Sathya_K

 The last map on the list is the Tropical forest map. Upon intensive research about the Quang Tri province,which was the most affected region in Vietnam due to landmines, I learnt about its geography, the rivers and hydro power pants in the province. These real world geographical data paved way for the map's design. It has a large waterfall in the north that is visible form all over the map and acts as a beacon and would help players to orient themselves.The river runs along the map and curves around the fishing village, separating zones 2 and 1. The map also has a lot of trees, foliage and vegetation which is causing a lot of optimization issues in Unity, The game run at a lower FPS and lags significantly. I need to better optimize the vegetation and minimize or even totally eradicate it in regions that are farther away from the player. The map beyond the playable are is going to look empty but this is the only solution.  So now the central regions of the map are densely popu...

 The one thing I hold very dear is all of game design is designing levels, but now that I'm exerting myself to the very limits, I'm starting to detest it. Concrete jungle supposed to be the only map to be fully developed and the full game along with all the operators and the AI was supposed to be on it. But due to the lack of implemented features I have to overcompensate and develop the other 2 maps that were initially just concept designs. The dunes of Baghdad map has now evolved into the Oasis, as mid way through the level building the map seemed a bit too empty and barren, I mean after all its a desert. So the core of the design was kept intact but everything on top was rework. Now the map has an Oasis in the middle, a large body of water that splits the town into 2. One side of the town is in ruins after the enemy's army had razed it to the ground with no survivors. While the other side is still intact and hasnt fallen victim to the marching army and its destruction yet...

 As a class based, co-op game the playable characters and their abilities form the basis for the gameplay. So it was essential to get these designed first. The Classes and their abilities are what determine the level design. The Disarmer is equipped with a shovel and a bomb diffusing kit and is responsible for disarming the mine; everyone in the team is there to provide support for the Disarmer so the mines can be defused. Before the mines can be disarmed they need to be located as they can be buried anywhere underground, this is where the Locator class come, they carry the Bomb detector which beeps when it detects the mine. The Disarmer and the locator work together side by side.   The Distractor usually stays away from these two and tries to lure the guards towards him so the first 2 can locate and diffuse the mines. They can distract the enemies by whistling or throwing rocks; whistling will bring the enemy towards the player, while throwing rocks makes the enemy move t...

 Xaolin hadn't contributed to the project from the very beginning. She went AWOL for over 2 weeks since April began. Vasilieos declared an ultimatum to her asking her to cooperate and contribute to the teams efforts, but there was no response even to his emails. Thus she was kicked out of the team and now we have lost 2 weeks of dev time and features which were assigned to her are now not implemented. By this time in mid April we should have made significant progress but now Krys has to bear the burden of finishing the development all by himself. Now I am also required to exert myself to the very limits to design and develop maps that were set aside as future work. As I believe the game itself wont be sufficient to hold up on its own.  Concrete Jungle is complete, now I have to find and gather assets for a desert based map and another tropical forest map. This is a truckload of work which I have to get done while I also work on my Perfecting the look module. 

"A landmine is the perfect soldier: Ever courageous, never sleeps, never misses" - Paul Jefferson, Humanitarian Deminer.  The primary motive for designing this game, beside the entertainment and competitive value it provides, was to shed light on the current plight of people affected by active landmines today. There is an estimated 110mn buried around the world right now. Each costing anywhere between 3$ to 30$ to produce, but an exorbitant $300-$1000 for safe defusal for each, with estimates showing costs of up to a $100bn to eradicate all mines today. Sadly, new ladmines are still being placed today, ever increasing the number of active mines out there. Mines kill or maim more than 5000, while causing 15-20,000 injuries annually, with a significant percent of those being children. The regions most affected are Egypt, Angola, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Cambodia and Vietnam.  At the time when I was in the earlier stages of development, the Ukraine-Russia conflict had not be...

 What is Minefield? Minefield is a co-op stealth game where a team of 4 players must sneak around behind the enemy lines to locate and disarm mines. Each of them have unique abilities that must be synergized to successfully complete their mission. Initially, the idea for Minefield came about after learning that there are still active minefields out there even today, claiming innocent lives by the thousands, decades after they were placed. There are a few dedicated to cleaning up these minefields today, putting themselves at great risk. Originally, the game was PvP, wherein players would compete with each other to see who can disarm the most mines, but conceptually it didn't make much sense, when you wonder why someone disarming mines would compete against someone trying to do the same. So, that thought was quickly scrapped and the game was pushed in a more PvE direction, where a team of 4 players would assist each other and disarm mines while trying to avoid being detected by the e...