Howdy and welcome back everyone! Producer Alex here, with another update on the team's progress for Card Garden! In Sprint 5, we had a total of 198 points assigned, 134 of which were completed, leaving only 28 left over in In-Progress. I feel like we've gotten into a pretty consistent groove as a team, and I've seen what we can get done; I am feeling pretty confident that the closer we get, the more accurately I can gauge what my team can get done. Using what I know, I'll be carefully crafting the remaining time we have to ensure we get the most important stuff done and in the game. This includes artwork, animations (more on these later), and VFX in the form of visuals (Particle Effects) and audio! We've done pretty well so far, and I'm confident we can keep the momentum going. 

Here's the burndown chart from the end of Sprint 5 for you to take a look at. We're using this to guide us, not to drive us, as we've been told. It looks like we'll finish quite early, but knowing the pace of my team and how much we get done, I know that our average looks quite different than the reality. 

Now, let's jump into it! 

Programming

This Sprint, our Curly Bracket Crew did quite a lot of fun stuff for the game really enhanced the feel and feedback for the players! This Sprint included a lot of implementation of assets and some more behind the scenes things that the player can't see. For the more visual front, we now have Level 2 Assets and all of our completed buildings implemented into the game, giving it a much more polished look that the player can see! Along with those assets, our programmers have also implemented a lot of the gameplay Particle Effects, such as the Obeya and the dying enemies. We also were able to get a huge overhaul of our UI elements and tutorial pop-ups thanks to our Lead Programmer, Arjun. For the behind the scenes things, which will become more apparent to the player once they are paired with models and cards in the coming Sprint, our programmers were able to give functionality to our Honey Pot building, Enemy Level-Ups for their stats, and the ability to cast the Bee Infestation Spell and build the Apiary Building. Here are the visuals that I can show you:

Modeling

Our modelers were quite the heroes this Sprint! Thanks to Cameron and his hard work, we now have our Level 2 Tileset completed and implemented within the game! Jeremy has completed modeling and texturing our Level 2 Lair,  Bee Apiary model and our Honey Pot model, both of which look fantastic and will soon be implemented within the project/game in the coming Sprint. Joseph has worked hard on modeling our Queen Bee, which will be textured and implemented very soon in the next Sprint as well! We are very happy with the models that our modelers have provided us with; like the previous Sprint, our modelers focused on quality over quantity, which we are appreciative of the closer we get to the end. The more focus spent on quality means hopefully less issues later down the road when we implement them into the project. We're going to have them working on the remaining tileset and buildings/character models in the next Sprint, and afterwards will have them working on polish for smaller models. 

Below are examples of their work:

Level Design

This Sprint, our Level Designers did an amazing job of improving their levels in looks and balance! Ryan worked hard to beautify his level further by filling and populating the areas around it so that it didn't look like it was just sitting in empty black space. We also gave Ryan enough time to take the feedback from the previous Sprint to iterate the Encounters and enemies in his level before switching his seat in Unity with Justin. While he was out of Unity, we had him working on more VFX that would help bring Justin's Swamp level to life. Justin worked especially hard to set up his Encounters and beautify his level in time for Build Day, which was a huge feat that should be acknowledged! His level turned out really nicely, and is able to be seen in our most recent build on our page! While we wait for the assets he needs to beautify his level, we had Marc working on finding audio and on making his Encounters. He found audio for a main theme, background music for Level 1 and Level 3, and also solidified his Encounters for his level. We look forward to getting him onto Unity in the next Sprint so that he can really get to work on his level with the all the tools and functions at his disposal so that he too gets the chance to make his level shine. 

Below are some of the visual examples of their work:

2D Art

We got quite a few lovely pieces of art from the 2D Art team that we'd like to highlight in this post! Starting first with some card portraits, we got portraits for our Stone Tower, Bee Spell,  Fire Spell, Deus Ex Machina, and Blacksmith cards, courtesy of Gili, Gabrielle, and Sadiq. We also got some enemy portraits for Gabrielle, which we're looking to feature on our How-To-Play pages. And finally, we also got a promotional poster from Atley, which will be part of the final build turn-in at the end of the semester. Receiving these pieces came at a steadier pace this Sprint, which we are grateful for. We hope to see it continue into the next Sprint, though we will be discussing what else we can request of the art team, as we are nearly finished with the card portraits and the majority of the art our game needs. There are still a few portraits and other assets that we'd like so as to decorate our itch page towards the end of the semester. 

Below are some examples of their work:

Sprint 5 is done, and we are now two sprints away from the end of production! How daunting to think about! We've made it through about two months or so of production and have come so far since our first Sprint. From here on out, we're entering Feature Lockdown, which means no new added features will be coming past Sprint 6. We're going to be focusing on refining what we have and getting it as polished as possible, working on polish and bug fixing more than anything. We're getting down to the wire, but I have faith in my team to keep pushing us towards the end to a strong finish. We've already met some of our goals for polish and corrections, starting with balancing issues and tutorializing our first level, and we're striving to meet the others as best as we can in the remaining time we have. We're nearing home stretch! Thank you so much for taking the time to read this production blog; I hope you stay tuned for the next one! 

Stay safe, and take care!