Changelog, and Milestone 4

Things have been rather difficult these past two weeks. As we come closer to a final prototype, new issues have arisen that we’ve had trouble with. Animations have proven to be a constant headache, and we are still haunted by various scaling and positioning issues with new models. Meanwhile, I’m dealing with a few elusive bugs that I can’t seem to find solutions for, and I’m trying to implement the feedback we’ve gotten from playtests.

Of course, when there are genuine issues to address, I intend to do everything I can to make it work. However, now and then, playtesters have made comments that have raised my eyebrow a little bit. Sometimes people’s statements are too general, and sometimes they are unrealistic. In fact, sometimes, people don’t take the time to fill out the entire questionnaire. An important issue I should raise for others’ reference in regard to playtests documents is that they are NOT given to playtesters for general comments only. And they certainly aren’t there for our testers to try and design our game, either. They are there so that we can get some detailed feedback.

When we receive general comments and criticisms that fail to provide any real details of WHY there’s a problem or HOW they feel the game could be improved upon, they provide very little to work with. While one might not ask for an extensively detailed explanation, the more details we have, the more it can make a difference. Our judgment alone as to what will make our game good is often not enough - and good games often rely on tester feedback to make it big. It’s actually quite unrealistic to expect to make a game without feedback whatsoever, and it is a recipe for failure.

But anyhow, here are the new changes.

Changelog:

+Implemented new UI element sprites

+Fixed a couple of areas of the mall where two walls were overlapping.

+Implemented guide arrow functionality to guide the player to the level exit once they are ready to finish the level.

+Fixed a bug that caused the level to be completed multiple times.

+Made the Level Complete Messages appear in the center of the screen.

+Made center messages more transparent.

+Created a new function for NPC movement AI to cause them to become idle and unmoving.

+Made the Level Complete functionality stop all NPCs in the scene, so that enemies can’t interact with the player at this point.

+Increased the player’s hard reverse factor.

+Added a new texture for the Mall screen.

-Something strange happened to the project that erased all of my scene changes for a particular day, so I had to reinstate many changes I had made previously. The reason for this happening is unknown, but it is possible the project was rolled back for some reason. This has unfortunately taken a lot of time.

+Fixed an error that did not update enemy NPCs to indicate that they were attacking.

+Implemented functionality for the ItemManager to play sounds. Specific sounds pending.

+Added functionality for a Level Complete sound. Again, specific sound pending.

+Enabled functionality to make the extend/retract wheels capable of using both Left and Right shift/ctrl keys, respectively.

+Added functionality to enable for the modification of the player’s deceleration rate.

+Fixed an error that could enable for multiple activations of the Turbo Energizer items.

+Repositioned some items to account for the mall tables and chairs being resized.

+Further increased the player’s steering mobility (was 90 degrees per second, now 110).

+Various misc. changes and restorations.

+Made the ItemManager clean up its own static reference when it is no longer needed (such as when the level is completed).

+Added new features to the tutorial to address conspiracy theorists, and how to handle them.

->Made the tutorial freeze all Conspiracy Theorists’ movement until the player exits the toy store. - NEEDS BUGFIXING - does not work!

+Updated Event indicators to make themselves capable of unrevealing themselves to the player, hiding them if the player is no longer in range.

+Fixed Fake Item functionality, and implemented them in a newspaper stand.

+Increased the thickness of the player’s axle to reduce the possibility of it going through objects.

+Fixed a bug where the tutorial did not properly reference its AudioSource component.

-Removed an unnecessary minor pause in the tutorial before a certain message appeared.

-Removed a duplicate instance of the Fake Item script in various objects.

+Readjusted some colliders for tables and chairs whose models had been modified recently. Readjusted items on tables accordingly.

+Added audio sounds for messages in the tutorial, and when items are collected or specific requirements are met.

+Made a simple camera script, which should start the foundation for later camera-based controls.

+Fixed a bug where enemies weren’t stopping properly for tutorial.

+Modified enemy chase behavior to pursue the player a little more effectively.

+Modified a few player behaviors to make them more organized.

+Identified a minor issue that prevents the player from doing quick taps of the acceleration keys to move slightly forward. This issue will be addressed in the next milestone.

+Moved a few scene objects around for various reasons.

+Fixed a minor redundancy in Fake Items and marked a couple of functions as overrides.