The Road to Milestone 2

Our 2nd milestone is on April 5th. Since our last milestone, Sharmarke and Angelo have joined our two main programmers in trying to get functionality for the game. For now, the group is mainly focused on researching ways to code what we want the game to do. We've been scouring the internet for useful video tutorials, and tips on discussion forums, as well as consulting more experienced programmers in our major. We met up once over spring break and worked together for almost eight hours.

So far Hiro was able to instantiate different buildings (represented by different color/size box in programmer art). He was also able to get an upgrade menu set up for existing buildings.

Programmer art representing
instantiated large hatchery 

Upgrade Menu

Programmer art representing
instantiated medium dock

Programmer art representing
instantiated small dock

Angelo was able to create a script that keeps track of how long the player has been playing, and translates that into in-game time (1 real world min. = 2 in-game years). The in-game years will eventually be displayed on the yellow box UI element. The game timer counts down from 1800 secs. (30 mins.) and once the timer hits zero, the game ends and takes you to the high score screen. 

Game timer script
counts down real time,
counts up in-game time

Sharmarke's high score screen.
High score will be based on
how high the player's money,
oyster population and water quality 

Diego was able to add a zoom in/zoom out function for the camera using the mouse scroller, and add constraints so that the player can't pan and scroll forever. 

Our next steps are to have scripts that keep track of the player's money, the oyster population, and water quality. We're also trying to script the effects of building facilities as listed here. In addition, we're trying to script the advisers to pop up at certain points throughout the game to give players important information, and assign the proper art assets to be instantiated by the build scripts.

As for art, Victoria and Abel are working on texturing their models. Angelo is planning on further smoothing the terrain based on this height map of a small part of the Chesapeake Bay, and creating sides to resemble terrain from Final Fantasy Tactics.
 He is also planning on creating a few seamless hand-painted textures to paint the terrain in 3ds Max.

Modified Height Map