Beta Interview

I’ve been doing so many of these interview lately that I’m starting to feel like a real reporter. Anyways, as promised here is the double feature interview with Andy and Aaron:

So guys, it’s been a little while since we did one of these. Let’s start with what you guys have been working on.

AW – Lately we’ve been fixing up Wisdom.  We’ve been working on tweaking the moving platforms and her collision detection and AI.  Our biggest challenge has been having Wisdom not lift a platform that she’s on while moving.  Since she doesn’t have aerial control, she would fly through the air and out of the arena.  Ironically, rather than directly fixing the problem, adding a new mechanic accidentally fixed Wisdom.

AD – Part of the challenge came from us using different programming tools and combining them to make the boss fight work. Andy uses Playmaker and occasionally some C# while I use C# and getting the two to work together has been challenging but it’s great because it means that we both have to constantly communicate and know exactly what the other is doing in terms of programming. So through Playmaker Andy has been scripting what attacks wisdom will use and how they will work, and in C# we have been scripting how the pillars will rise and fall.

Cool, now Andy you mentioned today that you “Accidentally fixed Wisdom”. What exactly does that mean and Aaron how did you help with it? I mean I know you’re not a real programmer but I figure you might have got like coffee or something?

AW- Woah. I’m way more of a programmer than Aaron (inside joke – no ego here)!!  Well, I added the mechanic of when Wisdom steps on a new platform, it moves down, consequently, it won’t move up – problem of Wisdom being launched.  Issue fixed.  Stopping the platform from moving was being a pain, we would have gotten it eventually, but this fixed the problem so we rolled with it.

AD – I tried solving the issue by scripting it in C# but it was causing the pillars to do a weird flicker. Our fallback was to put invisible barriers around the arena so that if wisdom did going flying she wouldn’t fall off, but what ended up fixing it worked much better.

Neat. So why not give all the people here the overview of the fight and the programming that went into it.

AW – Okay so from the beginning, Wisdom was fast – extremely difficult to hit and defeat while she had the entire space to dart around.  This led to the core mechanic of the boss fight: destroying the pillars.  Destroying the pillars will create holes in the arena that block Wisdom’s movement and hinders her greatest strength.  However, the player can’t jump over them either so they must strategically destroy them in attempt to trap Wisdom and not impede the player’s mobility since Wisdom’s attacks are pretty quick too.  The catch, the platforms are only vulnerable while Wisdom is attacking.

AD – The biggest challenge programming-wise was making sure that the A.I. functioned properly with everything else that’s going on in the arena.

Right. So do you guys have anything in particular you wanted to say about the project over-all? The floor is yours.

AW – I wish we had a real programmer (another joke)

AD – I wish playmaker didn’t break everything (rebuttal (but joking))

So last question. Which of you is the best programmer. Ready? FIGHT!

AW – Me.

AD – Nope, not Andy

So here we find ourselves folks. Deep in the middle of beta and steaming along to a good ending. Next post I’m actually going give you full run-through of the in-progress level complete with voice over by yours truly. Be sure to come back for that and thanks for stopping by.

Cheers,

Robert