipeline Designer Programmer Design in Photoshop / on paper Mock up in Flash Convert positions in Flash mock up into C++ code Compile into game

Level Editor

Level Editor - Requirements The editor had to allow designers to Create, place, clone, delete and edit: sheets of ice world entities e.g: Start points and end points Checkpoints and pickups Enemy path nodes Set medal times and amounts for gold, silver & bronze Save levels in a maintainable format Export levels into game with no code

Level Editor - Features Entity Creation Tool Entity Conversion Tool Entity Frame Animation Selection Highlighting Visibility Panel

Level Editor – Heat Maps Display positional data of player during game Exported by game to text files Show death animations

Level Editor – Build Function Exports both a.cpp and.h file Straight compiles into game Adds commented header explaining origins of exported file (for editing later)

Level Editor Video

Versioning Woes To upgrade or not to upgrade Pros A more stable build (hopefully) A community supported build Cons Time needed to update game code to new interfaces Possible new bugs happening Newer version no guarantee of use We decided…

Upgrade! Two very good reasons why: We had major rendering bugs with large backgrounds These were better supported with newer PAlib The university computers had been upgraded We needed to match these so we could develop at UCS We assessed this risk and factored upgrade time into our project.

Marketing – Social Networking Goals Drum up interest in the game and it’s content Possible networking with

Goals Consolidation of assets useful to external stakeholders or members of the press Minimize time spent communicating common information or data related to the game to individuals Marketing – Press Pack

George

New Revised Level Design Pipeline Designer Programmer Design in level editor Compile into game

Potential Solution 1 Designer Design in level editor Compile into game

Potential Solution 2 DesignerDesign in level editor and export to game readable file

Level Creation PALib constrains maximum number of drawable sprites to 128 and DS hardware has small amount of VRAM Maximum NDS file size 4Mb Purpose of new level creation system was to create complex levels without exceeding these limits DS Limitations

Level Creation Level sprites are now created from a library of assets (tiles) Invisible or inactive sprites have their memory freed dynamically Levels are limited more by the DS conventional memory and can have several hundred sprites throughout the whole level Levels are created by code generated from the editor so the NDS file usage is minimal New Solution

Level Creation Ice blocks for each level created dynamically from a library of tiles Ice blocks can now move about over the water or even break apart The memory consumed by additional levels is minimal as the same tiles are reused

Level Creation Current Tile Library

Bugs / Memory Leaks Fixed memory leak occurring from loading and deleting levels Other minor memory leaks are present in the menu and will be ironed out in the near future Massive memory corruption caused by PALib when deleting and creating sprites often. Fixed in time for the first playtest

Dean

Level Creation Level Editor Fast, Have it at home/on laptop, Ease of use, Customizable level sizes, Adjust times for medal levels, Level name, Asset cloning, Shark path creation, Wordage on signposts

Level Creation cont. Level Design Distance between icebergs, Number of fish, Positioning of checkpoints, Iceberg sizes, Signposts and what they say

Level Creation cont. The first level A tutorial level Signposts tell the player how the controls work Teaches the player how to control the game as they play (A mechanic currently used in today’s games to prevent having tedious tutorial sessions. Found in LittleBigPlanet ) A more fun way of learning the game controls quickly

Project Plan

Risks Realised Hardware failure Memory leaks Level design time issues Upgrade PAlib R4 Cards left in Harlow/Micro SD Cards Worn Out

Ryan

Playtest A alpha play test was held on the 19 th of march, how was it organised? Step one: Infiltrate Chris's level one flash lesson Step two: Remember to bring crisps Step three: Get some volunteers Step four: Test the game Step five: Hand out the questionnaires

Questionnaire What was the aim of the Questionnaire? What did we want to know? The three main questions. Were the controls effective? Was the game play fair and changing? Was the game enjoyable?

Playtest results Were the controls effective?

Playtest results Was the game fair and changing?

Playtest results Was the game enjoyable? Overall the game received positive feedback from the testers, some advisements for game improvements are listed below. - More pressure to complete objectives and more mechanics building on jump - A more prominent signpost font - A greater variety of penguins

Press Pack Renders Art work has been created for use in a press pack and magazine article. What is in a press pack? IP1Zine Magazine Article – Artwork deadline

Dean

What next? Continue to adjust game based on feedback Playtest the game with the new/revised 10 levels with our target audience Integrate polar bear and mechanics Integrate timers Refine scoring/difficulty/controls Finish UI Finish menu screens