New Quarter Planning

Hey guys I am back from Japan and I am ready to get going again.  I hope you guys are too.  We know we need to meet up, but until we do I was going to post what I think our meeting should prioritize.

There are 2 big things for us to discuss. 
1) What do we want to do with Splatz? 
2) What do we want to do for capstone?

They are kind of the same question.  Do we want to continue on with Splatz for capstone?  If so where do we draw the line on being done with Splatz "one/alpha"? 

Personally I feel that we need to get Splatz out asap and turn our focus to capstone.  We won't be able to focus on both at the same time.  Maybe we do continue Splatz in capstone, but make everything black like Ray said.  So we get Splatz one polished and out the door.

Things I was thinking Splatz needs.

1) what ever cleaning up Ted wants to do under the hood.  Maybe not restarting from scratch for this version.
2) sounds need serious polishing up.  I personally need to sit down with Brian and get on the same page.
3) animations need a little cleaning up.  Not much, just fine tuning.
4) I think we need something that teaches the player how to use the arrow keys for throwing paint.
5) Ted or Brian, is there a way to save your progress? Like after you complete a level maybe save the scores from that level? Or if you make it to level 7 and exit, have the game remember that your still on level 7 so you don't have to play the first 6 over again?
6) do we have an exit button?

Any other changes people feel are needed please add them.  As for question 2.  Even if we are going to continue Splatz for capstone I think everyone should come up with other game ideas, return to our pitching posts, start again, add some.  We can always use them after capstone even if we don't use them this time.

now to send out emails and text asking you guys to read this.

Josh

End of the quarter

Contributions:

Raymond Tan

• Concept Design
• Level Design
• Tweaked In Game Mechanics
• Bringer of Food, Forgetter of Napkins

Ted Molinsky

• Concept Design
• Main Programmer - Game Mechanics
• Main Programmer - Level Generator
• Main Programmer - Object Functions

Brian Mushika

• Main Programmer - UI Elements
• Main Programmer - Sound System
• Main Programmer - peripherals (counters, timers, displays)
• Secondary Programmer - Game Mechanics

Josh Campbell

• Concept Design
• Game Design
• Sound Design

Bob Juranek

• Modeler
• Animator
• Splash pages

All elements in the game were created by the team except for the fonts and the sounds.

• Background music is a cut from Squarepusher's track Star Time 2 from his Just A Souvenir album.

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I do hope we are all able to do some more work on the game over the break. I know everyone probably needs a week or two to decompress from the quarter and Josh will be off to Japan (lucky bastard) but if you guys want to try to arrange for an in person group meeting or skype conference to talk some more some time over the break, let me know.
Great job everyone and have a good holiday.

Last build I believe

http://www.mediafire.com/?xdlf4fk8d8yqb88

Beta Vid Link

http://vimeo.com/32497275

Wrapping Up

Ok guys heres somethings I have been thinking about that we should try to get done in the next few days to wrap up for the class.

0. Play test as much as you can, try to break the game
1. We need to get a collection of sounds for Thursday and play through all the sounds to see what fits and what needs to go
2. Animations need to get in and work appropriately
3. The UI work needs to be merged with the current version
4. Level tweaking or replacing of levels
5. Level times to give player ranking at end

Also can you guys test the spawning bug where you spawn too early? The controls need to be tested also, let me know as soon as possible if there are any buttons that do multiple things like move and shoot.

Some aesthetic changes

Some of the more aesthetic variables were changed and should make things look nicer in game when put in. A possible issue to this is that when the new titles and menus are put in, this may result in some missing blocks since one of the variables I changed was the fountains. I could go into it after and changed the titles/ menus so that they appear or we could create a separate object for the in game levels using the variables I changed and then assigning them a different ASCII key instead of 'F'.

Speaking of aesthetics, apparently...

Cookies Make You SEXY

Controls Reminder

If you guys would like to try different keyboard set ups remember that you can. When open the .exe file you will see a window that says Play! along with the resolutions above it. Above that there will be two tabs click the Input tab and adjust the controls to your liking. The only thing you have no control over is the arrow keys for shooting paint as that is hardcoded right now. So if you show someone this game and you shoot and walk at the same time, you need to change the controls because they default differently everywhere and I can not save them for you.