Racing Game development post
The third game and by the most complete. QWEIOP really focuses on precise and quick key presses as its main mechanic. My first version of the game started with a loading screen with text instructions on how to play. However in my first iteration of play testing I noticed that the main reason players were losing was they had a slow start because they took a while to figure out the controls. These concerns were also echoed in their feedback “ At first it was really difficult to work out what to do without being told ” and “The other swimmers were too fast, its impossible to win”. I was a bit confused because personally I found the game wasn’t hard to win, but was just the right difficulty. However new players struggled so much they became frustrated and didn’t want to play again. I realised it was a scenario just like Fullerton talked about where developers work so long on a project that they forget about the player in their own quest to make their game live up to their own expectations. I realised how important it was that players understood how the game worked before they played. With this in mind I put much more effort into the introduction screen which featured instructions on how to play, and changed it to include an interactive instruction showing them which buttons to push. ( seen below )
I then altered the speeds of the contestant swimmers so one was much slower in order to give the player a sense of achievement to beat atleast one swimmer in order to keep them playing longer.
In my second iteration of play testing I noticed it ran much smoother, players were able to familiarise themselves with the controls and patterns of their fingers before shooting the gun and the reviews reflected this. With 2 players scoring 4/5 and one player 5/5 to the criteria ‘ The design was clear, and I understood the objectives of the game.’ Some players “ Almost breaking the keyboard” as they punched through their combos.