Hi everyone!

Welcome to the first devlog of Marathon Mayhem, a game about running, obstructing the other players from running and more running. Go off screen and you die. Pickup objects like freeze grenades and other tools to troll your "friends" and obstruct them from , you guessed it right, running. Be the last player to survive and show your opponents who is the Marathon King or Queen.

During the first week of prototyping we encountered a couple of important questions that needed to be tested and answered.  One of the core manners dying is going of screen and so we wanted a constantly moving camera, but did not have a concrete idea of how we wanted to solve this. We tried a spline path implementation which gave us really decent looking results and did what we wanted from our camera. This actually went fast to implement in both Unity as Unreal.

This is ofcourse still just a mockup prototype and will  be adapted and improved upon. So our camera movement question has been answered.

Another important question we asked ourselves was if we would make a big open level and the camera would go to a random point in it or a linear level. We first did the test with the linear level but by next week will try a more randomized trajectory for the camera.  

We also had to think what art direction we would go with, more realistic or a more stylized looking game. As we only have 1 artist we realised realistic art and PBR materials would take to much time and put a high workload on our artist we decided to go with a more unique style.

We also wanted to include a fun way for the players that die to still have an influence on the game, by turning into ghosts that can slow players and influence the map. With our constantly moving camera this would be a challenge to see what could be done if the ghosts move of screen. For now we did not test this yet but it certainly needs attention.

For engine of choice we started out with Unreal , but as programming the character had a couple of bumps and problems, we don't have a working prototype in Unreal yet, but he was able to translate the mechanics that were finished in Unreal to Unity so we have a first working prototype. Right now 2 of the programmers are still more keen to go for Unreal but that decision needs to be fleshed out more over the course of next week.

This week of prototyping went pretty good for the biggest part beside the player movement not being finished for the prototype and thus being unable to show the prototype being made in Unreal at this moment, but this will definitely be resolved by next week. The pickup system is ready for testing and further enhancing to get an idea of what pickups would work for our game.

Next week we will make sure we have a working prototype in Unreal too and make a final decision what engine to go for. Also will we determine if we can implement the ghost death mechanic in a fun and straightforward way that will not be more of a hassle to do. Documentation like the tech design guide and art bible will also be completed.