Against the Current

This has been a tough week for our team. We had hoped to start with production, but after presenting our final project for the prototyping phase, our supervisors weren't too impressed. As a result, we had to continue prototyping, forcing us to delay our original timeline. This unexpected setback brought some chaos into the group, as we had to quickly adapt and reassess our approach.

To get back on track, we spent time rewriting tasks, brainstorming better solutions, and refining our ideas. This process has been challenging, as it required a more in-depth look at our design choices and mechanics. Communication has been rough at times, with tensions running high due to the sudden shift in plans. However, we are doing our best to keep spirits up and maintain a good mindset!

Despite the obstacles, we remain committed to creating our game and making the best version possible. Hopefully, the extra iteration will pay off in the long run!

Boat model

One of the first things they asked us to improve from our final prototype was the boat model itself. Due to some miscommunication within the group, we ended up with a very quick and roughly made model. During this week, we took the time to prototype a good block-out model for the actual gameplay with height differences, a sail and ropes to trip over.

Boat model before small adjustments based on team feedback.

Boat model in unity with proper mast - sail - cables and player area indication.

Once this block out proves to be optimal for the game, we will create a detailed model as this represents most of our environment.

Fire cages 

Some of the current tasks rely on fire being carried around the ship. That is why it was important to find the ideal model and shape for the fire cages located around the ship. As the players move around they want to quickly ignite their torch. That is why a fire cage at player height is the best option for us. 

Fire torches and fire RFX 

Carrying the fire as the player is just as important, so our artists iterated on some torch ideas as well. We choose the last one as it has simple shape language fitting for our game's aesthetic. 

With the fire torches also comes the fire fx.

Small Props

Some aditional models made to be scattered around the ship and make it feel more alive!

Simple paddle model

Greek vases in Unity

These models are unwrapped onto a trim sheet with gradient colors, adding some visual interest and built-in lighting to them at a very low cost. This method is great for quickly iterating on different color variants as changing the color of individual gradients is very simple in a software like photoshop.

Color Gradient Trim Sheet for simple props

User Interface

One of the things we worked on this week is creating UI elements based on an object's worldspace location. This allows us to make icons appear above characters and events when needed. An example of this is a fire icon above our torches when they go out.

Other than that we also made a visual to represent the progress towards victory and one to represent the boat's health.
Upon taking damage, the camera and its UI will shake.

Testing Scene with camera shaking and torch icon appearing and disappearing

Explosives

As you know, we already made an explosive interactable in the past. This week it was redone a bit, now it explodes and pushed the player away too! This happens after a timer, but that will be changed to when it comes into contact with the torch the player can now carry.

Explosion pushing away the player

Death

The player can now also die when falling off the ship, this is a pretty crucial yet simple thing.

Torch

As you might have seen in the gif a bit up, we also implemented some torches. These can go off and need to be relit by the player carrying a lit torch. When they go out it shows the fire icon, and when all torches go out the boat takes some damage to punish the player. There will be more bound to this in the full game.

Boat taking damage after all torches go out.

Bugs!

When I added the new boat to the scene I suddenly encountered a very strange but. Crates started floating! This led me down a rabbit hole of unity physics debugging. It took a longggg time for me to figure out the issue. Apparently the water shader plane had a collider mesh which in turn resulted in strange behavior. After deleting the collider everything worked again like its supposed to. Now after wasting a lot of time i can finally move on to other tasks.

Debugging floating crates

Player pickup

Making the player able to pickup items was tougher than it seemed. As we are using an active ragdoll, which right now is configured on a model that wasn't made for that purpose. It was pretty tricky to get Physical object to interact well while getting picked up. But after a while it now works flawlessly. Except for pickup animations and walking with picked up item it works.

Player picks up a torch

Torch relight

One of the tasks is for players to relight torches, this can be done by hitting them with a lit pickup torch. Players can also accidentally kill other players if the hit them with the torch.

Player torch relight

Mast event

The mast needs to be oiled often, or else it will behave strangely and damage the boat. This is why the player needs to bring a vase full of oil to the mast. If they cannot do it in time the boat will take damage.

What's on the horizon?

Our team worked hard this week to make our game more fun to play. We hope our efforts will be fruitful and we'll be allowed to start the production of our game soon! Join us next week to see if this ship sinks or if we stay afloat! ⛵