Blog Post 2 Marble Masters

 Sprint 4:

            During this sprint many of my tasks were to come up with new levels for our game that had to deal with power objects and bumpers. One of the levels were about introducing bumpers to the game. The other two had to revolve around levels that integrated the charge ball mechanic that powers objects. One is being an introduction level, and the other is being a more advance level. The other tasks that I had to do was to create models for the charge station and the charge release button for the charge ball mechanic. With the models created I can give it to Sky for him to program the functions of the charge ball mechanic..

            Problems that was encountered during this sprint was nothing major, but posing suggestions and issues by play testers had with our game mechanics. With the introduction of the bumpers to our game, there seem to be a mix response on how the bumpers felt to the players. Some say they like bumping into the bumpers saying that is fun to do so, others say that it is an obstacle that has to be carefully avoided, and others say that they want the bumpers to have a use to help the player rather than bumping the ball around with no other intention. With this information, that will help with the development of the next bumper level. For the charge ball mechanic, the small problems that we had with it is that the visual feedback for the player was not enough to signify that the ball was charged. However, Micha fixed that problem with having a particle system for the ball.

             Annotative Maps:




             Maps in Unity:




             Models:



Sprint 5:

            During this sprint my tasks were very like the previous sprint. I had to work on 3 levels for the game. One being the advance level for the bumpers. and the other two being levels for the multi ball function of our game. The next task I was given was creating a texture for the walls that would be tile able for all walls in our game.

            Problems that occurred during this sprint has to do with levels having different difficulty depending on controls. For joystick the advance bumper level on my end seems to be not that difficult, however, the gyroscope controls made the level harder. As stated in a previous blog post, one problem that I have is that I do not own an android phone, so I can’t test with the gyroscope. With this issue coming up again, I needed feedback from Sky and Micha to see if the levels with the bumpers was not extremely difficult. With that feedback I needed to reduce speed of bumper movement and reduce the number in areas.

Several problems came with the multi ball mechanic. The first was how the camera was supposed to move in the level. One solution to that I came up with is having the camera be still and show the whole level to see the number of balls within the level. Another problem that came up is that no matter how many balls that within the level, there will always be a main ball that ends the level if it reaches the end first. This issue was brought up to Sky, and he can up with a fix.  The other issue is having hazards mix in with multi ball levels which creates a major difficulty spike for the user. For this issue I will try not putting many hazards with multi ball sections.

One final issue that came up and that is with my work is the tile able wall texture. At the start I wanted to have a retro arcade design for the walls. However, after sending it to verify I did start to notice more and more that something is off with it. During a discussion with the team, I brought it up and they said they had some faults with the design. One it is too colorful, two the tile able does not work well as one had thought. With that I can up with a decision to redo the design for the wall going with a futuristic sci-fi theme.

Annotative maps:



            Levels in Unity:



                Tile Texture:




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