Jake McKenna - PPJ 05

General Updates: 

This week we made a push on the levels. We are much closer to having the game entirely blocked out. The game is shaping up, and it feels like we finally gotten to the point that we can take refining passes on a lot of stuff. 



Personal Updates:


I made new particle systems to replace the heat, player/enemy explosions, and the gas explosion. Tied into that I also took a crack at enemy destruction, I got something tentatively working, but it was only for the purposes of testing the vfx; it is not production ready. 

Time Designing/Modeling/Implementing new particles: 3 hrs


I made some color moodboards to help guide the design of assets for the levels. They took a little longer than they should have because i spent time recoloring images to match each palette. 

Time spent on moodboards: 2 hrs


I touched up the level design in the village based on the feedback from the previous week. Added some spinners back in, moved enemies around, etc. 

Time spent revising village: 30 mins


The main bulk of what I did this week was designing (and redesigning multiple times) level 4. We talked about trying to change up the 'arena' design a bit more, so we settled on attempting a maze somewhat similar to the greenGreybox from early in the term. Unfortunately no matter how often I tried I couldn't get the maze to feel good. I went through a ton of iterations trying to fix the issues, but no matter what it felt claustrophobic and disorienting. Eventually I got to a point where I was worried I we wouldn't have a level 4 design, so I saved the best version of the maze and made a alternative level 4 design. 

I moved away from the maze entirely and tried to analyze other flying games to see what made their levels fun. Generally, I found that they allowed for open flying, with visually interesting environments, and many opportunities for some daring stunts. Pipes, caves, and archways, were almost universally present. So I got to work making a level set in the lava environment that followed those design principles. I ended up with a level I dubbed "Lava River". Divided into 3 areas, a Plateau, and archway, and a hollowed out mountain, the place allows for the same objectives as the maze with the overall goal of disabling the shield. Generally I think it works, its pretty short, but it's to the point and doesn't often leave the player stuck 

I plan to keep going with the maze. Malcolm and Jake have offered some potential solutions that I need to test out. Ideally, if all goes well, we can use the alternate concept as the level directly preceding the maze.

Time spent designing, redesigning, modeling, implementing, and reimplementing Level 4: 7 hrs 


Total time spent on tasks: 12.5 hours


As usual there was a good amount of time spent in meetings, this is a rough estimate. We have about 5 hours of meeting scheduled each week, but some run long and there is often more than one in between check-in and chat discussion.

Time spent in meetings: 5 hrs


Total Time (estimate): 17.5 hrs



Samples of Work: 
































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