Hello and welcome! This is the second official Slime Crime devlog, recording our progress, problems and thoughts over the last 2 weeks of work. This is the last devlog covering a whole sprint (a 2 week development period used in the Agile method of project design). From next sprint onward - These will become weekly logs so look forward to that!

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Sprint 2 - Devlog - 5th October to 16th October 2020

Progress:

As discussed last week, this sprint started off right away with a critique session alongside another development team. Getting a chance to see another game was an enlightening experience and both the tutor (The lovely Jeff Howard) and the other team had plenty of useful commentary to offer.

While our idea is enticing alone, there are definite areas to be considered to make it even more engaging. The gameplay for example needs to be as engaging as possible, many people have worked in Cafe's and know full well its not generally a fun experience - so creating a fun and enjoyable game revolving around that is a challenge.

Besides that, our narrative focus certainly caught the attention of everyone - And expanding upon the existing fiction to create an even more original piece that continues to subvert many different RPG tropes about magical monsters is a key place to progress. Alongside this, it was also suggested we put a lot more energy into narrative testing in the future and I agree - This will help refine our narrative into something exciting and in depth without overwhelming the player in meaningless lore.

Overall, the project seems to be take steps in the right direction - It was exciting to hear both praise and constructive comments about our project so early in development, it has definitely given us lots to consider going forward and creating a fun, engaging and enjoyable game for our players.

Moving forward, it has been a difficult sprint for everyone due to a mixture of complications that I will go into more depth about later in this devlog. Despite these, everyone has been working away to achieve all we can!

Its possible you have already seen what the talented Jemma has been up to - Putting together several more models for the scene as well as producing the banner artwork of our whole team chilling out in the café together.

Putting together art like this is not only a lovely thing to appreciate, but also serves us well as a promotional piece. As well as showcasing our whole lovely team, it showcases the art style we are aiming for and creates an eye popping, engaging way to look at our social media and marketplace accounts. The piece has already had great attention on social media and has been used several times on Itch and Twitter as a header.

Alongside new promotional art, Kathryn has put together a brand new logo to help expand our online influence and solidify the team.

While our focus has been less on art going into the game itself - Promotional content and team identity is very important to market and showcase our game to not just the people assessing it, but the world as a whole.

Outside of this, Kathryn has also been working with Sapphire to further expand on the style guide and art bible. As discussed last week, keeping up this development will help unify the teams art style into something refined and bespoke. Sapphire in particular has been working hard to create exciting and engaging facial expressions for the customers.

Making every customer interesting and expressive is not only more eye popping and engaging to the player - but also helps relay critical information about their effectiveness in a diegetic way. Offering players this kind of feedback will help them understand when things go wrong and become better and better as the game continues.

Moving outside of the main team - I have spent quite a bit of the past 2 weeks discussing and planning with two external students who have agreed to participate on the project. Our team covers most of the core development needs for a game like this with a major exception - Music! To fill our music needs, I got in touch with an old friend of mine Josh Conway (@Joshuawconway, University of Cardiff) to source some high quality music for the game. Together we got in touch with a colleague of his, Dom Sutton (@DomSutton5, University of York) to further expand our musical skills. 

As the project producer - dealing with external freelancers and communication is one of my core responsibilities. So to this end, I have been working closely with both musicians to set up all the documentation and infrastructure they require to efficiently produce work and receive feedback. Its been a wonderful experience and both of them have been a pleasure to work with so far - Expect some samples of their music to find its way into our social media at some point in the future.

However, they will be providing most of our musical needs - not sound effects. Warren has been hard at work putting these together in house, creating a vast library of different ambient noises, machine beeps and other effects to help populate the café scene. He has also been putting together dialogue sounds to create a unique personality and tone amongst our unique NPC's and customers - even without having full voice lines.

Over in the writing department, as per the comments received during our critique - Kim has been doing their best to expand on the world and its characters. Unfortunately for issues I will touch upon later, its been slow going in this department, but the lore continues to grow day by day. As for myself, among social media and freelancer responsibilities, I've been taking a little time to expand on the detailed recipes the player will make in game. Creating small pieces of lore about each drink that the player can read at their own pace or ignore just helps flesh out the world, making it seem even more lively without being imposing on the players experience.

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Difficulties:

As I mentioned a couple times above, it is unfortunate to say that this sprint has certainly seen a dip in productivity. Many team members have suffered personal issues that have delayed progress - And here at Slime Crime we like to prioritise the physical and mental health of each other wherever possible.

Alongside this, multiple members of the team - Jemma, Kim and Warren - have all suffered major internet outages. This has caused very obvious and problematic disruptions, but very little could be done to prevent them. Clear team communication of these issues is the reason we have handled them so effectively.

This sprint has also been a big milestone for everyone's personal portfolio assignments, the second major assignment we are all working on alongside this game.

While problematic, learning a work-life balance in this strange situation we find ourselves in will naturally take some time - Life can get in the way and while its unfortunate, ensuring everyone in the team is fit to develop is far more important for long term team health. Despite these issues causing notable disruption - that doesn't mean we are behind! We are still on track to put together a great game for everyone, pushing onward to another week of adventure.

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That wraps up the second development log of this project - Everyone here is dedicated to putting together a great game and are eagerly awaiting sharing more details in the coming week! Stay in touch by emailing us, keeping an eye on our twitter and more. But most importantly, stay safe out there everyone.

Till next time~

- Dan Baker: Producer, Supporting Writer and Scrum Master for Slime Crime