Game Development Blog

In order to maintain consistency, I will be keeping a development blog as we create our game.

Monday 30th November:

Today we got to grips with the program and did some brainstorming on the assests we will use in our game that are already present in Mission Maker.
We have decided to use the "Sci-Fi" location textures as this will fit the theme of the game quite well.

We have also theorised where significant events, such as boss fights will happen:

We played around with character models and have figured out how to attach other objects to characters, how to make them perform specific tasks in relation to the players as well as change the scale of them (Make them bigger or smaller).

We worked on looting mechanics by figuring out how to store items such as weapons and ammo inside other props, such as safes.

-Try to get a screenshot-

In all, we did not start actual development today, instead we got to grips with the program and how to create specific features which will we need to use in abundance later on.

Thursday 4th December:
Today we tried to get further acquainted with the game mechanics, we specifically focused on the speech function. We were unable to make much progress, as we were unable to have a character speak and allow the player to reply.
We did make more progress with the character system itself, and we have found a way to replace sections of characters with the other characters. We can then use this function to create more unique characters for our game, instead of relying on the dozen or so pre-made characters.

Friday 5th December:
Today we continued with the speech mechanics. We have come to the conclusion that this feature is currently bugged due to the fact that when the speech script runs, the characters mouth opens, but no sound is played and the subtitle text does not appear on screen. We also found out that no sounds seem to work within the game, so we are now waiting on the system administrators to take a look at the problem and decide whether or not we will have to use an alternate program.

We did make significant inroads on the popup system and door opening mechanisms however. We have figured out how to play popups when the character does certain actions. This would be particularly useful when the player dies, as we can use it to display a death screen. The door opening mechanisms are fairly simple, it can be set that when the player is holding a certain item, the door will automatically open. So that means that we can hide keys throughout the level and the player can only open these doors with these keys. We can also assign the opening script to be linked to another object such as a button or lever.

We are discovering the significant drawbacks of the program, but I wouldn't feel too vindicated if we had to use another program because Mission Maker itself is an old, clunky program and there are several more advanced game development software packages such as RPG Maker VX and GameMaker studio, the latter of which is free.



Friday 12th December:
Today, I decided that I would leave speech for another day and that I would concentrate on getting the level design done. I used my drawn plan, which you can see here for the basis of it. I had to make some small excursions from the original plan due to the limitations of Mission Maker. For example, there were no open rooms which suited the room on the bottom left of the plan where the player meets the aliens and engages in combat. You can see a top down diagram of the map layout directly from Mission Maker below.

As you can see, the map follows the basic layout of the plan. A noticeable difference is the big room in the top right hand corner. This is where I plan to include a boss mob of some kind. The room layout is structured so that one side of the room is at steep incline to the other, with a ramp leading up to it. This allows the player to have a small conversation with the boss, before engaging in battle with it.

I also experimented with how I will do the weapon system. In Mission Maker, there is only one weapon called the "Ray Gun" which needs an "Ammo Box" in order to fire. You can see their in game sprites below. The player will need to be provided with these items regularly, as there is no other way to deal damage to enemies, so if the player runs out of ammo, there will be nothing the player can do to kill any remaining enemies and thus may not be able to finish the level.

Below is character model, which is subject to change, who will introduce the player to the game and its mechanics. The character is currently located in the room directly outside the room in which the player begins and will initiate dialogue with the player as soon as they step out of the room. This will provide a mini-tutorial to the player on how to move, aim, shoot, jump and loot. This will serve as a replacement to the small tutorial rooms I had planned to use in my level design plan.

Hopefully soon, I can get a video on here to show off what we currently have and throw in some variation to this development blog than just text and pictures.

Monday 15th December 2014:

-Insert Todays progress here-

infogr.am/app/

-Keycard damage values

-State triggers for doors, including using other items.

-Secret area

-How to get mobs to drop items

-Chest storage system

-Editable quantity

End of year video review:

6th January 2015:

After the review I did at the end of last term, I decided to use this lesson to experiment a little more as well as fix up some of the bugs that I had encountered. This included the keycard scanner, which was using the wrong item to act as a activator and also the chest pick-ups, which have been slightly changed.

I experimented with the "player attribute" options today, which prompted the addition of the health packs. Before, the health was set at 800, with it capping out at 1000. This was particularly problematic as the guns did 10 damage per shot. This meant it took 10 direct hits to kill the player, without taking into consideration health regeneration. Currently, it has been tweaked down to 100, and the health regeneration has been switched to .25 a second. This may be adjusted further as I add more hostile NPC's.

Conducted some more experimentation with the item pickup systems which we have in place. One of the active props within the game is the egg you can see below. This has a particularly fluid animation in which the egg opens and the items raises up from a  platform, as you can see in the second screenshot.

I haven't decided whether or not to use this for item delivery or NPC spawning, as, the AI for the hostile NPC's does not recognise that they are surrounded by an egg, and will attack the player as soon as they come into range. To this end, I changed the activation settings of these NPC's, so that they do not spawn into the game, until the egg is "opened", with some delay. I can also then have the egg "de-spawn" from the world by becoming inactive after a short amount of time. There is still the problem of lore and size, as the egg is quite big and does not really fit into the storyline of the game very well.

I also experimented with how to present the player a weapon at the beginning of the game. Currently, the weapon can be found on the floor, after the player leaves the NPC room at the beginning, however this feels like a waste of an opportunity to be creative with the mechanics of Mission Maker. Currently, I am experimenting with this "drawer" idea, in which the player spawns in a "Janitor Closet" or something to that effect, and has to search the room in order to find the weapon. Whilst this would be fairly easy to accomplish, due to the map layout, we are kind of stretched for space, and managing to squeeze all the props necessary to give the "Janitor Closet" feel may not be accomplish-able. 

To wrap things up for this lesson, when experimenting with the health settings, it occurred to me that I did not have a death message display, in case the player dies whilst playing the game. Relatively easy to set up, I set a tester one up as shown below.

There are still some issues with this system however, as currently, the player is simply able to click the screen to dismiss the message and continue playing the game, however they are now invincible. Obviously this is an issue, and can be fixed by disabling the option to dismiss the message, however then we are stuck with the screen being shown forever, with no way of allowing the player to restart the level. I have decided that upon death, the player will have to do the whole level again, instead of starting from some sort of checkpoint system. This is due to the limitations within Mission Maker itself, and the immense amount of effort which would be needed, using teleports and such, which seems unnecessary given the small size of the level. 

Overall, this lesson was very productive, and I hope to be able to get a good chunk of time to finalise design plans as well as get some of the more repetitive content into the game, such as the rules for the AI and the speech and so forth. 

9th January 2015

Did some work on the hostile NPC's today. Increased the number of hostile NPC's in the first combat room from 1 to 4, although this may need to be changed later on, after testing is conducted. I also gave them drops, varying from med packs to ammo, to reward the player for killing the NPCs.

Along with this, I changed the way the NPC's will target the player. Before they were set to "Seek and Destroy" the player when he/she entered a the first combat area. Although due to the way the room had to be set out, it was a combination of 6 rooms, with the doors left off. This meant the player could bypass the targeting script if they moved through the first room fast enough. To this end, I changed the room that immediately preceded the combat room, to use a keycard scanner which I have mentioned before. I then have the NPC's target the player as soon as the door opens. This means the player has no choice but to fight the NPC's to progress. 

I also worked on the spawn room some more today, by adding some props to make it seem more like a "Janitor's Closet". I added a few crates and another drawer which will hold the new keycard which the player will need later. I also managed to fit the ammo and gun into the starting drawer, and tweaked the amount of ammo which is contained in the pickup to 20. This is still temporary, but will give the player enough ammo to beat the first set of NPC's which they encounter. 

Lastly, I added some effects for when the player first enters the game. I added some electricity effects which are tied to the floor of the spawn room. These will then flicker for 1.75 seconds, before becoming inactive. The plan is to add a electricity sound effect that will play as soon as the game loads. This should give the effect that the player was teleported onto the level. Whilst this doesn't add any functionality to the game, it was relatively easy to set up, and also provided the technique which I may be able to use later, on the boss fight for example.

The picture doesn't show the effects very well, but they spread up to about eye level and fade away after about 2 seconds.

15th January 2015:

This lesson I focused mainly on the ending of the game, when the player reaches the final room. To fit in with the lore of the game which I have written about here I have chosen to have the final room contain a teleporter, which I was to design another level of the game, would take the player to that level. However since I am only creating a single level of this game it is currently set to take the player to an "easter egg" room (An Easter Egg in a game simply refers to a intentional, inside joke), I have included a picture of what is currently contained in this room below:

These "anime character" models are set to .25 of their original scale and will run around the room. As you can see from the map in the top right hand side of the image, the room is disconnected from the rest of the map. This was to fix a problem that I will discuss later. There is no point to this room other than to trap the player whilst they exit the game level. 

The problem I was having with the way Mission Maker handles a level complete is, that there is no definitive end to the game. There is no way for the program to understand that the player has successfully beaten the level or that the player has died, at least, not that I have currently found. The problem with this is that when the player completes the level or dies, they are then still free to walk around the level, which is obviously undesirable, especially if the player dies as it makes the entire challenge aspect of the game irrelevant. To this end, I decided to use the "teleport" rule that was hidden under player attributes. This rule allows me to teleport the player upon a specific trigger. For the completion of the game, the teleport rule will be triggered when the player walks underneath the "teleporter" prop that is placed in the final room, to the "easter egg" room shown above. This will prevent the player from then wandering the map after the level has been completed and they will have no choice but to exit to the main menu. I plan to do something similar if the player dies, where they will be teleported to another room, which will inform them that they have failed and will need to reload the level in order to try again, which currently seems to be the only way to reset the map so that they may try again. 

When the player walks through the teleporter, they are given this message, to hide the fact that they have been teleported:

This is not 100% set in stone just yet, but I feel it is the best way to resolve this issue at the moment.

Some other small changes were made, including adding drops to some of the remaining hostile NPC's, again with ammo and med packs and the occasional dud item:

From now on, I will just be polishing up the level and trying to find ways to get around the numerous "bugs" and missing features in Mission Maker, in order to make the game "somewhat" playable.

23rd January 2015:

This lesson I conducted a playtest of our game to simulate how it will be played by an actual player. The playtest went well but outlined a series of issues that we needed to address. The first of which was the controls. I found I needed to specifically state the controls to the player before they began the game, so they know how to control their character. To address this issue, I added a pop up that would be triggered as soon as the game started. This would contain a small tutorial on the basic controls. 

It also contains some instructions for the player, so that they will search the spawn room for a weapon, instead of immediately heading through the door. As another preventative measure, I plan to have the NPC in the next room confirm that the player has a weapon through dialogue, however this is currently a broken feature.

As you can see, the pop up will stay on screen for 10 seconds. As a result, the electricity effects that will active when the player spawns needed to be adjusted to attribute for this. This however created another problem. If the player dismissed the message by clicking, the timings for the electricity effects would be off and the effects would last a lot longer than intended. To fix this problem, the pop has will now play for 10 seconds, regardless if the player clicks on the screen. This is not an ideal solution, as it means the player will have to wait 10 seconds before retrying the level should they die.

Another adjustment that needed to be made, was to the health (resistance) levels of the hostile NPC's. We found that with a resistance level of 50, they were too difficult to kill, as they required 5 shots each. This has now been reduced to 20, so they will die in 2 shots each. This may be changed at a future date, if it is found that the combat is now too easy.

The "Lore Corridor" was also created. This is a corridor in the level where 3 popups trigger after one another, providing a small bit of lore into the game. The popups are as follows:

Each popup lasts for 5 seconds, but can be dismissed if the player clicks.

Other small adjustments were made to certain doors and triggers, to enable a improve quality of life. This includes changing the door rule from "changing state" to "open". This was to prevent the problem, where the door would close before the player had the chance to walk through, meaning that the player would either be stuck behind the door, or would phase through it. 

29th January 2015:

3rd February 2015

Media 03 02-15 dev blog V2 from NathanielW

6th February 2015
A small infographic that I created showing the overall steps towards my games creation.

I am further discovering limitations with the Mission Maker software. Sound has always been an issue with this program, and I am still having problems now. I tried to add sound effects to the doors, so that they would emit a sound effect when the door was opened/closed, but although the rule was in place and was correct, no sound came from the program. I suspect this is a fault with the software, and due to the age of the software, will be unfixable. On addition to this, I added a soundtrack that would play upon the boss spawning, but that too doesn't work.

 A great deal was accomplished today with the optional side quest and it is nearing completion. With one or two more sessions, it should be finished and with bug fixes, my game will essentially be ready for a 1.0.0 release. In the above screenshot, I added another popup that will play when the player gains access to the secret stash room. This popup will simply state that the "Eternal Key" which is registered as the "Cubic Device" in game, or the highlighted thing in the screenshot, is important and that the player should be sure to pick it up.

 The eternal key will be used here, to grant access to the secret room. The player is not required to drop the key into the cauldron, as the door will open as soon as the player drops the key out of his inventory, as I couldn't find a suitable way for the game to detect the key being dropped into the cauldron. Trigger volumes wouldn't work as the couldn't overlap with the cauldron itself, and couldn't be shrunk down small enough to fit inside. Although overall, it makes very little difference.

 Some changes were made to the secret room as you can see. Once the player enters the secret room, they will see a teleporter that will take them to a large 3x3 (In the grid) room which is off centred from the rest of the map. This tile set is completely separate from the "Sci-Fi" tiles used in the rest of the levels but I feel with the moon in the sky, it matches the theme of the game. Currently there is nothing on the tileset except a canyon, which leads the player to a teleporter back to the rest of the level. I plan to add some goodies for the player to take back with them, as well as a possibly an NPC to talk to.

Above is the teleporter that will take the player back to the rest of the level. Uses the same mechanics as the other teleporters.

Discovered a way to use external images as popups. This allows me to create aesthetics like what you see above. This has good potential for signs and possibly even "windows".

Changed the NPC at the beginning of the level to be a female scientist, instead of a explorer to fit more into the sci-fi theme of the game. I also realised that I had used that model previously, and it may have confused the player.

 Some more aesthetics added to the game, to make it feel less empty. Admittedly, they don't quite fit into the theme of the game, so I may change or delete these at a later date.

A quick overview of what the cabins look like. They vary from cabin to cabin, with some having different props and pickups, although none of them contain any useful items, aside from the odd health pack or little bit of ammo.

 Some technical changes were also made. I have made all of the "Special Mobs" be permanently highlighted, as a warning to the player that these mobs are harder to kill and are more deadly. Whilst being a small change, I think it will help the more advanced player, as they will know to eliminate these enemies first.

After playtesting, I realised that the security card used to open the door after the first combat room actually had a health value, which meant it could be destroyed. By default it was set at 10, meaning that the the card could be destroyed in a single shot. This would be a huge issue, particularly for the less experienced audience as they may accidentally shoot the card whilst trying to kill all the aliens, which would result in the level being un-completable. To fix this, I adjusted the health value of the card, so it would take a significant amount of shots to be destroyed.

Thursday 12th February 2015:
Monday 23rd February:
In this session I had to focus on making our game more audience friendly. As the level I have created is supposed to be the first level of our game, I had to make it more accessible for first time players. This includes embedding messages into the level which would be applicable throughout the entire game such as having all important pickups be highlighted, so that the player knows these are important.

I am making these changes so that the level is more entry level friendly. This is because I aim for a large chunk of my intended audience to be players who have played none, or very little games before. As such, they will require a little more help than the average player.

 As such, one of the biggest changes made during this session was the replacement of certain doors within the level correlating to how they are opened. For example, the door variant above, is used for doors that require a keycard in order to progress. The door variant below is for doors that are opened by a third party switch, for example, talking to the side quest NPC. This change has been made to embed certain features about the game into the players head. This means that when the player sees the gate door above, they know that they will require a keycard in order to open the door. This would help the player in future levels, and thus this level would fulfil its role in being a tutorial level.

Another change that was made to the keycard doors was the newly implemented deactivation of the keycard after use. This has been done, to meet audience requirements of the level. Currently, in the level, we have 2 doors, opening with two different keycards. For the beginner player, this could get confusing as to which keycard they are supposed to use for which door. For example, the player could retain the keycard they use to open the first door, ignore the keycard that drops from the NPC's in the first combat room and try to open the second keycard door, which will not work. To make this clearer, I have devised a system where the keycard will become an inactive prop as soon as it opens the door, thus the player will have no chance of getting confused from which keycard they are to use, as there will only ever be one keycard active on the level at any given time. A screenshot of the rule can be seen below.

To scale down the difficulty of the early part of the level, I have adjusted the amount of aliens that are present within the first part of the level. As such, the first combat room has been scaled down to one alien, that will die with one shot. This is the alien that possesses the keycard that the player will need in order to progress through the level.This change should make the early part of the level significantly easier, which will be beneficial to the part of my audience which is new to First Person Shooters, or games in general. This will give them a chance to practice vital FPS mechanics such as their aim, without much risk of failing.

A pretty big change that is still currently a WIP is an introductory walkthrough, specifically for new players. Once leaving the room with the first NPC, the player will have the option of clicking on the following sign. This sign will then display a number of popups which will provide helpful hints and tips for the player, relating the game, FPS's and games in general. This is aimed directly at the audience who are new to these types of games, and thus would be highly beneficial. I am to have the sign showcase the same kind of tutorial information that you would find inside a manual that was pretty standard within PlayStation 2 games.

A final change that has been made to specifically with the new players in mind is the highlighting of all pickups that have some kind of relevance within the game or can be picked up and used. This is to make it obvious to these new players that these items are important and should be attained. Otherwise it would risk the player looking over these items and not picking them up, which would make the level very difficult, if not unplayable. 

 Other changes relating to the audience of my game were also implemented. The picture above is a reference to the TV show "The 100" a popular American Sci-Fi show. It is highly likely that an audience interested in my game, will also be interested in this TV show, so this will appeal directly to them. Otherwise, it will just be providing the show free publicity.
The change below relates to some of the dialog that is contained within the level. As our intended audience is in the ranges of 15-25+, a certain amount of "insensitive language" is expected of the game, for atmospheric purposes and the like. As such, I have added a small amount of swearing into the game for this reason. Whilst this may alienate an incredibly small portion of our audience, those who dislike swearing/bad language, I feel this would more engage with my intended audience.

Friday 27th February
Two main things were done during this session. I changed and finalised the help option that is available at the beginning of the game, and I also added a security room for clarification purposes for the player.

The two screenshots below are the popups that will display when the player clicks on the newly implemented help option in the spawn room. These will help new players learn some of the early tips and tricks of the game before they encounter any actual combat. It was especially important that I got this working correctly as I expect that a large part of my audience will be new players and such may need this help to be able to understand the game.

This is the newly designed method for accessing the help system. This computer is located within the spawn room and the player simply has to click on the computer for the help system to begin playing. The player may click on the system as many times as they need, in case they forget anything. Each hint will play for ten seconds, but the player will not be able to dismiss the messages until the last one. This is because of the restricitions within Mission Maker relating to executables and timings. As such, I felt it was necessary to allow the player to visit the system as many times as they need, in case they read slow for example.

 The other main thing that was worked on this session was the creation of the security room. It is the new room in the bottom right hand corner of the map. I created this room to provide and explanation to the player as to why the doors can now be opened by simply clicking on them. It also provides a basis for the rest of the game, that once you have gained access to the security room, you are able to open all doors. The crates are there to give the impression that the door is being kept open and would normally be closed.

Below is the console that the player must interact with in order to gain access to all of the doors. When the player does this, the door to the rest of the level will open and a popup will play.

The popup that plays when the console has been clicked.

Tuesday 10th March:
A big development happened for this session. I have finally got sound working within the Mission Maker program. This means I am now free to add sound to my game. However there are some major drawbacks to this. One of which being the extremely limited amount of stock sound bites included within the program. This means that I will have to find a large amount of the ones I want to use on my own. It will also take a great deal of time to add sound effects to every single door, or action within the game, as there is no copy or select all option within the program.

On top of this, there is also the removal of all of the placeholder features I created, such as the popups that play when the player talks to an NPC. I may also have to manually voice act a few of the speech clips as there is only one stock voice included in the Text to Speech option within the program. It might have been preferable to keep the game silent and have it be an art house game of some kind. Regardless, progress was made today, but as most of it was just implementing sounds, there isn't much visual evidence of it.

One of the things i worked on was making the boss react when shot. I will later implement the same for the rest of the aliens on the ship, but as an initial test, I used the boss. I was unable to test whether or not it worked however, because as I went to test this feature, the program crashed. Whether this was due to this feature, the implementation of sound to the electricity effects in the corner or something entirely different I will never know. I will test this on the next session I have.

The other sound thing I worked on was getting the NPC's to actually say their lines instead of it just being a popup. This in practise works fine, however currently it looks like the dialogue option within the game still doesn't work correctly. This means that although the NPC's mouth moves according to the speech, the player will not be able to see this, as the popup will still need to play to provide some sort of subtitles. Although i do not expect a large part of our audience to have some sort of auditory impairment, it is expected of most games to include some sort of option. Especially for people who play games with music in the background and thus cannot hear all of the speech in the game.

24th March 2015:
Big push to get everything finished and finalised today. A lot of sound clips were found, downloaded and implemented, along with a great deal of minor changes and additions.

The screenshot above shows me adding the ambient music that would play whilst the player was progressing through the game. The original plan was to have a relaxing ambience whilst the player was in the less dangerous areas, which would change to a slightly darker, faster pace when the player encountered some enemies and then a dramatic music when the player fought the boss. This turned out to be impossible due to the free reign the player has. For example, when the player first encounters the aliens, they may choose to engage them and the firefight might last 20 seconds. Or the player could choose to run and the firefight might last for several minutes. Due to limitations in Mission Maker, there is no active way to tell whether the player or any NPC's are in proximity to any enemies or in combat itself. As such, the timings for the music would be wrong, if the player made any variance to the way I coded it in. As such, I chose to leave the multiple ambient music out. The one I eventually settled upon is below:

I chose this one, as it matches the Sci-Fi theme that I am aiming for quite well. It also has quite intense bits as the songs shift, which time quite nicely with certain events in the game, at least to my playthrough time.

This screenshot shows me adding the new sound that the boss will make when the player encounters him. If you would like to hear the sound, follow this link. I added this because I felt like the boss should have higher abilities than the mindless alien drones that are wandering around the ship. As such, the sound features actual dialogue. The audio adds a fear aspect to the boss, and further makes him stand out as being unique, which will be helpful to the beginner audience.

This screenshot shows me adding the sound to one of the doors in the game. If you would like to hear the sound, follow this link. I added this to provide more depth to the game, as well as provide an audio cue for the door opening. This is especially helpful for this specific type of door, as the player will unknowingly open one if they follow the side quest plotline. The audio cue will then help them find the door that they opened.

This screenshot shows me adding a "celebratory noise" to the game, once the player enters the room immediately succeeding the boss room. This noise informs the player that they have beaten the game. The location shown in the screenshot is where it will activate. I cannot provide a sample to the sound, as it was an in game sound.

This screenshot shows me adding a sound to the chest opening. This is just to add aesthetic to the game, as it becomes really apparent what doesn't have sound once you start adding a few sounds to the game. Again, I cannot link the sound as it was either an in game sound or found on a site that doesn't allow me to track the clips I have downloaded.

This screenshot shows me adding a sound that emits when the player interacts with a computer. This provides no real benefit, except at the very beginning of the game, at the help computer. It provides acknowledgement to the player that they have clicked the computer. Again, the sound was an in game sound, so I am unable to provide a link.

This screenshot shows me setting a sound that plays on certain locked doors or doors that must be opened another way. If you would like to hear this sound, follow this link. This sound is very helpful, especially for our intended demographic as it lets the player know that they cannot enter through that door, or that they must open it another way. The sound will play when the player clicks on any locked door. To get around the sound playing when the door is unlocked, all previously locked doors will be open when they are unlocked.

Another screenshot showing the same thing, except on the door to the locked cabin.

This screenshot show me adding descriptions to certain, important items that the player will come across. These will provide information about the item/s they have picked or, or a minor description if it is obvious what the item does. E.g a gun.

This screenshot shows the same, except on "Keycard Alpha" as I later named it. This is so that when the player reads the description, they are inclined to keep the card.

This screenshot shows me adding a fire effect to the bonfire special effect that plays before the boss spawns. If you would like to hear the sound, follow this link. This is to provide more depth to the game, and because it really stands out when there is a fire effect, but no sound to go along with it.

This screenshot shows me adding a recording of G1BS0N's speech, as well as making him inactive if anyone says it. This means that when the player clicks on G1BS0N, they will hear a recording as well as see a popup with subtitles. Once that popup disappears, G1BS0N will be gone. This just adds some mystery into the game, as well as helps with the ancillary products as it adds another character to the game who had a degree of significance. Much like G-Man in Half Life. Hopefully the player will notice this similarity as well. 

Small additon, adding a sound to the grandfather clock when it is clicked.

This screenshot shows me adding a recording to the male scientist that the player encounters when they beat the boss. He will only talk if he is clicked, but his dialogue has no useful information in it anyway.

This screenshot shows me adding a description to a new item I added to the spawn room. This item will display a map in the bottom right hand corner, but it will only show where the player has been. This is a helpful little addition as it will help new players avoid becoming lost in the level.

This screenshot shows me adding a sound effect that will play whenever the player picks up a "useful" item. This sound effect has been added across the level to items such as medpacks, ammo, weapons, and anything of that nature. This lets the player know that the item they have picked up it important and should be kept. If you would like to hear the sound, please follow the following link.

This screenshot shows me adding a sound that the robot will play once he is returned to his master. This provides the player with an audio cue to the let them know they have completed their objective. If you would like to hear the sound, please click the following link.

This screenshot shows me adding a sound that plays when the player clicks on the robot. This sound provides acknowledge meant to the player that the robot is following them. This will be helpful to the beginner audience, as explained before, it provides an alternative way of seeing what is happening.

This screenshot shows me adding a opening sound to the safe. However, it doesn't quite fit as the safe skin in the game is of a manual safe, whilst the only sound clips I could get are of electronic safes. If you would like to hear the sound, follow this link.

This screenshot shows me adding the dialogue recording of the Side Quest NPC. There are two parts to this, this one shows the first part, when the player first clicks on the NPC.

This screenshot shows the second part of the dialogue added to the Side Quest NPC. This one will trigger when the robot enters the room that the NPC is located in to inform the player that they can now enter her cabin to gain access to the secret stash.

On top of all of these changes a number of other ones were made including;

• Adding sounds to the drawers.
• Adding sounds to missing electric effects.
• Changing the timings of electric effects at the beginning of the game to line up with the audio.
• Crash fixes, including changing how the keycards become inactive.
• Adding a sound effect to the console that allows DNA entry in the security room.
• Adding sounds to safes and chests which were in hidden locations
• Adding sounds to teleporters in hidden locations.
• Moving certain props to enable better movement through the level.
• Adding sounds to Sci-Fi doors that were missing them.
• Changing the shape of certain trigger volumes as they were causing crashes, for some reason.
• Resizing certain trigger volumes so it was easier for the player to activate them.
• Taking in game screenshots (using F6) of certain places and events for use in the ancillary tasks.
• Changing the volume of certain sounds, such as the ambience music so it doesn't drown out other sounds.
• Changing the amount of ammo certain ammo drops provided.
• Changing the amount of health certain medpacks provided.
• Adding a special sound to the cubic device to showcase importance. Click here for the sound.
• Changing the delay on certain popups so that the player did not waste ammo.
• Adding additional help tips to the starting computer.

Hopefully that should do it. The game should be complete now. There may be a degree of crashes, but I am unable to do much about that as I cannot replicate a lot of the crashes and Mission Maker doesn't provide a crash log or bug report when it crashes to highlight the problem.

Friday 25th April 2015:
Small update, nothing major happened and no screenshots were taken, so i'll keep this short. Tried to record a playthrough of the game, from start to finish, including the side quest, for the examiner (you, i suppose), in case they are unable to play the game for themselves for various technical reasons.

(Abstract note to the examiner, you should really look into using a more modern piece of software for this course. Mission maker is lacking in a lot of areas and the amount of bugs and technical problems we ran into was ridiculous. I'm assuming their are various requirements that a software package must fulfil in order to be used in this assessment, but you could find one that actually has a decent amount of support material available. Look into things such as GameMaker, Stenycl, perhaps even offer students a chance to use Unity if they have some programming knowledge.)

Ran into many crashing issues and various rules had to be changes, as well as a significant amount of luck relating the crashes, as there were no bug reports, and the crashes couldn't be replicated consistently, Nevertheless, I managed to record a playthrough of the level which can be viewed here.