Postmortem

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night Postmortem

Yifan, Caleb, Percy

Introduction

‘Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night’ is a walking simulator set in a train lost in space. This is not a literal interpretation, more of an explanation for extreme differences between each train car. The idea of the impossible space is the core idea for this project, and is represented by the game by having each car represented as a micro-experience, each showcasing individual impossible spaces. Each developer in this project was assigned multiple spaces to make, each representing a different way to experiment with the level design. Many approaches were tackled through this method. Some cars had fully aesthetic changes, others changed the mechanics associated with the train. We also wanted to focus heavily on the abstract nature of this environment, while subverting the nature of the train in various ways. We feel the origin of the poem, “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”, was a beautiful piece to base our project, as the subject matter is a statement about continuing and fighting against the inevitable, much like our walking simulator.

What Went Right

1. Variety in level design

As the primary focus of the game was to have micro-experiences , we feel we succeeded in the variety of settings, many of which are completely different. Some levels update the world to a city perspective, while others focus on mechanics, such as having to navigate the train in rotation. We feel the ratio between simple cars, and extreme cars fit the game. Each member of the project was tasked with making a minimum of three train cars, and the best few were kept for the final game. Level design of each train car was based around the default train model we produced, which added a key consistency that allowed the game to flow nicely. 

1. Sound Design

The sound direction of this project was extremely successful in providing a meaningful tone to the project. A sense of creepy, yet abstract soundtracks were utilized in this piece and greatly added to the general uncertainty of this project, adding to the theme of space travel. Each component was the right volume, and the sound layout that occurred during the final portion was successful. 

1. Concept

For this project we feel we have created an extremely engaging concept- a train being lost and chaotic, a nod to the metaphoric meaning of ‘Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night’, the poem this game has been inspired from. There is a lot going for this project and it all meshes together effectively. We had a very concrete idea of what we wanted to set out to achieve, and we have done so. The end result was an abstract walking simulator based inside a train in space that increased in complexity and chaos as you walked through each  cart, which is exactly what we had intended.

1. Visual and performance

Due to the fact that the majority of the game takes place in small, enclosed spaces, we were able to somewhat push the visuals without jeopardizing the performance. We paid close attention to the textures and lighting, as well as post-processing, which increased the visual quality of the game. It also runs smoothly across all platforms, including WebGL, although there are some bugs associated with WebGL which we could not solve, but that’s another story.

Execution of Programming

        Throughout the process of making the game, different approaches to coding each of the levels have been implemented that the programmers had no previous knowledge of. Working on this project was a very big learning opportunity as far as the programming went in order to make the game complete our vision in the end. One of the key core functions of our game was to load each scene randomly every time the game is played, which was a function that had to be researched and learned as we made it. Another learning opportunity was the different individual aspects of each car- for example, the one that changes scale as you move through it or the one that rotates. This programming helped further our game in a lot of ways, and can be attributed to our success.

What went wrong

1. Development

The Webgl build is something particularly that did not translate effectively. This build had many errors that were complicated to fix, one being a glitch in the train model's reflection lighting, making the level appear much more jittery. The second main Webgl-based issue is the ending sequence that entirely relies on the Unity video player. This video being showcased was too large for Webgl, resulting in it not being able to play at all. It’s very confusing to attempt to tackle these issues since we wouldn’t have had any of these issues in the engine.

1. Modeling

The modeling for this project was not the smoothest portion. As this game was based entirely on the replication and modification of a single model, this model took a good amount of development time, ran into many errors, and in the end did not look as aesthetically engaging as we would have liked. That being said a lot of work has been put into this base environment and the end product shows this. The chaos was merely a backend fiasco.

1. Controlling the scale

We wasted some time at the beginning of the development. Initially, the scale of the game was thought to be a lot larger than the final product, and we wasted some time trying to figure out certain mechanics for scenes in the game which did not go into the final game, for instance, an escalator component for a scene which takes place outside the train before the protagonist boards it. We had to cut a lot of these concepts due to time constraints.

1. Time management

While our group set out to meet once a week and had concrete deadlines for certain portions of the project, we didn’t always meet these deadlines. This could be simply because of the busy time this project was produced. The majority of the members in the group also have responsibilities outside of school work. That being said there were moments developmentally of this project for concern. Some of the 3d modeling took longer than expected, and scheduling was a large problem for our group.

1. Communication

Our group did not have the best communication, although it did improve over time, this is again to an extent due to our busy schedules. At the beginning of the project, since each member was still working on a lot of the foundational things for the game, we were all using different platforms (Unity, Maya, Procreate, etc), and did not communicate with each other a lot on our progres. Sometimes when a member of the group sends a message, others won’t see it until much later due to busy schedules, this also hinders effective communication. As the development progresses, we start to communicate with one another more actively on the project, but if we were to do this from the start the development would be a lot more effective.

What We Learned

We learned a good amount about organization through this project. Knowing what needs to be done in what order to ensure the best possible outcome was essential for this project, and so it would be an engaging experience. We also learned a lot about the structure around creating independent spaces. The cross section between specification and unity. Technically there was a lot learned as well through this project. Playing videos through unity, scaling the controller, asset making. All ranges of skills were tested and enhanced through this project. In the future we would like to be more clear about scheduling, we would also like to scale down the file size in order to accommodate for webgl.