377 Mobile Development - Blog Post 2

Team Titan Sprint 4 - 5

This progress blog post about Titanic Arena will not be as long as the previous one since it will only cover two sprints, Sprint 4 and 5. Sprint 4 was already briefly covered in the last blog and we are currently on Sprint 5. But I will near the end cover what will be worked on for the remaining sprints and then some. But back to Sprint 4 and 5, both were fairly large sprints, Sprint 4 especially as we developed most of the game's major and minor features in that period. Sprint 5 is currently about polishing said features and starting the art development process. 

A Closer Look at Each Sprint: 

Sprint 4

Cards Assigned to Me: 12

1. As a player, I would like basic upgrades that increase my health and speed (3) [From Sprint 3]
2. As a Player, I would like to earn gold for weapons and upgrades for each hit (1) [From Sprint 3]
3. As a player, I want the game modes to be improved and balanced based on feedback (1)
4. As a team, we want the APK to be ready by the playtest (1)
5. As a designer, I want to improve the UI so the font could be readable on mobile (1)
6. As a player, I want to be able to upgrade my character after boss waves (1)
7. As a Player, I would like to have a shop to spend gold on weapons and upgrades. (1)
8. As a designer, I need a button from the menu that leads the player to the shop (1)
9. As a designer, I need a button from the shop that the player can tap on that leads them back to the main menu (1)
10. As a player, I would like the controls to be bigger on-screen so I can use them (1)
11. As a player, I want the controls and games to work seamlessly on mobile and emulator (1)
12. As a player, I want to be able to save my game and return to it after I quit the game (3)

Incompleted Cards: 1

1. As a player, I want to be able to save my game and return to it after I quit the game (3)

Our team got a lot of work done this sprint and for me, this was the most cards I got assigned and finished in a sprint. I'm incredibly proud and in awe of my amazing team and how much we improved in getting done each sprint. In the first two sprints, I was assigned 4 cards, the third sprint and at the beginning of the fourth sprint I was assigned 8 cards but at the end of Sprint 4, I completed 11 cards. Some are cards that had to do with improving the game based on feedback and working on UI. My main project was to work on one of our game's major features, the upgrade system. I'm pretty proud that I got it to work and that the player's stats save throughout the scenes but it's not finished yet. The save and quit aspect of the upgrade system will be worked on in Sprint 5. 

Upgrade Shop Feature

Sprint 5

Cards Assigned to Me: 12

1. As a developer, I would like to make sure the UI is visible and clear to the player [Feedback] (1)
2. As a player, I would like the upgrade shop to be obvious so I know where they are. It should be added to the game over screen and more visually appealing on the main menu [Feedback] (1)
3. As a developer, I need to make sure the joystick does not go off-screen [Feedback] (.5)
4. As a Player, I want a main menu that draws me in and makes a good impression of the game (1)
5. As a team, we want the APK to be ready by the playtest (1)
6. As a player, I would like a dynamic model for the default player character that draws me into the game (1)
7. As a player, I would like the upgrades to have an impactful difference [Feedback] (1)
8. As a player, I want my warrior character to have individual stats (.5)
9. As a player, I want my swinging character to have individual stats (.5)
10. As a player, I want my rogue character to have individual stats (.5)
11. As a player, I would like to be able to upgrade my attack (1)
12. As a player, I want to be able to save my game and return to it after I quit the game (3) [From Sprint 4]

Completed Cards: 

1. As a developer, I would like to make sure the UI is visible and clear to the player [Feedback] (1)
2. As a player, I would like the upgrade shop to be obvious so I know where they are. It should be added to the game over screen and more visually appealing on the main menu [Feedback] (1)
3. As a developer, I need to make sure the joystick does not go off-screen [Feedback] (.5)

Sprint 5's focus will be on working on making art assets, polishing and finalizing our features, and improving the game based on feedback. So far it's been a slow start, none of us are really "artsy" people so we're all trying to figure out how to approach the graphic assets. I've been assigned to finishing up the save and upgrade features which I still need to research more into. I'm not entirely sure if saving and loading a game after quitting works the same on mobile as it does on a computer and I haven't done something like it before as well so it has been a rather tough feature to properly implement. I've gotten some of the UI elements out of the way to get some work done as I try to implement the save feature into our game. We're still in Sprint 5 and have a few days left so hopefully we can get a good size chunk of the work done!

Shop Icon

Total Card Count (as of now):

Cards Assigned to Me: 38

Completed Cards: 29

Cards in Progress: 9

Total Point Count (as of now):

Points Assigned to Me: 24

Completed Points: 33.5

Points in Progress: 9.5

There is a point value now which shows the number of workdays I've been assigned to, the amount I've completed, and the days left in do. I'm a bit amazed at the pretty accurate representation of work I've done, which more or less is equivalent to a month of work. I do feel I might have gotten more done by it's nice to have a numerical visual of how much work I've been doing. Of course, it's not 100% accurate but it feels about right.

Issues/Problems Encountered 

Problem #1: Upgrade Conflicts 

One of the problems I encountered during Sprint 4 was that the upgrades and player stats persisting over scenes worked for my Unity project but not Adam's or Austin's. It was a bit frustrating to work with and it's unsure if that's a Unity Collab problem (which we do have before with some of Adam's work) or my scripting/coding problem. 

Solution #1: Adam adding to code and disabling the Attack upgrade for now

With Adam's help, we got it mostly working again by assigning different values for upgrades and the base stats. The upgrades were nerfed a bit during that process but we'll be looking at improving that in Sprint 5 and with my assigned card, "As a player, I would like the upgrades to have an impactful difference [Feedback] (1)". The attack upgrades had to be disabled through that since it caused things on my other teammate's end to not work properly. Somehow the attacks worked on my end but Adam and Austin could not attack due to the attack value being reset to 0 and because the attack started at 0, they couldn't earn gold to upgrade the attack. This upgrade will hopefully be added back in when we improve the upgrades overall.