Jacky's Week 8 Report

what were your concrete goals for the week?

This week I planned to improve the gameplay feel by tweaking the existing features.

what goals were you able to accomplish?

I mainly aimed to improve the task of recovering an item from the space station. I changed the targeting of the warren bear laser to be much more threatening by adding accurate target prediction, but players can still outsmart it by having one ship distract it while another one closes in. I also added some more features to the tractor beam, it can now suspend items in front of the player (like HL2 gravity gun) and even grab other players. I also helped a little with mapping out what needs to be on the game UI.

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.

I knew this week coming in that I won't be doing too much since I was busy with another project temporarily, but I'm glad I did get something done.

what are your specific goals for the next week?

My goal is to continue fleshing out the space station, and now that ship classes are in the game, finally add the reviving mechanic.

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

I didn't realize how much more challenging getting good playtesting would be when dealing with a multiplayer game. I'm used to testing my own singleplayer games thoroughly to iron out all the bugs, but when another player is added, there are so many more edge cases, and since controlling two players by myself is a bit limiting, it's also harder to find a time with other people to playtest together. I realized that multiplayer playtesting is something that needs to be planned ahead of time instead of just messing around on the spot.

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