This week on Group 26's devlog: some progress on the prototype, a finished artbible and tech doc and a finished game design document. Everything now seems in order to start working on the actual game.

The Tech Doc

On the more technical side, Lukas and Michiel finished the tech document (which software to use, coding conventions and naming.)  with some help from Inias and Kirill for the more art related technicalities.

The Art Bible

Inias and Kirill worked hard in improving and finishing the art bible. Now our vision is more clear and contains more visual examples. It also has a distinct style fitting with the setting and art direction of our game.

The Game Design Document

Last but not least, Lukas and Michiel rolled up their sleeves and started typing, with the end result a comprehensive game design document. Talking about all the aspects of the game, from which type of enemies there are to the gear a player can equip, to the button layout for certain systems and mechanics.

A Name?

After careful deliberation, eliminating names we didn't like (Bird Watching, Crack!, Egg Battle, etc.) and a very democratic process of elimination, we finally settled on a name for our game: Nest Wars! For the main character we landed on the name Shadow, which represent the core idea of the game: the bot fighting takes place in a secret society, in the shadows...

Prototype Build

In our last week of prototyping we took all the feedback from previous weeks to heart and created a solid prototype of the game and some of its main mechanics. This all was put into place to work together and create a playable version of the game.

Firstly we added the core mechanic to the prototype, a health and combat system. You are now able to damage enemies and receive damage yourself by the use of variouse weapons and abilities.

Next up was the addition of some variety of weapons, we added three weapons so far, to show off the different playstyles.  There is now a bow, for ranged attacks, a long sword that is slow but powerful and a small axe for fast and close up combat.

The gates mechanic got a revamp, adding some much needed visuals, showing off how far along the closing of the gate is. When interacting with the gates, they will now slowely rise up and remains at its last position when you stop interacting.

A big visual upgrade was the addition of a player model and an enemy model, away with the cubes fighting cylinders. We also added a basic player HUD to show health, the equipped weapon and the score. The hud is responsive to the actions of the player. The current weapon is changed in the hud on equiping a new weapon, the health bar follows the flow of incoming damage vs current health.

There are even some sound effects when hitting the enemies and some background music to set the mood for the game.

finally, a simple start and game over screen where added to the game to give this prototype a feeling of an actual start and end. To ensure a fully build and operational vertical slice of the prototype.

All this together makes a playable and fun prototype, giving the player an idea of the finished game and allowing us to sell the idea to our team leads.

Up Next

After approval by our teachers, the next thing we will do is start working on the actual game. Inias and Kirill will start creating colourful assets while Lukas and Michiel will dive into Unity (using the Universal Render Pipeline) and bring the game to live.