Proving Technology

Hey folks!

Things are moving smoothly for us here at Moon Hook. We've completed a few of our major tasks for this milestone, right now we're in Proof of Concept – Technology (PoCT). Since we tried to mitigate a bunch of our risks during our prototype phase, we've been given the headspace to tackle some of the larger issues. Right now, the programmers are wrestling with the enemy AI, and luckily, we have more than a couple savvy designers that can take tasks like working on the HUD for the programmers. Gives the programmers time to polish and focus on the enemies.

You should see the auto profiler that one of our other programmers cracked out. What it does, if you're not sure, is take the data at the end of an individual's play session and punch out a text file with info about the rig they're using, what the min/max was on their FPS, and even when they started and stopped certain puzzles in our levels. The programmer that wrote it also wants to set it up so this text goes to cloud storage, so that when we need data we can pull it from there. That means I can send a copy of our game to my brother across the country and I can see how his play session went.

Our artists are feverishly trying to finish our concepts for the characters and environment for next week, and they're doing marvelously. They've worked hard on trying to maintain the vision as best as they can, while also mitigating scope risks. We’re going with a more stylized approach with bright and vibrant colors but characters that resemble something out of Creature Box.

Our level designers have cranked out a bunch of their risks, so they’re looking to start some Proof of Concept – Gameplay (PoCG) tasks soon. They want to incorporate ruins and rock formations that resemble something like Korriban or Goblin Valley, UT. It’s all looking very exciting. One of the designers put together a track camera system much like Darksiders where a player can see what door they opened when they solved a puzzle. Another of our designers was working on the HUD and menu systems when she figured out how to show a map of the play space in the pause menu. Funny thing is though, the game doesn’t pause either, so she was still able to play the game from a bird’s eye view. New game mode??? Perhaps we’ll include that as an Easter egg.

Otherwise, things are going well, we’re trucking forward. Once we have some solid concepts of the environments and art we’ll let you know. Thanks for listening!

OP