Lost Factory Beta Game Prototype

For the Beta, I added the menu system, the finished assests, the cut scene and dialog boxes. We mainly needed to add dialog as one of the biggest problems with the game is that people don't know what to do. The dialog boxes give hints to what the player needs to do, and since they've been added, people find it more clear.
Another problem that araised was that the triggers that changed the cameras stopped working. I put in a debug log to see what was wrong, and it terned out that the code thoght the character was both entering and exiting the trigger at the same time. I tried to fix this by bualing the game again using the finished assets. But the problem was still there. For some reaion, the character animation had also stoped working as she started moving really slowly, and when sped up, she would slide all over the nav mesh. The only way to fix this in the end was to go back to the gray box version of the game and work from there. Because of this, Richard coden't texture a lot of the assets, as the gray box wan't unwrapped. To try and make the game look better, we worked together to add unity materials to the things that coden't be textured.

Lost Factory Alpha Game Prototype

When making the alpha, what I really wanted to fouce on was getting actual game play macanics in. This manly meant making an inventory, setting up the items and making them interact with the environment. I also wanted to put in the character model and set up the game using the newer assets.

As the character was already done, I desiced to work on that first. Getting the animation to work with the code didn't take to long, but making sure the nav mesh agent was right took a lot of fiddling. Once I got it just right, I saved it as a assest and put it in game. I them realized that the model was too big so I scaled it down. But this made the nav mesh agent go funny again and it was taking me too long trying to realin it. Instead, I simply scaled the environment up, which worked fine.

As I haven't revised the final lay out for the factory yet, I continued to make the inventory using the gray box. We wanted the inventory UI to be  based around her bag, as thats where she would put the items. However, the slots where tricky to lay out in a reasonable manner. Me and Cameron descused different lay outs, and originally we wanted the items to look like they where floating magically around the bag, linking to Lavender's magical powers. But in the end we desided that this was unneeded and as I had other problems to fix concuring the inventory, getting effects in was more of an unneeded luxury.

Another main part of the game play I really wanted to get in was the animation of the smelting pot. After making the animation for the pot and cobord, i wrote a coruten on the switch that sets off the animation when the switch is pressed. This made it look that the pot had knocked down and then a small key falls out.

Peer Assessment

Overall, the most positive feed back the game got was about the visuals. People asecally liked the way Lavender looked, and that the environment was interesting. One of the biggest problems was the movement of the character. Thought the animation worked, people mentioned that she moved to fast, got stuck behind or in things, and sometimes she spins in place. 

Game Cut Scene- Story bourd

Lost Factory Initial Game Prototype

For the first Prototype of our game, I wanted to concentrate on getting the basic game macanices in. The first one being getting the point and click movement working. To do this I set up a nav-mesh and some basic walls so I would see how the walk-able and non walk-able functions work. I then made a script that finds the location of the mouse when it clinks on the walkable mesh. It then takes the player and transforms their position to that point.

I then wanted to get some rotating doors in the game. I set up the level to look more like the paper prototype so I could also check if there's any problems with the layout. Getting the doors to rotate was very hard to work out, so I had a lot of help from one of the teachers. We ended up using multiple objects to get the doors to work. An invisible "hinge" on the side of the door, so it has something to rotate around, and two "door stop" type cubes that tell the door how far to turn. When the player enters the trigger of a door, they can press E and the door will open. Then can press it again for it to close.

 Even though this worked, there was still multiple problems with the door. One being that if the play it hit by the door, they get sent flying across the nav-mesh and stop following the point and click well. Also, as the door isn't part of the nav-mash, the player continues to run into the door. This helped me realize that the hallway definitely needed to be wider and the doors could work better if they close automatically. I would also prefer if the player could click on the door insted of pressing a key as it is a point and click game. But as it works for now, I desised to move on and come back to fixing that later.

I then worked on changing the camera positions, as that was a big part of our game. To do this I added trigger boxes into all the rooms and small cubes in the places I wanted to camera to change too. I then made a script that when the player enters a trigger, the camera will change its trasfomation and rotation to the matching position cube. The only tricky bit of the prosses was moving around the cubes to make sure they where in a good position. As you can only get a ruff idea of what the camera angle will look like wile positioning the cubes, I had to keep playing the game, walking into the different rooms, and then going back out of game mode to adjust the cubes. I then had to do this prosses alover again once the gray box was done.

Peer Assessment

The most positive feed back from the game was about the over all look. They liked the simplistic shapes and use of colour and light. However, a big problem that people found was that the space was very empty and it was hard to maneuver character in some arias. Taking all the notes into account, this problem has been corsed by a commitment of camera angles being off, collides needing to be more accriat, and the doors gliching out the character. This, plus more problems are things I'm going to take into account when making the next prototype.

Production Schedule

Paper Prototype

To get a better idea about the mechanics and design of the level, I made a paper prototype vestion of the game. The main goal of each level is to find the ghost thats hiding somewhere, and the player would have to work out how to get to it. As a group we all descused the different macanics that could be featured in the game and when through different layouts. We then decided on a simplistic layout that better uses the limited space we have to make the level. 

As the character is a spirit midiam, we wanted to give her some sort of powers the player to use. At first I thought of giving her some sort of amulet that she can use to track the ghost, which would play into the hide and seek element.  But then realized that the whole purpose of the game is to get to the ghost, which you can't do unless you already know where it is. Instead, we made it so the player can easily tell where the ghost is as it redaiats a blue light, making the goal easier to visualize. I changed the amulet to a cristil ball that florts besides the player and acts as a light scourse.

The player will also have a small bag in wich she keeps all the items that can be collocated during each level. We then made desided to make this the gui for the inventory.

I definitely wanted there to be sepret rooms for the player to search through as it would keep the game interesting. So we went with a main room, which will have mostly iron smelting macheans, so the player can immediately see its a factory. Theres also a hallway that leads to a spare room with a generator, and an office.

The level will start in the main room. During the cut seacn you will be abale to see that the ghost has hidded behind a door. During the game, the is very obvise as she will eminat a light that will be easy to see. This is where the player wants to go, but the door is locked. In this room there is also a molding meachean, a cabinet blocking a door and a smelting pot.
The machean alrady has a key mold in it, but theres no power. If the player pulls the lever, it will move the smelting pot past the cabinet and too the machean. The pot is empty and brocken, but it still knocks down the cabinet, which allows the player to go into the hallway. A kay also falls out of the cabinet which they can pick up.
The first door leads to the spare room. I here they will be a genatater and a wench. The genatater can power the machean in the first room, but a seaquant much be imputed to tern it on. The wench can be used to fix the smelting pot.
In the office, there will be a locked bookcase. The player can use the small key to open it and find a peace of paper. This paper will have the answer to how to start the genatater. The player can also find some silver cutlaty hidden inside the draws in this room.
Once the genatater is on and the pot fixed, the player will need to put the silver into the pot so it can be melted and ternt into a big key. This key can then open the door where the ghost is and the first level will be complete.

After showing pears and letting them play though it, I realized they could melt the wrench it make the key instead of needing to find the silver. Because of this we desised to cut the cutlery out the game.