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Assignment 3 Postmortem

The main gameplay loop of the game is solid but lacks refinement and innovation to truly capture its audience. A unique visual style would greatly benefit the game as well as some balancing changes such as reducing the amount of healing gained from powerups. It was also difficult for players to figure out which powerup the got so it would be a good idea to implement some sort of unique visual/audio cue to represent each powerup. The game was regarded as moderately fun by the players which shows some room for improvement. One possible adjustment to make the game more fun would be to reduce the overall difficulty potentially by changing to a more arcade-style movement system like in a SHMUP.

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Assignment 3 Playtesting

The participants were 5 naive playtesters and 3 deep playtesters from the tutorial class. The participants were given questionnaires to fill out before the playtest and a survey on their experience for afterwards. The playtest coordinator also read out a script to prepare the participants to actively think aloud. From the questionnaire results, there were 3 naive users in the core demopragpic of mobile gamers (a total of 5 overall) with the rest falling within the wide demographic of people who enjoy racing/action games. Some players had issues with the game's balancing as some claimed it was too difficult with enemy spawn rates being too high while others claimed that the healing powerup meant that they could go on indefinitely and therefore made the game too easy. There were also some issues with players not realising what powerup the managed to pickup and some players having trouble with the "hold to move" controls. When players were asked to rate their enjoyment of the game on a scale of 1-5 they averaged around the 2.5 - 3 point mark. This shows a moderate "fun" factor. Only 4 of the participants indicated that they would like to return for durther playtesting of the game.

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Assignment 3 Development Progress

Basic prototype ready, features to be added have been considered and are under production. Game draws heavily from previous project but seeks to enhance the player experience by increasing difficulty slightly but also introducing new features such as extra powerups and tracking the player's high score. The game will also no longer close after the player's death instead showing a game over screen with their score and high score displayed.

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Racing game Postmortem

Game lacks visual style and rewarding mechanics. Game closing after death animation reduces replayability. Controls are difficult to understand initially and don't allow for precise control. Powerup allows the player to continue infinitely as long as they can reach the next before their health reaches 0 thus causing the main track to be redundant/obsolete. Recommend lowering the healing for full to 5 health points to deter players from just sitting on the side of the track. This increases the risk of going for a powerup but allows the reward to be more strategically focused.

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Racing Game prototype

With some placeholder enemy and obstacle designs, the game is funcitioning for now, with a working score and health system. The score ticks up every second and the game ends when the player's health reaches 0 but other than that, there isn't much to the gameplay, with the game window closing after the vehicle explosion animation ends. The powerups spawn to the left and right sides of the screen where obstacle spawns are much more common but to counter this, the pickup heals the player back to full health.

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Racing game Pitch:

Title: Undead Destructo-Derby

The player's aim is to achieve the highest score they can before running out of health. This will be tracked by the time they've spent alive, and will be impeded through obstacles and enemies that will spawn on the road. The player will have access to powerups that appear on the sides of the track that are slightly more dangerous than the main area. This is to encourage more of a risk/reward playstyle.

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Game 2 Postmortem

The gameplay loop is not particularly satisfying as there is no visual, audible or sensory feedback to earning score. The player's high-score isn't even saved anywhere so it gets hard to keep track of. This combined with a lack of original game assets leaves gameplay feeling bland and not particularly enjoyable. Overall, much room for improvement

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Game 2 Prototype:

Star Combat development

starting with a very basic asteroids inspired design, the gameplay features including moving, shooting and enemy spawns were implemented. A lives counter was also implemented that gives the game a feeling of consequence. Enemies spawn from the top of the screen and move downwards at alternating speeds.

upon running out of lives, the player is given a "game over" screen that lasts around 10 seconds. The game then restarts after the "game over" screen ends.

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Game Pitch 2:

Title: Star Combat The player's aim is to defeat as many enemies and bosses that appear on screen as they can before losing all of their lives. The player will be aided by power-ups that can spawn after defeating enemies. The concept is to have a mix between 1942 and the lost viking game in starcraft 2.

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Platformer post-mortem

Postmortem: The game isn't very fun the gameplay is very basic and totals around 30s if the player knows what they're doing. This coupled with the fact that I couldn't make any custom assets within the given time (I blame Gdevelop, I can't make a third frame in an animation without the piskel pop-out window going blank and unresponsive) leads to a very underwhelming experience.

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Platformer prototype

Freerunner development

I created a basic test level with a tutorial of playtesting in the future. it contains some basic jumps, some coins and some momentum based puzzles. There is also a wall jumping ladder to demonstrate some of the more advanced moves.

I further implemented a "void" killbox that will automatically close the game in order to prevent the player from falling indefinitely as well as some minor additions to the level and background improvements.

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Platformer elevator pitch

Title: Freerunner The player's aim is to use multiple movement techniques in order to traverse ancient ruins and futuristic cities throughout the ages slowly learning about their world. throughout, they will collect coins that will be used to purchase skills and movesets. The main vision I have for the game is to be something between Super Mario's platforming and Dying Light's fluid movement systems.