Dev Blog #6 -Postmortem
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Hello! This was the last week of production for the shoot ’em up games, and therefore it is also my last blog post. I will write about how the game ended up and what I have learned in the process of making it. As a reminder, team Devourer worked on the concept of Aetherial, while staying pretty close to a space shooter style game. The fact that we opted for a simple game when most other groups tried to stand out ended up being rather positive in my opinion. We received mostly positive feedback from players who seemed to enjoy playing the game, and I am pretty happy that we managed to make something that was not only playable, but also actually considered fun. We managed to accomplish most of the things we wanted with the game, such a tutorial level and a boss. However, we didn’t have enough time to make the boss we wanted so we had to settle for what we within the team call the “mini-boss”. Originally, we had wanted the boss to have distinct stages and change position from the right hand of the screen to the left side, which would change up how the player would approach the battle. We also wanted an introductory sequence, which would have carried the narrative of the game.  We have three enemy types in the game, the sky slug, tangler and aether ray. Each of the enemies was designed to teach the player to use the primary fire, teleport and laser, respectively. I think this was a good thing to do, even though it turned out that the tangler might not have been enough to teach the players to use their teleport, since quite a few of them tended to forget they even had that ability.  The environment was also one of our top priorities; we settled pretty early on the idea that the game would take place during the course of a day, the tutorial taking place around noon and would then culminate in the boss fight taking place at night. We then decided that in order to enforce the idea that the player was heading for danger, the vegetation on the floating islands would start out as being green, then start withering and eventually all the plants would just be dead as you progressed towards the boss. This, together with the skull island seen just before the boss appears, also works as foreshadowing.  I definitely learned a lot from this project, I am sure all of us did. One of the most valuable points to me to take away from this is the dangers of over-ambition. While ambition in and of itself is nothing negative, I do believe it’s important to know your limit so you don’t bite off more than you can chew. I feel that this goes hand in hand with time management, both of which are things I believe I will learn with experience. This issue was most notable in regards of our boss, or mini-boss as we refer to it as it’s just a fraction of what we wanted to do with the boss. We had a moment where we wondered if we’d have to scrap the boss altogether, but luckily I had amazing team members who managed to pull it off. It may not have been what we wanted, but I think the boss turned out really well anyway, and I was kind of impressed when I first saw it.  I have also learnt a great deal about scrum during this time, and it’s a framework I enjoy working in. In addition to this, I’ve learnt to be more outspoken and strict when necessary. I am a laid back person who doesn’t put so much stock in formalities, but I now have a greater understanding of when the group needs stronger leadership. This is something I will carry with me to the coming projects, and I will keep refining my leadership skills. It’s been difficult, and it’s been a lot of fun. We’ve had arguments and we’ve laughed together. Despite the various hardships I’ve run into during this course I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I am here to learn, and even though I’d be lying if I claimed to have loved every minute of it, I think the positives outweigh the negatives and I’ve met a lot of great people in this class whom I’m looking forward to working with in the future. Thank you for reading my blog and good luck in the upcoming projects!
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