Zoe's Week 4 Report

what were your concrete goals for the week?

My concrete goals for the week were to help the team complete items on our to-do list, be proactive about contributing to the repository, add meaningful progress to the project, and figure out how to support communication across multiple IP addresses (running the server on one computer and the client on another).

what goals were you able to accomplish?

My primary contribution this week was implementing the foundation for 2D UI rendering. I added dedicated UI shaders, OpenGL buffers for rendering quads, a separate render pass for overlays, and a reusable drawQuad() function for future HUD elements such as health bars, menus, and status indicators. Although it currently displays a placeholder rectangle, the key accomplishment was creating a scalable UI framework that we can continue building on throughout development. This was a valuable contribution because it moved the project forward, allowed the team to check off one of our planned tasks, and gives us a head start when we are ready to add features such as a task progress bar or a time-to-impact countdown bar. It also helps separate UI systems from the main 3D renderer, which will make future development cleaner and easier to maintain. However, I was not yet able to successfully implement cross-device server-client communication.

if the week went differently than you had planned, what were the reasons? note that this happens regularly...I would prefer you to be aggressive in what you want to try accomplish rather than limit yourself to goals you know you'll easily achieve. so answering this question is more of a reflection on the development process and the surprises you encounter, it's not at all an evaluation.

One major challenge this week was working with the lab computers. First, we had to troubleshoot missing dependencies and make sure everything was properly installed and added to the system path. After resolving that, we discovered that our code was not functioning correctly on Windows machines, and player movement was not working. We spent another day trying to debug the issue, but we still have not fully resolved it.

what are your specific goals for the next week?

My main goals for next week are that I want to focus on getting the game running properly on the lab computers, resolving the Windows compatibility issues, and making progress toward cross-device multiplayer support.

what did you learn this week, if anything (and did you expect to learn it)?

I learned a lot this week about working across different operating systems and the kinds of compatibility issues that can arise. Troubleshooting our project on Windows gave me valuable experience in identifying environment-specific problems and adapting software to different devices.

what is your individual morale (which might be different from the overall group morale)?

My individual morale is slightly discouraged at the moment. We ran into several unexpected setbacks, and it was frustrating that we were unable to run the game properly on Windows, let alone enable cross-device communication. At the same time, I still feel motivated and committed to solving these problems and continuing to improve the project.