Production Blog #2 - Shapeshift Dungeon

Hi everyone!

Welcome back to another production blog for Shapeshift Dungeon! We have completed Sprint 2 and now have a playable digital demo. In Sprint 2, we had assigned a total of 153 points worth of work. 111 of those points got moved to verify and completed, and 23 were left in progress with a total of 29 points assigned but not moved. The total amount of  work left in progress and assigned but not moved is perfectly normal. It refers to one task per person in progress and one or two tasks per person left assigned for them to look forward to.  For some excellent performers on the team, that means that we added more cards to their assigned list as they completed tasks. We definitely had some overperformers this Sprint, but I believe that can be distributed more evenly across team members for a greater total in future Sprints. 

We now have enough data points to track our progress more accurately on the Burndown Chart. The pace we are going at is ideal for me because it shows we are keeping up with our projected goals and still have room for improvement. One extraordinary Sprint is all it would take to shift us to the other side of the line. As expected, we increased our scope from about 750 to 800 this Sprint. I expect to be always increasing the total number of points in the backlog as we get player feedback and need to make adjustments. As some departments move faster than others, we can also add features beneficial to the player in their scope to help improve the game further. Without further ado, let's take a look at all that was accomplished in Sprint 2 to prepare for the first digital prototype!

Modelers:

Our modeling team did a great job this semester of honing in on an art style and working together to create an enticing dungeon aesthetic. Devin delved into the world of shaders to create a nice lava material for us and we couldn't be any prouder. It looks fantastic, integrates well with our tile system, and provides a nice ambience to the overall scene. He also started sculpting a character for us and we're really excited to see it in game. We also got to see a lot of groundwork from Jose and some very detailed tiles, walls, and other base materials that provide the shape of our level. Chance was also able to step up to get a lot of the props done and really bring our level to life.  Here are some of the highlights from this Sprint:

Lava Shader (Devin)

Character In-Progress (Devin)

Item Pedestal (Jose)

Center Tile (Jose)

Crate (Chance)

Programming

Our programmers this Sprint have been awesome and got a lot of the core systems of the game working. Justin worked diligently to refine the shapeshift mechanic and to make it a lot more flexible to our needs for the whole game. He also implemented the lava, spike trap, and pit hazards into the game. Alex did a great job of learning new systems to get a modular scriptable object item system that we are very excited to use. And lastly, Joe worked very diligently throughout the whole Sprint to create a very professional and flexible AI system for all of our enemies, first shown here with our floating Skull. Our programming team really came together this Sprint and even had their own jam nights where they worked collaboratively on their features. I'm super proud of the work that they've done and the overall professionalism that went into their code.

Modified Dungeon Shapeshift Mechanic (Justin)

Item System (Alex)

Skull AI (Joe)

Level Design

Our level designers, as always, did excellent work this Sprint creating new levels for us. They finished their annotated maps all the way into the mid twenties and have finished blockouts through to level 15. We are thrilled to see them working at this pace as it has allowed us to rapidly test our levels by playing them directly in the game. We have learned a lot from doing so and learned about what works and what doesn't work in the context of our camera perspective, combat style, and encounter design. Both Marc and Branden did a fantastic job this Sprint and made good progress by adding verticality as a gameplay element to the middle levels. Marc also ventured into the world of VFX this Sprint to build a particle system attack for the enemies. I think it looks absolutely epic and can't wait to see what other awesome particle systems he'll be making throughout the semester. Both level designers completed a ton of work this Sprint and I'd love to show it all, but here are just a few highlights:

Level 11 (Marc)

Level 20+ Designs (Marc)

Enemy Projectile (Marc)

Mid level Designs (Branden)

2D Art / Animation

Our 2D Art team has also done a great job with making high quality assets for the game. Tanya spent the Sprint creating UI elements that can go directly into the game and Alexis created a few item icons that are production ready. Each of the artist goes through several iterations before creating their final assets and much of that work never gets shown. There are rough sketches, design concepts, color pitches, and so on. One of my favorite instances of this 2D design process is in Tanya's Health Bar concept and how it got to be made to be put into the game. She made a version of the player's sword that deteriorates as the player takes damage. Like the 2D artists, animation also has several steps that don't often get shown. Armando did a great job this Sprint of making animations for the skull enemy that make it threatening and fearsome. Here are some of the great works done by the 2D Art & Animation team:

Health Bar Concept (Tanya)

Health Bar Deterioration (Tanya)

Center Tile (tanya)

Red Herb Icon (Alexis)

Skull Idle (Armando)

Overall for this Sprint, we are quite pleased with the total amount of work done by the team. 130 adds up to about ten points per person which is what I would consider a fair amount per student. A lot of fantastic systems were created this Sprint and content from every person made it into the build to reach the player. We are very excited to be actively making adjustments based on player feedback and have already begun that process thanks to some really neat designer tools and an automated feedback submission process that are detailed in the accompanying Designer Blog 2. Be sure to give that a read and also check our playable build! Shapeshift Dungeon 0.1.1 is shaping up to be a fantastic game.

See you next Sprint!

Arjun Gambhir
Game Producer