Reflections - Semester One
Over the course of the semester, many individuals on the team were able to grow as game developers, artists, and programmers. Here, you can read about our reflections on the semester, including problem solving and approaches to development dilemmas.
Working on Eubie the Bumblebee and Detective Duck has been an incredible experience. Everyone on the team is extremely talented in both their specialization and general game design. We faced many challenges as a team, starting with the creation of our game. Originally, we wanted to take ideas from everyone’s proposals, but as time went on, we had to work out some of the ideas that did not feel like a good fit. Overtime though, I feel like we built a strong game with good direction.
My primary goal this semester was creating the story and characters from our game. This was a challenge because we decided the game was also going to be a mystery, so clues and suspects had to be made. Another challenge I faced was making sure everyone was happy with the story. People on our team wanted characters written in very specific ways, so there was trial and error. I also learned about writing dialogue this semester. This is something that is present in almost every game but is not covered in any of our normal classes. This will be a great piece for my portfolio because it shows I can step outside my normal boundaries and succeed.
Towards the end of this semester I had to put on the programmer hat. I worked with Nate on the dialogue system for our game. Our first idea was to use Yarn Spinner and we spent the first few weeks setting up and getting ready for it. During the last milestone though we ran into a roadblock. Yarn Spinner did not work with our version of Unity. This led us to create the temporary dialogue system for the demo. For the second semester we are making plans to create our own dialogue system from scratch that will also allow us to add voice acting if time permits.
Overall working on this game has been amazing and I hope it goes just as well in the next semester.
- Written by Alison Brannon on November 29, 2020
Alison Brannon
Jennifer Field
Over the course of the semester, working on Eubie & Detective Duck has been an extremely rewarding experience. I’ve been lucky to have a talented and hardworking team in this project. That being said, we as a group had our fair share of challenges, especially at the beginning of production. Since we all felt passionate about our ideas and combining them into one big project, it took awhile for us to decide on what exactly we were going to do and what elements of each person’s ideas we would use. It was also a struggle to communicate effectively with each other, however that was a hurdle that we overcame. As a result, we’ve been working efficiently and have all been on the same page as far as development goes.
The primary role I’ve been in for the project has been as the UI designer and programmer, though I’ve also created the soundtrack for the game. Most of the work I did this semester was for menu UI. I designed the screens for the main menu and pause menu as well as the about and controls screens. Since our project is a mystery/detective game, my idea for the menus was to have them be pages of a notebook. After my team approved of the designs, I programmed all of our menu UI as well. I also created sprites of prompt and dialogue bubbles, although they are not yet implemented due to issues we’ve had implementing the dialogue system.
Beyond UI, I created the soundtrack for our project. While what we have currently is by no means the finalized soundtrack, it works for where we are with our current progress. Given that I’ve only previously made music as a hobby, creating it for the project was a very exciting challenge for me. Since the game doesn’t have objectives implemented yet, I went for soft, calming music so the player can just relax and explore. In the future, I plan to create more of a jazz/noir soundtrack to fit the mystery theme.
As far as my portfolio goes, I feel that my contributions to this project will be a great addition. This project has allowed me to show my expertise in 2D design as well as programming, both of which are where my talents lie. Creating music for the game will be an added bonus to my portfolio, as it shows that even the things I’ve pursued as hobbies can be useful additions to a major project.
I’ve had an extraordinary time working with my team on this project, and I’m excited to see what more we’ll accomplish in the spring.
- Written by Jennifer Field on November 29, 2020
Robert Highsmith
"I had a blast working with everyone all semester long. I believe we are moving in the right direction with our game ! Our combined efforts for the past 4/5 months have lead us to a project I think we all are proud of. But, we still have more work ahead of us in the next 4-6 months ! Here is what I will plan on doing during that time period!"
Second Iteration game plan:
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My next steps in the development of our game will focus on figuring out a way to have it where DD is the only one able to traverse the river waters.
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We tried to have invisible colliders around the edges of the river and have only Eubie be affected by them, but unfortunately that didn’t work out like we planned.
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I also plan on adding to the cave/dark forest mazes, as well as the river obstacle course for DD.
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If we have time and if it makes sense to the story, a possible fifth puzzle in the game as well.
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Some Miscellaneous tasks include:
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working on having animations for our scene transitions
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adding a script to the water in the cave maze that pushes whomever is in it backwards against the current
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assisting with any other programming related tasks
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- Written by Robert Highsmith on November 29, 2020
Chantil Hunt-Estevez
As for the development of the environment, my biggest challenge has been the actual implementation of various methods that exist to write custom material shader code in Unity 2019. I chose to utilize open source codes to ensure that the style would remain consistent throughout. I am grateful for Roystan Tutorials, Acorn Bringer Assets, Minions Art Tutorials, and Impenzia Tutorials for helping me in the environmental development. I had utilized a few of Acorn Bringer Low Poly Assets as placeholders until I further develop specific assets for the scene.
The roles I fulfilled became more and more diverse as we started development. From 3D modeling environmental assets, to developing textures, to world building, to shader scripting, to creating particle effects, to assisting in the implementation of character animations and movement, to video editing using Premiere, to organizing power-points, to setting up scene change transitions with Robert, and counting. My goal was to broaden my understanding and versatility in 3D modeling and game development using Unity. I wanted to create something stylized and unique for a newbie developer. I hope to accomplish a more inclusive human centered design that can be accessible for people of all backgrounds, including those with disabilities.
Tools Used: Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, Blender, Unity, and Visual Studio.
Looking Forward For Next Year's Development,
- Written by Chantil Hunt Estevez on November 29, 2020
Nathaniel Hussey
Working on Eubie & Detective Duck so far has been a very rewarding experience, albeit a far different one from any other project I have worked on. Previously, I had only worked on video games with a maximum group size of four, and several projects on my own. Having five other teammates has made for a very different experience, one with many upsides, but also some challenges. Having such a large group allows me to focus on what I am best at, and like doing the most: coding. While I am working on specific coding tasks, like fine tuning the movement mechanics, I know that other parts of the project, such as the art, are getting the attention they need, which allows me to give more attention to the task I’m working on. Some challenges with working on a larger team have been our communication. In the beginning of th project, we had a few issues with our willingness to offer criticism of others’ ideas, though we had a team meeting dedicated to communication, and agreed to be more willing to offer criticism, and established a system for mediation, in case our communication had any major breakdowns.
The main things I have worked on this semester were the movement mechanics, and the dialogue system. The movement ended up being a much more complex task than was originally anticipated. We went through multiple iterations of a character controller script, each with their own problems. After settling on our current movement script, we discovered during playtesting that our jump mechanic worked inconsistently, forcing us to rework parts of our controller again. This left less time than we planned for YarnSpinner integration, our planned dialogue system. For the last few weeks before our final prototype for the semester, Alison and I worked on implementing YarnSpinner, but could never quite get it to work. It was only the final weekend of development for this semester that we discovered that it wasn’t going to work with our version of Unity, so we built a temporary dialogue system.
Over the course of the winter break I plan on working on a proprietary dialogue system, that will allow dialogue to be written in a separate file, rather than being hardcoded into UI canvases. I also plan on tweaking slightly how our jump works, and reorganizing our project folder, so that our scripts and models are easier to find. Next semester I will be focused on character specific abilities, working with Alison on dialogue implementation, optimization, and bug fixing.
I’ve had a great time so far working with this team, and I can’t wait to continue this project next semester, and see how our final product turns out!
- Written by Nathaniel Hussey on November 29, 2020
Nicole Jansen
Eubie the Bumblebee and Detective Duck has proven to be quite the project with high aspirations attached to it, however working with a team of such dedicated individuals has made achieving these goals seem more than possible. Team communication has been exceptional, and I’ve had a great time working with my group members to create the characters that will fill the world of our game!
While I worked on documentation and logo design, my main role in the group was character design, modeling, and animation. The aforementioned communication especially seemed imperative in ensuring the created characters fit within the overarching project being built. I was able to work with our storywriter who created the ideas for the characters and bring them to life through my own personal design. These designs were also created alongside other artists on the team to ensure aesthetic consistency. The programmers, too, gave feedback and opinions on what they thought of the characters to make sure everyone's voice was heard!
Each week I worked on concept art, 3D modeling, animation, and integration dabbling to ensure the creation of these characters. I had originally only planned to create five characters this semester, however with how the story had evolved it was clear that more would have to be planned in order to stay on schedule. This required a lot of flexibility and schedule reworking, however I was able to learn to manage my time wisely in order to meet the demands of the project! I have created seven characters this semester, each with their own set of animations based on their personality, body type, and animal inspiration. These include concept art, models, textures, animations, and animation trees for:
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Eubie the Bumblebee
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Detective Duck
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Portebella the Mushroom
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Lacy the Ladybug
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Sue Jane the Squirrel
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Bri Blodge the Rabbit
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Toad Hopper the Frog
This wouldn’t have been possible without planning ahead and streamlining development where need be. Hopefully I’ve been able to set up base meshes, rigs, and animations for the characters I’ll be working on next semester so I can also give attention to any documentation that will be required with the end of the project.
This assignment has been a pleasure to work on and I’m constantly impressed by the contributions my team members have made. I’m looking forward to next semester to see where Eubie the Bumblebee and Detective Duck’s game development goes next!
- Written by Nicole Jansen on November 30, 2020
The above work will be an extremely valuable asset to my personal portfolio as well, as I’ll be able to showcase an ability to develop consistent characters quickly through the use of technical planning, strategy, and understanding. By managing my time and effort, I was able to create a multitude of characters to help the forest setting feel more alive without having to compromise quality and personality. Each of these characters also share a unifying aesthetic, showing capability in making uniform designs that fit together in a larger scale. Finally, these characters differ from my usual humanoid, fantasy-based work which should help to showcase versatility in my designs.
