WEEK 6- Postmortem
For this development process the Chapter readings I focused on were Chapters 6 and 10. These chapters influenced my design process by taking a more focused approach on game balance and broadening my view of implementing game mechanics. By focusing on thinking of as many game mechanics within a short 30 min period I got a good list of what I wanted to implement and which ones I wanted to focus on above others. Another inspiration I got was from chapter 10, in terms of game balance. Where balancing the games movement mechanics and players abilities, this caused myself to take a good look at the players move speeds and what they could do in the game. Choosing to make them slightly faster than the enemies and limiting their usage of the gun with a slower firing rate. I also saw ways to balance the game around skillful players, where if they succeeded with a score of 2000 or higher, more objects would spawn to create a greater challenge.
One thing I would have liked to change about the development process of the game was my planning before implementation. I think having a clearer idea of what I wanted to do would have made the game a lot better and allowed me to narrow down on what specific design ideas I wanted to focus on. Allowing more time for brainstorming and idea creation was the key here, with this including game play of other games and picking and choosing which game mechanics I thought would be fun. Another would be to add in WASD controls, as I ran out of time deciding and implementing what mechanics I wanted while creating the prototype I didn’t have time for WASD. If I had implemented it, I think this really would have enhanced the game as I could then add in more features involving enemies due to the player having better control. I could have also improved the gun, adding mouse-controlled missiles or a grappling gun.
If I had to change the design of my prototype I would have liked to make it seem like it was moving where the player would think they where a garbage truck moving along the street picking up rubbish while fitting of enemies. This would have then allowed the player to focus in one direction rather than random directions all at once with all objects coming right to left and sometimes above and below. In addition to this, as mentioned before, I would have liked to change the design of the gun, changing its focus away from destroying objects. I think making it a grappling hook to pull in power-ups would have made the game much more unique and interesting to play, while following the theme of the duties of a garbage man, which is to clean the streets.
Sources
Fullerton, T. (2018). Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games. ProQuest Ebook. Retrieved from: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/qut/reader.action?docID=5477698