Week 9

Now the final stretch is getting closer! The work I do now mostly contain of polishing the animations that we already have and adding smaller feedback effects, but there are always unexpected problems that need fixing! For this week’s blog post I have chosen to write about the work I have done on the game space.

Working on the game space has been an on and off process during most of this project, there has been a lot of iterations and changes in formats and color scheme and style. You can see the older variations in some of my previous posts, here I am going to show you the final version.

For a long time now, the idea was to split the houses and street into different sprites, and in that way we could vary the order in which they should appear. This would also save a lot of performance strain in the game since it does not have to load full HD images all at once. However when the coders implemented that version, there were some major screen tearing and glitches that they could not figure out. So I went back to the previous format, where each image is stacked on the other, this gives less room for further iterations, but it saves us time.

In the new iterations I wanted to add more details to make the surroundings more interesting to look at, but at same time I wanted to refrain from distracting the player from the action. With that in mind I chose mostly harmonious colors that would not pop out too much in the peripheral vision of the player, and if they do, they should consist of objects that are easily recognizable and identified.

My biggest grief is that there was no room for me to really go nuts with the background and give it more life. The coders time frame would not allow for any animations in the background, and the coders word is the law in this case. My vision was to add pillars of smoke and fires from Molotov’s and barricades filled with protesters and police fighting, and all of it fully animated.

I’m still pleased with the end result as it is, I think that the variations are enough to keep the player from getting bored with the surroundings. Oh, I almost forgot! I added solar panels to one of the new houses! I thought that since they have those in the kinder garden game, it could become this year’s gimmick! And at the same time promote clean energy! Boom! Serious games…

Thank you for reading! Good luck to all!