Alpha Trailer

Now that Eye of the Swarm has entered Alpha, we have a trailer to show off and get excitement for the final product. Eye of the Swarm will be released Spring 2015, hopefully on Xbox One.

EAE Open House

Today was the EAE Open House, among the other capstone projects and the master studio thesis games we displayed the alpha build of Eye of the Swarm to students, professors and industry professionals. We were all excited to see how our game would perform among fresh eyes that have not played the game in its earlier stages. We felt the game would do well, but were quite surprised at how well the game would be praised. Not only did the game receive universal praise, but the industry professionals went to the main professors, Robert Kessler and Roger Altizer, to praise our game to them. We received much feedback for ways to improve our game, and as we go into the alpha stage we will implement the feedback that we feel will improve our game for Beta. Overall, I am very happy at the stage our game is in and the positive feedback has relieved the many months of stress and heartache to get our game to fun state. 

Alpha

It is the end of the semester and Eye of the Swarm has now officially entered Alpha. Alpha means that the game is feature complete in which no new mechanics should be implemented. The swarm works in a fluid and nice way and we have a boss fight that feels great. During Alpha, we will implement at least two new bosses and polish them for the final product. Other than that, programming will insist of fixing bugs and fine-tuning mechanics to get the right feel for the game. This past sprint we were rushing to get our game to Alpha and ready for EAE Open Day (presenting the alpha build to our peers).

My main priority was to fix the bugs of swarm and several UI mechanics. I added a Credit Screen, Splash Screen that showed the team's and EAE's logo, and a win screen that teased the next boss. 

When we presented the Alpha build to class, the game was well received by the students and professors alike. Despite all the criticisms we've gotten in the past months and changing the direction of the game almost every sprint, we have a game that is fun to play and that we are proud to present. I, and the team, am really excited to show this game off at EAE Open House and see what feedback we get.