Dr Strangelove or: How I learned to Playtest and Love Iteration

– A Post-Mortem
 
What went right
We made a game, and it was playable. I am honestly proud of this simple fact.
We used the MDA and achieved something adjacent to the aesthetic goals. We cut features in the concept document that would not have aided those goals, and in general had a consideration for the player. Our goals were;

feeling of being overwhelmed
Constantly in Danger
Pressured
Fear of a relentless pursuer

We made assets that were regarded positively. We had a very cohesive visual design that […]

Using data to improve Gameplay

There have been two official playtests conducted at Uppsala University Campus Gotland for this course of Game Design 2. We have used these playtesting opportunities to great effect, and the tools that have aided us most is the fundamentals that we were taught early in the course. Using the MDA we have throughout the project tried to keep our eyes focused on our Aesthetic goals. These goals define the feelings and the experiences we want the player to have while […]

How to use the Animation tools in Unity

This week we were a little short on manpower since one of the members on the team is on vacation. My tasks were more focused on importing and implementing done assets into unity as well as doing animations using the animator, instead of making assets as I usually do. Thank goodness for Scrum am I right?
So here’s a workflow instructional guide on how to import sprites into unity.
The Basics

Drag and drop all your sprite sheets into the Unity folder of […]

Scrum in team Ettin

How a Scrum Works
This is to make the un-initiated understand the basics of what Scrum is, and how it can be used as a framework. Feel free to skip if you understand Scrum.
The basic principles of Scrum is to work in an iterative environment consisting of small teams that self-organize tasks that need to be performed in order to ship a product. Some roles in the team are:
Product Owner– The person or entity the team is working for, and determines […]

Pixel Perfect in Unity

This week has been a adventure in Pixel Graphic Minutia behavior in Unity. I made some animations for the protagonist for our game, and wanted to test them out in Unity, to make sure everything was appearing and behaving as expected. This is when I saw it; the visual bug.
There are clear black lines of pixels showing up in certain frames of the animation. What makes it worse, is that it is inconsistent in that it doesn’t always appear on […]

Testing testing

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Pixel art and pre-production

The game development team Ettin (which I am a part of) decided to make a game based on the concept document from the team Poltergeist. The concept is called “Depth”, and the core tenants of the project feature a giant fish creature chasing a submarine through underwater caverns.
The Lead Artist and me quickly decided that we wanted to make the game using Pixel-art. It was a realm we both had little experience, and were eager to learn more about. This […]

Pixel art and pre-production

The game development team Ettin (which I am a part of) decided to make a game based on the concept document from the team Poltergeist.
Temporary Sprite tile experiments
The concept is called “Depth”, and the core tenants of the project feature a giant fish creature chasing a submarine through underwater caverns.
The Lead Artist and me quickly decided that we wanted to make the game using Pixel-art. It was a realm we both had little experience, and were eager to learn more […]