Hello, my name is Courtney, and welcome back to the fourth production blog for Entoworks! To give you a little refresher, let me remind you what Entoworks is all about. Entoworks is a lightweight turn-based strategy and tactics game where players will be challenged to best utilize their team of up to three entogear (robot bugs) to beat the enemy entogear on a variety of unique maps.

Our goal for this sprint was to complete the action menu for the game. We wanted the player to be able to attack, defend, and move. We also wanted art assets added to the first biome of the game. The team did great this sprint and we were able to do both of these things, however, the levels that have art assets on them did not make it into the build as we used the programmer’s test level since core mechanics are still being built out. 

Now, let’s take a look at the team’s awesome work!

Modeling

Our modelers got a ton done for the three biomes we are honing into and some general upgrade pieces. Our character modeler, Jenn, made some really exciting models of a wasp and mantis entogear. Michael, our Substance Designer texture artist, created super useful materials for the icy biome with an ice and snow floor.

2D Art

Lots of really great 2D art got made this sprint. We had the beginnings of the Grassy Plateaus and Crystal Caves 2D maps created by Jonathan along with a beetle icon with will be used in combat to see what type of unit you have selected. Additionally, our concept artist, Lily, finished off the last of the concept art for the characters with a colored and lined concept art of an ant and tarantula.

Level Design

Our level designers did an awesome job, as always, making some really cool levels for the game. These levels will be used on some of our randomizing level spaces in the game. We are excited to be able to show off these levels very soon!

Programming

This sprint, Isaac worked a lot on being able to drag, drop, and scroll in the upgrades menu. He did a great job laying the groundwork for everything. Marco and Owen just about finished up the turn order minus some refining and they did a great job working together to get all of the core combat mechanics working such as attacking and defending. Christian did a great job putting everything together for the build, supporting the programmers, and working on shaders such as an impressive-looking lava shader.

Animation

Both the bee and dragonfly attack animations were completed this sprint by Daisy and Jay. They look really cool and are the perfect speed and amount of time to get the idea across while keeping the player engaged. They went above and beyond utilizing the multiple appendages the bugs have to make their animations even more dynamic.

Sound

Patrick worked hard this sprint on doing some slight composing. We wanted a more melodic sound for the title screen which he did a great job putting together through lots of sound effects. He did a similar rhythmic composition for the warehouse which sounds great and we’re really excited to include it in the next build.

Conclusion

Overall this Sprint we had 218 points assigned and completed a total of 165 of them making our current velocity 134 points/sprint. Our goal next sprint is to complete the vertical slice of the game by adding the full UI loop and adding the win and lose conditions to the game. We hope in the next two sprints to finish all of the art assets for the three biomes we have narrowed our game to and have them all implemented by the second to last sprint. The work displayed on this blog was only part of what got completed this sprint and I would like to thank my team for the great work they got done. We hope you’ll stick around and we’re excited to show you what we have in store in two weeks! 

Thank you for reading!