Pedro Pérez - Devlog Week 3

This week's update is an extense one, mostly because the work pace has been high this week on most subjects (and because of this I'm posting on saturday and I don't want to lose the points corresponding to the weekly post so I'm trying to compensate making an extense update :D)

During the last weekend we worked on the Design Document, as well as in the Tech file. I've also dedicated time to sketching some logos on Aseprite (mostly rough ideas to refine later down the development in case we have time). On tuesday we met through a discord call, but I couldn't join until later because I was working a project from another subject, so I joined late and João helped me give the final touches to the documents. Most of the work done on monday was about changing the visual style of the documents to result more appealing, rewriting some paragraphs and completing the parts we were missing. 

For the stage of changing the visual looks of the document, I showed the team the logo sketches I've prepared, with 2 new possible names for the game! 

The new names were "Hanafuda Samurai" and "Hanafuda Shogun". I mostly choose those names since it was easier to remember them because they were shorter (for example, Dead Cells is much easier to remember than The Cells, The Dead and The Castle), and I decided to use the word Hanafuda, the japanese traditional cards, which I feel that can fit really well the theme of the game (cards and a samurai, so using the word hanafuda felt a good match).

We ended up chosing the first version of the logo without background, (even though my favourite was the one in the right with that card-inspired background!), so we updated the Game Design Document with that one.

We met again on wednesday to discuss the development direction for this week. João showed us the progress on his code "skeleton", and he told us about a code system he found that allowed for easier coding of inventories, just what we needed for the cards inventory. He also showed us the progress on his 3D to 2D rendering pipeline that would allow us to use a 3D model for the main character while making it look like pixel art (I'd love to make one 3D to 2D pixel art shader like in that style like this one some day :p)

I was tasked with the creation of a Main Menu screen for the prorotype that we had to deliver for the next week, but I couldn't get to work on it until yesterday friday, because of the high workload of the other 2 subjects I'm enroled in.
Anyway, here's a quick preview of the menu screen! It still needs some polishing (color theory who?) and the background art is a placeholder I put together in a few minutes, but the important thing is that the "Start Game" and "Quit" buttons are functional, which is more than enough for the prototyping stage!

I finished the main menu screen yesterday, when we met to work on the game in the Alameda campus. Now my next task is to work on the spritesheets for the levels. I have to collect useful free assets online, as well as producing some if it's needed (I'm something of an artist myself, I guess). I'll also polish a bit more the menu screen if I can find the time to do so.

That's the update for this week! The next big deadline is the prototype, which we will have to deliver on wednesday, so we have a lot of work to do on the next few days!