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Its crazy what a change in art can do to shift the perspective of an entire game. I loved seeing your team's game in action, the tileset looked very cohesive and if you guys ever release it, please send me a link! Goodluck on your future art-focused games, I hope that you continue to hone the skill and can't wait to see what you come up with. 

It's great to see that you've come out of this year optimistic with the experience! It's unfortunate being unable to sit back and enjoy the final product, but failing early to learn isn't a bad thing, and it sounds like you're on a healthy path moving forward into capstone.

Hindsight is 20/20, as we're still learning, its natural to be more inexperienced in scheduling and with the technical skills you need. Programming is a massive rabbit hole, there's just so much to learn and master, especially with ongoing life problems that are out of your control. I think its great that you still want to push through, and are actively observing how and why other people approached their game the way they did. Goodluck in all your future projects!

I think its a great idea to incorporate real and functional floor plans into your level design. It not only adds realism, but players can feel familiar in the environment and intuitively understand where to go next. Drawing inspiration from other puzzle games is also very hard to do with the lack of exposure, hopefully you'll have time to study different kinds of puzzles in the future after finals. 

Good to hear that you guys are getting back on track! Its smart to just focus on feedback/bugs until the end of the semester as the workload for other classes pick up too. Best of luck with your art and sound.

I also think its very important to test with people who aren't gamers because they don't have the expected knowledge that we may have based "obvious" mechanics on. I wish you good health and a productive rest of the semester to have everything ready for the showcase.

Communicating is a real skill, its easy to zone out or not understand something without speaking up, and it just snowballs. A picture really is worth a thousand words; I find MS Paint is perfect for when I can't find the words to convey my ideas. Or annotating a screenshot of the game to explain UI ideas. Goodluck with managing the new list and I hope this is exactly what your team needs for a fresh start!

Bumpy starts are never good but to pull yourself out of it is impressive. You guys seem to have a good base to conduct a real playtest, all the bug fixes and improvements can come later! Hopefully the upcoming playtest can offer valuable insight to your team.

Glad  to hear that your team all have tasks now, hopefully production will be more speedy now! I understand how hard art is to balance between visually appealing and overstimulation, would love to see what you guys have now after the first round of playtests. Hopefully the new documentation works for everyone, goodluck on the second playtest.

It's great that you and your team managed to integrate agile workflow into production. I'm curious to see the quantity and quality of art made by the first playtest, seems like a big task but from what I see, you guys have a solid schedule and system worked out. I hope that production stays consistent and conflict-free.

In my opinion, the re-scope is a smart idea. I've also been dabbling in Aesprite and its very intuitive with tons of tutorials online, making lots of simple assets/animations quick should be a smooth process. It's rough that you've lost 1-2 members, I hope that your team can continue to work around that and produce a fine project by the end of the semester.

I think it's great that your communication is so strong, supported by the safe environment that allows everyone to feel comfortable to speak up. It's also good that you guys hammered out the uncertainties before moving forward to make sure everyone starts on the same page. I would love to see the mockups and visuals that you made for your team, and I hope that your scope doesn't go out of hand! 

Hi Ethan,

Getting your team to meet up consistently would help tremendously in my opinion.  From my experience it helps keep each other accountable and sets a concrete deadline. And cleaning up your GDD and other docs would start off the next semester must easier, I think its a great idea!

Hi Rui,

Sounds like your very prepared for next semester; having the groundwork to start off on the right foot is always a great idea.  Having everything documented and ready to go allows for an easy start in 2024. Good luck next sem!

Glad to hear that your team's synergy is good! Scheduling varies so much from person to person, always happy to see that other people have a workflow that works out for them. I hope that your team continues to have no issues in the upcoming semester. 

Hi Lucy,

The concept behind Misadvisor was very enticing; love the strategy and narrative components of it. Even though the idea wasn't chosen, as a personal/future project it would be a wonderful idea especially because of the manageable scope.

Hi Ethan!

I absolutely loved Carbon and your pitch was exceptionally done. The thematic ties to creating a eco-friendly world was well thought out and tied into the coal mechanic thoroughly. If the Carbon can be given the chance to become a full game in the future, I would love to play. 

Hi Lucy, the topics you chose are very poignant; and I love how it ties into the pitch. It could be interesting to also talk about propaganda from the king himself, whether the player is aware or not. Looking forward to the presentation!

Hi Theo, with the rapid rise of being raised in an online environment, people tend to jump to conclusions and pick sides without the full context of the story. Studying misinformation spread with malice intent is a really interesting angle to cyberbullying . I also wish for more empathy in online spaces, goodluck with your pitch!