Comment number 1, made on Benjamin’s blog: https://squigglezone.wordpress.com/2018/02/08/pixel-art-and-pre-production/
Hi Benjamin! (A bit late comment here, but I have some thoughts on your post.)
Very interesting post you’ve written. It’s always fun to read up on the different ways groups work and plan out their process. It seems that your group had a very clear vision of what you wanted to create together; that is super useful and enables faster workflow. Your structure in this post is great, very easy to follow the steps you as a team went through. For this post I would have loved to see more of your personal work however, not only what the group as a whole agreed upon and the general design choices you made. It is very clear what, how, and especially why it has been done, but I feel like you could have put a more personal spin to the content, maybe some thoughts on pixel art that inspired you, or the steps that you went through when making the temporary rock tiles.
Keep up the superb work!
/Clara Cox
Comment number 2, made on Gunnlaugur’s blog: https://guarbabel.wordpress.com/2018/02/14/animating-the-squid/
Hi Gunnlaugur!
Excellent work so far on your animations. I enjoyed reading about the design choices you made regarding the movement cycles for this squid enemy, especially your conscious choice to mix the characteristics of an octopus into the design. The art style is eye catching as well, which I think is accompanied by the muted and moody colour choices nicely. It is also very clear how you animated your character, which is good for readers as it’s easy to pick up tips and tricks on the animation process. There is one detail that I would like to comment on however, which we also discussed during class, which is the different behaviour of the heads: they do not change shape the same way, which leaves some dissatisfaction with me as a viewer.
For your next project it would be interesting to see maybe a breakdown of the different parts that move, or possibly some sketches or line work? Other than that, keep it up
/Clara Cox
Comment number 3, made on Linn Mellström’s blog: https://limegamedevelopment.wordpress.com/2018/02/26/scrum/comment-page-1/#comment-8
Hi Linn!
You provide good information on steps of scrum, and describe both benefits and disadvantages, mostly from your team perspective. It’s also clear from your post that your overall feeling with scrum is that it is useful for your team.
I feel your post could benefit from some more personal opinions on the other parts of scrum, not only on the stand up meetings. The last paragraph’s discussion about the meetings is more interesting to read as I got a glimpse into more concrete reasons for your dislike of scrum. I also think it’s also a good discussion as you acknowledge when the daily stand-ups would be useful, and go on to lay out why it’s *not* in our situation. Our group solved this by having our meetings online using Discord, so we didn’t have to go to school for such a short amount of time. Maybe this could help in your group?
Overall good work, keep it up!
/Clara Cox
Comment number 4, made on Cai Songqiao’s blog: https://caiart.wordpress.com/2018/03/01/development-blog-4-animation-and-boss/comment-page-1/#comment-9
Hi Cai!
I liked reading about your thoughts on your design of the youkai, and the process behind it. It’s nice to see that you designed her with the traditional cultural features in mind, but still changing parts that did not fit so well. You talk about what you have drawn, how you did the design and why you chose to keep and change aspects of her.
You also talk a little about your process in animating enemy attacks, but I feel that you could have gone into deeper detail on your death animations, maybe on your work process and how you designed them for the two enemies. It would have been interesting to read more about your thought process behind these enemies, just like with the youkai. For example if you thought about and drew their silhouettes in a special way, or any thoughts you had when choosing the colours for them.
Good work so far, I’m looking forward to playing your game when it’s finished!
/Clara Cox
Comment number 5, made on Raileanu Petrut’s blog: https://typeblogtitlehere.wordpress.com/2018/03/08/playtesting/comment-page-1/#comment-6
Hi Petrut!
From reading your blog post it’s evident that you understand the importance of play testing. It really shows that your group benefited from having “outsiders” interact with your game, and you provide very good examples of what changes you could make solely on feedback from players. I would have liked to read more on how you gathered your data, if you made a questionnaire, observation and note taking, or verbal questioning during/at the end. You didn’t mention also from which test session you came to the conclusion that you should add a tutorial. Was it early in development or later, e.g. alpha or beta? Other than that I don’t really have any critique. I like your summary at the end with what you will bring with you to other projects, readers know what you felt was the most useful with this experience and might be able to learn a thing or two 🙂
Overall a good read!
/Clara Cox
Comment number 6, made on Konrad Skagenberg’s blog: https://konradskagerberg.wordpress.com/2018/03/20/dev-blog-6-post-mortem/
Hello Konrad!
First of all, congratulations on completing your game!
Your post mortem reflections are thorough and easy to follow, even as a newcomer to your blog I had no problem reading and understanding your thoughts on the project. It’s a tough thing, summarizing 10 weeks worth of lessons learnt, but I think you manage to do it well. You both evaluate the team part of the project, and your own part in it, as well as what could have gone better with the game itself. I would have really liked to read more about things that you think went right in the project in your final reflections, or more on parts of the coding you are proud of. It’s clear that you know what lessons to bring with you to the next course, which starts really soon, so that is excellent! Time management and planning is a huge part of any development process, and realizing you have to get better at it is great.
I wish you the best of luck!
/Clara Cox
Clara Cox Game Design 