Week 8 began with the team focusing on finishing all development and design work by the end of the week to prepare a build ready for halves. The programmers worked on the AI and debugged any last bugs that were found while random playtesting. The designers drafted two rough levels and play tested them more than 7 times and handed them over to the programmers for development and implementation. The playtests were conducted with other students from the ETC. The team also worked on simplifying the art assets in the game as well as the UI for rampage and score. The producers worked on preparing the halves deck as well as contacting schools regarding playtesting.
On Tuesday, the programmers worked on adding a 3rd state to make the AI smarter. They also worked on merging and integrating code as well as the art assets. They also worked on developing the over-world and level select map for the game. The designers continued to work on the UI as well as deciding the scoring system based on triangularity.
On Wednesday, the producers finished the work on the first draft of the halves deck. The programmers continued with the merging of code as well as the integration of all the game features before the game is feature locked at halves. The producers also met up with Shirley regarding the halves as well with Jesse regarding gameplay. Jesse provided important advice like
- Making the game clear to understand which sets it apart from most games
- Stop thinking over a plan of the theme and just come up with an inbuilt story to the game based on gameplay.
- Story themes like Robot enemies from Sonic games, restoring back to true nature which is utilizing the purification theme, what is needed to be destroyed and what is needed to be purified in this game
- Hook the player in with the action and encourage them to strategize with the gameplay
- The actions for the player must be discretely taught to them and also must be rewarded with feedback
On Thursday and Friday, the team continued integrating art assets as well as UI to be implemented for the halves build. The producers finished and finalized the halves deck and team as a whole met together to decide what each team member would do over the spring break as well as during GDC week in order to get the entire game ready in time for the presentation.