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!