Postmortem

Postmortem

1. Successes

Implementing the dice system proved to be exciting and allowed us to add different kinds of rooms. Players have also really seemed to enjoy the random element. Adding different puzzles also helped increase the variety in our game, making each room fun to play. The layout of 

each room also works well with the navMesh click-to-move aspect as you can see the environment design well and find places you want to explore. We did a good job of splitting up the work and communicating so everyone knew what portions they were expected to do. Since everyone was on the same page, the mood, storyline, and adventure aspects of the game came together really well once implemented.

1. Challenges

Creating a navMesh that allowed the player to move where we wanted them to proved to be more difficult than it originally seemed. We were also a bit ambitious with the number of rooms we wanted to create, so some rooms did not get the care they deserved to be turned into fully playable areas. Like in the last project, GitHub/git caused some problems initially where it was difficult for some members to pull the project and work on it. We were also overly ambitious about the animation of an original character. Because it was basically a rough sketch of a character, it did not match the artstyle of already imported assets that we felt were right for the story of our game. This time could have been put towards creating more animation states instead, as we only have an Idle and Walk.

1. What we’ve learned

We worked a lot on making a navMesh that allows the player to only move in the areas we want them to move. Some rooms might still have some navigational difficulty, which we are selling as charm rather than a bug. The application of this click-to-move function was combined with our knowledge from past exercises including UI, a collectables system, and addition of sound effects. We also learned how to create mechanisms that we haven’t applied before in order to create a unique game. Focusing on the storytelling aspect of the adventure game, we created a story that was hinted towards in the starting room through posters and signs. The importance to creating a cohesive mood to match this adventure was important and it worked out well.

1. Future Improvements

If we had more time, we would like to flesh out each room more. Specifically, the room that we internally called “Room Purple” would ideally include one puzzle rather than none. Relatedly, we want to flesh out the story more from where it is now by adding more interactive elements like we had originally planned (bookshelves, smaller items) and cutscenes. The character himself could also use more fleshing out with motivation or dialogue of some kind, which might be implemented as a hint to the player if they get stuck on a puzzle. The character model could also include more animations like jumping or an animation for when he collects an item. The transitions when teleporting from room to room could also be smoothed.