As I enter the final weeks of my semester, there has been a lot to work on and finalize before graduation. Our capstone game Planetary Planter has been undergoing some significant changes since the last blog post, and now functions in a quite different way. Our systems are close to finished, and now we primarily only have polish and adjustments left as we enter the last few weeks before showing off our game on May 6th to recruiters. For this blog post I want to discuss the various different things that we have changed, what I have done and what remains for us going forward into the final push of the semester.
For the general overview of our game, things have changed significantly in basically all ways. Our new map is entirely different, having changed from a curved planet to a flat multi biome ground map. We also scrapped the temperature system I discussed in a previous blog post, considering the mechanic unnecessary and a bit complicated/obscure for player use. An AI thief that can sneak up on you and steal items from your inventory has also been added as a new mechanic instead. We have implemented a sort of tiered content unlocking system into the game to boost player interest and sense of accomplishment, hoping to engage the player more over the course of the game.
As for my contributions specifically, most of my work has been directed towards creating and polishing the AI thief that we have created for more dynamic environmental interactions. Along with providing a minor sense of difficulty, it also helps to make the world feel more alive. How the AI works is that it will wander around in a certain zone/space on the map, its home turf essentially. When the player enters that zone and moves close enough towards the AI, it will start to chase the player and if it catches the player it will knock them back and steal an item from the player inventory. The AI will then run away with the item and hold on to it for a while before eventually dropping/deleting it if the player does not get it back. In order to get an item back, the player just has to right click and hit the AI over the head with a shovel.
(insert video of working ai thief here)
As the video above demonstrates, the player moves towards the AI after collecting items, and when they are caught by the AI the item is removed from their inventory and now has said stolen item displayed above its head.
Our team progress, meanwhile, has been solid, even if it has been a bit stop and start. We did eventually come together to cut down the size of the game somewhat, which I believe was overdue, but I still worry about potential loss of player interest, even if a bit less so than before. Even if players do not play long enough to make it through the game, however, I think that we have made a rather sizable amount of changes that will make any player enjoy their time in game more than they would have at the time of the last dev blog. Teamwork wise, we have split into sub teams as of a month ago, and this has helped with some of the information streamlining in many respects. It also has helped to reduce some unnecessary meetings that usually only covered repetitive information from other meetings.
Overall, I believe that our game will be ready to go for when we present it to recruiters at the senior show on May 6th. I think in hindsight there are some things I wish we could have adjusted sooner, such as giving players more to do and reducing scale, but considering the chaos of the final semester I believe this is relatively good. It will feel very successful to have released a game that people can acquire and play, and it feels like a nice first accomplishment.
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