Signing off.

On Wednesday we went to class and handed everything we had done for the project in. It was a good feeling. We worked really hard and I only hope our grades reflect that in a couple of weeks when we receive our feedback. I think ours was good enough to get us top marks but of course we are also marked individually. Our game didn't have super polished load up screens or main menu screens like we had planned, but the game itself was polished to a high standard and had six playable levels which wasn't bad considering we started building the levels with six weeks remaining.

We did it!

Personally, I feel I contributed enough to earn a high grade but we'll have to wait and see. I handled the vast majority of the design aspects of the game, including the documentation. I did enjoy having all that creative freedom but sometimes I would've liked someone to bounce ideas off, particularly with the level design.

I really enjoyed working with Lab Rat Games, and it's sad that Simon is leaving us. I learnt a lot about myself and how I fit into a development team. I hope a few of the guys want to stick together for next year's project, because we've formed a good working relationship and become good friends in the process. It's also a shame our tutor James Burton is leaving the course as well as Simon, although his feedback sometimes felt harsh, I learnt a lot about design with him as our tutor. It was also fun watching him play Dimension Hop and swear in Spanish whilst doing so. Who knows who we'll get as our design tutor for next year. We've had two great design tutors in Ben and James in the first and second years respectively that I just hope they can get me through my final year.

I'm excited/nervous about my grade but I'll push it to the back of my head for now as there's nothing left that can be done. For now, I'm going to stop worrying about everything and just enjoy my time off. I think for the next project, I want to work on a more serious story. Hopefully, there'll at least another designer in our group and I'll have more time to work on more areas of design. So this is me signing off until the end of September when I start my third and final year! I'll probably stick with this blog for my third year so I'll be back baby!

PEACE!

Judgement Day!

It's finally here. The final day of the project. It's giving me a mixture of emotions to be honest. In a way I'm relieved because this is the culmination of all of our hard work since the project started. It also means I can take a break and try and enjoy the rest of my summer in between working at my part-time job. I'm nervous because I'm not sure our game is ready. I know that if we had more time we could make it so much better but at the same time I know that we did the best with the time we had. I'm excited because I haven't seen a finished build of the game since Monday and I haven't seen it complete with the sound yet! I'm also a little sad because I've really enjoyed working on Dimension Hop and it marks the end for the team. One of our programmers is leaving the course once this is over. It'll be sad to see Simon go, especially because he was so important to our team. He constantly kept us organised throughout the whole project and who knows what would have happened to us if he hadn't done so! It's a shame I won't be able to work with him on next year's project but I wish him all the best for the future. Shame he won't be bringing us any more Cornettos either!

So, it's a big day for the team! We made substantial progress in the form of FINALLY getting the animations into the game. I was very impressed with Harry's work on them and of course Simon being able to get them to work seamlessly in the game. It's strange how just one thing can add so much polish to a project. It actually looks and feels like a real game now! I only have one small thing to do before 7 o'clock which shouldn't be an issue. I just hope we've done enough to get ourselves a decent grade. This will be my penultimate blog post for this year as I'll post again after we've handed everything in. I just hope everything goes to plan! Time to get ready and go and meet up with the guys! Wish me luck!

The looming deadline!

It's been a good while since my last blog post and there's a good reason why. We are quickly approaching our FINAL deadline. In just a few short days, we will be handing the latest build of Dimension Hop in for marking, whether it's ready or not. With plenty of work left to be done we have to make sure we make the game to the very highest standard that we can possibly achieve. It's been roughly five weeks since my last blog post and the presentation of our vertical slice. Our final sprint started straight after and I have to say, I think we've come a very long way.

Here is the Gannt chart that Simon made to show the tasks that needed to be completed during our final sprint (final 6 weeks) to get the game to an acceptable standard.

"Colour coded for your pleasure." - Simon Gilbert

So, as you can see, we have plenty to be getting on with. Building two levels a week whilst testing and making adjustments was very ambitious of us. However, we had already cut a lot of content out of the game and didn't want to cut any more. My job during this final six weeks has been to keep the level designs coming. I've also been in charge of bug testing the game, helping design the sound and completing the much-dreaded project handover report.

I'm on track to finish everything in time and I'm pretty happy with the level designs. After playing some of the completed levels whilst testing, I found them to be fun but not always in the way I meant them to be. It always feels so different when I play the builds to how I play it in my head or with movement markers in Photoshop. However, there are some things that I intended on going a certain way that also turned out pretty well, I'm happy with it. If we can polish the game to the standard we have envisioned then I think we'll have a pretty fun game.

The main problem I've had this past six weeks has been the testing. Our game is only compatible with an Xbox 360 controller as of yet and it's inconvenient when you want to get other people to play your game if they don't have one. I'm not sure that we'll get everything done but I'm certain that we'll have it completed to a respectable standard.

Here is the Gannt chart from three weeks into the final sprint. The green bars represent the percentage of the task that has been completed and the red is incomplete tasks.

You can appreciate from this how far behind the team was at this point but we soldier on regardless. I'm feeling quite stressed in regards to the impending deadline and I'll be relieved when we cross the finish line. It's been a long project and I have enjoyed every second of it but I fear that these last few days might be the death of me! So, until Monday! PEACE!