What I Worked On

I created the initial prototype and pitched this work prior to production. I helped work on the timing and spawning of the notes that were read from midi files. I created the turn system and play tested and adjusted damage, health and bonuses for performance. I helped create and implement some of the UI within the game. Each week, I would compile all of the group member’s work that were on separate branches into a single branch. I created the trailer for the game.

Successes

Programming team:

1. Auto-Generated Beat Maps. (Potential for users to upload own music in future)

2. Reading the generated Beat Maps and spawning them. (Can scale difficulty easily)

3. Very scalable final project with good programming practices.

4. Main game loop/mechanic is fully operational

5. Gameplay is clean and polished

Sound team:

1. Learning about copyright, and finding out about how Public Domain works.

2. Reading the Midi files of songs into readable notes

3. Sounds and SFX make the scenes more lively.

Art team:

1. Despite being the only artist on the team, a lot of the major assets were able to be produced and put into the game.

2. Was able to include animations pretty early on into the game

3. Was able to create some interesting character and set piece designs

Story/design team:

1. We managed to make the game thematically consistent and still easy to read and notice different elements of our game

2. Created textual responses dependent on how well the player plays during the rhythm portion.

3. Created a character with a distinct personality.

Hardships

Programming team:

1. The Auto-generated beat maps took a big chunk of our time in the beginning

2. Github and Unity made it difficult to work on the same scenes/scripts at the sametime without it overriding.

3. We started losing contact with the group as the weeks went by which made figuring out what people were working on a challenge

4. There were team members still learning Unity through this project, which added a bit of time to progress but was overall a fulfilling experience

Sound team:

1. Figuring out what music to use took a long time.

2. Editing the midi files was a pain since some audio programs don’t allow you to do so easily.

3. The sync of the song and the game was an issue.

Art team:

1. A lot of pressure to be on top of creating assets or there would be no progress in terms of art 

2. Felt some burnout near the middle/end of the quarter that made it hard to work

3. Wasn’t able to experiment much with different concepts so that major assets could be implemented on time

Story/design team:

1. We overscoped in terms of the amount of levels and characters we would be able to implement into the game from the beginning. (From 7 levels -> 1, and 4 AI character -> 1)

2. Having the character speak in a similar manner that Mozart would have (grammatically).

3. Writing a narrative that fit around the gameplay in a way that made sense.