NitroSodium's Game Anglia Industry Brief

[nitrosodiumgameanglia]

FINAL BROADCAST

Packing up here and moving to @nitrosodiumaltcontroller.

[nitrosodiumgameanglia]

Final Alterations

In preparation for recording a gameplay video and showing at Games Anglia, I have made a few changes to make the game more accessible.

Firstly, the credits had been accidentally crediting Frank Ifield as 'Richard Ifield', who was apparently a producer of pump systems. I don't know how that name came into my head, but it has been changed.

I also put a handy restart button in the game. I figured that if this is going to be exhibited, and have people coming up to it without my team's input, it needs to be immediately ready for the next person to come up and play it, even if the last player did not finish the game. Therefore, this widget is on the screen at all times, and opens the main menu when P is pressed.

I added a similar piece of text to the end screen. Really during a showcase, the game executable would not be closed to the desktop, just restarted. I can recall a few times during game showcases where someone closed one of the games because there was no clear restart button, and the screen would just be showing the File Explorer. This should alleviate that.

[nitrosodiumgameanglia]

Today's Playtest Responses

Here are the Google Forms responses from the three playtesters of our game today. As you can see, they are mostly positive: people could mostly figure out what to do, and praised the visual aesthetic of the game. The major complaint by most people was the movement speed being too slow, and I did see that not everyone figured out that the game was about dementia before the end. I will now go through the specific notes taken on players.

Player 1 was completely unfamiliar with the game, but upon the first few minutes of playing they figured out that they were a patient in a care home. They played somewhat investigatively, searching every room until they came across the doctor's office. They tried to pick up the pills, before realizing that tasks had to be done in order. Reaching the second floor, they found the cafeteria, but gave up trying to reach the burger room. He then went down to the first floor to investigate, and found the bins - this helped him figure out that music marked important locations. He was somewhat frustrated that he couldn't find his way out of the first-floor maze, but then went back to the second floor and found the burger after searching around for an entrance. During the way back, he was disoriented by the changing signs.

Player 2 had no notes on them - I was playtesting someone else's game and the coder apparently did not take any notes.

Player 3 had played the game before, but not a new version of it. He tried to speedrun it, finding the burger quickly and searching around for an entrance. The rest of his experience was mostly nondescript, but he was seemingly stunned by the fact that we changed the mouse button quicktime event for the bin to alternative characters like , . ' # / and similar ones left of the Enter key.

Note: the cheeseburger-related responses were a joke by one of the players.

[nitrosodiumgameanglia]

Disconnected the door 'open/close' popup at the coder's request. It was a little intrusive, and after the player opens one door, they can likely figure out that the rest open.

[nitrosodiumgameanglia]

Altered the doctor's note to something better.

[nitrosodiumgameanglia]

Reactivated the head bob at the artist's request. Not worth making a larger post, but I do think it is worth mentioning.

[nitrosodiumgameanglia]

Making a Computer

Because apparently the reception areas were not identifiable as receptions (possibly true), I was asked to make a computer model.

These are also placed in other reception and desk-adjacent areas in the map.

[nitrosodiumgameanglia]

Changing the Post Process Volume

Supposedly the post process volume made things sickening to look at and signs were impossible to read. So I am taking it off for now, removing infinite extent on the level volume.

With infinite extent off, it looks smoother, but we were going for a PS1 aesthetic anyway, so I'm keeping it on. If anything else needs to be done surrounding this it is the artist's field of expertise, not mine. Maybe the intensity can be decreased somehow.

[nitrosodiumgameanglia]

Game crashed, lost some files. Remade the sign with just a tint.

[nitrosodiumgameanglia]

Altering the Player Movements

Many times the teacher brought up that the headbob, movement delay etc. was nauseating and made the game near unplayable. So I am removing it, or at least deactivating the code so it can be reactivated if a new decision is made when the rest of the team is here.

Headbob code turned off. Unfortunately I could not find where the camera code was kept, or the footstep code. So I can't make any progress there.

[nitrosodiumgameanglia]

Making some Chairs Smaller

The teacher mentioned that these four specific chairs were too big, so they have been made smaller.

[nitrosodiumgameanglia]

Brightening the Map

A few areas that were previously dark have been lit up. The purpose of this was similar to the sparseness of furniture, to show areas where no memories have remained in the protagonist's mind, and they are totally dark. However the teacher did not like these, and so I have removed most of them, minus a few slightly darker-than-average corridors.

[nitrosodiumgameanglia]

Changing the End Screen

Apparently the end screen's font was not befitting of the game theme - personally I thought that a smudged, deteriorating font worked well for showing the mental deterioration of Alzheimer's but he said it looked like an album cover, so I've changed it to the Study Clash font used elsewhere. I don't think it fits as well myself, but (a) there isn't enough time to look for a new one and (b) I would like to pass.

Also, some of the City Burn text (notably the links) could not be changed because Study Clash does not register / marks.

[nitrosodiumgameanglia]

Changing the Note

Our teacher did not approve of the current note for many reasons. Firstly, it said "Eat lunch at the Cafeteria" when the burger in-game is located in a room that connects to the Lounge location. The glass window, as previously mentioned, was supposed to be an inoperable glass sliding door but the model was not finished. So that was changed to "Eat lunch *near* the Cafeteria". He also thought that the bright white did not look like it was written by a doctor, and clashed with the yellowish backgrounds. He also did not approve of the lines and the margin, and that it was not totally aligned with the text. So I changed it to this older, more cream-coloured paper, with no lines.

I also realised it was too high-definition, and so I changed it to this scaled-down version.

[nitrosodiumgameanglia]

Adding the Elevator

I made this quick elevator with an Out of Order sign to show that an elevator did once exist in the care home.

Because of where it comes out on the second floor, I had to alter the door that leads to the kitchen.

[nitrosodiumgameanglia]

Adding Floor Info Pointers

Each doorway leading to the various floors off the stairwell has a large collision box like so.

This is the code within it. As you can see, it brings up a widget when collided and and removes it when uncollided.

This is how it looks in-game. Now it is harder for people to mistake what floor they are on.

Also, to avoid differentiating between the English and American reckonings for floors (especially given that the floor in between the top and bottom ones is internally referred to as the Second Floor at multiple points), I put a gigantic American flag on the wall of the protagonist's room.

[nitrosodiumgameanglia]

Massive Renovations

Something unexpected occurred today. One of the teachers played my game, and did not like it. He gave me a gigantic list of things to add and change, which was unfortunate since we have a day of development time left, and both the artist and coder are absent for the rest of the week. The changes that the teacher himself implemented are:

Altered radios so they can be turned off, along with a popup saying if they are turned on or off.

Gave doors a collision box which says that they can be interacted with.

Altered the staircase so it is made of actual staircase pieces, and gave it a bannister.

Gave the staircase a collision box which says if you are on the third floor (which he has renamed almost all instances of to the Second Floor, to keep in check with English naming conventions).

Altered the random pitch and volume of door sounds.

What I have to do is:

Create respective collision boxes for each floor.

Alter the note so that is written in English naming conventions (ground floor, first floor, etc) and also so that it is not on a piece of lined bright white paper.

Change the final quicktime event so that it no longer uses the mouse buttons.

Change the end screen font because it supposedly looked more like a metal album cover than anything about dementia.

Alter the map layout so that more areas are lit up and the glass door in the cafeteria is better explained, instead of being some Tartarus-esque chamber where food is kept out of reach of patients.

Change the size of chairs (some chairs, not all chairs).

Change the post process volume because it is apparently nauseating.

Change the motion blur because it is apparently nauseating.

Change the mouse delay when looking around because it is apparently nauseating.

Change the view bob because it is apparently nauseating.

Change the footstep sounds to be slower because they apparently made the player seem as if they are giant.

Make the signs double sided (this will require making 18 textures that don't break the style of the pre-existing ones).

Make more signs.

Add more objects in the hallway outside of the spawn room because granted, it does make sense that the protagonist would remember them in their day-to-day life.

I really don't have time to do all of this, not least with 2/3 of my team absent. So in two days I will do what I can.