This week, I started to generate a game manual for our project. I really went in depth with a lot of our game’s rules and how a player will win. Here is a link to what I have generated so far:

http://thefourmation.com/2009/04/11/game-manual/

One issue that the team is currently debating is how players are going to steal platforms from opponents. Right now, a player can steal from already placed platforms by their opponent. However, we feel that if a player can steal at any point, a smart player will just sit and spy on their opponent and steal any pieces they place. We may need to restrict a certain time to when they can steal OR have a particular platform be used as a designated spot that the player can have the character stand and enable stealing. We realize that this is a major piece of our game and we want to make sure we get it right. Another idea that is floating around is for players to be able to steal when they collect a certain piece from free-for-all platforms. This would work as long as the stealing lasts for only 1 piece or for a certain amount of time. I think this may work a bit better as well because then the player, while they concentrate on stealing from other opponents, may leave their own board open if their opponents also have the ability to steal. I’m going to be sending these problems to Paul to see what he thinks as well. More to come next week.

This week will conclude the weeks in which i spend predominantly working on Server Issues. The tick timing system is implemented. You can look at that here It was a major struggle mentally figuring out how it was supposed to work. Codegentally (not a word but can be) it was easier to implement.

Next in preparation for my code to get absorbed into the main code i went back through it and commented everything out to assist Jared. Glen and Jervo will especially like this because it’ll help future Digital Medias use our code if they wish to further it’s legacy.

Finally, I realized that i did not do a tutorial per-say of how to get Flash to recognized desktop network items.
Find that one Here It is really a problem and there must be a solution.

Lastly, (which comes after Finally) i began doing research for the augmented reality implementation. The best part about this is that all the documentation that is readily available is in Japanese. This will be interesting.

For next week, I hope to touch up on some server issues such as the security problems. There has to be a way to have it just bypass the security as some online games do that now. Hopefully our dedicated will be available soon so that we can begin testing on that. And augmented reality becomes augmented reali-awesome.

This week I continued refining the Wiimote as a mouse control. I have successfully implemented the virtual mouse class into Jared’s new code, however it’s kind of buggy. As of right now it does not interact with the papervision objects, only other movie clips. The problem I’m having is with the tracking. Like I said previously the built-in functionality of the ‘wiimote as a mouse’ function is pretty lacking. The mouse currently is very jumpy and loses its calibration easily. I’ve basically refined the code I’m using for headtracking and threw it into my mouse class.

I’ve also updated the WiiConnect class that Jared and I created awhile ago to optimize it. Over the rest of the weekend I plan on fixing up the mouse code so I can move onto something else.

This week I spent more time working on the website. Most of the time was spent on the functional aspect to the website rather than actual design. I am mainly working with Todd on the website, and after getting some group feedback Todd on met to work on some of more concepts/designs.

We plan to use the papervision3D to create an interesting 3D look while trying to keep the navigation intuitive. We looked at other papervision3D websites and found that they were innovative, but when trying to find information it was awkward to navigate.

I worked on one idea of having the cubes on screen for the how page(they would animate in), when selected the cube would animate to go almost full screen the content would be on a side of a cube which is now up to the camera for ease of viewing.

I also began to work with text because I have never used text in 3D before, I wanted to see the limitations of text before a web concept was finalized.(that is why the fourmation logo just rotates around everything)

http://www.thomasbergamini.com/fourmation/test411/example.html

hrs: 10

I’ve been coding some hardcore Papervision this week. I posted an example of a grid system that still needs a lot of work done to it. There are some bugs, but I am confident that I will work them out pretty soon.

Aside from coding, I have also been designing some game mock-ups that show what the actual gameplay will look like.

So we completely redesigned the website. It is my and Tom’s task to do the site completely in flash. This week I spent most of my time working on the key elements of the new design and functionality. Me and Tom met separately to discuss this and we thought up a site that really mimics our new game play and style. Look here to see my new mock-up.