Utkarsh Dwivedi | Week 9: Postmortem

WEEKLY NARRATIVE

This week I worked with Joe on several tasks. There was a bug where the XRay portal wouldn't show up but stamina would get consumed regardless. The way the stamina script was written was a little confusing to us at first, but we were able to fix the xray bug. However, during my QA playtest, I found that the bug was still present, and I think it may be that the changes didn't get pushed through Perforce.

The other thing we did was fix the saving location issue. I created a SerializableVector3() class that would basically make a Vector3 serializable so it could be saved. This helped with saving locations of Rem into binary serialized files.

One simple thing we did was to fix the opening of the library doors. It now opens only when the player has deposited the first two mementos to the shrine.

I redid the entire pause menu, from the canvas panels to the code of it, so as to ensure it's less clunky and more intuitive. I did have a lot of trouble with simple things such as the LayoutElement and LayoutGroup components. It was more of me not completely understanding the components than Unity bugging out. In the end, I did manage to make the canvas work with some issues still left to be fixed. There are issues with controller support on these menus, as well as scaling on different resolutions. These are simple issues that I know how to fix, so it won't be that much of a problem next week. The biggest thing I'm happy about is that the menu now uses a better, less messy system on the back end, and also the fact that prefabs can now be updated without Unity giving the weird modifications.empty() error.

Because of the new code, I had to update the start menu as well, which didn't turn out that great. There are some issues with it, but it's nothing that can't be fixed. The one thing I'm happy about is that the pause menu feels a little bit more responsive now. Earlier, there was no indication as to what option is selected, except for the moving line. Now, there's a simple colour and scale animation that makes the menu feels that much more alive.

POSTMORTEM

The majority of my contribution to this project was in terms of programming fixes to broken things or modifying existent features. I also helped the art team model a couple objects during one or two weeks. I don't think I worked on the project as much as I'd have liked to, but I'm happy with the work that I did put in. I definitely didn't work as much as some of the programming team members who spend 20+ hours on the game. However, I completed all tasks assigned to me on time, with the exception of a week or two when I had to put time on other projects.

CONTENT WITH HOURS

• Fixing XRay bug (2 hr)
• Making a SerializableVector3 class (0.5 hr)
• Fixing library doors opening event (0.5 hr)
• Pause menu canvas panel redesign (3 hr)
• Pause menu code (2 hr)

POSITIVE OUTCOMES

• The new pause menu!
• Small bugs got fixed

NEGATIVE OUTCOMES

• Still some issues with the pause menu
• The XRay bug fix seems to have unfixed itself

NEXT TASKS

Work on juicing the game (make start and pause menus awesome).

TOTAL HOURS LOGGED THIS WEEK: 8