Hi all - As promised this is the first of our weekly Devlogs, which will be written on Friday's and published the following Monday. In these logs, we record our progress, problems and thoughts throughout the development cycle - for both self reflection and to offer the readers a glimpse into our development process.

Hope you enjoy it!

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Sprint 3.1 - Devlog - October 19th to October 23rd.

Progress:

With the 6th week of term making up the second half of this sprint, marking the middle of the academic term, all our focus has been devoted to the upcoming Mid-Term review. In this session, a pair of tutors from our institution will receive a pitch about our game and play a small sample of it - discussing amongst themselves before delivering a judgement on whether our game is a green, amber or red light.

This represents whether the university has confidence to let our project continue - With a red light marking that the game needs to be returned to the drawing board and completely changed.

Naturally we are all very confident in our project and not concerned that our project will meet a red lit fate - However, it has still been a major priority this sprint to have our project in a good place to showcase all the progress we have made!

To this end - Jake has been coding away to his heart's content, finalising the core mechanics of the game. By getting the basic machines working, our game can slowly come out of the conceptual and into reality. Day by day, the core functions of the slime dispenser, blender and more all come together.

Over in my department, It's been a busy week putting together all kinds of 'exciting' documentation. Working closely with the team and our 2 audio freelancers Josh and Dom. I've been putting together briefing documents for music pieces we want - To give a strong starting place for Josh and Dom to compose from as well as help refine the teams idea as a whole for a specific scene.

Alongside this - Catching up on the previous sprints Devlogs, producing more twitter content to push out and expanding upon our drinks menu have all been small tasks that will help make our game more enjoyable as a whole. Myself and Warren have also worked together to piece together a detailed presentation ahead of next week's mid term review.

Art wise - Jemma and her team have been expanding upon the visual world in a few different ways. Jemma herself has been concepting and modelling several of the drinks you will be making in Slime Café - Starting with the 3 simplest on the menu: The Molten Mocha, Glacier Tea and Bright Brew.

Above you can see them all modelled, experimenting with the textures in order to make not only visually striking drinks, but also drinks that are easy to identify and are filled with charm. We also want to make sure each drink is easy to identify for those who struggle with color blindness - Ensuring every drink has a unique texture alongside its colours.

Kathryn and Sapphire have instead been drawing away, creating a range of customer templates/default body shapes and various cosmetic elements that will be drawn from during customer creation. By having a wide range of hair pieces, clothing etc. for each archetype - Every customer will feel a little unique and different, helping to keep the game refreshing and interesting.

Kim has been sat at the world forge, piecing together not only more exciting information about each of our unique characters - but also planning out how their stories will be told. We can't reveal much yet, but be assured that every character you can socialise with will offer a unique take on the events of the game as well as conveying their distinctive personalities.

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Problems:

This week has marked another important deadline for everyone - With a major milestone in our personal portfolio projects taking place in the form of a peer review meeting on Tuesday. This meant a lot of our focus was drawn to that, but with some careful planning and frequent communication - A lost day or two for other projects can be easily navigated around.

Another issue we had was links to the last devlog - Lost internet. While not as severe, in our new strictly digital world, it's tough to make much progress when the internet simply will not cooperate. We are fortunate it has not affected the majority of the team and that progress can continue, as well as for the generosity of the university and its facilities.

All around though, it has been a fairly clear week for development problems.

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That's a wrap on another Devlog! We hope you enjoy reading these, they are a very useful way to record our own progress and thoughts into an easy to read format and allow you insight into our goals, plans and more.

While another busy week draws to a close, we remain as dedicated as possible to this project. We hope you are as excited about this game as we are. I personally look forward to starting up playtesting and getting everyone's opinions and thoughts so, together, our game can reach its true potential! ^^

Remember to stay in touch by emailing us, keeping an eye on twitter and more.

As always - Stay safe out there everyone.

Till next time ~

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