Death Be Thy Name - Week 2 Development Blog

Based on the fact that there was significant development during the week prior in regards to what game the group would make and a fairly high detailed design document in which the design sector (including myself) filled in which outlines all of the key aspects of the project, it meant that we could begin the development process relatively early on. As I'm personally specialising in design it means that there are a variety of different aspects in which I can support the group and subsequently the games development. For example, the lead role of level designer was taken early on and I feel that the overall perception of the group was that it would be easier this way as we only had planned out to put in two levels throughout the entirety of the game. However because of the fact that there was a singular individual working on the levels I feel that there was a risk of sentimentality overruling feedback to which would overall improve the final product. A particular instance to which I am referring to is during the development of the first level for the game there were contrasting ideas to whether or not there should be the inclusion of a catwalk which would add verticality to the area. This this idea was well received well by everyone bar the level designer which i believe came down to a misunderstanding to what was meant based on the fact that he was unavailable for the in person session. Because of this I decided to model a 3d layout in blender to display the idea to provide a better understanding to what the suggestion was.

Following this myself the design team got into a voice call on Discord and discussed the topic and came to understanding in which we all agreed upon the decision to include the catwalk into the levels design. During this week I also decided that it would be best if I supported with the creation of some assets based on the fact that a significant amount of props are required in order to decorate levels and support mechanics in which we are going to include I.e. Key cards that open locked doors.

(Front view of key card with blood variant)

(Rear view of key card with blood variant)

Most importantly however, this week saw the introduction of Trello, a web based virtual workspace which can be used for Scrum as it allowed the group to set up and track tasks. Also, by adding a colour coded system it meant that the group were able to focus on the most important tasks first, overall improving productivity.

In conclusion this week I believe that this week had a large amount of importance to not only the development of the game but also at an individual level as understanding agile framework workflows is vital in games development and is something that I was not that familiar with prior to this. Furthermore, I believe that I have improved in being able to apply constructive criticism and justify my opinions accordingly i.e. in regards to creative decisions regarding level design.