Sprint 6 - Fill the Ravioli (Mar 9 - 15)
During this sprint our team was able to create quite a bit of new content for Overgrown, including implementing/revising some of the game's systems. Some of the work we did this sprint includes iterating on the pickup system to be more user friendly, adjusting the off-screen indicators to get them working properly, adding in the behavior for our second cat, adjusting the character customization system, creating new cat and character animations, creating new title screen art, creating three new plant models, adding exterior environment decorations to house 1, and adding a control customization system.
My tasks this sprint included:
Fixing the new UI resource bars
Arranging the journal and its contents
Creating the Greenhouse in-engine
Updating Resource Bars
During this sprint I was tasked with trying to figure out what the problem with the resource bars is and how to fix it. Some of the sections would line up perfectly but then others wouldn't and I could not figure out what the issue was with my still limited knowledge of Unreal and how materials work. I had a meeting with Simon towards the beginning of the sprint to look over how the system works and see if he had any idea what was going on and how to fix it. After looking over the system and material together we decided on a few different things I could test out to see if it fixed it, but in the end none of the solutions I tried worked. It seemed that our tactic of using a white to black gradient just wasn't going to work because Unreal was not correctly detecting the different shades of gray in the gradient for each section. This caused the red and yellow sections of the bar to not stop at the correct spots and sometimes be over or under-filled. In the end I decided the quickest and easiest way to solve the issue and get the bars working properly was to do it in a more manual way rather than automatically letting Unreal calculate how far to fill the bar.
What I ended up doing is going into Photoshop and manually creating every possible instance of both the red and yellow bars that would be needed in-game. The resource bars work on a scale of 0 to 100, 0 being the bottom of the bar and 100 being the top fully filled. Because I knew that all of our plant's sun and water resources were multiples of 5, this meant I had to create separate images of each bar at fill level 5, 10, 15, etc all the way to 95. This resulted in having 19 separate images for both the red and yellow bars. I was a bit concerned at first about needing to add so many images to the project and making it larger in file size, however, each bar image was created at the actual size it would appear in-game which meant they were each very small and didn't use much space. While it did take me some time to create each individual bar, import them into the project, and redo a lot of the coding in the blueprint, in the end it was a good solution as I was able to get the bars up and running perfectly. Now instead of automatically filling the bar based on a gradient material, the game simply had to check which bar fill level was needed and then switch the image out to the correct one. Our new resource bars are now working flawlessly and I am very happy we were able to get this issue resolved.
Arranging the Journal
This was a very short and simple task in which I needed to go into the engine and properly lay out the information in the journal as well as add in some new art assets which were created. When the Programmers initially created the journal they unknowingly made it the incorrect size which resulted in it looking stretched and unnatural. I was tasked with resizing the journal image so it wasn't stretched out and also adding in some new plant drawings which Hannah created. I also added in the text which I had already written up to go into the journal and placed it in the correct spots on the pages. While we still have a lot more plant drawings to get done, the journal is now looking a lot more like we had envisioned and it is only a matter of waiting for new content to be created and then adding it in.
Creating the Greenhouse
During this sprint I also had to do some more in-engine work to create our new Greenhouse hub world map. Even though at this point we already had decided on a layout for the Greenhouse, as time went by we decided as a team that we wanted it to be one big room instead of being split into separate areas. This decision was made because it would have required a lot more time and work to decorate each individual area in the Greenhouse to match the level themes, and it would also have been more difficult for the player to navigate. This new design is much simpler and will be easier for us to create and later decorate, as well as just being more realistic to what a real greenhouse looks like.
This is the layout I created and that we as a team decided to go forward with. There are three separate tables that contain all of the plants the player will interact with to play each level. In the back of the Greenhouse there is a workbench that has the journal sitting on it which the player can interact with, and also a section in the corner to customize your character. Instead of decorating the Greenhouse to match the level themes we are instead just going to decorate it like a typical greenhouse, with lots of plants, bags of soil, plant pots, etc lying around. After deciding on this layout it was only a matter of myself opening up the project and creating it using the floors, walls, and tables we already have. In the future we will be creating unique assets for the Greenhouse, including lots of decorations, but for now we are just using what we already have.
Sprint 6 Reflection
Overall this sprint went very well and a lot of new content was created and implemented. I am a bit disappointed that I was not able to get the resource bars working properly and had to resort to a different method, however I am still glad that this situation arose. It helped me to learn more about using Unreal and has been my biggest challenge thus far I've had to overcome on this project. Even though I was not able to solve the problem I was still able to think of another way to implement the resource bars and get it working in a relatively short amount of time. Had I done it this way from the beginning I would have saved myself a lot of time last sprint, but it was a nice learning experience nonetheless.
Sprint 7 - Seal the Ravioli (Mar 16 - 22)
This sprint we heard back from Nintendo about our second Switch application and unfortunately we were once again rejected. Nintendo did not tell us why our game was rejected, but it is likely that it is just too early in development for us to have tried applying. Our game is nowhere near finished or polished yet and that likely was a big factor in it being rejected both times. Unfortunately we will not be applying again and will have to scrap the idea of porting our game to the Switch console. We simply will not have the time or resources to undertake this process and instead are going to focus solely on developing and polishing our game to the best of our ability.
My tasks this sprint included:
Writing a list of achievements and collectibles
Updating the bug swarm VFX
Writing and implementing tutorial notes for the cat mechanics
Achievements and Collectibles
This sprint I was tasked with writing up a list of each achievement we want to be in Overgrown and also the collectible items which will go with each one. We have known for a while that we wanted the Greenhouse to gradually become more and more filled with decorations as the player progresses through the levels, and one way to do this while also tying in a reward with the achievements is to unlock a collectible item for each achievement that is completed. I wrote up a list of 14 achievements which we will eventually be adding to the game and also what collectible item will be tied to each one.
I decided that most of the achievements will be tied to specific levels, specifically one achievement for each level. This decision was made because a lot of the achievements I had come up with would be drastically different in difficulty depending on which level they were completed in. For example, a player could play through level 1 over and over in order to unlock as many achievements as possible because that is the easiest level, thus many achievements wouldn't be very difficult to complete. By tying the achievements to specific levels, each one can only be completed in the level it is meant for, meaning I am able to better control the difficulty of each achievement and ensure that the player cannot cheat the system and make it easier for themselves.
As far as the collectibles go, once an achievement is completed then the associated collectible item will appear in the Greenhouse in a specific location, for example on a table or shelf. This will make it so as the player unlocks more achievements, more collectible items will start to fill the Greenhouse and they will be able to get a sense of satisfaction seeing all the cool new items they now have and the work they did to earn them.
Here is a list of all the achievements I created:
Level 1 - Here Comes the Sun
Find the correct sun spots for each plant. (Unlocks grow lights above plant tables)
Level 2 - Free Refills
Never let your watering can go empty. (Unlocks watering can)
Level 3 - Watch Out For Spills!
Don’t spill any water from sprinting. (Unlocks rubber floor mats along each plant table)
Level 4 - Giver Of Life
Don’t let any plants die. (Unlocks humidifier)
Level 5 - Pesky Cat
Pick up a plant that’s been knocked over. (Unlocks the black “sun spot” cat)
Level 6 - Not Today!
Don’t let the cat knock over any plants. (Unlocks big stone planters)
Level 7 - Taking Candy From A Kitten
Prevent the cat from getting into the catnip. (Unlocks the calico “catnip” cat)
Level 8 - Hide And Seek
Keep the catnip hidden from the cat. (Unlocks the jar of catnip)
Level 9 - Feeding Time
Place the Carnivorous Plant in the bug swarm’s path. (Unlocks a carnivorous plant figurine)
Level 10 - Bug Repellent
Don’t let the bug swarm damage any plants. (Unlocks fly paper)
Level 11 - Light Speed
Find the correct sun spots for each plant within 20 seconds. (Unlocks shoe mat with running sneakers)
Level 12 - Happy And Healthy
Do not let any plant get below 50% health. (Unlocks a mini zen garden)
Master Gardener!
Achieve 3 stars on every level. (Unlocks a fancy plant-themed vase/trophy)
Ultimate Scrapbooker
Unlock every plant and note page in the Journal. (Unlocks decorated workbench)
Bug Swarm VFX
After the introduction of bug swarms, one of our programmers created a particle system to represent these pests. However, this particle system was temporary and needed to be updated in order to look like actual bugs swarming around a plant. I was tasked with editing the bug swarm particle effect to achieve this look. I had not worked with particle systems in Unreal before, but I had worked with them in Unity and was hoping a lot of the same principles would apply. I started by doing some basic research online as to how particle systems in Unreal Engine work, and after getting a basic understanding of the system I was able to tweak it to look like this:
I am pretty proud of myself for this work as I truly believe it does look pretty similar to bugs swarming around in a circular motion. There was one big issue I did run into, however, and that is the sprite being used by the particle system. Our artist already had created an image of a bug in a previous sprint and we were planning to use that sprite in this particle system. However, when I tried to attach this sprite the particle system stopped working. Instead of appearing as black squares when there was a temporary material applied to the particles, the particles became completely invisible. I tried to troubleshoot this issue for quite some time but could not figure out what the issue was. I had even tried following multiple tutorials for setting this up and each time when I plugged in the bug sprite it simply became completely transparent as if there were no particles there at all. Ultimately I had to stop trying to fix it for this sprint and just left it as the black squares. In the future, I or someone else on the team will need to go back and try to get it working, but for now it works fine with the black squares and it even does still resemble bugs when they're seen in-game.
Cat Tutorial Notes
Now that we have a new gameplay mechanic in the form of two different cats, we also needed some tutorial notes to go with them in order to introduce and teach the player how they work. I was tasked this sprint with writing up what these tutorial notes would say and then also implementing them into the game. The process of adding tutorial notes to the game is something I was already familiar with and so this was very simple to do. The biggest challenge for this task was writing the notes themselves. They needed to be clear and understandable to the player, while also being relatively short so there is not too much text for the player to read and potentially just skip through.
Here are the tutorial notes I came up with for our black "sun spot" cat and our calico "catnip" cat:
“This black cat loves sleeping in sunny spots underneath windows”
“If there are no empty sunny spots for the cat to sleep it may knock over one of your plants!”
“If a plant is knocked over it will begin taking damage! Move the plant to another spot to stop this damage”
“This calico cat has a habit of getting into catnip jars”
“If the cat gets into the catnip it will go crazy and run around knocking over plants!”
“To prevent this, make sure to keep the jar of catnip away from the cat”
Sprint 7 Reflection
While it was pretty disappointing to receive the news from Nintendo that our game was rejected a second time, that didn't stop us from still having a productive sprint. I was able to learn how particle systems in Unreal work which was a great learning experience. I am also very excited for our achievements and collectibles to be adding in the future, as it will add a whole new layer of gameplay to Overgrown while also rewarding the player for their hard work with cool new decorations to add to their Greenhouse.