7:47 am
This Project...
7:47am was designed and built as a semester-long project at UIC for CS 426: Video Game Design and Development which focused on the theory and practice of video game design and programming.
As a group game design project, it involved working in teams of three in order to simulate a working environment. Additionally, we were required to have weekly meetings, produce bug reports, and maintain documentation throughout the process.
Over the course of the project, we designed AI; modeled in Blender; created animations, shaders, music, textures, and physics interactions; and “contracted” an outside writer to write out the story elements.
Unique Challenges...
The majority of which pertained to the non-coding aspects of the project. Such as the new experience working with a peer skilled in writing making sure that the writing fit what we wanted what we needed and our technical limitations along with taking their recommendations for what sounded good and flowed well.
Writing full documentation and bug reports was also a learning experience. Despite the project being a small team a lot of confusion occurred over fixing a bug that someone else wrote about. Over the course of the project we developed our report writing skills to be clearer and more concise.
The physics interactions also initially caused problems for those of us who had never worked with Unity3D before. Some unique problems developed from incorrect creation or use of elements, this first appeared when we had our first peer review from other classmates which came with some fun surprises when they play tested our first draft.
This project also helped us all expand our skills for developing for other users and not the grade. Helping us look at using software from a new users perspective, someone who doesn’t have the same knowledge of the program that we do. Emphasizing the need to make things clear to others even when they seemed obvious to us.
Technologies Used...
- C#
- Trello
- Blender
- Unity3D