Team Meeting 10

In this meeting, we decided that another scope reduction was necessary as we only had a few weeks left to finish the project and too many things to still do. This time, we thought it would be best to reduce the scope so that it only shows off the essential game mechanics.

Essential Game Mechanics
Dialogue-choosing
Mutating
Environment interaction
Character interaction
Picking up items/dropping items
Giving items away
Walking
Puzzle-completion/Reward-gain

This meant that we only needed one quest in the scope. We chose the second frog quest, i.e. the mushroom quest, because it was the most important one – it allows the player to complete the level. Consequently, the environment was reduced to the frog pond and the snake burrow. However, we decided that the snake burrow was an unnecessary environment if its only goal is to hide the mushrooms. Furthermore, it hasn’t been designed/drawn yet so we decided to cut it from the final scope. This left the issue of where the mushrooms would go if not in the burrow. They needed to be hidden. We entertained the idea of having the mushrooms be in the crystal cave since it was already designed and partially drawn but the crystal cave was deemed as unnecessary due to it containing too much arbitrary detail. Then, we discussed how it could just be a simple cave but that seemed to also be unnecessarily adding a new environment to the scope.

Shannon decided to still draw a quick diagram of the current scope idea for reference to go from. It consists of the frog pond, the cave and the two mushrooms in the cave. Below is the diagram.

Eventually, we decided to hide the mushrooms using a prop from the environment, such as leaves or a bush, so that we could showcase environment interactions in our scope. This idea was taken forward as it was a good method of incorporating environment interaction without complicating the game scope.

However, the quest seemed too simplistic to be entertaining. We thought that including another NPC to act as an obstacle between the player and the mushrooms would be a good method of remedying this. At first, we were picturing a physical obstacle so we posited the snake as the NPC we needed. However, we couldn’t think of an easy way to have the player move the snake without it overly-extending the scope and the snake’s original quest was too convoluted to include.

Therefore, we decided to try using the other NPC – the spider – instead as a viable solution. We discussed how we could involve it in the mushroom quest by having it possess the good mushroom in its web whilst the bad mushroom could be hidden in the environment. That way, we could use the spider’s dialogue to hint at the poisonous mushroom’s existence whilst also showcasing environment interactions.

The spider could ask the player for the bad mushroom in exchange for the good mushroom – this allows the player to discover the option to kill the frog. Afterwards, the player can choose to trade the mushrooms or keep the bad one to give to the frog. We also decided to make both mushrooms appear in plain sight, otherwise the player might fail to realise that there are two mushrooms they could give the frog – they think they only need one. This meant the bad one would have to only be partially hidden whilst the good one is clearly in the web. This newly altered version of the mushroom quest was readily accepted by the group and so, was taken forward as part of the final game scope.

Shown below is the changed environment layout for the final scope. It consists of the frog pond, the spider/mushroom tree and the good mushroom in the web and the bad mushroom on the ground.

I stated that the bad mushroom should be hidden by something the deer could easily move, such as foliage. Bernardo then proceeded to suggest we have the bad mushroom be half-hidden in a bush to the right of the mushroom tree. A bush would be easy to implement and it is a prop that the deer can easily move. Thus, the idea was accepted by the group and incorporated into the final scope.

Shown below are the final environment layouts for the new game scope.

Final Environment Layout (visual)

Final Environment Layout

Next, we made an asset list for the new project scope.

Asset List
Frog world (pond)
Frog (close up, quiet & talking)
Spider world (spider tree)
Spider (close up, quiet & talking)
Good mushroom
Bad mushroom
Bush
Muntjac (close up, quiet, talking, walking & sitting)

Animations
Muntjac
Frog
Spider

UI
Cursor (investigate, pick up, talking)
Title Screen
Dialogue Boxes
Dialogue Room Backdrop

Environment
Environment Layers

Dialogue
Frog –
First time talking
Second talk onward before getting mushrooms
Talking with bad mushroom
Talking with good mushroom

Spider –
First time talking
Second talk onward before getting mushroom
Talking with the mushroom
Talk after swapping mushrooms
Talk after not swapping mushrooms

Afterwards, we discussed how we could cut out any unnecessary animations. We concluded that the ‘frog dying’ animation and the ‘frog helping the deer to the ledge’ animation were both too convoluted to include in the scope. Instead, we decided to just use text to convey to the player what was happening – e.g. frog dies.

Finally, due to the drastic scope reduction, some of us were now left without a role and required role reassignments. We ended the team meeting by reconfirming and/or assigning ourselves new roles as well as distributing tasks to everyone.

Role Reassignments

Bernardo – Coding & Music
Becca – Environment (Mushroom Forest)
Jenny – Dialogue
Shannon – Props
Natasza – Spider & Animation
Sharna – Frog & Animation

My Task: Make new dialogue
Deadline: Friday 1st May

Becca’s Task: Finish Environment
Deadline: Friday 8th May/Flexible

Shannon’s Task: Design/Draw Both Mushrooms
Deadline: Friday 1st May

Natasza’s Task: Finish Spider
Deadline: Friday 1st May

Sharna’s Task: Finish Frog
Deadline: Undetermined