Production Blog #6 - Shapeshift Dungeon

Hello and welcome to our sixth and penultimate production blog for Shapeshift Dungeon! I am so excited to share all of what we have accomplished this Sprint as we enter the final stages of development for the semester. With Sprint 6 comes our 0.5.1 build version and a lot of focus on iterating through content to create a more polished end product. As always, we made great use of player feedback and data to determine all of the right changes for our game. Thanks to the continued awesomeness of our team, we are very happy with the progress we have made and are in a great position to finish making Shapeshift Dungeon.

Sprint 6 was our last full Sprint and the team decided to end on a bang. We assigned a whopping 222 points this Sprint with a total of 132 moved to Verify and Completed. This left us with 21 points left in Progress and 69 points not moved in Assigned. Most of our intended assigned for Sprint 7 comes from the work assigned in Sprint 6 that I only assigned early because our team was able to complete their Sprint 6 goals before the end of the Sprint. Our team understands that every task completed beyond our goals in the Sprint is one more task that we do not have to do towards the end of the semester when everyone has finals. Thanks to the continued efforts of our team, we are due for a mostly stress free finish to the semester. 

Modelers:

For 3D art, we have some really cool additions this Sprint as we have begun working on some more creative pieces. Jose leads the charge with a new aesthetic for us in our final set of levels featuring crystals for the laser dispenser block. We also have our final boss enemy, the robed mage, modeled and textured by Devin. Devin's spent a lot of time this Sprint equipping our enemies with new swords, shields, and even new armor for our goblins. Likewise Chance has made some new clubs and a war horn for the goblins as well as some gem textures for our barrel and crate models. More than any other group, our modelers have been ahead of schedule all semester long and it shows in their work this Sprint. Each of these tasks was originally a stretch goal and I am really happy to see them make it into the game because we gave the modelers more creative freedom with them and they've all come out to be quite excellent.

Laser Dispenser (Jose)

Robed Mage & Staff (Devin)

Goblin Variations (Devin)

Skeleton Weapons (Devin)

Gem Barrel & Crate (Chance)

Goblin Battle Horn (Chance)

Programming:

Our programmers have done such a great job this semester of making high quality flexible systems that have allowed them to create and modify content rapidly. This Sprint, we mainly focused on adding layers of polish to our mechanics and finishing off some of the last pieces of content for our later levels. Justin added several modifications to our explosions and tiles systems and Alex implemented the Kapala item and made our bag of holding a much more intuitive item. Joe was able to add goblin attacks to the game as well as some enemy flashing and knockback when we hit them just to give a little bit more feedback to the players. 

Barrel Chain Explosions (Justin)

Teleportation Circle (Justin)

Kapala (Alex)

Enemy Hit Feedback (Joe)

Level Design:

Our level designers, as always, have been absolutely incredible this Sprint. As with every Sprint, the first task that we assign to our level designers in each Sprint is to comb through the previous Sprint's feedback and to make a report for us with the changes they believe are necessary. Thanks to our feedback tools, they have been able to make adjustments with pinpoint precision. Previously, we had a good mixture of ratings for our levels and a lot of changes to make each Sprint. In recent Sprints, however, I am pleased to say that our feedback is dominated by 5 out of 5 stars reviews. Our level designers have absolutely killed it and any levels that even dared to receive four star reviews got the fixes they needed from both Marc and Branden this Sprint. Additionally, they have both gone through all of their levels and furnished them into their final states. And lastly, but certainly not leastly, they have both made the most incredible visual effects for us. Branden made a summoning circle that alerts us to the spawning of new enemies and Marc made some slash effects that are gorgeous in game. These two on their own add a whole layer of polish to Shapeshift Dungeon by themselves.

Level Updates (Branden)

Level Updates (Marc)

Slash Effects (Marc)

Summoning Circle (Branden)

2D Art & Animation:

As we near the end of the semester, we find ourselves with more need for animation so that we can make more enemies. Fortunately, we have Alexis to thank for her willingness to do both 2D Art and Animation for us as she was able to make some incredible final item icons as well as some great slime new slime animations. To accommodate for this plan, Tanya has had to make several modular UI pieces for us to finalize our menus with including buttons, panels, and sliders. She has also made a few new desktop icons for us and they're all so good that we haven't been able to pick one just yet. Armando also worked diligently to animate our goblin and make a very satisfying and dramatic player death animation that will encourage the players to try again when they lose. Finally, an extra helping of thanks are owed to Eder for being able to rig the worm, the slime, and our skeleton for us in a single Sprint. 

UI Sprites (Tanya)

Desktop Icon Concepts (Tanya)

Cloak of Darkness (Alexis)

Monster Mask (Alexis)

Slime Attack (Alexis)

Slime Run (Alexis)

Player Death (Armando)

Goblin Run (Armando)

Giant Worm Rig (Eder)

Skeleton Rig (Eder)

I cannot express how truly amazed I am by the hard work and dedication of our team. They have managed to consistently exceed expectations and their passion for game development really shows this Sprint. Both on a technical level and at a creative level, every task completed is a reminder of how fortunate we are to be able to work with such talented individuals. Thank you so much to our fantastic playtesters and our incredible team for a wonderful Sprint 6! Shapeshift Dungeon is shaping up to be a great game.

See you one final time!

Arjun Gambhir
Game Producer