February and on

Here goes my synopsis from February till the end of the semester.

I was in charge of the evil list.
Some things from that list that I did personally included:

• Storage device management. 
• Player Sign-In/Sign-Out management.
• Player controller management.
• Resolution management.

I set up various web sites for the web administrator.

I headed up all of the game review sessions.

I headed up one game testing session for our team and hats.

I created most of the art work for the main menu.

I revamped the entire menu system, screens and alert screens.

I split the tech team into sub groups: Level Development, Shadow Development, and Evil List.  This proved to be very helpful and reduced overhead.

Created a stun feature to combat guards and implemented it.  (Was later cut)

Fixed minor issues here and there.

Helped others with their tasks and coordinated with other leads.

January

This month was a bit rocky at the start. We had to adjust our sprints to help meet demo deadlines.

I was in charge of registering a website and getting a basic foundation ready for editing. I was able to register the domain and set up some custom emails for www.1blockeast.com. We decided to use Google apps. They provide a free service for up to 10 users. The web site is up and now ready for content.

I also came up with the game screen model. I mapped out the game from the start, to the menu and the actual game itself. I got together with Tommy and helped him implement the model.

After making some changes to the code the collisions were having problems. Sarah and I sat down and fixed them so that they were all working appropriately.

I have begun working on the evil list. I set up the input state manager so that only one controller could control the game at a time depending on which controller starts the game. I still have more things to check on the evil list.

Sprint 7 and 8ish

Sprint 7
Tasked with coming up with a filter to demonstrate the difference between normal and shadow mode.

Resulted in using a pixel shader to accomplish a black and white effect. This made it easier on the artists so they didn't have to 2 images for the same art.

Got together on the weekend to help each other out.
Also Tweaked the collectible class and help make the rope class.

Sprint 8ish
There wasn't a particular assignment for this sprint. We all got together on the weekend to make sure all of our stuff worked together. Helped debug animations, shadow offsets, shadow collisions, rope debugging and collectible functionality.

We also met before class on Monday to tweak some more things like player movement, player textures, level design and shadow translation.

Sprint 5 & 6

Sprint 5

-Tasked with coming up with an options class that stores game values carried throughout the game.

-Resulted in a working class that does just that.

(Side note- This was an assignment that was given a couple of times that failed to be completed by another person)

Sprint 6

-Tasked with coming up with a look for shadow mode of objects. Eg an alternate color scheme to help know when in shadow mode.

-Resulted in putting it on hold since it is not part of Alpha. Instead I helped Jeff with his pulley assignment and I wrote the collectible class to help people get caught up.

Sprints 3 & 4

Sprint 3
-Task- Come up with a way to draw a HUD that is on a separate coordinate system than the main camera.

-Result- Decided to just use a separate spriteBatch. Generally it is advised to use as few spriteBatches as possible. We are using 2 which should be sufficient.

Sprint 4
-Task- Draw the HUD

-Result- Came up with a HUD but became obsolete since there is no health or live system. Right now it is a skeleton until the HUD contents are finalized.