Hi everyone, my name is Sam and I am back with a production update for the game MARRED. A little background; MARRED is a fast-paced first-person shooter with gameplay centered around shooting, looting, and scooting. Our goal for the second sprint was to have the core gameplay systems functioning and present within our first digital prototype. Overall, I think the team did a great job this sprint and we were able to accomplish our sprint goal while also completing more work than in the first sprint. Now let’s get into the work done in Sprint 2!

First Electronic Prototype: 

While Jen’s design update will cover any design changes and playtest data, I did want to talk briefly about the production of the first electronic version. In order to guarantee that we uploaded a playable build, I organized an out-of-class meeting at our university’s library. Joining me for the meeting was Jen, one of our programmers, and the level designer for level 1. During the meeting, we merged the level design and programming branches of the project, as well as added enemies into the blocked-out version of level 1. Additionally, we worked directly with our designer to determine what features would ultimately need to be cut from our first electronic prototype. While the first prototype might have been lacking in the number of weapons and pickups available, it still did contain the game’s movement abilities and the ability to shoot and kill enemies.

Programming: 

Once again I was surprised with the work our programmers were able to get done this sprint. Our programmer handling the combat system did an amazing job with implementing getting the weapon switching done before the sprint ended. Players will now be able to use their mouse scroll wheel to cycle through all weapons in the game while seeing the correct model and UI icons. Although this did not make it into the first prototype, we have not encountered any bugs with it and I fully expect it to be present in the next prototype. Basic enemy behaviors were also completed during this sprint. The game has 6 types of enemies, but 2 major classes - ranged and melee. Since this sprint was primarily about laying the groundwork, two basic enemies were made, one ranged and one melee enemy. All future enemies will have scripts that inherit from these basic enemies in order to make creating their behaviors a little easier. Ranged enemies turn towards players in their range and fire a raycast to attack them while melee enemies have set patrol areas along a NavMesh system and break off to attack the player. 

Our other programmer has been focussing on player movement and player interactions. They ended up working so fast this sprint that there were multiple times I had to give them more work than was originally assigned. During the sprint they got the game’s primary pickups to work which includes all ammo types, health, shield, and scrap pickups. While this was relatively easy to accomplish, it was not all they contributed this sprint. In addition to the pickup system, they also created the foundation of the game's economy system by letting players spend scrap to acquire items. They also programmed two other mechanics featured within MARRED’s level design: breakable walls and a key system. Although we are still waiting to implement the art for these mechanics since they are working they will be put into the next build of the game. 

While our programmers accomplished a lot this sprint we did have a few bugs begin to pop up. First and most noticeably players could run through the game’s walls and outside the map. We did create a patchwork fix by adding a giant death box outside the map so players could still complete the prototype level, but this is now our highest priority bug and will be fixed before the next version of the game. We think this can be fixed by constantly firing a raycast to the game's walls and stopping them from moving if they are too close.  Another major bug was that the gun’s hit registration was inconsistent, however, we were able to fix this rather easily. Unity rigidbodies sometimes do not register collisions when walking on NavMeshes, but since the hit registration is such a common issue it was fixed by changing all enemy rigidbodies to be kinematic. For the first prototype, we wanted the shotgun to be present, but it did not make it in because the pellets stopped instantiating. This was fixed when we looked a little deeper and found that they were being destroyed immediately, then changed some data to make sure that didn’t happen. 

3D Art: 

Although we are still waiting for our level 1 environment models to be done we still made significant progress with the game’s 3D art. One of our modelers was able to complete all of the models and UVs for our core pickups. This includes ammo pickups, health and shields, and scrap pieces. The scrap piece models will be added to the pile and appear in the game as a jumbled pile of metal components for the player to pick up. While all of these pickup models look great my personal favorites are the nail box pickup and the shotgun ammo box. The health pickup model is serviceable for the game, but it is not exactly what our designer wanted so it may be redone if time permits. Since it is easily recognizable as a health kit it will remain in the game for now. 

Our environment artist dealt with some external issues during the sprint, but that didn’t stop them from providing us with quality work. To go along with the rocky cave surface walls they created walls that will look man-made to be placed in tunnels, a door piece, and a broken wall model. With the door and broken wall models completed we will be able to show their respective mechanics next sprint. In addition, to the environment pieces made, they also created a pixelated sample texture for our designer so they can decide if they wanted to move forward with a retro art style for the game’s texture. 

With the GDD being uploaded to confluence and the UX map completed, Jen, our designer, was available to begin working on some 3D art for the game. In order to remove our animator from being blocked, arm models were created and UVed first for our animator to begin making an arm rig for future reload animations. I’m very happy that these models were able to be completed before the end of the sprint so animations can begin in sprint 3. 

2D Art: 

The main focus of 2D art for this sprint was for player feedback when fighting enemies. However, The first task completed was two pngs of cracks that will be used as stamps to create cracked walls. These needed to be completed first in order to not block our 3D artists when they start texturing the walls. Another thing completed were bars for our health and shield UI. These did take longer than anticipated because a few revisions were made before deciding on the final design of multiple bars with different colors for being depleted, or being over the health/shield maximum. Screen effects were also completed during the second sprint. The light green, blue, and red screens will quickly fade in and out depending on if the player gains health, shields, or takes damage. In addition to these temporary effects, a permanent red effect was made to be overlaid on the UI if the player is in critical condition. I found the red effect with the “DANGER” icon near the top to be very good and I think it will fit nicely into the game. The last 2D art piece created in the sprint was the UI icon to display the number of scrap pieces the player is currently holding. Two icons were made, but the one that we will use going forward is the one where the gear symbol is smaller, but allows for text to be placed inside of the icon to display the scrap count. 

Level Design: 

Our two level designers did an amazing job putting together the game’s 4 core levels. Like our programmers, they were working fast enough to the point I had to begin giving them cards that were planned for the future. All 4 level blockouts were complete although only level 1 was present in the prototype. In addition to the blockouts being done, the level designers also began placing enemy spawn locations, preloaded enemies, and pickup locations across the maps. Since the level designers are working fast enough, more levels are being added albeit they are to be significantly shorter than the levels already made. 

Animation:

Since our animator was still blocked from creating an arm rig during this sprint most of their work still consisted of creating references. The first was sketching out the keyframes of the planned animations. Next, however, they created simple concept art for the game’s enemies in order to make modeling the game’s characters easy in the future. While I did not neglect the value of these sketches, I did emphasize making them simple and not spending anything more than a week on drawing. In the second week of the sprint, our animator was able to get a basic human rig completed. Although we do not have our character models completed it was imperative that this got worked on because the game’s characters are humans or at least humanoid-shaped and in the interest of time since the rigging process is time-consuming. While the rig may need some tweaks once characters start getting animated I’m glad that this was able to be completed by the end of the sprint because it will save us a lot of time in the future. 

Sprint Statistics: 

While not every developed feature made it into the game’s first electronic prototype a lot was still accomplished. In comparison to sprint 1, we had about 40 more tasks done despite some small production issues appearing in the sprint. Here are our final sprint 2 statistics: 

• Stories Assigned: 132                                                                       
• Stories Moved to Verify: 94 
• Stories Remaining in to Verify: 0 
• Stories Still in Progress: 8
• Stories Complete: 94 (114 Points)
• Stories Still in Assigned: 31