layzlee

[layzlee]

Assignment 3 Playtesting

In this post, I will be taking about my assignment 3's playtesting with my group members and I. This is a follow up to the previous post. Currently, we have not conducted playtesting on people outside of the group.

How will we be playtesting

We will first be playtesting parts of our game, separately. Starting with the movement, then enemies, followed by enemy bosses and finally upgrades and powerups. We will slowly add on the prototypes that people outside of our group will playtest. We are doing this slow and incremental playtesting to make sure that we can pinpoint the specific part that they have discontent with. After these Unit Testing has been conducted, we will integrate all the parts segregated sections together and have them playtest the prototype again.

Planned Playtesting Timeline (starting from 1)

Each of these are their own separate versions of the prototype and every iteration of timeline adds on to the previous prototype.

Player movement: We will test the player movement with some basic static targets for the player to destroy - allowing them to have a feel of the movement and give us feedback on it.

Enemy behavior: We change the static targets with enemies with some AI; the enemy will be randomly chosen for each testing and quantity of enemies are fixed. A randomly chosen boss will be chosen as the enemy every three stages.

Upgrades (stat changes and survival powerups): After defeating all enemies from the previous prototype, they will enter a "shop" with stat changes and survival powerup upgrades. After choosing one, they will enter the stage again with randomly chosen enemies and quantity of enemies being fixed.

Upgrades (attack powerups): The prototype now consist of additional upgrades which adds another means of attacking other than the dashing.

Shop System: Putting all of it together with all the upgrades and powerups now available to purchase in a shop system that will be available after every stage.

Gameplay looping: Increasing the difficulty of the game after every three stages (after the boss level), adding more challenge to the game.

Full Game's Prototype Playtesting: Implementing all the necessary additions and changes to the game and testing it.

Closing Statement

We hope that after all this playtesting has been conducted and reviewed, we will be able to make a game that we are proud of and the players of our game would enjoy.

[layzlee]

Assignment 3 Development Progress

In this post, I will be taking about my assignment 3's development progress with my group members and I. The team only consist of 3 people including myself.

Our Elevator Pitch

"Space Narwhal is a single-player roguelike asteroids-like game set in space but comes with a unique twist. Earth has discovered an otherworldly material which is capable of annihilating invading aliens. However, its scarcity makes the use of ammunition an unfeasible method of attack, so instead of shooting bullets, astronauts integrated the material onto the spaceship itself! Use your hypersonic thrusters to dash around, dodge space hazards, and charge through your enemies. The target demographic for this game is people who want a thrilling, action-packed, fast-paced game that is hard to master, filled with precise gameplay and formidable boss fights."

What we are doing

As mentions in our pitch above, our game is an asteroids-like game where you will be piloting a ship and dashing through enemies in your way. After much discussion within the team, we had decided to have 3 stages within our game, 2 consisting of basic enemies and the final stage consisting of a boss enemy. We came up with multiple variants of basic enemies, such as the ghost, golem, cultist and eye. We have also designed 3 variants of bosses.

Our game will have dashing as its main method of movement and attack. After every stage, there will be shop where the player could buy upgrades. The upgrades will range from stat upgrades to powerups that can cause explosions.

What we have done

We have set up github and are using git to share the GDevelop 5 Project. We are using git for version control and made sure that we enabled multiple files in GDevelop5, enabling us to separate parts of the project. This enables us to work on the project separately and eventually bring it all together into a working game.

We have found and added all the enemy sprites into the assets folder of our project with names that makes sense and animations that we need. Since this game was chosen from one of the three games that we made for assignment 2, we do have the initial implementation of the game, which has the movement of the player.

What to do now

We now need to develop the movement/basic AI of the basic enemies and bosses. Implement the powerups and upgrades and then add the shop feature to the game. Implement and gradual increase in difficulty after every loop of the game.

Closing Statement

It is nearing the end of the semester and there are many assignments from every unit that all three of us are taking. I hope that we are able

[layzlee]

Racing Post Mortem

This is my post mortem post for my top-down racing game from my previous post. I had my friends playtest the game and from their feedback and testing I found many ways that I could improve on.

Playtesting Feedback

The turning was slow, and didn't really feel right, so I added a movement where you could accelerate or decelerate the car. The car could shoot projectiles at oncoming traffic, but the bullets were too fast, and little to no control was available. So, I optimized the bullet speed and tweaked the bullet angles.

From all the feedback I got from playtesting, I was able to make a smoother gameplay experience for players. Tweaking the variables within the game to enable a better playing experience. The feedback also gave me new ideas to how to further improve upon the game I currently have.

What I would have changed about how I developed the Prototype

One thing I would have changed, was how the cars where very boring. They only moved in one direction, top to bottom, with no changing directions after they have spawned. I would have added a raging driver, that would drive towards you, and you would either have to avoid them, or destroy their cars. On that note, I would also add cars that are switching lanes, adding more variety to the gameplay loop.

Closing statement

Overall, I'd say that I have done what the tutorial had set out for me. I wished I had more time to work on this, so I may come back to this in the future.

[layzlee]

Racing Development Post

This is my development post of the racing game elevator pitch from my last post.

I have followed the tutorial provided in the IGB120 tutorial for the racing game and have the basic requirements of the top-down racing game. The initial implementation of the game which includes, forward traffic, oncoming traffic, trees, roads, scores, player collision and movement.

My Plans

Implementing a new type of movement for the player, allowing it to move up and down the playing field (speeding up and slowing down). The movement will now use up, down, left, right arrow keys instead of just left and right arrow keys.

Implementing powerups like an invincibility powerup that allows the player's car to destroy the cars it collides into, rewarding more points for each car destroyed.

Increasing the difficulty of the game as the game progresses, by increasing the speed of the player car and/or increasing the speed of the oncoming traffic. The speed increase will be small, but significant.

[layzlee]

Racing Elevator Pitch

This is my elevator pitch for my top-down racing game.

The name of the game is Accel. It is a modern, fast-pace, top-down racing game where you are an ordinary driver on the longest highway ever made but found yourself with malfunctioning breaks and a stuck accelerator. With no way to stop, you accelerate past forward traffic and avoid oncoming traffic hoping that your fuel runs out before you get into an accident.

Primary Mechanics

Left Arrow - Turn Left

Right Arrow - Turn Right

Space - Accelerate

3 Unique Selling Points

Replayability - The forward and oncoming traffic are randomly generated, making every playthrough unique

Easy to pick up - Simple controls and goals

Competition - Able to score or survive longer than another player

[layzlee]

Asteroids Post Mortem

This is my post mortem post for my asteroids game from my previous post. Since the last I had posted, I got my friends to do playtesting on my game. From their feedback and testing, they had discovered bugs that was missed by me and had many ideas on how I could improve on my existing game.

Playtesting feedback

One of the bugs they encountered was a sounds issue, where the thruster sound would start multiple times, creating an annoying and loud movement. The closing of the thruster sound was instantaneous instead of a slow fade. It was such an issue that some of them turned off their volumes while playing. When I got this feedback, I immediately fixed it.

Another idea I got from their playtesting was the fact that the fast-moving asteroids were coming from a fixed position, this made it too easy for players and didn't provide any challenge. From this feedback, I randomized the location of which the fast-moving asteroids would spawn and randomized the timer that the meteors would spawn. It added some variety to the already repetitive gameplay loop.

What I would have changed about how I developed the Prototype

One of the things I would have changed was the animations of meteors and the player. The sprites used were all provided by the tutorial and my game didn't stand out visually when compared to others. The sound design of the game also had to be taken into consideration, as currently, there is no music playing while the player is on their survival mission.

Closing statement

Overall, I would say that I had achieved what the tutorial had expected from me and will continue to keep up with the work that is being released.

[layzlee]

Asteroid Development Post

This is my development post of the asteroid elevator pitch from my last post.

I have followed the tutorial provided in the IGB120 tutorials and have the base game and mechanics of the game ready. I then added a global variable for scores to ensure that it is shared by the stage and game over scene as shown in the image below.

To add some surprise factor to the normal gameplay loop, I decided to develop a fast-moving asteroid that moves towards the player at fast speeds. I had some trouble figuring out how to randomize the location of the asteroids so that they are spawning outside the playing area and eventually moving towards the player. Then by using the Random() expression, I finally figured it out and got something close to what I had envisioned.

My Plans

I would like to add a more random interval for the fast-moving meteors

Fix the bug where meteors can spawn directly on the player

Add an animation for the exclamation mark warning

Maybe aliens will come after you once a certain score is obtained to add more variety to the gameplay

[layzlee]

Asteroids Elevator Pitch

This is my elevator pitch for my asteroids game.

The name of the game is Meteor Rush. It is a sci-fi, space, survival, asteroids game where you are a space explorer in the middle of nowhere with nothing but asteroids in sight. You are now fighting an unending battle against an endless number of insentient space rocks with nothing but a blaster. Will you eventually find a safe space or will this be your last voyage.

Primary Mechanics

Right Click - Activate Ship's boosters

Left Click - Shoot Projectiles to destroy asteroids

Cursor's Location - Indicates the direction of projectiles and movement

3 Unique Selling Points

Replayability - The asteroids are random so there are differences between every playthrough

Easy to pick up - Simple controls and goals

Competition- Able to score or survive longer than another player

[layzlee]

Prototype so far

My prototype now has a working a relatively smooth 8-directional dash, a working gun that shoots projectiles, enemies with predetermined paths, a score counter, a heath bar, and a portal that brings to player to "You Won".

What I would have changed about how I developed the Prototype

One of the things I would have changed was how much playtesting my friends had on the game. I only started play testing near the start of this week, which was extremely beneficial for the development of the game. With their feedback I kept Iterating and pushing our new versions of the game, slightly tweaking the animations, variables, and forces each time. Then the cycle repeats with them playtesting and proving feedback again.

Another thing I would have changed was how much I was willing to use YouTube tutorials and class content for learning. When I first got started with Develop 5, For about 2 weeks, I was trying to develop things without the help of tutorials. Maybe I felt that it would take away from the self-learning aspect. But after attending the tutorials and consulting the tutor, I learnt that these YouTube tutorials are integral to the unit and was very beneficial to the game. They assisted me in my projectiles, score counter, health bar and etc.

One Thing I would change about the design of my Prototype

One thing would have changed about my prototype, is the fact that near y'all my sprites and tilled sprites are free assets from Kenny, the same assets used in the first workshop of ICB120. Instead of these free assets, would have much preferred to have designed and used my own style of art for the sprites. Unfortunately, l was unable to do this que to time constraints likely caused by poor time management.

Closing statement

Overall, though others in this unit likely have games that is way above mine, I am still proud of this prototype I have created and know that this prototype is just the beginning of everything after.

[layzlee]

Platformer Development Post

In this blog, I will be talking about my GDevelop 5 journey on IGB120 since my last post.

As mentions is my previous post, I had been working on the 8-directional dashing mechanic. I had to develop the dash from scratch as the built in horizontal dash within GDevelop 5 did not fit what I wanted. It took me a long time to figure it out as I could not find a tutorial online for this mechanic, but I eventually did end up with something that kind of works.

After that, I went on to create a bullet that would shoot out of the player's gun. The collision event between the enemies and bullets hasn't been implemented yet and the enemies' health points has yet to be added. From the picture above, you can see that the bullets are sticking together, so I am currently trying to implement a timer that adds a firerate to the gun. I have tried implementing a timer, but so far, all my attempts have resulted in bugs. I will continue to work on the projectiles and likely work on the enemy behaviour and events after this.

[layzlee]

Elevator pitch

This is my elevator pitch for the game I would like to make for IGB120. The name of the game is Homesick. It is a sci-fi, survival, platformer where you play as an alien who found themselves on the planet Earth after a catastrophic spaceship malfunction. Stranded and alone, you must navigate through the hostile world that sees you as a threat. From the alien landscapes to the unrelentless military, Earth uses every resource at its disposal to hunt you down. Will you survive and find a way back home, or will Earth’s defenses prove too strong?

Primary Mechanics or Mode of Gameplay

W, A, S, D keys for movement

Spacebar for jumps

K for dashing (8-directional dash)

J to shoot projectiles at the direction the player is facing

E to interact

Reflection

I think I took way too long to think of an idea, as I was trying to think of an idea that was way out of the scope of IGB120. Thankfully, I eventually did realize that and started to think on a smaller scale.

When developing a simple prototype, I did run into many issues/bugs and naming a few:

The enemies were not moving and did not hurt the player

The player movement was rough

Dash causes the player to just randomly fly to space

Many of these issues/bugs were only discovered when I playtested my own game. I fixed some of the bugs and I'm currently trying to implement the 8-directional dash and then I'll try to implement a projectile that shoots from the player's gun to deal damage and eliminate enemies.

[layzlee]

About Me

Hello there! My name is Isaac, and I am currently a student of QUT doing a bachelor's degree on Information Technology, majoring in Computer Science. I am an international student from Malaysia and some facts about me are that I love programming and gaming is one of my favourite hobbies.

Games I Play

One of the first games I’ve ever played was on a handheld gaming console called the Nintendo DS, and my favourite game on it was Mario Kart DS. Now, the games that I play on rotation are, Marvel Rivals, Super Smash Bros Ultimate, Pokémon and Wuthering Waves.

Why I chose IGB120

As most of you could probably tell, one of the reasons why I chose IGB120 is because I love gaming. But that wasn’t the only reason, as I was also very interested in the concept behind the games I played and how they were implemented, which led me to choose Introduction to Game Design (IGB120) as one of my electives.

What I hope to achieve on IGB120

I hope to learn about game design and obtain a solid foundation on the basics of how a game is designed and developed from the ground up. I’ll be creating a prototype of a game that I pray is fun and enjoyable for those who tries it. I have just recently played Celeste and had a great time playing it and wish to create a game that can recreate the experience I had when playing it.