1/25/2015

      This week I spent a majority of it going over the different systems that were already present in the game and understanding how they work. I spent a great deal of time focusing on the difficulty that became associated with the size of the maps that the players could choose and also the difficulty setting. After looking at variables like how many graves spawned, how far apart they spawned from each other, number of zombies from the start to the end of the round, and how long a round lasted I started to realize that with the increase of difficulty the game was severely unfair after the advanced setting in the small areas and even unfair sometimes on the normal setting for the normal and huge map sizes. I also came to find that the difficulty of each round was only effecting the number of zombies per round and nothing else as far as I could tell. This week will be spent putting in my own numbers and estimates off of the game play I have already recorded and testing to see if it is easier, fairer, and still enjoyable. To this this I have already created my own branch in the repository to do my own testing. Thanks to Tim I can easily access most of the project variables I need and adjust them accordingly.
      Another section of this week was spent finding some new sounds to be used for zombies. I found several grunt noises and even a clip of zombies saying "BRAINS!". I collected several different clips all having a different direction to go in. I plan on cutting them up and creating simple script that I can give the programmers to easily implement into the project wherever they need to.

1/18/2015

This week as been spent getting to know the new team and the way in which we all function. We all seem to be working together extremely well as of right now. We have all been placed on different clusters in order to ensure that we are all accomplishing the tasks needed. I was placed on the cluster that will be developing characters. Specifically the main character and his appropriate animations. Along with what the zombies will look and feel like as the game is played. I did this by first watching different rewarding moves that the player could possibly do to place the zombies back into their graves after they have been knocked unconscious. After I decided which ones I liked I story boarded them out into segments and gave them to Shain to look over. I also gave some reference images to Noah to help him get the feel for the type of zombies I believe we should have. I ended out the week continuing on the master balancing sheet I have developed off of Ian's work from last semester.

11/22/2014

Having been very sick up until the time of presentations has been one of the most stressful things I have had to do in a very longtime. Preparing for the presentation has taken up a lot of my time. I have made three different iterations on our power point and the wording that I want to use on each slide. I am dedicating myself now to learning this completely new slide  along with the addition of note cards. I am still deciding whether or not I want to actively use the note cards I created, not only does it feel more awkward to be using them while i am presenting but it also adds at least a minuet onto the entire presentation. They also disrupt my flow while I am presenting and make me into a robot that is putting out information rather than a developer talking about their game. I do feel ready however, in that I have rehearsed a great deal for this presentation and even though I have changed the order and wording I know that I have a firm grasp on what I want to communicate to the audience about our game.

11/15/2014

While this day has come with some amazing news of passing stage three it has been a struggle for me personally with this awful sickness. Not only has this limited me in this class but also in all of my other classes. There is nothing more frustrating then knowing that there are extremely important dates coming up while knowing that pushing yourself while sick will only make things worse. The biggest thing I have been focusing on is trying to rest so that I will be ready and able to present next week. I have also stayed in constant communication with my team so that they can stay up to date with how I am doing and my progress that I have been making. I have put all the energy I could into creating the presentation and trying to fit an entire semester, or at least how long we have been working on this game into a 15 min presentation which is not easy but is not completely undo able. While resting and hoping to get better only time will tell what is going to happen.

11/8/2014

This past week has been jammed with huge amounts of week. Balancing progress in all has been a difficult challenge thus far. However, even though this has been a rough week we have been making huge strides with our game. We have been making huge strides with audio and creation of our tutorial level. I feel confident that we have a good grasp on our game play and what we want our players to ultimately experience. Our market however, has caused us to take a step back and reconsider. Even though I believe that we could potentially make the Facebook market work and that it would be a worth while attempt to make a difference in this market the amount of time and effort that would go into trying to do this is out of scope. We plan on venturing into new territory and perhaps explore how the steam community would receive our game. So far I believe this might be a more welcoming place to have our game and players that are more involved and can retrieve deeper meaning from games would be easier to find here than in a Facebook community. Other documents will need to be updated and adjusted but overall I feel comfortable that we are in a good place to move forward.

11/1/2014

For this week as a team we really wanted to step back and focus on what we really needed to get done so that we can move onto stage three easily. A lot of the market analysis for this particular idea has already been researched in a relatively detailed way. I personally want to dive in further and defiantly make sure that this game is going to be received by this market at least in a positive way. I will have to be sure that the players in the Facebook market that we are exploring will be able to follow such an intense and in depth game. I plan on addressing this through a basic walk through tutorial level narrated by Noah. Traditionally Facebook games are quick and give an enormous amount of feel good points  whenever the player does anything right. While I do not want to fall in with the rest of these typical Facebook games I do appreciate how much feedback the players do receive in these types of games in general. This is definitely where I have been placing my focus for this week and have been researching ways in which the followers can show their response's to the player through body language, specifically the proximity the followers want to have to the player depending on their loyalty at any given time. This has not yet been completely worked out  but it is a good way to start heading in.  We also are focusing on a camera blur that will aid us in our new theme that the player is in some time of dream like world. In our meeting today we are working all of these into our new level that I also created for a tutorial.

10/25/2014

This has been one of the best weeks in Capstone ever. All of the hard work has definitely paid off these last two weeks. We were not only able to finally past stage one but pass stage two as well. This was an incredible feat and cannot be happier. Now we are trying very hard to make sure that we step back and greatly plan and use our time wisely in attempting stage three.  We want to be sure that we will be able to go through no matter what. Everyone on the team has been working extremely hard to get us were we need to be and I could not be prouder of myself or my team. The next big challenges that we have to deal with have to do with making realistic and appealing AI that follow the player as they move. Rob and I are already making preparations to address these issues and I feel confident that we will be able to quickly fix any issues surrounding this. Another focus that we have to work on is nailing down the exact background that we want to have. At the moment it is between a more realistic background that we are currently using and a more fantasy less realistic look. Although, we have agreed that we want this to take place in ruins or an Easter island type of setting. For me personally I want to be sure that the players are having a fun and positive experience while playing and that the game play does not become stale.