Hello everyone and welcome back to another production update for Castle On Wheels! I'm Isabella, the producer for the game and for this blog, we will be talking about bugs, setbacks, an unexpected change in direction and the usual what we got done for this sprint. For sprint 3, I assigned 56 user stories that totaled out to 148 points. Out of those points, we were able to complete 126, leaving 35 points in progress. To put that in perspective, that's less than 1 user story per teammate (woohoo!). Our team pulled all the stops for sprint 3 in order to keep us on track, which will give us a nice buffer coming into sprint 4. With our statistics out of the way, let's move onto programming. 

Programming

        At the beginning of sprint 3, our game went from functional to completely broken after implementing some of our core mechanics. These mechanics consisted of: ally spawning and movement, enemy movement, attacking, and both AI dying after being attacked. After sitting down with our programmers in a long meeting, we came to the conclusion that the system we had in place for our AI was bogging down the game to a point where it became unplayable and would have to be re-worked. We decided to set two of our programmers to try making a new system that felt more fun and would work better than what we currently had, while the other two fixed some of our major bugs. Some of the bugs we squashed this sprint had to do with the camera getting stuck in certain places and inability to spawn allies, which are both considered game breaking. A more fun bug that is still not resolved is sometimes when you spawn allies, they are thrown up into space and if you wait long enough, you get to watch them gracefully fall back down to the terrain. 

        Despite all the bug fixing, we were able to create some new features that we plan on implementing in sprint 4. One of the features is a Siege tower that docks on the player's castle and drops TNT that causes massive damage. The other feature has to do with more realistic arrow movement that arc when shot, versus the straight line they used to travel in. Here are some gifs showing these new features off. 

        In addition to our bug fixes and new features, our other 2 programmers were able to come up with a new waypoint system for the player's allies. This system gives the players more control over their units and don't bog down the system as much. These new units are able to traverse through the map, attack enemies and enemy structures and die which is a huge step forward in our development. To conclude our programming section, here's a little demo showcasing the new system that players should find a lot more enjoyable.

Level Design

        Due to issues with implementation, our level designers were blocked from doing the tasks we had originally assigned them. However, we were able to create the NavMeshes for levels 2-4 which will come in handy for sprint 4 when we can (hopefully) get those features in. The NavMeshes will allow for players to spawn their allies and move them around the map. To keep our level designers busy, we had them start creating annotated maps for levels 6-8. For the start of sprint 4, our level designers will create flow charts of levels 2-4 to give to the programmers. The flow charts will give our programmers a good idea of what the sequence of events should be and gives them a decent structure for feature implementation. Below are some images of the NavMesh system in each map as well as some of the recent changes we've made to each level to help them better fit their theme. 

2D Art

        Our 2D artists continue to power through and make fantastic concepts for many of the assets of the game. We decided to have one of our artists, Grace, focus on concepting the ruins for level 4, considering levels 2 and 3 have pretty standard assets that we do not need concepts for. Originally we had asked for a couple of walls, pillars, and other structural concepts that looked like they belonged to a more advanced civilization. Grace went above and beyond what we asked, here is what she came up with. 

        Another focus of ours for sprint 4 was starting some of the final art pieces for our gameplay UI. We had a couple problems getting the look we wanted , so we didn't get as many pieces done. However, the two pieces of UI art that we got are exactly what we were looking for and now our artist is a master at creating stones, which we will be needing a lot of. 

3D Modeling

        During this sprint we were able to complete another primary asset, our enemy stronghold. The stronghold is now textured and imported to the game (it is also the cover image for this blog). In addition to the stronghold, we were able to get low poly models done for 2 of our characters. We created modular village pieces for level one that will allow us to quickly build different houses in Maya and export them for the game. I am happy to announce that we have 2 primary models left for level 1, the enemy spawner and Siege tower, which we plan on completing in sprint 4. These two models, in addition to our other primary models, will be used throughout all of the levels in our game. Our modeling team has kept a steady pace when it comes to creating models and the quality of work we are getting in that time is on par with what we expect for the game. By the end of sprint 4, we plan on having all of our primary models done and hopefully have about 75% of those models textured and ready to be put in the game. 

Low poly of the ally slinger and goblin slinger

Animation/Rigging

        I am excited to announce that we have our first rig to accompany the animations we will be using in the game. This is a huge step forward for the team considering we don't have a dedicated rigger and instead have an animator that took on the job, which we are grateful for. We have a cute demoe showing off some silly animations of our ally slinger moving around. 

Lastly for animation, we finished our second idle which is an absolutely ridiculous head scratch with a spear. Here it is: 

        Sprint 3 was turbulent to say the least, but it tested the team's ability to problem solve and come together to overcome the programming and design obstacles that we faced. I'm couldn't be happier with the team's work this sprint and can only look forward to what we will accomplish next sprint. Our overarching goals for sprint 4 are to get our core gameplay loop in the game and functioning properly, as well as prettying up level one and getting in some player feedback. Although we have a long way to go, I look forward to the challenges we will face and feel confident that the Castle On Wheels team will be able to overcome them. Thank you for tuning in this week for our sprint 3 production blog and we look forward to updating you after sprint 4! 

-Castle On Wheels Team