Welcome back to another production blog of Menacing Mansion! My name is Justin and I’m looking forward to discussing all the amazing work and progress our team has made during sprint 5. 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 5 was the beginning of incorporating different mechanics to the game for the player. If you’re interested in the design choices in regards to the game you can check out our designer Cody’s blog here!

 This sprint was spent adding mechanics to the flashlight, more rooms and more props. At the moment the game is missing a sense of urgency for the player to explore the maze. So we added a duration of time by which the player can use the flashlight and batteries to recharge the flashlight. As the player explores now they will have to look for batteries to keep themselves from being cast into complete darkness. 

 Modeling:

Our modelers have continued to produce some amazing props for the level designers to place around the rooms. This sprint our modelers created props for the chapel. The chapel is a room to convey to the player that the owner of the mansion practiced a strange occult religion. The modelers also began work on an armoire that we plan to let the player hide in when they are faced with monsters in the maze. Our modeler Justin Wagner was able to create  an amazing altar to be placed in the chapel. There are numerous indications that it is an altar for an occult engraved in the various textures of it. For the chapel we also asked our modeler Logan Fabiani to create some amazing stained glass windows to be placed around the chapel! You can see examples of their work in the images down below!

Level Design:

Our level designers began working on the chapel and the pentagram room and more variations of the library! The chapel and the pentagram  rooms are a way we can express to the player that the reason the mansion is filled with horrors is due to the actions of the previous tenants. With all the amazing props from our modelers the level designers have been able to create some amazing rooms for the player to come across. While we had quite a few of the props ready we didn’t have all of them ready while the level designers were blocking in their levels. In the images you’ll see below there are some primitive objects that are place holders for the props that were finished a bit too late. As we’ve added some mechanics to the game and objects the players can interact with during our next sprint the level designers will be doing a final pass of the levels adding props that weren’t ready and batteries for the players to pick up!

Programming:

As I said earlier our programmers were tasked with creating more mechanics for the flashlight. The flashlight will now work for a set duration of time and will need to have batteries to continue working. In order to get this system working we also needed a way for the game to keep track of an inventory of the player. So our programmers also spent time creating an inventory system for the batteries. On top of the system for the flashlight duration we also added some subtle effects to the flashlight. When the flashlight hits about 30% power it begins to flicker to indicate to the player that it will be going out. There are also sound effects added to the flashlight when it begins to die. To inform the player that they can reload the batteries the programmers added a floating UI system that informs the player to reload. 

Animation:

Our animator has been working on finalizing all the animation block outs for the game. Continuing on our monster kill animation from last sprint our animator Juan Vargas created more animations for our roaming monster. There is now an attack animation for the monster and a walking cycle for the monster. He also began the finalization for some of the player animations including an animation cycle for the flashlight of the player. You can see an example of the finalized animations down below!

Conclusion:

Our team continues to make amazing progress during the development of Menacing Mansion!  This sprint the team was assigned 152 points and completed a total of 109. With the flashlight mechanics added to the game we will continue to add more mechanics going forward. We also have plans for a new monster and scare coming soon! I would like to thank my team for continuing to create such amazing work. As always I’m grateful to all our play testers for trying our game and giving us feedback during development. Please stay tuned for more updates and further development of Menacing Mansion!