CAGD-377 Mobile Game Development

Postmortem

This final sprint was a rollercoaster of emotions. The thrill of almost being done and publishing the game, with the sadness of knowing this was the end. But at the end of the line, I was proud of my team and myself to see what we accomplished. Is really fulfilling to see a game where you work for months to be released so everyone can play it. This got me thinking about all the stuff that went wrong and right.

 

What went right?

Something that always worked was the creation of the different 3D models and 2D art of the game. Even if I was not so sure if they looked good or in harmony with the game aesthetic or theme, I was reassured that they looked good and gave the feeling that they belonged to the same game. Even if a lot of assets were not used at the end of the day, I was happy with how all of them turned out. I was also able to use most of the ideas that I got for backgrounds, buttons, panels, plants, seeds, and more. They were also reinforced by my team reaffirmation and approval, which gave me more confidence in using them.

Seeing the end product was gratifying to say the least. I was able to do most of them relatively quickly, which was another bonus.

 

Another thing that I think went right was the tutorial level. At first player weren’t sure if it was necessary or helpful, but after a few changes and taking critics into consideration, I was able to get the tutorial to a point where it explained all the necessary aspects of the game, how to play and by being helpful to the player. Even when it was less helpful, it always worked like it was supposed to, even if I was having some difficulties with how to make it at first.

 

What went wrong?

Something that went wrong for me was more technical issues. I was not so sure what caused the different errors that I was getting when UVing different 3D models. I arrived at the conclusion that it was because I used different programs to model those assets.

I model the seeds and a few plants on Maya, and the rest of the assets on ZBrush, which made me believe that certain topology of ZBrush was not fully optimized for the UV mapping in Maya. This took me a while to be able to fix or to get to a point where it would not completely affect the texturing of the objects but was still frustrating.

Aside from that problem, I think everything else went smoothly. I have time problems with other classes, homework, and work. But I was able to make it work even if I was short on time.

 

What would I do differently in the future?

I think I would have liked to be of more help to my teammates in the future. I was limited by time and abilities to some degree, which made me feel frustrated. I want to try to alleviate the stress of those who I am working with so they can also get some rest and not get burned out in the process.

Another thing I would like to do in the future is to make better models, so they complement each other. I was able to see the differences between Maya made models and ZBrush models. I was able to do more natural shapes on ZBrush, which made the Maya models look more geometrical. In the future I will use certain programs for more natural shapes (ZBrush), and other programs for more geometrical shapes (Maya).

And Now for the work I did this sprint.  For the final sprint I just try to give the last touches to the different aspects of the game that I was in charge of. I finished the tutorial level to a point where the information was helpful to the player and removed unused features that we thought of at first. I also made the text big enough for the players to read without complications. I also locked the ability to plant seeds for the player until they started the tutorial.

Another thing I added was a settings button on the game over scene, to give access to them before starting a new game. This was not difficult to do, but I had to hook up the settings screen to a different one from the one in the main menu, to prevent conflicts when changing screens.

And last but not least, I decided to make a background for the game over scene in which it depicted what happened when you lose on the game. This was fun to do, since I just made a garden that wilted because the player was not able to plant anymore, and the bank took control of that space.

My final thoughts

I’m really happy with how the game turned out in the end. I want to also say that my teammates did a fantastic job and gave impressive results. I will miss the time we spent together trying to find ideas on how to make the game work, as well as the time spent in making the game get to its final point. Thank you, Marisa and Miciah, for a allowing me to join your group and being awesome group members. 

Idle Gardener: Sprint 6

This sprint, once again, was similar to the last one: The kickoff went smoothly and well. At this point in the semester, the game is mostly done and we are just figuring out the las touch ups, as well as cleaning the last bugs that we found. This sprint was not too big for me. I was in charge of mostly last minute touch ups (art) and promotional related elements, like the game’s poster and tutorial video.

Now, for the work I completed. First of all, I fixed a few errors that we had on the tutorial level (dialogue). Although I did not finished the last version of it, since a lot of details where discovered in the last play test, this was a minor change that need it to be done because it could confuse the player further because we did not added a few elements that were mentioned on the tutorial. This was an easy fixed but, like I said, I would have to still retouch the tutorial level completely to be more similar to the original game play.

Another thing that I did was the last panels that we decided to have, as well as a different version of the buttons for the inventory. These ones were simple and some of them were just a change in color. I implemented some of them into Unity too, but others had to be discarded as an option to prevent further confusion. Even if a lot of things that I made were not able to make it to the last version of the game, I was happy with how things turned out in the end.

Another thing I did was to change the sizes of the seeds’ models in unity. A lot of players complained about this, since it was hard to see the models when planted. This was an easy fix too, but I had to see which size work best for the plots, without making it too overwhelming for the game. At the end, players had more positive reactions to the new size and visibility of them, which is good.

Another Unity change that I did was to add a price on the shop system for every seed. Players where confuse most of the time when buying seeds, since they did not know how much each of them was. This was mostly done through Unity canvas, to make changes if necessary. I also had to see which color was more visible and understood as the price of the seed. At the end, it seems like the text help players to manage their money better.

And last but not least, I did the promotional poster for the game and the gameplay video of the game. This was fun to make. The poster was simple because we decided to use the cover of the game, adding our names, group name, and where to get the game. As for the video, I just decided to record the tutorial level and a little bit of the main game to demonstrate how to play the game and what is it about.

Because of the low workload for me this sprint, I was able to finished all my cards once again. But this kind of leave a bad taste on my mouth because I did not felt like I did much (even if I have not much to do). The sprints are becoming smaller and lest taxing since we are getting to the last part of the game. Is exiting and sad at the same time.

In conclusion, I am really happy with this sprint, but I am sad too for having to come to the end of this project. I want to see the reactions of people paying the game, as well as how the game looks in its final form. I hope people like it and that they enjoy it as much as possible when it comes out.

Idle Gardener: Sprint 5

This sprint was similar to the last one: The kickoff went smoothly and went well. At this point in the project, we are trying to figure out what do we want for the final product of the game, so all of our work is focused on those exact features and aspects of the game. This sprint I was in charge of the art for the game (UI, background and more). I also was in charge of fixing some aspects of detection in the crops (which were causing problems because they were not being collected). I also worked on the tutorial level of the game. And I also had to resize the game objects to make it less hard to collect the items.

Now, for the work I completed. First of all, it was the tutorial level. I kinda shot myself in the foot with this one because it was a 3 point one. I was doing work but didn’t have much to show until I finished during the first stand ups. In the end, I was able to finish it on time and did not take me longer than a few days. Okay, so what I did in the tutorial was a code that would show a dialogue explaining to the player what they have to do and how the game works for the most part. This was really fun to do because I had to think about what exactly I had to do in order to make it work. I need it to get access to my team members’ code in order to make it work and was fun to know how their codes work in the process. I also made this code flexible for the number of changes that we may have in the future. Overall, I’m really happy with how this turned out.

The next thing I did was fix the detection problems to collect the crops. At first, we thought that it was the size of the crops, so I changed my focus to see if that was the problem. Which wasn’t, so I ended up doing the changes in advance since it was part of the process. After a few try and error attempts, I discovered what the problems were, which were the colliders on the plants that were preventing the player from collecting their crops. After removing the colliders, everything ended up working perfectly. We ended up avoiding redoing the whole touch system. 

Next and last was the different art for the game. We wanted our game to look like all the main assets were made by the same artist, so for this I had to do all buttons, text panels, background image, sliders, and more (specially since I was the one who did the art for the game cover and some of the buttons first). This was really fun to do for me. I was able to do a lot of things that I had planned for the game’s appearance in the first place. I started with all the buttons, since it was the easiest part to make because I already had a few done. Later, I decided to use the sliders for the change in volume in both parts (music and SFX), for this one I decided to get a little more creative on the handle part but make it simple too. Later, I did the shop buttons to by seeds and ended up doing a simple drawing of the type of crop the person would get to communicate without text what they were buying (here I also decided to change the color of all the buttons to make it more visually pleasing). After that, I did the text panels, making them simple and different colors to identify which one is which. Lastly, I work on the background of a mountain field, trying to compel calmness and beauty (which is what we want to communicate with the game). All of this was a pleasure to work with, since I had a lot of things I wanted to try for the appearance of the game.

As a last thing I did was to change all buttons, sliders, backgrounds and panels into Unity. This one took a few hours, since I had a few problems with the background, but in the end, it worked out.

This sprint was really good for me, since I was able to finish all my work for the first time. I think this was due to the type of work I got, since it was mostly art and ideas I already had in mind. 

In conclusion, I am really happy with this sprint. Not only was I able to put into fruition many of the ideas I had for the game, but I was also able to finish all my cards for the first time before the sprint ended. I hope is going to be the same for the next sprints and to keep up with the good work.

Idle Gardener: Sprint 4 

For this sprint, the kickoff was short and smooth. Because it was one week before Spring Break, we had to take that into consideration. This sprint was weird for me because I was busier with personal things and tried to rest, even if I still work during it. I think because of that I ended up slacking of a lot, or not doing more than I could. For this sprint I was in charge of modeling the farmers (something that we would need for making the garden automatics), as well as doing their textures. I also had to fix the problem with the sound effects not working when changing scene, implementing all models into Unity, doing some art for the buttons.

Because of the sprint break and the alpha coming right after the break, we focus mostly on having all the main features of the game work, as well as having a little bit of the models implemented on them.

Now for the work I completed. First of all, it was the farmers’ model. This one we wanted something simple too and that we could re-use for all the types of farmers we would have. I decided to make a stick figure with a hat on, and the rest of the details would be added on texture, to make the model simpler and less heavy for the game, since we may have multiple farmers at a time and that could crash the game. I decided to do this model in ZBrush again, since is easier to do the organic shapes of the hat and the farmer itself there.

The next thing was the textures of the farmers. For this, I multiply the farmers in Maya to be able to make a texture sheet for all of them (there were going to be six in total, one for each plant that we are going to have in game). This was pretty easy, although I had to come with an Idea to know which farmer would be what, without making it too busy for the player to pay attention, but obvious enough to distinguish them. For this, I just decided to change their shirt color, which is easy to see and easy to understand which one is which when placed.

Next, I did the buttons for the play tutorial and start. We want the game to be more cohesive, so this is something that we need to make them look more like they are for the same artist. I am plaining on doing this for all the buttons in the game, since we are adding more and more as time goes on and as the game changes. I started with these ones since they were the ones that would be needed for the alpha of the game.

Lastly but not least, I fixed the sound problem for the scene change. I had problems with this one since I am not that good of a programmer. Searching only did not bring many results until I was able to find a person who could help me to solve this problem. At first, I was trying to solve the problem on Unity, but every attempt did not work. So, I ended up solving it in code. This was a great way to solve it and it works perfectly for any audio that we can put on game. In the future, I have to see if the duration of the audio is too much of a wait for the players, but for now is working great.

  

This time I was not able to finish all my work. I still have more work of art to do, but I decided to focus first on the most needed things for the alpha built. In the future I want to try and finish all my cards, like last sprint.

In conclusion, I am a little unhappy with this sprint. I still feel like I could have done more, but the circumstances and my burned-out-self needed it to rest a little bit to be able to continue giving good work. I still wanted to give a good end result, but I also have to take my mental health into account and not burn all my energy without any rest.

Idle Gardener: Sprint 3

For this sprint, similar to the past one, the kickoff went really well and smoothly. I think this has been one of the best sprints so far. We had our first playtest for the prototype of the game, which received a lot of feedback that would help us in the future. In this sprint I was in charge of modeling the latest 3D plants as well as their textures. I also was able to work with the sound of the game and coding to change volume inside the game.

Similar to the last sprint, we were able to start with the kickoff right away. Because we had our playtest for during the half of the sprint, we focused on having things that were needed for the prototype on time. 

Now for the work that I completed. First of all, I work on the last models that I was going to do for the last sprint. These were made in ZBrush, which took longer to make since I am still learning. It was fun to do but I had to ask for help in some of the steps since I did not know what the best option was to do. This method also came with disadvantages, since it messed up with some of the UVs that I will mention later on.

The next thing was the sound of the game. For what I wanted to do is to give the option to the player to play with different levels of volume during the game. In specific, one for the music and one for the sound effects. This was a little bit hard to do for me, since I never work with this type of code in Unity before. I run into a few problems with audio multiplying during scene change and not saving player’s options. After a few hours looking for solutions, I was able to find a few ways to do it and that work. But I have found new problems that I am going to resolve on the next sprint. 

Next was the low poly models of the 3D assets that I had made. This is where I took it the most easy, since all the programs that I use to model my assets have a feature to lower the polygons number. Although it doesn’t seem like much, I had to be careful to not loose too much detail to save space for a better performance of the game.

And this led us to the last work. This was one of the most frustrating for me since, like I mentioned in the first section, I ran into a lot of problems with the models’ UVs. When making the models in ZBrush and even by lowering their polygons in this same program, the system makes a lot of triangles that are hard to identify or can make certain topography hard to unwrapped. Is not noticeable at first, so I did not take this into account until I was going to create the UV sheets for each model. To save space, I have to create a texture sheet with different plants on a single pack to be able to use in all the plants of said section. For this, I decided to use Maya, since is easy to organize the UVs there. But Maya did not like how some of the models had difficult topology or how ZBrush made their own UVs, giving me a lot of errors during this part of the project and making it time consuming. At the end, I was able to solve the problem, although not in the best way possible (I had to use the legacy UV editing, which is not as good as the newer version). After solving this problem, the texturing of the models went really smoothly and without any problem.  I decided to texture the models in a more cartoonish or simple way to combine with the aesthetic of the game. It was worth the struggles with the UVs in the end, although I think it would have looked better if I completely solved the problem.

This time I was able to finish all my work just in time for the sprint review. And the problems that I came up with during this sprint helped me to come up with new cards for me in the future.

In conclusion, I’m happy with this sprint, even if I had a lot of troubles with some of my work. I am also happy with how well our game did during the playtest and the new feedback that we received to make our game better. Is a great joy to work with my teammates and to come up with new solutions together, as well as see the fruit of our hard work. 

Idle Gardener: Sprint 2 

For this sprint, it was a little easier to adapt to the workflow. The kickoff went really well, and we were able to finish more work on this sprint than the last one. Since we had more time for this sprint, we were able to make more progress for the first digital prototype, which is a huge difference compared to last sprint points. I was in charge mostly of 3D modeling and some art related but needed options (such as the cover for the game menu).

Let’s start with Kickoff. We were able to start with this right away, almost even before the last sprint review. During our meetings, we discussed what do we need for the digital prototype to be able to obtain the feedback that we want. This also came with a few changes on some of my cards, since I overestimated the amount of time one of them would take me to complete. That card ended up being two cards of 3 point each, instead of one card of one point each. This also gave us the notion of cards that we would need in the future, such as the low poly models of the plants to save on memory space and better the performance of the game.

For the work that I completed. First, I ended up giving priority to the title screen. It was a simple drawing and the logo of the game. This was also used by me to make the main menu and use it to connect it with the level and options screens later on. I didn’t have any issues with this part of my job, since it was really quick and simple to do.

As I mentioned before, I also did the script for switching scenes. I used codes that I had learned before and that are really simplistic. This also allowed me to have a ground for one of my next cards, option’s menu, which is going to be done during sprint 3. This also did not present any problem due to the simplicity of it.

Next, I started with the 3D modeling of the seeds. For this, I started to look for reference images to use to do them. I did not know how the majority of the seed we were going to use looked like, which was a new learning experience for me. The models were easy to make, in the majority. I think the only problem came with the beet seed, which has more of a chaotic/organic shape than the rest. I ended up with a somewhat similar shape for it, but I may change it in the future if I see fit. I didn’t find a way (at the time) to solve this problem, since Maya is a little harder to make natural shapes without making the object too big in poly count.

Now for the last one of my works, it was the model of the plants and their different phases (just sprout, fully grown, and spoiled). This one was more difficult to make. It was really time consuming and also really frustrating since was the first time for me to make plants. This is the card that I overestimated at first and that was changed for two cards of three point each. I was able to finish half of the plants, which were potato, carrot and beet. And leave the strawberry, pumpkin and watermelon for the next sprint. I was getting a little frustrated with the plants, since they did not look like natural plants made by Maya, so I ended up experimenting with ZBrush. The results were even better, and I decided to experiment more with it for the nest plants.

At the end, there were only two works left that I was not able to complete, which were the other half of the plants and the low poly version of all the model. Right now, I’m currently working on the rest of the plants.

Overall, I’m really happy with this sprint and with the work of my teammates. Is a great joy to work with them and have great communication, even during my absences for health reasons. They were really understanding and supportive during those moments. I’m really happy with them.

Idle Gardener: Sprint 1 

When I first heard about this game, I was hooked by the premise. I love idle games and plants, so I thought this game was perfect for me. Another reason for me to choose to participate in this game was the plus one feature of it. I like how the garden can be threatened by external factors and the player has to be really careful not to lose everything they have planted so far. Because of these reasons, the process has been different for me. In the last project that I had, I was the game producer, which meant having a lot more responsibilities regarding the advancement of the game. This time, I’m the game designer, which means I have many different responsibilities, but with more focus on the design of the game itself. I like this experience a lot so far, having to think of new ideas for an idea that is not mine and that I did not plan beforehand is also really fun. I think these experiences will change in the future, since new responsibilities and priorities will arrive with them, but I love how well communicated my team and I are. Sharing ideas or helping each other to get solutions to different problems that we may have been really important for the team. We complement each other and make sure to work together to achieve a better result.

For the Sprint Kickoff, we had slow but great progress. A lot of the ideas that we discussed during our meetings were able to become cards for our Trello board. We also decided which one was more important, so we could be on the same page. At the end of the kickoff, we decided to focus all of our attention on setting the git hub project, making the paper prototype (with its procedures and rules), as well as filling the rest of the Trello board with any other ideas that we will need in the future, and we did not think about it on time.

For me, I started to plan the idea for the paper prototype. Because of the type of game, we were going to make, it was a little hard for me to think of a good way to translate the idea into paper. At the end of the day, and after a lot of board games investigation, I arrived at a rough idea of what could work for our game. I work on the base of the game, having some idea of the rules and procedures that it has to have. I also play-tested with my teammates to see if it was fun. The game ended up being fun, but we discovered a lot of loopholes in the game. After multiple tests and discussion, we arrived at a version of the game that could work the best. This was really fun to do, since we made it together and got new ideas from the feedback we gave each other.

When the playtest arrived, we discovered a few problems that we didn’t see at first. A few of the players got a little confused with the rules, although they catch on to them rather quickly after a few minutes into the game. This is where I started to think of new ideas that could help us resolve these problems. Some of the problems were that the rules were a little confusing at first, but a solution that we found for this was to help the player with hints and tutorials along the gameplay to help them understand them better. We also discovered a few flaws in the games mechanics that could make some players abuse the resources and break the game, while others play safer and more got close to losing the game. We are thinking of making more limits and boundaries to prevent these issues in the future. Aside from that, the game got really positive reviews and people seem to have a lot of fun during the game.

But there was some work that I was not able to finish this sprint. I was in charge of the mockup of the title screen but was not able to arrive at it on time due to other personal issues. I will finish this for next sprint, as well as the other job assigned to me.