Milestone 10 [Project Post-Mortem] (Sumaiya)

  

Overview

Magicaluna: The Sequel is a VR-compatible desktop game where players take on the role of a magical girl on a mission to save Princess Luna. This project was inspired by a previous game we developed in 2024 for our Sensor-Based Interaction course, but this sequel is more fully fleshed out in terms of technical features, storytelling, and overall immersion. The core mechanic requires players to match their wand's light colour to enemy colours to defeat them, combining puzzle-solving, combat, and exploration within a space-themed magical girl atmosphere.

For the final milestone, our primary focus was on polishing the game for our final presentation, submission, and Demo Day. My contributions included setting up the winning and losing cutscenes, updating game instructions to include both desktop and VR controls, incorporating sound effects and music across all scenes via an Audio Manager script, and creating the itch.io page with a custom game poster.

Team Collaboration

• Throughout the project, there were parts which we mostly collaborated on including: 
• Trello Board: Tracked tasks across Backlog, In Progress, and Completed lists with checklists for subtasks
• GitHub Repository: Managed scene files with "Locked and Available Scenes" list to prevent merge conflicts
• Shared Documentation: Collaborative brainstorming, potential assets to choose from (Music, SFX and Mixamo animations), proposal documents and attributions document 

Individual Contributions

Our key individual contributions can be broken down as follows:

• Sumaiya (Me): Character Designs, Wand colour-switching mechanic, UI design and implementation (logo, buttons, health/progress bars, instructions, cutscenes), initial final boss behaviour, audio manager, sound effect and music integration, itch.io page
• Naomi: Character modelling (Luna, Naomi, enemies), UV mapping, rigging and animations (Mixamo integration, final boss), enhanced final boss behaviour, health restoration capsule, enemy spawners, sound effect composition and music
• Zineb: Environment modelling (ship control panel room, environment design), VR controls (swinging motions, headset setup, teleportation), puzzle implementation, particle effects for enemy attacks.

Design References

I created and revised reference sheets for modelling, which included Princess Luna, the enemies, and the wand design, all designed using Adobe Illustrator. Luna's character design received only minor improvements, while the enemies were redesigned to appear less friendly with the addition of eerie elements that fit our game's atmosphere. The final boss was an entirely new addition, following a similar style to the regular enemies but embracing the eerie aspect more prominently.

Luna Character Reference Sheet

Enemies Character Design/Redesign 

Old vs New Enemy Design

The wand's appearance was directly inspired by the physical wand controller we used in the previous project.

Physical Wand Controller VS Wand Design reference for 3D 

UI Design and Implementation

The UI assets I designed using Illustrator and implemented in Unity are as follows:

Logo Design

Primary/Menu Buttons 

Secondary Buttons

 

Panels 

Healthbar and Progress Tracker 

Cutscene Assets

Home Menu Implementation

Final Desktop and VR Instructions

I implemented tabbed navigation to switch between desktop and VR instruction panels, clearly distinguishing the controls for each mode. To improve usability, I highlighted the core controls in a different color, as players primarily consult the instructions to learn how to play rather than for narrative details.

Text-based Cutscenes

Cutscenes were needed to improve the storytelling aspect of the game. In terms of my contributions, I  created the UI assets needed and integrated them into the introduction, winning, and losing cutscenes. Functionality-wise, the text component in the bubbles all use the same script, which handles the typing effect with punctuation-based pauses, skip functionality, making it feel more natural and interactive. 

Colour Switching Functionality

Core game mechanic where the player must match their wand's light colour to an enemy's colour to defeat it. I implemented this system. The player can now cycle through the wand's light colours (updating both the bulb materials as well as point light) by pressing the spacebar, consisting of white, blue/ice, green/earth and pink/fire.

To provide visual feedback, the wand's particle effects change colour to match the currently selected power or light. Moreover, the crosshair changes colour based on the enemy the player is aiming at. Once all regular enemies are defeated. 

The different colours/powers combine into a single powerful purple power, which is needed to defeat the final boss. This is also showcased using sound where the final boss's attack is more powerful-sounding than the standard one.

Final Boss Behaviour 

After all regular enemies are defeated, the final boss spawns close to the player. The final boss also teleports close to the player every once in a while and requires more wand attacks than the standard enemy. 

Itch.io Game Poster Design 

Reused the pre-existing assets for character designs, wand design and the logo to create the game poster, which can be found on the itch.io page.

Challenges

Throughout the milestones, our group encountered various bugs that were solved promptly. However, one challenge suddenly arose on Demo Day, in which an enemy would occasionally move beyond the bounds of the spaceship at random times. This prevented the player from completing the first objective, defeating all regular enemies, and consequently blocked access to the final boss fight and the final puzzle. In such cases, players had no choice but to restart the game.

Successes

I'm truly proud of the final result of our team's efforts throughout this entire semester. It felt especially rewarding to receive overwhelmingly positive comments about our game during the alpha, beta, and final presentations, as well as at Demo Day. Players got used to the colour-matching combat mechanic really quickly on desktop and in VR, and I believe the game's difficulty level was pretty balanced with the number of people who lost and won while playing our game.

Hours Spent

Total Time spent on the last milestone: 64 hours 15 minutes

My Tasks

• Winning/Losing Cutscenes Setup and UI: 3 hours
• Losing cut scene implementation: 1 hour
• Desktop/VR instructions tabs and UI: 2 hours
• Audio Manager script creation and integration: 4 hours
• Itch.io page setup and game poster design: 2 hours
• Final presentation slides: 3 hours
• Fixing Health Restoration: 1 hour

Naomi's Tasks

• Finalizing wand model: 1 hour
• Finalizing Textures on Luna and the wand: 2.5 hours
• Animating Luna with Mixamo and implementation into Unity: 8 hours
• Fixing Bugs with Final Boss: 6 hours
• Boss sound effects: 3 hours
• Main scene music variation implementation: 1.5 hours
• Implementing boss animations: 2 hours
• Footstep sound and movement for desktop player: 30 minutes
• Emission maps for enemy's eyes and implementation: 45 minutes
• Fixing bug with wand not animating: 15 minutes
• Regular enemy behaviour enhancements: 3 hours
• Boss behaviour enhancements: 8 hours.
• Organizing assets and scene heirarchy: 45 minutes

Zineb's Tasks

• Fixing bugs with final boss in vr/colliders in the environment : 5 hours 
• Implementing the UI to VR: 1 hour
• Adding player guides: 2 hours
• Building and testing: 3 hours