Production/Design DevLog #4

So it's the end of the week, which means that it's time for another weekly check in from us as to what's been getting done. So this week, on the production side of things, we're into our final spring of the Vertical Slice/Demo phase. At the end of this phase, I'm going to be leaving for GDC, where I'll be showing what we've got to fellow game developers, and seeing what they have to say. We had to make some changes to our production schedule, which look like they could be for the better. We initially talked about doing three levels, as well as mini-games and a menu system. However, we decided that we'd rather like to see the different characters in the game, and balance things like multiplayer, so what we've decided to do is focus on the level we currently have, and get that completely polished. In addition, we are going to focus on getting our menu system done first, at least as far as art and design is concerned, before thinking about any more levels. We'd like to get a second level in, which is our stretch goal, but it's now officially a stretch goal. 

On the design side, I've been focusing on getting the smaller things into the game, such as particle effects. We are now also focusing on applying all of the textures, shaders, and lighting to the scene, to get it looking beautiful. I've also been making edits to the intro level course, making it flow even better and making sure that the difficulty isn't ramping up too quickly. In addition, I've now added in a beam of light that is attached to the rings, and will be active for the ring that is marked as the target for the Player. All in all, a lot of good stuff this week!