Gold - Week 2 Sprint
Nov 28th, 2022 to Dec 11th, 2022 - Last Minute Bugs Fix and the Showcase
For this sprint, similar to the last sprint, it was the last week to do QAs and fix any bugs we found for the final build on the showcase. Thus, self-playtesting and attending the remote playtesting session by advisors were great for tackling with remaining bugs.
Programming, and Bug fixes (8 hours)
The tasks I mostly worked on for this last sprint were to fix bugs specifically the health transitions between encounters using the saving and loading mechanics.
Ship Health Transition between Encounters
The ship's health should be transferred the as the player progress through the encounters. Meaning that when the player finishes with 50% hp for the first level, the 50% hp will be transferred to the next level and the player should approach the next level more carefully. However, for the build I playtested, the health did not transfer to the next level and started with the max level always. As a result, it makes our game way easier because even if your ship were close to getting destroyed, only if you can survive the current level, the ship's health will be reset to the max health. This was not our intended design, thus, I had to fix this bug using the save and loading system written by another programmer Howard. Reading and understanding the codebase written by someone else for the first time surely was challenging but asking questions and reading the comments left by the original programmer helped me to comprehend and fix the bug.
And, Here's a short footage of Ship Health getting transferred to the next level without any issue:
As you can see from the demo, the current health of the ship now transfers from encounter 1 to the shop and then from the shop to encounter 2. This would allow the player to use the pausing the game by pressing the spacebar to strategize their plan to maintain the ship's health for the longer survivability.
Ship Door Jamming Visual Indicator
In the previous blog post, I mentioned that I fixed the door jamming function that doors in the player ship get jammed when a crew passes through it however there's no visual indicator that represents if the door has been jammed. Therefore, for better UX, I added a yellow visual indicator for a door that got jammed for 5 seconds.
And here is footage of the the visual indicator when a door gets jammed:
As you can see, the jammed door is highlighted in yellow. So the player should be able to click the door to close the door to prevent any hazards to spread to other rooms.
Playtesting (3 hours and 30 minutes)
Since this was the final sprint, the playtesting was very important for finding any last-minute
bugs and report them on Jira. Therefore, while I was also fixing the bugs that I was assigned to, I
also playtested at the same time to find any bugs that might cause issues during the showcase.
In addition, I attended a few remote playtesting sessions by advisors to gain helpful feedback and
how they feel about our game in general.
Meetings (2 hours 45 minutes)
For 2.75 of my 12 hours of bi-weekly involvement, I spent my time for the last studios meeting
for this project at the BBB. We did the last-minute playtesting for both projects and gather
into the department meeting to go over the feedback for the studio this semester so that
it can be improved in the future semester.
Showcase (3 hours 30 minutes)
I attended the 494 + EMU showcase on Friday 12/10 as a dev to show the games I worked on including this project and my EECS 494 final project.
Hours Breakdown
- PROGRAMMING AND BUG FIXES: 8 HOURS
- PLAYTESTING: 3 HOURS 30 MINUTES
- MEETINGS: 2 HOURS 45 MINUTES
- SHOWCASE ATTENDANCE: 3 HOURS 30 MINUTES
- TOTAL HOURS FOR GOLD SPRINT 2: 17 HOURS 45 MINUTES