A User Interface and Finalizing Features
This week was heavily focused on the User Interface development. As seen in the following included document, we have been able to design something that is user-friendly, yet complex enough to display the game features we are working on, as well as allow for expandability in the future. We were able to present this to our client’s who were very pleased by it. This coming Friday, once the UI is implemented in the game environment, we plan to have a playtest to determine any tweaks that may need to be made.
On the programming side, the game is now able to load and reuse layouts from previous players for use in a current session. This required a change in database layout, affecting other scripts and functions, which have since been updated. Finally, our statistics and ranking mechanism has been put into place with an algorithm calculating production cost, throughput, and time. With all of this complete, most database functionality has also been finished, with remaining features existing in and affecting only the game itself.
Aesthetically, our operator characters are completely polished and animated and we are awaiting final textures from our artist early next week. On the audio side, a final soundtrack has been compiled and most atmospheric sounds will be ready to load into the game environment shortly. UI sounds and feedback will also be developed as the system is implemented.
Moving Forward
As we rapidly move toward the end of the semester, we have completed our list of deliverable features for the client and ourselves and have a clear path and timeline to get there. Over the next few weeks, we will be concluding development and beginning the archival process. Additionally, we will be prepping our 3 minute and 30 second videos as well as our final presentation. We also plan to have numerous playtests during this time, which we will use to polish our project as well as provide a roadmap for future work with this client.