Post Mortem - Baltzius

!!OBS!! Primary presentation was made in swedish and thus the images are in swedish, they're kept to provide context of how much was removed !!OBS!!

Post Mortem

At the beginning of the course we sat down and discussed, then everyone came up with 2 million ideas was almost, so we had lots of thoughts and ideas. But we agreed very quickly with some parts we wanted. Especially then online multiplayer when it felt like it would be fun. While the other half of our group wants to get RPG elements into the game, here we had our basic idea, we would make a multiplayer game with leveling.

We also joked a lot that we needed to have a fishing minigame (which now in retrospect would be really appropriate to add as a source of food because it is a bit sparse due to how you get it). The following are screenshots from the 1st presentation of the project.

Comparing with how our plans were in the beginning, it became as in the following pictures

With this, our biggest problem arose, the scope of the project. We reworked it several times but it felt like we never got there. 

In the end, we got rid of everything that felt unnecessary, it became an interactive and engaging game with a Viking theme. Some parts I feel angry that I did not have time to fix, such as hot-join. But when I think about everything I have done and how it turned out in the end, I feel extremely satisfied. Thematically, we were looking for something that mimicked Valheim together with minecraft, the result landed in a cartoonish Viking theme. The game starts with you being presented with an image that says "press any key" then you are greeted by a slider that changes the color of your beard in the game, as well as what name you want (which is only reflected when you play with someone and the color on your name in the lobby). Then you get 2 choices, if you want to join or cough, join you are required to enter an IP address. Then you enter the lobby, not writing IP works if the host has the same IP as you. If you have the version that has some customizations for steam, you can also connect through steam. Once in the lobby, everyone presses that they are ready, then the cough can start. Then you meet an island, with enemies, various weapons, and that you can increase in level to more easily defeat the enemy.

Between each game test, we struggled to get the game loop in so it would work well, while some of us sat and struggled with other parts we sought to get in. Most game tests felt almost unprofitable to run because we still could not show what our game was about. Vips so we got the sync between different players and NPC's, all of a sudden everything flew forward. All of a sudden it looked more like we had a game, more and more with each passing day. Now we have focused on CO-OP online, RPG elements in the form of levels, and the thematic. We have a total of 2 enemies, 3 weapons, unlike how we wanted from the beginning with many more options. 1 is strong against enemy x, 2 is strong against enemy y, and 3 is balanced between the two.

Since this game is the first time I touch multiplayer, and then online on it, I would probably have taken shared main responsibility with another person, to take sole responsibility for the online part alone was a bit to take water over my head. But in the end, I managed to get everything I planned except one thing, hot-join. You can therefore not jump in the match again if you die, but you must restart the match if you want it to work.

Because I had sole responsibility for multiplayer, it felt like it was a bit much, especially when everything that happens has to be partially debugged by you, and the person who did it. For example, sync animations between clients. Therefore, I would like to see a little more in advance about online multiplayer. Whether even running card games online or so, which seems simpler conceptually.

Most of the time it was 2 people who rigged everything, in the beginning we had a lot of problems with merges, then we came to a morning meeting until we would get main to their own industry, solve any problems there and then push to main. It worked great for a while, but then some problems crept in that may not seem to have crept in. The reason for that? No idea, checked through but never found what caused the problems.

The biggest negative part was that it became a finger pointing at a specific person because the work he had done was not how people wanted it to be, and that it had been worked on for a couple of weeks. At the same time, the biggest downfall was that we could not show Gameplay properly. In addition to that, the most negative thing was that not everyone took part in game tests, we sat and prodded instead of taking feedback, and that people were not so tagged at meetings every day.

How we interacted when we worked together is probably the most positive thing. How we interacted with common coding was extremely strong, people said very quickly when they wanted or needed help, and once we got past the biggest threshold, it went extremely fast.

All in all, it has all been extremely rich, and I have learned an incredible amount.

The way I would like to bring is to work in pairs instead of solo.