Devlog #6

Overall Progress: This week our CS team did major changes in the flight and incorporated a relatively polished combat system. We presented our first playable build with all mechanics integrated.

Art Team:

The main kite design model is complete and is brought into unity with discussions on how to animate it. The team has requested different assets/models such as flowers, buildings, textures that were assigned to everyone evenly. The greybox is slowly building together but the vision is still a bit shaky as the team struggled to have a visual idea of what it should look like.

Music Team:

As most of the sound effects that are created got to be implemented, the team also managed to establish three FMOD studio event emitters to the main branch of the game: one for wind sounds tied to the kite's speed, one for the music looping track, and one for collectibles (there are in total of four variations of collectible sound effects). Meanwhile, there were many challenges: lacking audio in the playtest, the looping breaking, etc, but we all managed to fix them.

CS Team:

This week marked a major milestone as we prepared for the alpha test, integrating all core gameplay elements into a cohesive experience. This included a barebones UI, refined flight mechanics, collectable interactions, and a fully implemented combat system. Following TA feedback, we implemented improvements to the tutorial stage, focusing on accessibility and player guidance. This included the introduction of a dash mechanic, providing a quick burst of speed, and an "updraft" system, which granted the kite vertical lift. These mechanics allowed for greater verticality in level design, expanding movement possibilities. 

Given the constraints of Level Up, we needed to ensure that every gameplay interaction was intuitive and concise. However, the learning curve for flight was still too steep. To address this, we moved away from the overly physics-driven control scheme. Instead of using the joystick for full rotational control, we introduced bumpers to handle kite rolling while reserving the joystick for yaw and tilt adjustments. This prevented unrealistic mid-air U-turns while drastically improving player control. 

A key addition was the respawn mechanic, allowing players to restart from the nearest checkpoint (of which there was only one at this stage) upon crashing. To further refine the flight experience, we introduced a hover mechanic, enabling players to temporarily pause mid-air and adjust their direction before relaunching—an essential tool for easing the learning curve. With a faster-moving kite, we also made significant refinements to the combat system, streamlining it to a single-button prompt instead of multiple prompts to maintain accessibility and flow. These shifts in mechanics were a significant breakthrough in making the game more approachable and intuitive.

Challenges and Discoveries:

The Alpha presentation left our group in a position of conflict over the integration of combat. Since combat was not as refined as the Alpha build required it to be, it did not feel as intuitive and ‘necessary’ to the game direction. Guests gave us feedback which included removing combat all together and turning the game into an obstacle course. This would majorly impact our game leaving us clueless and not-so-satisfied with the major change.