Hello  and welcome to Sprint 4 review! Our first section for this blog is not as long as the last one, so lets get right into it.

    Last sprint I spoke briefly on how "done" was defined by your level designers and your game designer working together. I just want to talk about that part a little bit more as it deserves a better explanation. The concept of a feature fora game being done is relatively straight forward in concept, but changes in its application depending on who is doing the designing. Conceptually (for levels at least) it simply means that the level servers to entertain the player and can be beaten in the designer intended fashion. Perhaps there is a new mechanic to teach the player, or maybe even some sort of enemy. But once the geometry and mechanics have been sorted out, you could say that it is completed 100%. The problem with the application of this is that depending on your design team, there could be different variations on what they want from a level. Maybe a whole segment of the game serves to drive home a singular story beat, or perhaps it serves just pad out playtime, maybe it even serves as a skill check to ensure your players have all the items/experience they need to progress further. Whatever the reason is, the fact remains that those sorts of things can be difficult to gauge how effectively it is working and that means you have to make changes and iterations. 

    If you have a level that is supposed to reveal a major plot point, you need to take into account player actions and similar. If the first iteration of such a scene allowed the players full control of their character, would that interfere with that story point? Does it require a unique setting? When you sit down to design this level, these are the things you have to account for. You also (as a producer) need to have that idea already cleared up going into this section. In an effort to help ensure the target audience is met with the intended feel or play of a level, you have to be the producer who knows what is what in the game. Know your audience, know what is happening before, during and after this moment and be sure to steer your team towards that goal constantly. 

     In my own experience here, it is thankfully much easier. What do we wan to have?  A track that players can race on and be excited. What can I as a producer do to help set us up for that? I cannot make design choices, but I can help ensure the designers are constantly reminded of that goal and dont get caught up in the small details. Overall though, it is just keeping us in the scope of things, just like a good producer always tries to do.

While that is great information, I know what you really came here for. So lets get the sprint review going!

 For this sprint our awesome team knocked out 74 points of work and left only 38 points to be carried into the next sprint. The adjustments to our backlog mean we needed to accomplish 71 points a sprint to finish on time. Because of this adjustment you will notice that the green data points have moved around, but I believe we are still able to make it to the finish line in time. I also was able to cull the extra red data points and as such have achieved a truly completed burn down chart! But enough about me, lets look at the team's work!

Level Designers: Hudson and William

 William started our work on level 2 by providing us with this awesome annotated map after some initial research. This will be used to create a blocked out map this next sprint.

While this was going on Hudson continued to improve the first level by adding on an alternate path for the first level, this brings our level to a larger size but also surprises the player. He also added in prefabricated zones that would charge the players focus meter.

Programmers: Justin and Adam

 This sprint Adam worked on AI improvements, a countdown system for the start of a race and also a selection screen so that players can pick and choose what chariot/horse they will be racing in.

Meanwhile Justin was working on the code that controls how the player interacts with the road, so as to avoid falling into the road. He also worked on the code that controls the gravity of the chariot and horses, in order to prevent bouncing and excessive jumping.

2D art and Animation: Tamil and Daniel

For this sprint Tamil was very busy making us a main menu background, icons and button art for the menu buttons and finished up with concept art for the 3rd chariot.

Daniel used this sprint to take our freshly rigged horse and begin making animations! The first one he completed was a trotting animation and then he completed a running animation as well.

3D Modelers: Erika and Tristin

This sprint Erika modeled the 3rd and final chariot, she then proceeded to model and texture not just the player character, but also the computer controlled characters!

Tristin created a series of banners with tridents on them, made a dirt texture for our track and made some pathways for added scenery

Overall it was an awesome sprint, I really appreciate the work this team has done and cannot wait to show you what we are cooking up for sprint 5! Have a great day.