Dev Blog #1: Onboarding
Sprint 1 1/16/20 - 1/22/20
This previous sprint was the first sprint of Camera Shy in which both the new and old team members came together to participate in development. During this sprint the new and old teams were able to smoothly integrate; leaving little need for an extensive on-boarding process and allowing the team to quickly jump back into development of Camera Shy.
During this sprint I spent most of my time focusing on the conception of a new level for the players to explore. The art and level design of Camera Shy are intrinsically tied, as the game needs many props to fill out a level and each level needs unique props.
Because of this unique nature of Camera Shy’s levels and heavy art-design overlap much of my team-working time was spent with the art team. Working with the artists we decided upon the first new level that will be added to Camera Shy: the Witch’s Hut, a small, earthy, room based loosely on the Slavic mythology of the witch Baba Yaga. Below is an image containing referenced used by myself as an example to the artist when presenting my initial concepts.
Though the Witch’s Hut concept was chosen and I began to flesh it out in the form of a level design document the end of the sprint brought talk of briefly halting forward progress on this level. A final sprint meeting saw a lot of talk concerning the existing level produced in the previous semester, the Kitchen. Concerns regarding readability, use of different camera lens, and general messiness were brought up ending in the conclusion that the artists and I need to meet and further discuss the fate of the Kitchen. Should it be decided the Kitchen needs a complete overhaul this is the direction I will be headed next. The Witch’s Hut will be briefly put on hold in order to make the existing level better mesh with the identity of the game.
Access documentation produced during this sprint here.