Download Silicon Valley 2013 - Worcester Polytechnic Institute

One of the biggest issues with the Mothership early on was hit detection. Because the model is so
detailed and large, when we used a single mesh collider, projectiles were going through its wings
without collision, while exploding on the empty space above them. To correct this, we decided
that multiple meshes would have to be constructed for each unique part of the ship. This at first
was also problematic, however, as Unity only allows one mesh collider per object. To deal with
this, several empty game objects were creating and put as children to the Mothership, each one
holding a mesh collider. Fortunately, Unity detects these colliders as those of the Mothership, so
it is as if it is all one complete mesh.
During this sprint, zSpace Inc. requested that we provide a three to five minute demo of our
game to be displayed on the college tour our company was doing. Considering each level takes
roughly three minutes to play, it made sense to just use a version of one of these. We decided that
it would be best to use the fourth level, given that it displayed all four of the basic enemies. We
designed a simple set of instruction slides to help the player to get started, and the spawn rate
was lowered to make the level easier to play. The player also started with all upgrades at level
three.
After a few play-throughs by a handful people in the office, we determined that the game was
going to be too difficult for the playtesting that was to be held the following week. To lower the
difficulty, the fire rate of the Elites and Brutes were reduced, and the spawn rate was lowered on
the third and fourth levels.
We decided early on that there should be visual effects for when various events happen, such as
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