Hey Party Panic! fans,

Chris here!

This week has been filled with intricate tasks that have taken our game a step closer to perfection.

3D Menu Room Decorations

A significant portion of my week was dedicated to creating high-quality assets for our 3D menu room. This room mimics a slightly messy basement bedroom where you're setting up the board game, to amp up the immersive experience. While working on these assets, I quickly learned the importance of ensuring good UV mapping post-creation (I used Blender), as incorrect UVs can lead to problems when building the lighting in UE5.

Forest Game Board Enhancements

I also focused on making the Forest Game Board look even more visually appealing. Balancing the number of assets was critical here - too many could lead to performance issues, especially when more objects appear on the screen at once. Unexpectedly, Whitaker added a fun tornado system that relocates players randomly. This addition meant adjusting the decorations to ensure every direction looked good when the camera panned.

Major Bug Discovery

Lastly, at the end of this week, we discovered a significant bug that had gone unnoticed for nearly a month. During the development of the minigame selection menu, an error rectification attempt ended up swapping the gamepad controls for player 2 and 3. This bug didn't surface when directly selecting a minigame from the menu, which had become our primary method for testing, leading us to believe everything was functioning correctly. The lesson here? Regular and comprehensive game testing is vital!

Stay tuned for more updates on Party Panic! development. Your support and feedback continue to be an invaluable part of this journey.

Keep the party going!