If you would like to look into a more in depth analysis of this prototype, here is a link to my breakdown in my portfolio: Joe

Narrative Scene:

• Developing upon my last prototype and my plan I decided to tackle the narrative scene. First, I grey boxed the general area in which I wanted my gameobjects to be placed and started filling these in with either the art given to me by the artists or generic images I found online that fit the theme. To keep things as simple as possible I only created two scripts that controlled this entire scene, the DialogueManager and the PopUpManager. I’ll explain a bit more in detail about each script further down but first I want to explain the core game loop that is going on in the first scene. Each time the player left clicks anywhere on the screen they continue the dialogue until a certain point where they are faced with a choice of options. Once they’ve clicked through all of the dialogue and choices they are then met with a last button which will take them to the camp scene, this will be the same loop for all future narrative scenes.

Narrative Dialogue:

• I started brainstorming the best way to not only code but to set up the dialogue system. My first thoughts were to look at visual novels to see how their game loop flows. From watching both gameplay and tutorials on games such as Fallout New Vegas and King of Dragon Pass and watching Stellar Studios tutorial on making a visual novel in unity i decided the best way to go forward was base it off of the tutorial whilst taking inspiration from UI design from Fallout New Vegas.
• How it works, as seen in the video of the prototype, is that there is a set script that was written into the code so that each “button press” (clicking anywhere on the screen) moves the script onward. This includes everything including option choices, and decision choices by players. 

Option Choices:

• Going off of the same research as the narrative dialogue, the option choices were set up to “popup” in a predetermined way. Each choice button was scripted to trigger a chain of events. However, due to limitations of the narrative script not being written yet the options in this prototype, but i have already noted this as something that needed to be implemented and as such I already set-up a function in the code that handles this.

Placeholders and character benefits:

• During the earlier discussions and from the feedback on the first prototype it was mentioned that camps should not only produce their own resource i.e. scrap camp only produces scrap, but certain characters should also gain bonuses of a specific resource if they are placed in a specific camp. For example in the video you see me place the colours in the corresponding colours. Ie, character 1 red needed to be in camp 1 red placeholder to obtain + 5 resource. This was all coded within the GameManger and CharacterHolder scripts where it was, to put it simply, just determining if the ‘preferred’ character had been placed into the ‘correct’ character slot. If they were and then the End Day button was pressed they would gain +5 resources in comparison to the +1 resources if they were not in the preferred and correct placeholder. 

Progress button:

• A simple but important addition, I added a progress button which literally is there to progress to the next scene. I set it up so that it is greyed out and can’t be interacted with until the right conditions are met. In this prototype the conditions are that the day is 7, but in the future there will be more requirements to be able to interact with the button. 

To get some feedback and update my team on my current progress I sent this youtube video through to our group chat so I could get some general feedback. Additionally I presented my prototype in person during our meetings. If you want to read what discussions took place here is a link to the WEEKLY MEETINGS. After every prototype I try my best to develop the game in the direction the group wants whilst staying realistic as to what my developing skills can create.