Limitations
Certain factors prevented us from accomplishing our 1st semester dream game.The first and biggest influencing factor was our extreme ambition and "pie in the sky " attitude. We conceived a game which would have taken at least a full year for a full team working full time to accomplish. The sheer magnitude of creatures we planned on creating and perfecting was a huge overestimate of what we could realistically accomplish.
Additionally, Macromedia Director proved to be a bad choice of software. Although their new release theoretically fit the online multi-player criteria, the complex and massive game we conceived ended up being too much for Director to handle. We have since switched to Torque, which is a pre-build game engine designed specifically for the types of things we're doing.
Another huge deterrent was our lack of advanced programming knowledge. We were all eager to learn and help, but most of us didn't have the technical background to just jump in and learn Lingo, which is
Limitations
Director's programming language. On the bright side, we now have a full and experienced outside programming team, so the rest of us can focus on providing exceptional assets for the game.
Overall, the class has gone through a huge paradigm shift in terms of our process. We conceived an extraordinary project that could still be realized, given the right time and resources. However, for the 2nd semester part of Capstone, we have targeted a smaller, more-manageable project which will warrant all our time and attention to detail. This will produce a fully-functional and inter-disciplinary project through our work with the Psychology Dept.
The most valuable part of this entire experience will most likely be what we take away from the process. We are light years away from where we started, but despite the frustrations and the "scrapping" of certain parts of our original concept, the end product will surely be something we are proud to show.