During my discussion session with the other members of the solo group in my Game Design class, we were all very early in the pre-production and early creation process of our independent games. Me, along with a few other members, were still conceptualizing the story and planning out a plan of execution and some of the other members had already begun practicing their coding skills and working on basic mechanics.

For my game Witness, I have been working towards my goals by studying up on the game engine I wanted to use and trying to improve my programming skills. I had originally planned on using Twine for my game, but after talking to another group member who is planning to use the same engine, we agreed that there are certain limitations with this engine. I have a little bit of prior experience with Twine, but from my understanding it might not be the most suitable for my game. Therefore, I've begun looking into some suggestions on other engines.

I wouldn't say that I've accomplished everything I aimed too, however, I gained a lot of feedback and with a little more research I think I can pass this first milestone. While conceptualizing the story and mechanics, I've been considering what type of events I want to take place during the story progression. Being that Witness is kind of a survive until dawn type game, I would like obstacles and events to occur possibly every in-game hour to spice up the game-play and entice the players.

As for my goals for next week, I would like to have already settled on a game engine, began studying up on the software and possibly implementing some basic mechanics like choice selection and placeholders for images/scenes.

In order to prep for accomplishing this goal, I am going to revisit and refresh my memory on some of the older software I've used (Blender) and look up the suggestions I received in class as well to finalize my software of choice. So far, I would really like to work with Blender and their toon shader to maybe add some elements of 3D to my work.

I didn't personally play-test any of my classmates games, but I spoke with a few and saw how some of their work has come along whether it was mechanics in Unity or artwork. From this, I learned that as much as I look forward to working on the visuals of Witness, it is also important that I carefully plan a lot of time to improve my programming skills and mechanics.

In the end, through my classmates feedback, I gained a lot of valuable advice about what direction I should take my game and what game engines might work best with what I want Witness to become and how I want it to play.