I Can't See Development Blog

One of the main feedback points that we received from both fellow students and lecturers from our initial presentation was that the lighting that we had used to demonstrate the concept was too harsh and "flashy". This can be seen in the video below: When looking for a better method to create a way for the player to see the world we looked at different shaders that we could use. These included the effect used in the game Scanner Sombre, a game where the player must scan the world to be able to see, as well as echos from The Division, which show events that happened in the past through a graph of dots. The Effect used in Scanner Sombre. The player scans the environment which reveals different structures in the environment Echoes effect used in the Division. These are shown when the player gets within a given range and are accompanied by an audio log to tell a story. While the effects work well in their respective games, we foresaw that these effects, which rely ...

As sound, and it's interaction with the game world, is a large part of the game we made the decision that we wanted to record our own sounds rather than relying on an internet sound library. This allowed us to create bespoke sounds that worked with the nature of our game. To enable this we enlisted the help of our friend from Flim Production, who was able to hire out professional sound equipment and had the knowledge to operate it. Preparing the Sound Recording Equipment Prior to our recording session, we created a list of sounds that we required: Alarm clock: Ringing, turn off, throw/smash on the ground. Drawers opening: / closing Cupboard Door Open / Close Wardrobe: opening/closing Light switch: on / off Door: opening/closing, locking / unlocking Walking sounds: wood walk Objects: Hitting Surfaces, breaking porcelain Tap on/of Shower On/Off/Shower Running Sound Clothes Rustling Fridge Open/Close/Running (Humming Sound) Toaster Push Down/Pop Up Kettle...

Progress on the assignment has hit a roadblock this week as lecture sessions are no longer able to continue due to the coronavirus outbreak. Despite the challenges this has caused, the majority of the team has continued well on the assignment and progress continues to be made. The majority of the work from the last 2 weeks was spent on catching up on tasks that were leftover from the Game Jam and fixing issues that came up during it. Rhys has assembled the house scenes, combining the 3D models and scripts to create the final working scene. Lewis worked to improve upon the system that Connor created to allow the game to create an effect pulse from the player screaming into their microphone as well as fixing a number of bugs that were found during testing. Other team members were busy with dealing with the coronavirus outbreak during these weeks so did not complete any tasks

We hosted our own Game Jam on the 5th and 6th of March in order to complete the majority of the work remaining on the project. This was very successful and productive for the group as we were able to complete a large number of tasks and find a number of bugs through the extensive amount of testing we did during the Jam. The Programming Team (Lewis, Rhys, Connor) were able to complete the following tasks: Bathroom Interactions Toothbrush and Toothpaste Taps Shower Curtains Interaction Fix Movement, so that we can move in any direction Setup Game Controls Kitchen Interactions Fridge Kettle Milk Pouring Liquid into Cups Breakable Interactables Toaster Cupboards Drawers Allow Voicelines to be loaded into the Jobs System The Art and Design Team (Adrain, Oli, Josh) were able to complete the following tasks: Modelling Bathroom Items Toothpaste Toothbrush Tap Shower Toilet Sink Mirror Soap Modelling Kitchen Items Cupboards Fridge Milk Drawe...

These 2 weeks were the 2 weeks leading up to our planned Game Jam and as such very little work was completed on the project so that team members were able to complete work on other assignments before dedicating 2 full days to this project. Lewis added functionality to objects so that when they are dropped they make a sound and effect proportional to the velocity of their impact. Josh got in contact with his friend Ryan who is on Film Production who was able to rent sound equipment to enable us to record our own sounds for the game, rather than relying on free sounds from the internet.

Progress on the game has continued steadily over the past 2 weeks, however, we are now approaching the point in development where we should be able to complete a full playthrough of the game. As we have a 2-week break, meaning that the next workshop session would be 4 weeks away, we have decided to host a micro game-jam so that work continues on the game, you can find more on this in next weeks update. This week saw the programming team (Lewis, Rhys and Connor) work on the interactions within the Bedroom scene. So far we have completed interactions with the Drawers, Clothes and Alarm Clock as well as the Shower "Tap". Additionally, Lewis has implemented the function ability to allow the shader to respond to sounds in the world. This means that something the produces a sound (i.e a radio) will now create an effect pulse proportional to the loudness of the sound at that time. Oli, Adrain and Josh have all been working on 3D models over the past fortnight and have complete...