Production Blog 5

SPRINT 5 BLOG

This week in the Stumblebumps Producer Blog, I will go over the goals we wanted to accomplish this sprint, what issues we ran into, and why this sprint has been the most unique out of all the sprints we’ve had.

At the end of the last sprint, we had a pretty big change in direction that caused us to implement many new systems. We pivoted our game from having 2 modes (arena and grand prix) to now 2 modes consisting of Party Mode (the main mode) and minigame mode (one level). Our level structure already consisted of multiple modules, but now, they are going to be truly separate from each other, unlike before when grand prix levels would be quite large and cause players to have very little interaction with each other.

So, we had to make pretty significant changes, especially in the programming department because we wanted to create a system where we could use both the grand prix and arena mode systems we already had set up as the backbone for party mode. We would make it so that each level module is its own distinct level and give players more points for the placement in each level, and the player with the most points at the end wins.

Our production breakdown this sprint goes like this:

Points Assigned: 184

Points Verified: 117

Points in Verify: 0

Points in Complete: 117

Cards Assigned but not moved: 43

This sprint was among the smaller sprints we had going on this semester, but there is a good reason for it. It is mainly because of the fact that we did not want to continually add more assets until we finished the current system as we didn’t want to spread the team thin with setting up new assets & also setting up this brand new system that we still needed to test. So our solution is to add new things into the game without getting lost.

3D Artists:

One way we were able to maintain production and keep our teams active was to have the artists work on a ton of cosmetics! All the cosmetics we’re going to have come in the form of hats. 

The team did an amazing job with creating awesome ideas for hats that we could implement into the game. One big piece of feedback we got was being able to have more cosmetics available in the game especially since it’s a party game. SInce we added the customization feature, players have been wanting to see more of it and this sprint has allowed us to bring it out. 

We also had a couple of leftover props that had a gameplay interaction, so those got finished up as well. The jack in the box is going to be an obstacle that allows players to sabotage others.

Level Design & Other:

For Level design, because we wanted to change the levels to fit the new architecture of the game, we asked all our level designers to go over and readjust any modules that might be too long, or cause players to not interact with each other in some way. Aside from those adjustments, some of them were able to develop or finish the levels they had already been working on like the Hippo level or dollhouse. John also took on the task of setting up a default room with background assets in place so that the levels could look a little more lived in. Gavin was able to set up some running VFX on the Stumblebumps which would allow our game to have more visual feedback like Fall Guys does.

Programming

The biggest and most labor-intensive part of this sprint was the programming work that was done. We had to essentially rewrite a big chunk of the backend.

We had a whole new flowchart set up so that we knew how we wanted to build out the Party mode. In this version, we now have points that players can get for placing better in each level. There will be a random selection of levels, and at the end, the podium displays whoever earns the most points. This means we spent a lot of time making these new systems this sprint and had to get them in fast so that the game's design could come to life. At the end of the sprint, we ended up having people test the new mechanics to pretty decent success. We will end up having to iron out a few things and change some numbers to balance things out, but overall this system seems like it's promoting the original vision of the game more than our previous structure.  We also want to include a mini-game mode which would be similar but only play one level that the players can select from. This means that it would be a shorter overall experience. We're hoping this can get into the next build, but we will see.