In the final week of development, my absolute priority was refining the user experience and ensuring the build felt like a cohesive, polished product ready for submission. Recognising that new players might struggle to learn the input mappings on the fly, I implemented an overlay within the fight arena that displays clear instructions for both controller and keyboard setups. This small addition drastically improves the game’s accessibility and immediate playability for our demonstration. Additionally, to give the project a final touch of professional authenticity and firmly ground it as a formal academic submission, I integrated the UL CGD icon into the bottom right corner of the user interface.
With the visual and mechanical elements locked in, I dedicated time to finalising the game’s auditory experience. I integrated the complete suite of audio assets provided by my teammate, James. This involved programming the audio manager to trigger unique background tracks for each specific arena, establishing distinct atmospheres for every stage, while also mapping all the character-specific sound effects for combat. During this process, I encountered a minor technical issue where the arena music occasionally failed to initialise upon loading a new scene. Fortunately, I was able to quickly diagnose and resolve this bug by adjusting the audio source configurations, bringing our audio implementation to full completion.
Despite this extensive polishing phase, the strict reality of development deadlines meant that triage was necessary, and one minor bug remains in the final build. During late-stage testing, I discovered a UI sequencing error: if Player 2 locks in their character before Player 1 on the selection screen, the system occasionally breaks sequence and kicks the users back to the mode select menu. Fixing this state machine logic would have required rewriting core selection scripts, which posed too high a risk of breaking the entire menu system so close to the deadline. Leaving this as a “known issue” was a difficult but necessary strategic decision, demonstrating the importance of scope limitation and risk management when delivering a final product.