Postmortem

What went right: 

1. Though games art style has changed radically during the start of development. We feel the current version of the game tackles the core theming of mystery, helps create a world of intrigue. This is mainly due to the narration, statues, and changes within the background map design over time.
2.  The implementation of controlling the central idea of fire is implemented successfully. We feel that the fire mechanic is interesting, in depth, and fun to interact with. There are a lot of points for interaction. All which help add to the overall theme in the gameplay. Fire as a mechanic also builds over time. With the first level being about causing fire, and the last being to protect it.
3. Our original idea of the game was extremely in depth. We feel we did a successful job of taking that initial idea and refining/slimming it down. Originally the towers used to solve puzzles by forcing the player to backtrack between rooms.

What went Wrong:

1. One other element that went wrong was bugs. One of the largest bugs was the implementation of the player in relation to the staircase. As the VR headset sees the stairs as micro walls, it created a lot of hiccups that halted the games development. The initial setup of the Quest Developer services also had many errors.
2. We feel that one of the elements that could have been better was clear communication, and a realistic outlook on time allocation. Many of our ideas increased in size, forcing us one point late in development to condense and restrict options. If we did this earlier more time could have been devoted to refining what we are defined to have.
3. Some people in the group were tasked with more complicated tasks than others. There was some crossover between the tasks but more would have been helpful for a smoother development cycle.

Lessons Learned: One of the primary things we learned through this project was how to manage and update the scale and topic depending on the time frame being allocated. We also learned a lot about how to organize as a group, and how we would structure production in future projects. The development could have been smoother, and what we learned are the skills to help prevent this moving forward.

Next Steps: In the future if given the option our team would like to refine and expand on the mechanics of fire and the tone of mystery within this game. There are many elements we had to limit due to time. We would also like to update the aesthetics of the world. Using toonshaders to refine the style and tone of the space. If we were to redo this project from the start we would  look realistically to what each of us could do, and structure it for a more seamless process.