Saturday 21 May 2016

The End of Synapse - Birth of Spark

So... A lot of things have happened during these last two weeks.

Besides my in-between animation work for the past five weeks, I've been tasked to search for sound effects for the game, both from YouTube and from the "sound library" extended hard drive from school. I found a total of 12 sounds, as well as potential background music from composer Kevin Macleod.

We had a huge playtesting on May 6th. But during the six weeks we've developed Synapse, it seems that we have been grounded to a halt in terms of actual gameplay in the game. Our conceived puzzle mechanics couldn't work, our Unity-build crashed a bunch of times, and we were unable to implement our animations and other art-assets in time for both the Alpha presentation and the Big Playtest. 

So the odds was against us for a long time. But then one of our old teachers came by our office and proposed that, in order to make a game worthy of being played at the Gotland Game Conference (GGC - 21-23 May), we should do a huge pivot. 

And so we did.

We scrapped everything that we've been doing for the past six weeks. Every art-asset, all animations, sound effects, codes. Our scrum. Everything. The team-leader proposed that we should make a game that everyone is confortable to work with, as long as everyone is prepared to work for longer hours and produce multiple daily results.

We all agreed. And for the next 11 days, being finished at the night before GGC, we created a whole new game.

Rest in Piece, Synapse
A educational game with puzzle elements.


Long Live Spark!
A combat platformer.


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