New Day, New Team

Semester 2 Week 1 (1/18-1/23)

Joining a new team is always hard, and the dissolution of the old team still hurts a bit but liking everybody on my new team helps a lot. 

I was drafted onto the Serpent Shadows* team and I wasn't sure if I would get along with my new teammates.  The team meetings we had during break really helped me get a read on everybody and by introducing me to the team erased any fears I had of not getting along with my teammates (at least on my end).  The other important part of our meetings during the break was that I was introduced to the workflow and speed the team operated with, which helped ease me into the team when the semester started.

This first week of work was both an experiment and a warm-up period for the team. We wanted to implement 4 new movement behaviors and use them to help integrate the story with the game play more than it was initially.  The movement behavior I worked on was referred to variably as the Orbit or Gravity behavior.  This behavior activated when the player was tapping or clicking near the dragons head, the dragon would then begin orbiting around a nearby point. This behavior created a gravity slingshot style of movement which required great precision to arrive at the desired location.

The programmers on the team familiarized ourselves with the code base during this week as well.  The base movement system in particular was revamped during the week.

*The game the team was working on is a Mobile based endless runner where the player controls a dragon protecting 4 orbs from the hostile environment you find yourself in. The art is done with shadow puppets and this creates a somewhat ethereal quality in the game.