Alpha testing and link to latest build - [WEEK 17]

 During this week's session I had one of the members of my team Alpha test the latest build of our game, as most of my team has been very busy I haven't had the chance to get any feedback on how the game plays so I wanted this lesson time to be the time to ensure someone got to see the project. I have been Beta testing [just on functionality and bug identification so far, i will release a proper beta test in the future along with a feedback document] with one of my friends in order to find any issues.

During the Alpha test, Niamh identified a few errors:

-A define statement error linked to the variable benjimad

- Missing dialogue between the roommate and sweaters on thursday

- Incorrect message popping up linking to the arguement between sweaters and benji event that hadn't happened in this playthrough

-Missing textures for benji's room

Here are some photos i took of the error screens:

To fix these errors, this is what i did:

I used jump statements to avoid repeating dialogue, these jump statements were placed at the end of an option and would allow for the game to just skip to the next scene, i noticed that if benjimad was toggled as true, it would run through all of the if statements after going through the very first one, now with this jump statement, it only plays one scenario of dialogue.

I made sure to set default variables at the beginning of my code for some variables that kept brining up a not defined statement. After looking online it would be best to set a variable as being False at the start of the script then changing the variable later on so that a non defined error will not appear.

I also realized i missed an option out for dialogue between the roomate and sweaters on thursday so i made sure to put in an else statement to fix that, beforehand the missing option would just cause the roommate talking scene to skip to the bedroom scene.

To fix the text message error, the defined variable of benjimad being false until stated as true made sure this message would not appear.

I have been uploading the latest builds of the game to my google drive so that all members of my team can access it. Here is the link if anyone would like to test the game for themselves!

If you find any issues please either send a message below or contact my discord with screenshots and explanations on how to recreate the error!

discord - konnydear

Google Drive link

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1mzMHw1uSONxzS34v2N0Q48PJ2CtZG8iU?usp=sharing

Gantt Chart -

I now feel that at least 60% or more of the bugs in my code have been identified, and as such i think i will be spending more time working on assets than having to fix my code. I do think there are probably still a few errors waiting to be found which further Alpha testing will help with. From here i want to keep working on my backgrounds, focusing more on the wardrobe, cafeteria, and Benji's room. I had a small talk with my team on what style we want our backgrounds to be in, lined?, lineless?, high saturation?, colour pallets? and with talking to the character artist she thought it a good idea to make a final character sprite first then overlay it onto a lined and lineless background to see which looks best. I think i am going to make a lineless campus scene background as soon as the sprite is completed as the campus scene is already something we are going to be using in the final game. I think we as a group are in a good place in terms of asset creation ready for submission in the future. My only issue is i would like my team to be a bit more in contact with one another and especially with our music student, I have been having to relay messages to her alone and I worry i am not providing her with all the information to help her make our music. I have brought this issue up to my team but few steps have been made to resolve this. For now I will continue to provide as much information as possible between both parties.