Tidying Up
As May came to a close, I was cleaning up some final things from the large batch of tasks that I received a few weeks ago. There were a few tasks that were partially done that I needed to look into a little further and fix up to ensure the issues were truly fixed. Truth be told, I was able to take my ~35 tasks down to 15, and most of the ones left still need some pieces in place before I can get into the thick of them.
There were also a few small tasks that were low-priority that needed to get done, so I decided to take them on towards the end of the week. This included a new joke for the Mirror (although, new doesn’t always mean better) and checking up on some movement bugs when interacting with some enemies and objects.
A Nice Coat of Polish
The buzzers at the beginning needed to be altered slightly so that they flew towards Otto once the player moved into a certain range. This was just a way to add to the game to make it more engaging and polished. I created a “Magnet” script and game object and attached it to the three buzzers that are part of the Lamp’s quest.
The team and I are also experimenting with different audio channels and volumes throughout to help improve the atmosphere at certain parts, particularly in the basement. We want the music to get softer as Otto defeats the speaker enemies at The Gackle’s party. We had many initial thoughts on how to do it, and eventually, we settled on manipulation of the audio channels instead of the audio tracks themselves. This still has a few kinks to it that I need to work on, but largely, we were able to complete the task.
Next Week
Next week will be a slow one for me. Memorial Day is coming up, and we have the day off. I’ve also requested time off next Thursday and Friday because I have people visiting. With only a couple days of work. I’m thinking it’ll be a great opportunity for some Easy Notes. Yes! They’re back! They’re essential to make sure merges go smoother in the future, but they were put on hold while I was working on the new batch of tasks. Now that a lot of them are done, It would be nice to get back to some of those before the next big merge.
Media Rec
June 6 is coming up very quickly, and while a lot of people outside of a history class don’t usually pay much attention to it, I like to remember it as the day that brave, very young men were shipped off to the shores of Normandy, France in 1944 as small but significant pieces in the grand puzzle of freeing the world from ruthless tyrants. Many of those people died tragically and painfully to secure victory and help bring an end to World War II.
With that said, I have two recommendations this time around. For any movie fans out there, Saving Private Ryan is a beautiful and gruesome film with an incredible cast, an inspiring soundtrack, tremendous cinematography, and genius direction. Better than just about any other piece of media out there, Saving Private Ryan gives its audience a terrifying yet still limited look into what it was like to be one of the scared boys on the beach that day. What’s more tragic is the fact that the average age of a U.S. soldier in the war is estimated to be 25 or 26.
However, if you’re reading this, you’re likely a fan of video games. Now, plenty of people enjoy Call of Duty for its addictive multiplayer, but Call of Duty: WWII has what I believe to be a fairly decent campaign. Said campaign also puts you on the beaches at Normandy on June 6, 1944, and while it doesn’t quite live up to Saving Private Ryan, it gives it a valiant effort, as well as a bonus entire rest of the campaign. Experience at least one of these this coming weekend.