Hello everyone! My name is Justin and welcome to production blog 3 of Menacing Mansion! Menacing Mansion is a horror game that uses procedural generation to provide the player with a different experience of scares and monsters each time they play. Sprint 3 was all about incorporating the procedural generated maze into the first build of our game. In order to accomplish incorporating this feature there were many things we needed the team to have ready to move forward. If you're interested in Cody’s design approach to build one of the game check out his designer’s blog here!

We began discussing what we wanted incorporated into the build by having a meeting to narrow down which features would be most crucial for this stage of the development. We decided to focus primarily on creating a working game loop for the player to experience. In order to create a game loop we narrowed the features down to a main menu, maze generation, scares and a way for the game to end. With the features narrowed down for the build the team began working toward creating a fun build for our players. 

Modeling:

Throughout the development process of Menacing Mansion the props our modelers have been creating for our game are crucial for setting the look and feel of the game. Props have also been important for the production pipeline of our game. Completing props for our rooms allows our level designers time to begin placing props in the rooms to set the scaling appropriately and begin the process of sculpting the design of the rooms. This sprint the modelers began making props for the parlor, library and wine cellar. Our modelers have been able to create some great set pieces for each room of the game! For the parlor our modeler Justin Wagner was able to create an amazing couch with a variety of texture sets for our prop generation. We also continued working on props for previous rooms, Jacob Hedderson continued his work with medical props making a gurney to be placed in the mortuary room. Our modeler Logan Fabiani continued making player items and has made some amazing labels for each item! Below are images of the props our modelers have created!

Level Design:

During this sprint our level designers began the process of creating the rooms the players will wander through. By spending the first two sprints with our level designers creating annotated maps we were able to understand their ideas and give time to our modelers to create the props that our level designers would be using to create the rooms for players. We’ve been able to get some interesting rooms from our level designers. An issue our level designers encountered was the preview image of a prop would sometimes have a different scaled size from the prop when the scene was played. We were able to determine that the scaled size of the props was determined by the prefab of the prop and have added scaling to the pipeline to ensure props will be set to an appropriate size in the scene. Below are some rooms created by our level designer John Ye.  

Programming:

Once again our programmers had a momentous task of creating a build for our players to test during this sprint. Our programmer Weston Campbell began working on this build by creating the game loop. The first element we needed was a menu for the player to begin playing the game. The menu Weston was able to create used basic elements from some of our design images. We also decided to add a volume slider to the menu so that the player would begin the game with uncomfortably loud sounds. During gameplay we also wanted to have a pause screen from which the player would be able to make volume changes. We also created a system for the image switch scare. Before we refined the image switch scare but noticed that the scare would often trigger without the player noticing. Going forward we now have a system in place that will only trigger the scare when the player is in close proximity to the picture. Finally to complete the game loop we needed a way for the player to complete the game. We decided for now to have one room that would spawn in every maze that once the player enters would end the play through. With the hard work of our programmers we were able to successfully complete all the requirements we set for this build of the game!

Animation:

During our last sprint we were able to finish the modeling of our first monster. With the monster completed we began the process of giving the monster personality through movement. To begin the process of getting our monster to move it needed to be rigged. Unfortunately our team didn’t have a member with the ability to rig models so I spent some time learning how to rig models for animation. Once the model was rigged I passed it off to our animator Juan Vargas and he began to give our monster movement! The first animation we prioritized was a simple walking animation. With a walking animation completed we can begin the process of adding the monster to future builds of the game!

Conclusion:

Our team was able to make a lot of great progress this sprint! We assigned our team 153 user stories and they completed a total of 117. Now that we have the foundation of our game loop ready going forward we will be implementing more scares and core mechanics. Our team has been able to complete so much during the sprint and I have been only to cover a small part of their work. I can’t thank our team enough for working so hard to accomplish the vision of our game designer. I would also like to thank all our player testers for playing our first build of the game and providing us with valuable feedback. Please look forward to the continuing development of Menacing Mansion and learn more about the game as we post more blogs!