[adjective][animal] - for QGCon 2014
Collaborators: LiMina, KirbiKaka, austinshyu, lunartofu.
All parts of this project were a combined effort, although LiMina took a heavier focus on writing story progression, while KirbiKaka, austinshyu and lunartofu worked more on artwork.
In teams, LiMina and austinshyu worked primarily on the narrative and handling user input to move the story along, while KirbiKaka and lunartofu worked primarily on the battle mechanics.
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Timeline:
September 13, 2014: Workshop 1. The team is formed for the first time and named [adjective][animal]. Contact information is exchanged and planning begins.
September 20, 2014: First concrete plan for the game is formed and work begins to get divided. The team agrees on using Unity.
September 27, 2014: Workshop 2. Game plan is cleaned up and pairs are formed based on schedules and pairing off more experienced Unity users and less experienced Unity users. Primarily a goal-setting meeting - team agrees to meet in pairs about twice a week, and once a week as a full team.
October 4, 2014: Team deadline for having the first scene complete, from the dialogue through to the first battle. Team begins prototyping artwork with general framework in place.
October 11, 2014: Workshop 3. Attempting to finalize framework and finalizing prototypes to create artwork for the following week. Game mechanics will need to be adjusted and code will be tweaked as needed.
October 18, 2014: Finishing artwork, adding in special effects. Finalizing and cleaning up code for presentation. Any other mishaps should be pointed out at this point and handled before the conference. (Finally naming our game, Hard Mode 101!)
October 25-26, 2014: QGCon 2014. Presentation day on the 25th! Notes available in qgcon-notes.txt, written by LiMina. (A note from LiMina: it's by no means comprehensive, and I may have missed various items while tweeting.)
Finalized battle stats: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1l1JxkcWsGTK7vhzhZlWamJSH0D-_U-kZcGLKXtalECI/edit?usp=sharing
Presentation at QGCon: http://www.twitch.tv/qgcon/b/581808394?t=5h46m10s (Start at 5 hours, 46 minutes, 10 seconds.)
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Some Player Comments:
"Concept is good. I like the story, similar to Berkeley student's life."
"Love the metaphor here. Life needs more power-ups."
"Felt a lot like EARTHBOUND, which I very much liked!!"
"Liked the initial bait-and-swith of the 'create your character' screen."
"The background aesthetics were super cool --> loved that you used actual scenes from the Cal campus, the filter was a nice touch too."
"The scenario-specific attack/ability names + descriptions were really fun to discover and kep tme wanting more."
"Good monster images as well, I really enjoyed them!"
"I like the 'friends' screen how "Banter" is the lowest level attack and to really get somewhere you have to be more risk taking like pointing out their comments might be insensitive or coming out."
"...the story overall is dramatized the right amount...dramatized [enough to] be a game but realistic enough to remind you that [it's] based on reality"