VRTA/BRAE

By Cameron Vong, Nick DellAquilo, Justin Xiong, Justin Li

THE SPINE HAS BREACHED CONTAINMENT. THE SPINE HAS POSSESSED A BODY.  THE SPINE IS FLEEING THE CITY.

DEVLOG
VRTA/BRAE is a platformer with a spine. Inspired by run and gun style 16-bit games, created in 3 weeks, and polished for a midterm assignment. 

Sprites and visuals by Justin Xiong, Cameron Vong. Music by Cameron Vong. Sound effects by Cameron Vong. Level design and codebase by all members.

• Week 1
  • Repo created, basic animations were created, and overall themes and inspiration were contributed.
  • Repo contained player and enemy code, as well as the basic mechanics of the platformer.
• Week 2
  • Beta due.
  • Sound effects were created, background music was brought into the world, and visual themes were delved into further. 
  • Original backgrounds were created by using open source pixel-art Javascript libraries to modify photos taken by Cameron.
  • Fleshed out platform types, level design, and debugging

DEVLOG 2

• Week 3
  • Final deliverable 
  • In GameJam type fashion, things came down to the wire. Fueled by caffeine, adrenaline, and a dream, VRTA/BRAE came to life.
• CHALLENGES
• • Midterm Szn took a toll
    • Collaboration was slowed
    • Caffeine stocks are on the rise
  • Git with the times! 
    • M e r g e E r r o r 
    • Everyone knows that feeling :(
    • Reinforced consistent pushes to prevent massive data loss
  • Level builder? I hardly know her!
  • Fixing key bugs in crunch time made it difficult to build levels
• Improvements
  • More diverse music / sfx selection
  • Weapon variety
    • Issues with shooting mechanic led to repurposing
    • Simplified gameplay in effort to increase quality
  • Add more enemies!
    • Who doesn’t love a (good) bad guy
  • Final boss fight

LESSONS

• Crikey, fail early and fail often
  • It’s a lot less painful to debug when it’s not mission critical  
• Roles - not just a type of bread
  • Make sure everyone knows what they’re doing, before they’re doing it
• If you build it, they will come
  • Getting the ball rolling is the hardest part
  • Find time to have meetings and discuss progress
    • Bouncing ideas off of one another speeds up development

SUCCESSES

• Slide / dodge mechanic
• Animations – Props to Justin!
  • Grind never stops
• Level design, controls

• Emotional support
  • I think we all need a nap
  • Or maybe another coffee
  • Perhaps both
• Not accidentally causing the destruction of the known universe
  • It’s the little things that count

It's been an honor working on VRTA/BRAE, we hope you'll come back.

*ba dum tss*