Producer Devlog 02

Hello, and welcome back to the development updates for Leggy the Robot Arm. Through this sprint, we continued our upwards trend of both the amount of work being done, as well as team morale. We have taken large strides in the right direction when looking at the forward progress that was made. From what I have observed, this has largely had an impact on the overall motivation of the team and has been awesome to see!

Modeling

On the modeling side of things, my goal is to have assets for at least one of each of my level designers’ levels so that we can guarantee that each of them will have at least one full level that is functional and has the assets to bring their puzzles’ aesthetic to life. To work towards this, Elmer focused on getting assets for the garage puzzle started, and Magnus also worked on getting the workbench created, so that the player has an environment that matches the theme of their puzzles. Magnus also did an awesome job getting Leggy’s gantry textured, as well as setting up Leggy and the gantry on the workbench, bringing it all together.

Overall, I am happy with the progress that was made on the modeling side of things. They did awesome work this sprint and we are continuing to work towards full completion of Leggy and having assets for each level theme.

Elmer

Magnus

2D Art

This sprint, Jasmine focused on creating the sprites for the menu buttons, Xbox/PlayStation controls, Leggy rotation indicator UI, as well as a sticker that will be used on Leggy. They did such awesome work over this sprint. The button sprites for the menus and controls turned out great! These are some of the key sprites that we need for the game, so that the player knows what buttons to push, based on their controller, as well as giving a pleasant aesthetic to the menus. They did a great job matching the aesthetic that we were looking for and the quality of their work was excellent, across the board!

 Jasmine

Programming

With programming, we have been chugging along and have started to get a better grasp on where we are going to go with the controls. Shane had some awesome progress done over this sprint, getting to a point where we could at least pick up objects, but we ran into issues when looking at transferring those mechanics over to Leggy’s rigged model. Luckily, we were fortunate enough to have a small session where we had a couple programmers from one of the other projects, both extremely proficient in Unity, that helped us brainstorm how we can go about implementing the controls onto Leggy’s actual model. Chase and Dylan provided us with ideas of the direction that we could go with the controls that is critical to Shane’s success with this task.

It has not been easy, in the slightest, but Shane has done such an awesome job. He has been working day in and day out, demonstrating another level of perseverance while trying to get these controls working, and Dylan and Chase gave us guidance that will prove to be a critical part of Shane’s success.

Joseph also got a lot of work done this sprint, as well. He got a few of the really important aspects of our game finished, which primarily includes the ability to switch between cameras, as well as the sorting goal zone. With this work that was done, the player is able to switch between the several different camera views so that they can have more flexibility with being able to see what they are doing while working on the puzzle. The goal zone was also a big step in the right direction, as the sorting mechanic is present in a large chunk of the levels that have been proposed, so that will be easy to implement once the controls for Leggy are finished.

Shane

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Joseph

Level Design

Level designers kicked out some awesome work through this sprint. This sprint, since we still don’t have our controls at a point where they can playtest, in-engine, and get data that will be valuable to them for improving their levels/puzzles, we decided to have them do “man behind the curtain (oz)” playtesting, as well as some VFX work.

Ismael had such an awesome and creative idea for his oz playtesting. His first level has the player using a paint brush to try to paint a watercolor picture. The way that he did the oz playtest was by drawing the picture on a piece of cardboard and having a couple red solo cups that he put paint in so that the playtesters can get an idea of the concept of his puzzle. It was very interesting, and he got some really cool feedback on the puzzle. He also got a really cool dust puff VFX that will show up when an object is dropped.

John got good work done with the environment for the child-themed puzzles, as well as some really cool VFX done for Leggy and some of the puzzles. John got the child’s room environment set up with the modular pieces that were created by Elmer. He also created a particle VFX for a binary burst, which will be used when the player completes a task correctly, and spark/paint drops effect. He did such a great job this sprint and the work that he did was critical for what we will need for the end product.

Mariely also did an awesome job with the work that she did through this sprint. She got the blockouts for her Jenga and radio repair levels done, as well as the particle VFX for a couple of happiness gain/loss conditions. With happiness gain, she set it up so that the green binary flows to wherever Leggy is located and also got a binary VFX set up for when happiness is lost. This will be flowing out of the happiness bar, and it turned out amazing!

Ismael

John

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Mariely

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Animation

For animation, we had to make some adjustments to the rig for Leggy. Mari did such an awesome job with this. With the claws, we were running into some issues with the programming side of things conflicting with the claw, so she took some time to get that done. It turned out great and she continues to do high quality work in an efficient time frame!

Mari

Designer

Els has continuously poured massive amounts of effort into this project. During this sprint, a couple of the things that they got done was creating material references for the modelers, as well as putting together a blockout of the tutorial level. Both of these are very important aspects of what we will need as we continue. With the material references, this helps to give our modelers a consistent idea of what kind of finish/aesthetic we are looking for with a variety of different materials, allowing them to kick out work more efficiently. Their blockout was also great! The tutorial is going to be one of the most significant levels of our game, as the controls for this game are a bit more complex than the average game. So, the setup and design that they created for the tutorial level does an excellent job at demonstrating the specific components of the gameplay and will be helpful in getting an understanding/grasp of how Leggy will be controlled.

Els

Production

As I said at the beginning, during this sprint, we got a lot of awesome work done. We made a ton of forward progress, and the team seems to have a much more positive outlook on things, as a whole. During this sprint, we had 171 points Assigned, 125 points Complete, and 46 points that were Assigned, but not moved. This sprint was another large step in the right direction and I am so proud of my team for doing such awesome work!

I am aiming to continue pushing my team to maintain this momentum. With the controls for Leggy headed in the right direction and getting closer to completion, I am very excited to see what gets done as we continue forward. I also can’t thank Chase and Dylan enough for the ideas that they contributed to the progress for Leggy’s controls. The team has done such an amazing job and I am so proud of the work that they have completed!