Week 3

Research

We realise that the level of research that we have done so far may be somewhat insufficient in completing some of this week's tasks within the allocated time frame. We have decided that our top priority for this week should be to improve the design documents. As a result, we may have to assign extra time after our next meeting to accommodate for this miscalculation.

We decided to play a lot of games in the ball roller genre as we thought that this would assist us in the creation of our competitor analysis. We also subsequently found that the more unique games that we played gave us inspiration for extra modes which we could potentially include in the later stages of the project, if time permits.

Design Documents

We also have come to realise that completion of the design documents will require a more extended period of time than we had originally anticipated. This is mainly due to us having developed our ideas for more complex game mechanics and level design, requiring a greater deal of elaboration within both design documents. By taking these things into account, and adapting our plan accordingly, we foresee no problems in completing tasks relating to either of the design documents.

Conclusions

Having played through a number of other games within the genre, and having briefly experimented with Unreal Engine 4, we have noticed that a possible issue which may occur during the game's development is that of game physics. The movement of the ball in UE4 feels very different to the way that the balls move in many of the other games that we have played. Due to our inexperience with UE4, and 3D environments/physics in general, we are unsure how much time and experimentation it will take for us to fine-tune the physics of our game to a satisfactory level.