Devlog week #3 - Prototyping and Logo

Hello everyone!

This time around we spent the week solidifying our ideas fo the prototypes and we also defined what part of the gameplay loop each one of us would be prototyping. We decided that Francisco would do the combat part of the gameplay loop, Tiago with the exploration component and finally I would stay with the building part. Later in the week we defined that I would also prototype the menus for the quest log and the map, because we thought that it would make sense that when the user was testing he should be able the explore those menus and be able to do everything he can do when the game is paused. As I was drawing the prototypes I started to think what type of materials we could add to the game to collect and build the spaceship components. I came up with a metal, the main ingredient for the components, then crystals for the weapons and a gas that will be needed to fuel the shields. We are thinking about a unique material for the thrusters and also another metal alloy to make some compenents lighter. Also as I was drawing the prototypes I came up with another module for the ship, a storage module that would increase our carrying capacity. As we were discussing this idea we found another problem. What would happen when the player died? Would his materials scatter around the area where he died? Would he have to build is spaceship again, starting from 0? Would he only lose some parts of his spaceship? The best solution we came up with was having checkpoints. The player would die and he would go back to the checkpoint. The spaceship would be the same as it was when the player interacted with the checkpoint. Basically the game would the saved in the checkpoint and that save file will be loaded when the player dies. It will always load the most recent file associated with the checkpoint, the player will be able to save the game but he won't be able to come back to that file when he dies. That is the idea for now :).

I am finishing the prototype and this weekend I will be testing it with the users and documenting the tests. We also talked about the tech feasibility report and we agreed that we would be using Unity to develop the game.

Lastly, we are thrilled to be working with the arts students and the game writing students. Our team members are really interested in the project and seem really eager to work on the project. This week they made a really cool logo for the game that you can see below. See you next week!