Out of Shape

I’d like to start by saying I think this semester went much better than last semester. Like Last semester everyone was assigned roles based on everyone’s experiences and skills. Min & Chris on Art and Animation, Lucas and I on programming, Eric on story and puzzle ideas, and Joseph as project lead and level design he who also had a hand in programming and a few other things as well. I think things although were slow to start we progressed at a steady pace. At first, there wasn’t much to do for us programmers outside of testing scripts and making sure they were functional and playtest and help with level design as most of the scripts we needed we made last semester. I took it upon myself to be the debugger and go throw and always clean up, edit or fix code where needed so I would have something to do. Joseph was busy with the level design, Lucas was fine-tuning his code, Chris and Min were working hard on animation and art with Eric conferring with Joseph about puzzle ideas.

 

Like last semester’s role as a programmer. I developed the death system, and the dialogue system The checkpoint and respawn system required a lot of trial and error. But I think both turned out just fine, I am not a level design person so I mostly stuck to coding when needed. I truly do like the process of scripting although it is a trying process the feeling of everything coming together is like no other.  I was much more confident this semester after taking a few more classes and self-teaching myself some things over break Over the course of this semester, I have developed my skills far beyond what they were last semester although I wouldn’t call myself a master programmer still and there is still loads of room for improvement and things I still have trouble figuring out I have come a long way in terms of programming skills. I created and contributed to using each script using my own knowledge without little to no outside help with something I am immensely proud of.

 

Over winter break I took it upon myself to take some udemy classes as well as some YouTube classes to improve my skills and I would say it paid off. My classes last seemed, as well as this semester, helped out tremendously as well with skill development and I am proud of what I have accomplished. As far as group dynamics go we had fewer problems this time around. Most of the time people were able to make it to the meetings and communicate when they couldn’t although of course there are times when this does not happen something I was guilty of a time or two. Everyone kept everyone brisk to the progress and updates needed. Every person had something they were to work on each milestone and each individual carried it out to the best of their abilities.

 

At first, all we had was the first level, although we made it so long it could be its own game to be honest we made sure we really fine-tuned and polished that level before moving on to a second one. That is when this semester really started to pick up steam. I began prototyping puzzles and levels, making new scripts, debugging, editing, and making improvements to other scripts. Joseph and Eric kicked it into high gear with new puzzles and level design and Lucas did very well with improving and adding new scripts of his own. Lucas and Joseph also managed to further optimize the game which was quite the feat. Chirs and Min worked overtime making the assets for both levels and improving textures and models as the semester progressed. It was like a well-oiled machine from mile 3 on, I loved working with these guys and I am proud of what we have built and I think people will love the final product. This was a very stressful yet fun semester with 5 classes and this being my final semester it was tough but I’m happy to say I made it and cant wait to see what the future holds for me.