Updates for Week Oct 4th

This week we completed our Proof of Concept, implementing several game mechanics.

Progress

- More props and models have been added to the attic scene.

- These game mechanics were implemented:

• Object Pickup: using our Game Jam 2 code as reference, players can now pick up objects that their cross hair is on. 
  • Crosshair reactivity: Crosshair will indicate if a player is looking at an object that can be picked up.
• Pushing Objects: using our Game Jam 2 code as reference, we fixed the push interaction such that players can push "heavy" objects.
• Television UI: Players can maximize the television screen and play/pause, rewind, fast-forward, and replay one video.
• Object in Correct Location Detection: Placing the correct object in the correct location in the room will trigger an event. For now, we output to the console the correct object has been placed in the correct location. The object is highlighted to also inform the user it is in the correct place. Current working objects are the guitar, stool and lamp. A temporary "glitch" visual cue is placed in the form of a transparent version of the model in the correct target position.

- Unity's new Input System package was used to support both keyboard and controller devices. New bindings were created.

- Character designs have been finalized for the tapes.

- The story of the first tape has been written and animated with audio. It plays on the television screen. The team has discussed the rest of the story and is still in the brainstorming phase.

- Feedback has been taken from last week's pitch presentation and the team is still brainstorming ways to ensure players do not need to go back to the TV every time they wish to view the tape. We will also begin experimenting with when and how to display the "glitch" visual cues

Challenges

- We faced issues with code integration as we all modified the same Unity scene, causing many merge conflicts. Pull Requests were also too large, making conflicts harder to deal with. Going forward, we each plan to keep a duplicated scene that we can modify with new features, and bring those into the latest version of the main scene.

Setbacks

- Due to time constraints, the UI elements for the television does not scale well when on different screen sizes. More research and testing will go into this so it scales accordingly. We also need to add more feedback for the user when objects are in the correct place, as well as inform the user how to interact with the television(which buttons on the gamepad/keys on the keyboard). Further, the TV only plays one tape and cannot be changed. More effort will go into the following week to enhance and support these features.
- The fixed version of the tape is not done yet, but it will need to be switched once the puzzle completion is detected.