Time to Prioritize

Since our beta release is due next week, we've decided that we need to prioritize what we want to finish. We definitely don't have enough time to complete all of our lofty goals, so we took some time to map out some realistic goals for what we can finish. Our focus has changed to getting a completely functional and somewhat polished version of the prologue and level one. Here's a preliminary list of things that still need to happen for this goal to be realized:
- An introduction cutscene which explains the nature and the premise of the game needs to be created using flash; also, a button that would also the player to skip the cutscenes should be created just in case
- Dialogue needs to be written for the beginning of the prologue level that will explain the controls and the objectives to the player; additionally, the means by which we present the dialogue needs to be finalized. We know that we want to have drop-down boxes with a picture of the speakers head on the left side and the text scrolling to the right. The appearance of the dialogue boxes needs to be rendered and the sound that the text makes as it scrolls across the screen needs to be created.
- The actual lay-out of the prologue level needs to be created: size, scope, position of sprites, etc. Designs for the pirate ship/friendly ship need to be finalized.
- Event-driven objectives need to be implemented that will allow the player to complete the objectives and advance through the level
- All additional music and sounds need to be created
- An in-game cutscene to introduce the arrival of the pirate ship needs to be rendered; how this cutscene is going to affect the flow of gameplay needs to be decided as well
- The GUI needs to be functional; when the player gets hit by lasers, the health bar needs to go down.
- A cutscene (or something) needs to be created that will play in response to a player's defeat; the player should also be allowed to continue from a checkpoint. This also means that we need to institute the checkpoint system (obviously)
- A similar cutscene needs to play when the player completes all of the objectives and wins the level

I think that's mostly everything. Time is running out. Panic panic!