Notes from Milestone 3 Build

Hey guys,

I played through the game build we had up on the P: drive for the milestone presentation and made a list of fixes/notes for the polish phase - which we're in now. Woo! Congrats!

Some of my notes are much higher priority than others. I haven't decided how to prioritize them yet. Here's the full list.

Okay, so in the same spirit as Perfection game, I'm going to start with a list of things I like.

Total score: 6/10 - because I have a lot of suggestions, but most of them are relatively small.

The forest feels awesome. We really nailed the contrast between the enclosed forest space and the open maze space. LOVE the mushrooms. Brandon's bridge is still fantastic. The textures feel cohesive - we have a solid palette and very compatible painting styles. The game is cute! Mission accomplished. I like the "formal garden" feel of the fountain & gate area, contrasted with the wild forest and the whimsical candy maze. The gameplay is fun, challenging enough that I can actually get lost, but not so challenging that I get frustrated. I love that our project is basically on schedule and appropriately scoped. I love that we're in a position to work on final polish already. I love the tiered layout of the terrain - the higher you climb, the better view you get of where you've been. I like that the maze path has you switch levels often, and is made even more interesting by the tunnels. The particle effects on the carrots are charming. Siggy's side to side head movment on the run animation is endeering.

To get a 10 from me:
Notes on things we already have in the game:

General:
soften edges in Maya
More candy “clutter” scattered in empty open zones.
Candy raspberries for around foundation of house (and scattered around)


Lolly Pop Fence:
More polygons
soften edges in Maya
Color palette notes from the forum

Hedges:
soften edges in Maya

Trees:
Lighter value - especially evident when you're looking at the tree line from the house
use terrain painter to get ambient animation
More stuff in forest around edges. On the west side, it looks really empty when you look across the water.
Big open space around the west side of the maze could use more clutter. Trees? Rocks? Logs?

Clothes/Ground texture:
Brown on brown. Lighten ground texture? (Get a screenshot of the two next to each other in game and evaluate).

Terrain:
sculpt away block ramps
finesse terrain sculpture, especially at seems with other objects
Big brown wall at entrance is ugly. Needs to be something edge. Hedge texture? Grass? Yet-undefined ground texture #3?
Green on green with hedge texture. Lighten grass? A different grass/groundcover for in maze?
Third ground texture? Frosting. Sprinkles “gravel.” Candy rocks.
Blocky seam in bunny tunnels. Both tunnels need sculpting love.
Solid brown patches of ground – texture them

Lampposts:
Up rez lamppost textures: really pixelated up close
a few are floating

Cotton Candy trees:
lemon drop fruit
Up rez sticks: really pixelated up close

Bunny guardians:
faces

Technical:
Blue carrot break
Can walk through iron fence
More sensitive carrot pick-up

Camera
Camera still clips in close quarters. Is it as fixed as its going to get?
Re-frame camera so less space between Siggy’s feet and edge of frame → more screen real estate for environment

Gameplay:
Lamp counter HUD
Exit option
Pause option
Dissapearing fence at purple carrot = awkward/hard to understand. Could we make a candy cane X, and open it when you pick up the carrot? Its a convention we’ve already established.
a. Another color of lamps in house zone, to give a reason to explore that plateau?, which leads to b. Yet a different color of lamp for out in the forest zone?
Are we still planning to have him follow a trail of candy along the path?

Particle Effects:
when turn on lamp
when open candy cane gates

Ambient Animation
Butterflies? Fireflies?

Pond:
higher water level
use Unity’s grass tool to add reeds at water line.
Add some rocks around water line

Main Gates:
The tiling stone texture isn’t working for me. Jenn will talk to Brandon.
Model missing iron bunny & circles above gates
Needs to animate closed, not open

Fountain:
Particle effect “water” bubbling out of tops of gum drops, too
Particle effect water spouting from duck mouths

How do-able is a third type of fence? (Pretzel fence, for preference)

WE CAN'T HAVE FIREFLIES IN THE DAYTIME
Butteflies all the way!

Break the gate geometry into pieces:
1. Main gates
2. Iron horrizontal bit
3. Short post
4. Corner post

Gate model missing hinges. (my bad - should have made them more obvious with a note on the concept art)

Gates pivot around their hinges.

Swap out iron fence for short hedges in fountain area.

I've got some of these done...

Functional:
Animations work properly.
Carrots can be picked up again.
Hedge end caps can no longer be climbed. (players could cheat the maze)

Cosmetic:
Hedges in fountain area replaced w/fence.
Water level lowered.
Lightened the distant tree cards.
Put floaty lamps back on ground (the ones I could find).
Camera now has Siggy closer to bottom of screen, and can look up and down. It still clips through everything.


Still working on...

Replacing ugly ramps with prettier ramps. Also, ho-hos.

Fountain particles. Now have water and bubble alphas.

Finessing the terrain: Problem is that I started the terrain at too low resolution to finesse. (you can see the "pixelated" edges on terrace sides). I haven't figured out how to heighten the resolution without destroying what I've already sculpted. It flattens everything out for some reason... I'll try talking to Matt. (also, there's no way to sculpt a tunnel with a terrain, will need to make it in max/maya)

Particle effects for lamp activation... almost there, but not very noticeable.

Here's what's left from last list:

General:
soften edges in Maya
More candy “clutter” scattered in empty open zones.
Candy raspberries for around foundation of house (and scattered around)


Lolly Pop Fence:
More polygons
soften edges in Maya
Color palette notes from the forum

Terrain:
sculpt away block ramps
finesse terrain sculpture, especially at seems with other objects

Lampposts:
Up rez lamppost textures: really pixelated up close
a few are floating

Cotton Candy trees:
Up rez sticks: really pixelated up close

Pond:
higher water level
use Unity’s grass tool to add reeds at water line.
Add some rocks around water line

Main Gates:
The tiling stone texture isn’t working for me. Jenn will talk to Brandon.
Model missing iron bunny & circles above gates

I'm handing a list of tech. notes off to Terry. Here's the notes for everyone else:

- Top of stump: looks like texture stretching. Can we get a cut-log rings look instead?
- Glove wierdness in walk animation