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[ln-mrbean]

Assignment 3 Postmortem

Overall player experience immersion through the integral of programming, design and the use of sound effects/ background music. With any production of a game, playtesting is important as it provides necessary biases from potential future game consumers of any genre of games. Specifically for team 27, without the playtesting sessions and further playtesting conducted outside of those times the team would be slow to implement the necessary changes to make 'Asteroid Escape' a fun, exciting and complete game. With any game constant gameplay and time permitted can always be improved like for our game we can add more different sounds into the game for player inclusion and response, adding in other potential mechanics like for example more powerups like shields. Furthermore this assessment adds importance in the power of group work because simply one cannot juggle the workload within the approximate 2 months of game development.

[ln-mrbean]

Assignment 3 Playtesting Pt 2

Playtesting Summary Continued

Regarding bugs, our first round of playtesting yielded the following list of bugs/quality of life issues:

Fleet Health being 0 doesn’t -> Game Over

The boss asteroid doesn’t kill the fleet.

There is no max fire rate and it gets silly quickly.

Missiles re-lock after each mission.

Some players didn’t know the unlock button for missiles was an unlock button

Some players managed to leave the map

The UI takes up too much space, try replace text with icons.

This led to us forming a list of what we had to work on before our next round of playtesting. During which, I managed to add some of the music/sounds, where Harry and Connor worked on bug fixes and general game balance/difficulty scaling together. Connor was also responsible for adding in more upgrades and the enemy ship mechanic.  Harry also added a Controls screen and fixed the UI to improve the games overall clarity.

Using the scoring system discussed above, our second and final round of playtesting yielded a score of 76.6%. This shows an improvement in the game and is reflected in our playtesting results.

Regarding our demographic, it became apparent that the more experienced gamers found the game to be less engaging or challenging than playtesters who were less experienced at playing games. This was to be expected and we didn’t think it was too noteworthy.

Secondly, there appeared to be no difference between how both categories of playtester (again, experienced and non-experienced) perceived our game in regards to how fun it was to play and how easy the controls were. Counterintuitively,  it seemed that the less experienced playtesters found the controls easier than the experienced playtesters, though this could be resulting from an insufficient sample size as there were significantly fewer playtesters with limited gaming experience. Similarly, there appeared to be no discernable difference in how both camps perceived our original prototype’s lack of game sound/music, which I suppose shows how music caters to everybody, regardless of their demographic.

To conclude, it is hard to find any results that indicate a discernible correlation between the players reaction to the game and their level of gaming  experience. This is most likely due to the extremely limited data in terms of both diversity and sample size.  We think this might be because our game isn’t suited to either style of player.  Early on, Harry envisioned Asteroid Escape as a casual arcade-style game, which can be enjoyed by anybody of any age or interest, as opposed to having made a shooter/RPG (which was one of the most hated genres that came up in our questionnaire). It is possible that with a larger sample size, a noticeable difference in results between the two camps might emerge.

Regarding our second round of playtesting, there was significantly less negative feedback, and the majority of negative feedback reported in round 1 had been fixed. The negative feedback that remained was as follows:

The game was a lot more difficult

The controls could do with tweaking

Some might find the gameplay loop too repetitive.

[ln-mrbean]

Assignment 3 Playtesting Pt 1

Playtesting Summary

We calculated the average success of each aspect of our game based on results from our survey. We used a scoring system to evaluate areas of the game and determine what needed improvement.

The scoring system is as follows: each playtester was given a series of statements about the game, they then stated how much they agreed with said statement on a scale of 1 to 5. We then gave each statement an average score, which was the mean of all playtesters' responses to that statement. Then, we averaged these scores (as a percentage) across all statements and arrived at the following conclusion:

Our initial round of playtesting yielded a score of 68/100, or 68.1%.  (100% being a perfect score)

Our five lowest scoring areas from our first round were:

Sound Effects

Music

Difficulty

Controls

Understanding what I must do

Secondly, we used qualitative data from our verbose questions such as:

 “Please sum up your thoughts below:”, and

“Please rank the game elements below from best to worst. (1 = worst, 8 = best) : Audio, Controls, Enemies, Gameplay, Game World, Visuals, My Character, Story.”

From this, we got more detailed responses.  Below are our five areas for improvement based off this:

“More fluid movement would be a godsend”

“Could do with a sense of true progression such as levels.”

“Music or sound would’ve been nice”

“The gameplay cycle got boring eventually.”

“For the interface, try and replace some of the numbers with visuals instead, e.g a health bar.”

The above detailed responses were in line with the feedback we got from the quantitative questions, which was positive to see.

As a result of our feedback, we planned our next steps and introduced sound effects and music, made the difficulty harder, created a Controls page so the player can more easily learn the control scheme, and finally, we improved the macro-gameplay to add more variation to the levels, so the player definitely knew their objective.

[ln-mrbean]

Assignment 3 Development Progress Pt 2

The things that need to be implemented includes:

[ln-mrbean]

Assignment 3 Development Progress Pt 1

Group Formation I somehow managed to make friends with Harry from another class lecture (IGB321) where they allowed me to join in the current group of two to form a group of 3 for this assignment 3 group project. This led to the finalisation of group 27 which includes me, Harry Franklin (N11722177) and Connor Stiles (N11287926). Game Pitch

The group had a discussion on the game pitch ideas we created during class. Of which the group decided to choose Harry's asteroid game. The game look and feel was used from his assessment 1 and the group wanted to transition it from a prototype to a more final game version.

[ln-mrbean]

Racing Development

Completing Task 2

At the moment adding in the car and the background from the tutorial folder, adding in a and d key pressed with their action of rotating the car. For this prototype version I could possibly keep the red car as a placeholder for the elemental car being the 'fire'.

[ln-mrbean]

Racing Elevated Pitch

'Elemental Racer' is a racing game where players can control a car with an element- fire, water, wind, earth. These elements allow the player to have specific abilities and aesthetics tailored to the element car they choose. Fire will leave behind a trail that will damage enemies, water will leave a trail that will slow enemies, wind will leave a trail that will push enemies further behind in the track map, and earth will leave behind rock obstacles that will block enemy paths. The objective of the game is to complete the racing track within a timer and come within the first 3 places.

Controls WASD keyboard to maneuver the car and spacebar keyboard key to use the element abilities. Selling Point - Has cool elements - Be a speed demon - Make your enemies mad Target Audience

Ages 10+

Inspiration of the elements- water, fire, earth, wind.

I like this images use of colours that can be used as inspiration for the potential art style.

I like the simplicity of this game example but need to include more of an actual racing track map.

References:

Huzaifa Designs (n.d.). Retrowave Dreamscape. [Pinterest Post]. Retrieved September 15, 2023 from https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/563301865907877067/

Martín Ruiz (2018). Art Design and Prototypes of a Racing Game. [Pinterest Post]. Retrieved September 18, 2023 from https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/502362533438940826/

Wikipedia (2023). Elemental. [Pinterest Post]. Retrieved September 15, 2023 from https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/1076712223396378577/

[ln-mrbean]

Asteroid Postmortem

[ln-mrbean]

Asteroid Development

One issue that I had issue with was the editing of points where the bullets would shoot from. In the image above the bullet is shooting slightly off from centre point even though when I edit the points directly in the centre of the ship and have no clue as to why it still remains slightly off centre for the bullet firing position

When the ship is flying towards the positive x direction the bullets is firing at the appropriate firing position.

However when the ship is flying in the inverse x direction the firing position of the ship is changed towards the wing area of the ship and not the centre point of the ship anymore.

I then thought, maybe theres a problem with the use of the free animation sprites of the above ship. So instead I use the Pixel Art maker thats within G-Develop. I made a ship and an attached firing nozzle to be used for the firing point of the bullets.

[ln-mrbean]

Asteroid Elevated Pitch

"Electro Magnet Shooter" is a planetary space shooter type game that uses the friction harnessed from the surrounding planets in order to move, store that electronic pulse as a store of energy to shoot electro-magnetic pulse waves. Controls: - Mouse to move - Mouse left click to fire electro-magnetic pulse waves Target Audience: - Ages 8+ Selling Points: - *Science* :) - Cool Graphics - Sparkles because kids love things that sparkle

Some inspiration as to what the map would look like and the projectile. The planets can be inspiration to either be used as a general background within the game or separated into each individual potential levels- where each planet can represent a new level. The firing projectile can be an electromagnetic pulse ball thats similar to the inspiration image above.

References: Gail. (n.d.) Planets Art. [Pinterest Post]. Retrieved September 9, 2023 from https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/432416001712392692/

onlinelearningtips.com(n.d.). Clearing Up Misperceptions on Electromagnetic Pulse Implications. [Pinterest Post]. Retrieved September 9, 2023 from https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/194851121371099764/

[ln-mrbean]

Platformer Postmortem

[ln-mrbean]

Platformer Development

Utilising the base example from week 2 tutorial class I played around with the assets that was provided. I placed the platforms and the bridgelogs to get a feel for the jumping mechanics (I personally think it is not high enough so I will change for my actual platformer prototype).

The next task that is apart of the core mechanic is to shoot Qi blast from Yuwei's fist. For this prototype I will just use the free assets on Gdevelop as a placeholder that will be imported to the game.

Free bullet asset by 'pzUH' (the reference is within Gdevelop, the hyperlink is wrong just sends to https://www.gameart2d.com/freebies.html)

Currently the bullet is just stationary in one spot, in the example found on Gdevelop bullet video there is 'change the z-order of Bullet: set to Player.ZOrder()-1' but when looking for it within my game it does not come up.

Managed to get the projectile to fire toward the enemy and delete on collision, however it is still not the way I would want the projectile to fire. I want it to fire straight towards the x axis, at the moment it is acting more like a homing missile rather than a Qi blast. In addition it only deletes if collides with enemy and because there it only one on the screen at the moment if the player keeps firing the other projectile does not get deleted. I will somehow find out if I can put another condition if the projectile hits an enemy delete and/or if nothing happens put a timer on it to delete itself so it doesn't stay on the screen.

I created a firing point to the projectile (Bullets) because it does not make sense shooting a bullet coming from your head(Origin at 0,0). The firing point was put at the hand (orange).

With the help from Chris the tutor manage to change the homing missle look of the projectile. This was achieved by adding a fire point and changing the position targeting an object to creating the object bullet at the position of the new firing point(hand). Finally adding a permanent force at the player's angle. This is almost how I want the projectile to look there is just the fire rate of the projectile.

A simple change made it to how I want the projectile. Changed the condition 'if f key pressed' to 'if f key is released' making the fire rate only as fast as the player can press making it more realistic and balance compared to the last iteration.

Reference: Gdevelop. (2022, May 31). How To Fire A Bullet? #Short. [Video]. YouTube.                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsRGf49_Z6E

[ln-mrbean]

'Yuwei's Revenge' Platformer Game Pitch

In the heart of a forgotten ancient dynasty city, meet Yuwei, a determined 16-year-old boy, who, abandoned at birth, discovers an ancient martial arts manuscript hidden within the depths of a mysterious cave. After hearing the devastating revelation about his parents' tragic fate, Yuwei embarks on a quest for justice. Yuwei harnesses the power of Qi, transforms his very essence into a weapon, projecting potent Qi blasts from his fists to vanquish foes that stand in his way.

Controls:

Players moves by using the keyboard ‘WASD’ keys or the keyboard arrow keys, ‘spacebar’ to jump and to fire Qi blast by pressing the ‘Enter’ key or left mouse click.

Intended target Audience: Ages 10+.

Selling Points:

- Ancient History mixed with fantasy

- Cool pixel art

Inspiration/Reference Images-

These are some images found on Pinterest that envision and in the same way the image I get in my head for my main character of the platformer game. Long hair was what I was thinking of when trying to develop the protagonist to ‘Yuwei’s Revenge’ however may alter the stories age to being older than 16 years old or recreate similar but making them younger to what a 16-year-old may look like.

I like the aesthetic of these image as the scenery of ‘Yuwei’s Revenge’ will be based in a scenic area with natural elements of mountainous terrain, a forest and streams like that of ancient Asia Dynasty. You get many representations of these when you watch fantasy ancient China movies or television dramas.

I wasn’t good at drawing eyes, so I used reference photos simply found on google images.

To design the character of ‘Yuwei’ the protagonist of the story I did basic stickman first to map out positioning of body parts. My preference is either to start drawing from head down or bottom up, but for this instance I started from the feet to the legs then torso, arms and then head and hair. Just a rough sketch but the arms and hands are my weak areas can’t get them to be proportional to real life arms and hands.

References:

Arain, Z. (n.d.). [Pinterest post]. Retrieved August 14, 2023 from             https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/942026447038426565/

Awoken Hunter(n.d.). Kuro Aito [Pinterest post]. Retrieved August 14, 2023 from            https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/275564070942731137/

Ferreira, A. (n.d.). Ming Dynasty Bridge, China. [Pinterest post]. Retrieved August 14, 2023    from https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/417075615468766676/

Wattpad (n.d.). [ 𝐀 𝐁𝐞𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐲 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐐𝐮𝐢𝐫𝐤𝐬 ] - { Original Characters } [Pinterest post].             Retrieved August 14, 2023 from             https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/795377984213203551/

[ln-mrbean]

Hi everyone, my name is Linh Nguyen (Alex) and currently studying a Bachelor of Games and Interactive Environments majoring in Game Design and minoring in Property Economics and Finance at QUT. In my spare time I like to go to the gym, started doing Judo and playing games like League of Legends or Valorant.