Riptide Override: Sprint 5

 Conflict and acceptance, would be a good set of words to describe how this sprint went. In terms of content, we put out the same level we always have.

The majoring different this sprint was that our normal in class play test session had been canceled. Myself and another team member were able to find a good deal of playtests outside of the class though. We were able to get data from 7 different people. This is not a great deal of people, but it was something to work with at the very least. It was also a new and clean group of people, as in they had never seen the game before, unlike our other classmates who have already playtest our game on four separate occasions.

Lets start with with my personal work that I had completed for Sprint 5. I finished the majority of the Ice Level. I don't want to call it complete, as I still wish to throw a few more additions in; and enemies still have to be placed around the map as well. Here's a short Gif of its current state:

If you just came from the blog post of Sprint 4, you'll notice there's significantly more props and detail going on. The most contrasting addition would be the orange Arctic Starfish.

I modeled and textured these based off their real world equivalents. It was important to have some level of stagnant fauna present in the level, but also some type of asset the contrasted the colors. Its nice to have a theme, but everything being shades of blue or white makes the level blend in with itself too strongly.

Speaking of fauna, you most likely noticed the new schools of fish present in the level. These are the Coelacanths.

These are far more detailed and larger then their tropical brethren from the Coral Level. Realistically these fish are rather grey and details, so I did take artistic liberty to make them more exciting. Overall I think the purple and teal adds a nice level of vibrancy to the level, and their rhythmic movement adds some much needed life.

Last, you can't miss the addition of particles to the level. These took me some time, but are made to resemble "marine snow". This as you have mostly likely guessed, is not really related to terrestrial snow. It's basically detritus which has broken down and slowly floats down to the bottom of the ocean. In the Arctic bacteria does not break the detritus down like in warmer waters, making white flecks very visible in the water. I was concerned that its fast and animated movement might distract the players, but the people who playtested the game seemed to of enjoyed the addition.

I also paid a visit back to the coral level, introducing a new center piece prop, the Clam!

This was fun to model and texture, and added a rare and unique asset to the coral level, I placed near the last 80% of the level, and it helps reinforce the overall theme and style for level 1. Next I jumped all the way to level 4. This is not a level I had previously worked on, as it is headed by another team member. The reason  I worked on this level this sprint was because I found a solution to a problem that it had been plagued by ever since early Sprint 4.

The Cave level has a unique lighting and camera rendering system, and it caused a type of Z-clipping that was not present on any of the previous levels. I found a rather funny solution to resolve this. 

I separated the terrain into two categories: Background and foreground. I then rescaled all foreground objects to a scale of 0.9999

This is not enough of a size difference to be noticeable by the player, but it is a significant enough different to eliminate any and all Z-clipping in the level.

Next I started working on the boss arena, which also has a working title of the Lava Level. This very different then the other levels, as the player can not move horizontally, only vertically. The idea is they need to dodge projectiles fired by the boss, and having two planes of movement to guide the sub in might overwhelm the player. Here is the current blockout of the level:

The camera has also been zoomed out, making the player seem roughly 30% smaller then usual, with the top and body boundaries increased proportionally to make the map larger. This should help the player dodge projectiles once the boss is implemented. Speaking of the boss, I started work on the electric particles that will follow the hostile projectiles it fires.

They are not final, but they track well and create and very aggressive and erratic look, that I think will fit the environment very well. While we are on the topic of the environment, you can't really have a lava level with no lava, so I started making a lava "waterfall" of sorts.

This uses three different type of particle generators: one for the top lava particles, the primary lava fall, and the smoke at the bottom. IT is emissive and helps light up the near by area. This wraps up the majority of solo work I did for Sprint 5. But unfortunately we ran into some issues with the group as a whole, which led to a lot more work being needed to be done. One of our four members did their work last second before the playtest, and was not up to par with the quality level that we strive to present. They had also missed the past three meetings and communication became inconsistent, and eventually almost nonexistent. This caused me, and the two other working members, to redo all the work originally assigned to this person. It cost us over 6 hours, but at the end of the day everything was completed in time for playtests, which the rogue member also failed to be present at.

Despite this unfortunate bump, the same amount of points had been completed as always, and we are taking the appropriate steps to hopefully ensure that incidents like this don't occur again. Hopefully Sprint 6 will a bit more smoothly, will less stress on our conciousnesses.