Finishing Vein Game and Integration

This week I be finishing the Vein mini game; which will require me to create a solution algorithm that will be able to detect when pipes are assembled in a way that would lead to victory. I will also be replacing some of the place holder art assets.

This week will also be used to try and work on integrating my mini games into the main game.

Pipe/Vein Mini Game Development

This week I am working on my final mini game for this project. It will be based around the pipe dream type of games that require the player to connect a series of pipe sections to link one point to another. As of right now I have most of the groundwork set up for the game, and the only thing that I have left to do is devise a way for the game to detect the win conditions. I will need to develop an algortithm that will go through the connected pipes and determine if they manage to connect the start and end points. I originally was going to use a static "solution map" and compare it to the game map to see if the pieces were in the right places, but I quickly learned that many of the levels will have more than one way to solve them, and any win detection method I develop will need to take that into account. Next week I should have all of the code completed, and will focus on replacing all of the place holder art assets I am currently using.

Integration Preparation

This week I will be putting a few finishing touches on the code for my two mini games. These changes will fix some of the remaining bugs that are left, and make things easier when it comes time to integrate the various sections of the game. I have also added a few more art assets to the platforming game; which includes art for the various character animations.

Platformer Touchups & Pipe Dream Design

This week I am finishing the code for the platforming mini game; which will involve adding sloped tiles, fixing some collision issues with moving tiles, and adding in an end point that will transition to the next segment of the game. This week I will also begin designing a pipe dream mini game however development of this mini game likely won't occur until next week.

Beta Development

This week I have begun working on the beta stage of our game. I have tried to encapsulate my sections of the game a bit more, in the hopes that when it comes time to integrate everything together there will be fewer issues. I have also spent some time creating a few new tiles for my platformer.

There are only a few things currently missing from my mini games that I still need to add, and that will be my primary focus for the weeks to come. Afterwards I intend to shift my concentration from my own work to helping with integration.

Presentation

There is not much to report this week. I have completed work on my two mini games, and all that is left to do is prepare for the alpha presentation. My group and I will be meeting up later in the week to get things ready for Tuesday. I will probably try to select a few important aspects of my games to include in the presentation; I will also probably try to go through and add some more comments in my code so that it is a bit more understandable.

A Few More Tweaks

My platforming mini-game is completely functional now. However, I still need to replace some of the placeholder art, and I need to create the final "levels". I will be spending some time developing some of the tiles that will be used, but any actual animations will be done by Chris. I may decide to add a few more different types of tiles just to add a bit of variety (such as ladders, elevators, etc.), but for now I am satisfied with it as an alpha version.