Hello again and welcome to the second Devlog of "The Backrooms"!

After we decided on an art style and started prototyping in the last week, our main goal this week, was to create a prototype with our main mechanic. 

Apart from that we worked on and  finished several documents:

Art Bible:

We added some information regarding our choices and why we decided for certain things (e.g lightning or colors).  Apart from that we added different sections about the textures, the UI and the art style regarding the poly count.

To be able to do that, we had to work on several prototypes and concepts:

(Concept Art of the ingame view including UI)

(Prototyping the texture-workflow in Substance Painter to achieve the desired art style as a result)

(Example for the typical polycount in our game)

Tech Document:

Apart from the art bible we were also able to finish the tech document: We still had to decide for certain  programs we would or would not use.

For example, we asked ourselves if Photoshop or Substance Painter would be the better choice for texturing in our chosen art style.
After testing it out, we decided to go for Substance Painter, since it is way more effective when it comes to applying a certain texture to a different asset. Apart from that, the UV-Seems are easier to hide, layering different effects (like grunges and ink splatters) is easy and it's fast to achieve a good result. When working in Substance Painter, we also don't have to constantly switch between programs, to see results, because everything is already visible on the mesh in Substance Painter.

Game Design Document:

This week we also wrote the Game Design Document. In the GDD every single part of the game is described - what it is and how it works. This helped us clear up certain aspects of the Game Design which we were not yet sure about (for example we decided, that the player can turn off the lights by destroying a generator.  This will make it easier for the player to find the NPCs).
This document will also help us to plan our work in the upcoming weeks and divide every chapter into different tasks.

Game Prototype:

For the final prototype we created a test-level with some empty rooms - since it is only a prototype, it is unimportant what it looks like, it just has to work and - most importantly - be fun.
We mainly worked on the player mechanics like the dash and being able to kill the NPCs. Apart from that the AI (NPCs are trying to run away from the player character) is a very important aspect of this prototype. The other main mechanics include the ability to lock a room and thus locking up the NPCs inside and - of course - the violence-meter. As soon as the violence-meter reaches zero, the player is dead. To stay alive and fill the violence-meter, the player has to hunt and kill the NPCs.

Where do we go from here?

Today marks the last day of our prototyping phase, so next week we enter the phase  "Sprint 1", in which we will start the actual production of  "The Backrooms" and start working on the assets and specific game mechanics - of course after we set up all the tasks we have to do in the following weeks.
 

 See you next week!