Hello there, it is Sam and I am back with another production update on the student-led game MARRED. For those who do not know, MARRED is a retro-style, movement-based first-person-shooter about shootin’, lootin’, and scootin’. The goal for this sprint was to have our first two levels working with our core mechanics and have most of those mechanics tied to completed assets. While levels 1a and 1b did have their environments complete, numerous bugs did appear which caused features to be cut from the 3rd build of the game. This is not to discredit any of the work that the team did over the sprint as they worked very hard to get us this far, but we certainly can improve and polish the game. There was still a lot of great work produced this sprint, so let's get into it!

Programming: 

Jake’s primary focus for the sprint was to create the behavior for our main boss of the game, the Oni. This was no easy task as this boss has a completely different behavior from every other enemy in the game. Jake created all three attack patterns, the forward jab, slam attack, and spin attack. My favorite feature of these attacks is that the player can actually get hooked into the spin attack and rotated around the boss if they are not careful enough. In addition, the boss attack indicators were implemented which will give players a heads-up of where they will take damage. The other 2D art asset needed for the boss was also added with the health bar moving down to correspond with the boss’ current health. Although the boss does not appear until level 2b, meaning it was not present in the last build, I am very excited to see it appear in future installments with its model and animations. 

The last major section of MARRED’s economy is its upgrade system. During this sprint, Josh began work on programming the functionality of the upgrades and the ability to buy them at in-game shops. The upgrades that were finished in sprint 4 were frictionless pads(increases slide time), boost jets (allows double or triple jumping), and divine right(heals the player to full health upon dying once). In addition to getting started on our upgrades, the player slide feature was also improved. Josh added the art assets on top of the existing system so players now see their avatar’s legs when they slide in addition to action lines that race across the screen giving the impression of moving at high speeds. Both Jen and I were very happy with how this feature looks, although it still needs some bug fixing as there are clipping issues in present levels. 

3D Modeling: 

Lots of emphasis was placed on 3D art in this sprint. With our level designers currently waiting on the completion of modular assets for levels 2-4, 2 artists worked on environment pieces, while one of our level designers needed to temporarily shift to work on 3D art in order to pick up the slack. 

One of our 3D artists Tyler, was responsible for creating level 2’s modular walls during the sprint. I think she did a fantastic job with these pieces, as they all look great while being consistent with Jen’s visions for level 2’s art style. Her efficiency in completing every modular piece before the sprint deadline is one of the biggest reasons for the team's success in this sprint. Additionally, she was able to quickly shift priorities and create catwalk pieces so that one of our level designers would not remain blocked for longer than a day. 

Our lead designer, Jen, also put in a tremendous amount of 3D art-related work this sprint on top of her design work. While she excels in character modeling, she was willing to do lots of environment art to help get the team back on track. Her log cabins, shipping crates, and multiple tree models look great and should be present within our fourth level very soon. I especially love the shop counter that was put together; I can definitely see the passion put into the model as well as the railgun pedestal. Additionally, Jen also created a set of cave features such as rocks and pillars for our level designers to use to hide seams and add extra detail within levels 1a and 1b. 

Jacob is one of our level designers, but his experience in 3D modeling allowed me to have him temporarily shift to 3D art in order to keep us busy. He created and UVed both the scrap armor and battery upgrade models. Both models look good and are appropriate for the game. I greatly appreciate Jacob’s ability to be flexible this sprint and I look forward to having him back in his primary role as a level designer next sprint. 

Texturing: 

Payton is our last 3D artist and since he has impressed thus far with his texturing work, his main focus will be texturing going forward. In the fourth sprint, Payton completed the weapon textures as well as one set of cracked walls. The pixelated style of the weapon textures turned out great and I think they look pretty cool in-game as well. After completing the weapon textures Payton created cracked wall textures to be used in level 1; these will be shown to the player as areas they can break into using their rock pick weapon.

While Payton is our primary texture artist, he was not the only one to provide texturing work during the sprint. Since she worked to create the destructible box, Tyler created the texture for it, and since Jen was responsible for getting the cave detail pieces modeled, she also textured those pieces so they could be ready for our level designers. 

2D Art: 

James our 2D artist, created UI cards to demonstrate if a player is holding a key item. These icons are likely the last in-game UI asset needed. The rest of Jame’s work this sprint was concerned with assets that will be used to add polish to present features. These include creating the action lines for the slide, 2D trees to line the level walls of level 4, and the images for our level select screen. 

Level Design: 

As I mentioned earlier, our level designers have been waiting on the assets to piece together the later levels of the game. However, the first half of the sprint still had lots of level design work. This included adding the ceilings to both levels 1a and 1b, adding assets to our shops, putting together the boss room in level 1b, and spreading Jen’s cave pieces around both levels. 

Our level designers have been resilient as piecing together the level with the environmental assets is not hard, but is very tedious work. Level 1b needed to be rebuilt too as well because of scaling issues. In addition to adding the modular assets for level 1a, Trevor blocked out level 3a, our last needed blockout during the sprint. There are still issues with player movement on stairs, but in the future, these al will be replaced by ramps. Despite some movement issues, I have enjoyed seeing the levels slowly come together and I think they will look much better in the future as the level designers begin adding lighting to the levels. 

Animation: 

Abi was able to finish the rest of the reloading animations before the sprint ended. This includes the shotgun, SMG, nailgun, and railgun reloads. While some work needed to be briefly sent back Abi was good about going back to improve her work in a timely manner. The SMG reload animation had an error that caused the magazine to flip over before being inserted into the gun, but Jen and I thought that this error actually resulted in the animation looking cooler so it remained in the game. 

After Abi’s animations were finished, Jake programmed them into the game so playtesters could see them in action in the third build. However, the railgun reloading animation was not finished until after the build was sent out so it will not be present until the next version of the game. While the animations look great in-game, there were some bugs that would cause them to freeze which will be ironed out in the next sprint. 

Sprint Statistics: 

In comparison to the last sprint, the team completed more points overall. However, when compared to the number of points assigned they did not match the same proportion of work completed to assigned as in sprint 3. This is because I would assign large chunks of related work to keep people busy since some group members were moving very fast during the 4th sprint. Here are the final statistics for sprint 4: 

• 175 points were assigned in Sprint 4 
• 108 spoints were moved into to verify
• 1 points remaining in to verify
• 8 points still in progress
• 107 points were complete
• 53 points were assigned, but not moved
• 2 points remain blocked