Hello again to the 3rd development blog for parasitic this is Alex Olah the lead designer. In the past two weeks, we have had a lot of improvements in the back end of the game with a strong programming team making many under the hood improvements. The art team is still making great progress so that each level feels different but also make so that you can tell this is the same world you are in. We have started to get audio for the game as well because we want the user experience to shine through this time. 

First, let us talk about some of the back end changes that we are making to the game so the player is able to interact with the world a little easier. The player has a lot of new outlines on the grid allowing so each ability will feel different. Enemies now show where they are going so the player has an easier time planning they also move slower to make it feel a little better as before you could be attacked by everything in the same frame that’s no fun and makes strategy harder. Soon ability upgrades will be in as well making the player feel even stranger than before. The programming team also made some changes to the grid so it is easier to debug problems on the level design side.

Level design has had some hiccups as of late to fix this we have made some changes to how the workflow for them will go. First, they are now on the git and will puss all their work at the end of class so we can confirm how much was done. Second, we streamlined the grid as mentioned before so hopefully, that process will be much faster. Third, a new baseline has been set for annotation when moving on to the next set of levels. Speaking of a new level we have added 3 more to the lineup and already have level 4 annotation done.  Below you can see the level for with everything that is needed in our levels. The different types of environments are planed out to start it is a maze that slowly moves into a boss fight. This is to allow the player to level up first so they do not get blitzed by the boss and feel like it is unfair.

Next, we have to talk about the 3D art that brings this game to life. We have completed 2 more enemy types making it so we only have 3 left until all character modeling is done for the project. On the asset side, we have gone deep into making each level feel different and have completed all assets for the first 3 levels. We even added some quality of life assets for the player such as buff tiles they look a little out of place but it benefits the gameplay and that should come first. We have moved to particle effects and this is a spot the was open for the entire team to work on if they were wrapping up all of their work for a sprint. Not surprising though that the 3D artist makes the best effects and we will be having them do the majority of this moving forward. 

Animations have been a talking point on the team as we were blocked on a large portion of work for around a full sprint because of it. I am happy to say that we finally have working riggs and our animations are pouring in fast. On the UI side, we have the second batch of UI coming and this will finish the in-game UI hopefully fixing an issue that was brought up in the feedback that it’s disorienting going from high-quality art to basic buttons it pulls the attention away from the gameplay and breaks immersion. 

Overall we have had a strong two weeks in most departments finally tieing up louse ends and making strides towards a finished product. With the addition of more levels, we will really need to have the level design team pick it up and run. We have started to see some cracks and are working on fixes and not band-aids so that they don’t keep getting worse. Exciting things are coming soon and please look forward to our next build on the 20th of this month. That’s all I have for you today thank you!