Naughty Dragon Update

Okay so we went over quite a bit as a team and we are about to go into full work mode. So heres a recap of what we're up to!

We have two teams now, one team on art and one team on level design. Heres those team rosters again,

Art Team (Alex's Team)

Brandon
Taylor
Alyssa
LeRoy

Level Design Team (Rich's Team)

Rob
Josh
Brian
Ryan

The purpose of these teams is to divide the workload into two simple parts. The design team will simply design the level, and the art team will create the assets, textures, and all around look and feel of the game. Anyone from the art team will directly report to myself on completed tasks and any questions they have, in the rare case of my absence Rich will be covering for me temporarily until I next return. Same thing goes for the design team and Rich, tasks completed by design report to Rich for further instruction.

Teams can also borrow other team members from the opposite team if necessary, and if they can spare a member. If something needs to get done on time Rich or myself will as the other if they can spare any member of their team, if so then that member will begin working on something for that opposite team for a period of time.

Remember just because we are on teams doesn't mean you cannot or will not be doing work for both ends, or communicate with both ends. You'll be capable of doing so, we are just getting organized as a group to work on this project more efficiently.

We will have weekly meetings as an entire group (both art and design), and daily meetings as teams. There will also be quick ad hoc Lead meetings to make sure everything is going smoothly and both sides are fitting together nicely during production.

At weekly meetings I expect people to begin taking notes if they haven't been doing so already (myself included). This way we can all be sure that everything was covered and everyone is absolutely on the same page. If someone is absent they can look at the meeting notes of another team member.

Speaking about absences, these are absolutely unacceptable, tardiness included as well. We all need to be here on time ready to go, each minute we have in class is crucial to proper development of the project. There are excused absences yes, but that is reserved for family emergencies or personal health issues. Car issues are included in this because it does happen as well. But I can't stress how important it is to be there on time and the entire time of class. We have a big work load ahead of us!

The game is going to have a total of eight levels, five tutorial, and three actual levels. On Tuesday I'm expecting from the design team three map layouts of the tutorial levels, and two of the actual levels. Tutorial levels will be one block themed, meaning there will only be one type of block in that level (rotate, expand, etc.) and no other interactive block. I have this task for you guys until Rich gives you all actual instruction.


Also Tuesday will be an important day, Zach will cover the new way the design team will be building levels. Its very very simple, and I feel that its a much more streamlined and efficient way of doing things. Once you guys get trained on it you're going to feel the same way. Yes it is unfortunate that the work you guys have done will need to be tweaked once again. However, what you have is a learning experience from that. You know how the game works, and what to expect, now that you understand the basics you can move to this newer and easier build and hit the ground running. This happens all the time in the industry, its even happened to us before! (Torque to Unity move)


The art team will each have individual tasks. Currently Taylor will be drawing a model sheet and more concept for the gauntlet prototype, as will I. Brandon and LeRoy will be our modelers and asset designers, you guys come up with concept sketches of different assets that would or could appear in game and get prepared to model those as well. Alyssa will be our texture artist, shes already begun to get moving textures working, and I expect to see more as assets slowly come about.


I hope you all had a splendid weekend, and to those that went to graduation I am absolutely jealous that you got to see an AMAZING commencement speech by Mark Soderwall, great guy it was nice to have the chance to talk to him on Friday. So lets come in with fresh minds ready to roll on this project!