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Assignment 3 Postmortem Reflecting back on the development of Kickback The development of Kickback was this course’s introduction to group work. I was in a team of 4 members (animator, developer, programmer, developer) where we would delegate work and roles to each other and report back on a weekly basis. Kickback during its concept phase was supposed to be a game about navigating 3 different worlds filled with 5 individual levels. These levels would introduce different obstacles and objectives for the player to discover. Looking back at what we produced compared to our initial goal, we only managed 1 out of the 3 worlds that we had desired in the concept phase. We had mapped out our workload (gantt chart) during our first meeting, so why did we fall so hard behind? I believe this was due to two reasons, poor scope and poor communication. Tracy Fullerton talks about this in her book Game design Workshop A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games, Fourth Edition, p.6,182,435. (extracted above). We were given a time frame of four weeks in which we had to complete our game, during which- we spent most of our production time working during in-class workshop hours. The gantt chart that is displayed in a previous post depicts the workload that our group decided on. The initial idea was that every world would be created on a weekly basis and the last week would be reserved for playtesting. In reality the first two weeks were dedicated towards creating the player and adjusting the fidelity of their movement. Due to poor technological feasibility our workload left us behind our initial scope. However this only played one part of the reasoning, our communication played the second. Communication was fine during our first week of development, however as the workload progressively got more intensive and there were no in-class workshops the designated discord group grew quiet. Even during/after the playtesting period only a few members would respond to messages after a long period of time. At no point in time did I know of the current state of development of Kickback until I would attend a workshop or when the latest build was put up on the google drive. Playtesting was another part of development with limited communication as there were no responses to messages. I had to take it upon myself to conduct all the playtesting and compile all the graphs for the playtesting report without any aid. Out of all our members only one was communicating in this time and able aid in the summary of the report whilst the other two remained unresponsive. The image above of Kickback levels are the unused design ideas for world 2 created in the same week as world 1. World 2 was initially going to introduce enemies and moving platforms to the game. However we were never near the stage to start working on them. If I were to repeat the assignment I think as one of the developers I should have talked with the group about scope initially, at the time it didn’t seem like a large workload as our game was very simple to create. However, with the time it will take to playtest and familiarise ourselves with different technological concepts, the better option would have been to just focus on one world and maybe introduce more level to that if we had the time. In terms of communication I feel like a better scope would have helped, as this was during peak assessment period and we’ve designed a workload that is very intensive, therefore some students may have been evasive as to ignore additional workload. A way I could see us improving would be by designating voice chat calls at certain times of the week, so members are forced to talk and negotiate on what to do next.

#postmortem

Assignment 3 feedback discussion The images above directly extract data from both the questionnaire and survey in an attempt to show patterns or trends. Although the sample size was very limited there is a slight pattern with the people that enjoyed similar game genres and providing a positive score for Kickback. This can also be substantiated by the fact that people who disliked the ‘cousin genres’ gave an overall lower score for our game.

Assignment 3 - Iterations and Changes The first playtest feedback was compiled into a graph depicting changes to be made. One of the most critical changes that needed to be fixed was the introduction of the reloading mechanic and how it translated to the player. With there being no indication on how to reload, playtesters assumed that it was not a feature. The other critical change was a problem with the hitboxes, on level 4 the player was not allowed to complete it the intended way due to certain hitboxes being larger than the model presents itself as. Recommendations for the changes are put in the last column and development to fix these issues are underway

Assignment 3 - Game Discussion The video above- courtesy from one of our playtesters, shows how much he could truly break our game by abusing player movement. He stated after the playtest that the most efficient mode of jumping was by pressing the jump and the shoot key at the same time, granting him the most momentum, he later coined this term as the “Mega Jump”. By utilising the Mega Jump he was able to essentially skip the platforming puzzles on levels 2 and 4 by jumping to heights the developers did not intend for the player to reach. Upon reaching level 5 the playtester found that when he shot the shotgun the player would at times clip through vertical walling. He concluded that with enough momentum- even with the pistol, the player can clip through anything if its thin enough. This led to his level 5 being his fastest level as all he had to do was run into the wall and shoot in the opposite direction. The playtester started his speedrun journey by trying to attempt to beat the game in under a minute. After numerous reruns of the game and by finding new efficient methods he managed to reduce his time and reach sub-15 seconds, granting him the title as the #1 Kickback speedrun world record holder.

Assignment 3 Playtesting The game in its current state of having one world was playtested by five people unfamiliar with the game. The results from each playtester varied due to their subjective preference and experience in game types. The playtesters were first issued a script that was read to them, describing how the playtest will be conducted, followed by a short playtesting peroid accompanied by 1-5 rating survey. The images above have been approved for permission by the playtester to be public.

#playtesting

Assignment 3 Development Progress

As the level designer my role was to create the levels in which the player navigates. The design for Kickback is a simple platforming puzzle action game where the goal is to reach the levels ‘end portal’. The player does this with the aid of multiple different weapon types and manipulates the recoil in order to reach certain heights to clear gaps otherwise impossible without a gun.

I was tasked with creating 5 levels per world, my philosophy in creating the levels was to introduce the player to a new mechanic and then subsequently test the player’s prowess with that mechanic on the next level. This would repeat twice with the final 5th level in every world combining the challenges introduced. For example, the first world followed this structure:

World 1-1 Introduce the player to the main recoil mechanic & gun pickups

World 1-2 Test the player by having them do precise jumps

World 1-3 Introduce the player to buttons

World 1-4 Test the player by challenging their button management

World 1-5 Combine buttons, precise jumping and a gun pickup

#Assignment 3

Group Formation and Assignment 3 Team Discussion Assignment 3 was introduced and we were tasked with either selling our game via the previously created one sheet, or by joining someone elses compelling game design. I chose to join the design called ‘Kickback’ from a member of the classroom named Finn. We formed a group of 4 members, Me, Finn, Sean and Harrison and allocated tasks during our first group meeting. I was issued the role of level designer where I would make simple level sketches for the group to analyse and implement into Gdevelop. Above is an image of the Gantt chart that we wish to abide by

#Assignment 3

Assignment 2 Process/Final Design Assignment 2 was to select a previous elevator pitch from the games we created over the course of the term and to expand upon it by making both a sell sheet and a one page document. My selected game was Drag St. as I felt like I had the most room to talk about it, as it was still fresh in my mind being the most recently created game. This image above is the sell sheet and the one below is the one page. The sell sheet is supposed to represent a gritty street aesthetic with graffiti font and a brick wall. The text and background colour both derive from the initial logo created during the elevator pitch. The premise and theme of the game are present as well as the goal and X statement. The one page is supposed to describe and explore the main mechanics and goals for the game. The controls, buffs, obstacles and goals are all described, as well as the rationale behind the x statement.

#Sell sheet #One Page

Asteroid Game Postmortem Reflecting back on the development of Count on Cooper: The development of Count on Cooper in reflection felt like my most polished and developed upon game of the bunch. I took feedback from the first playtest about Objectives (’survive’ text at the start of the game) and control schemes (constantly visible on the right side of the screen) and implemented them into a count on cooper which garnered mostly a positive reception. The colour scheme was something I decided to be proactive in my approach however- as prominently found within the feedback, playtesters found that the asteroids and background were too similar in colour to the point at which they became hard to see. This meant that if they progressed to higher speeds their focus would likely be on the player and their close proximity rather than the objects surrounding them.

The short snippets above are an excerpt from a larger body of text from the textbook Game Design Workshop A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games, Fourth Edition, p. 225-226. Within the text the author, Tracy Fullerton writes about how visualisation plays a role in processing information during play. I believe this can be related towards Count on Cooper to be a poor example of visualisation. The playtesters had a hard time processing their surroundings due to design decisions that hindered their level of differentiating between the background and asteroids. Another part of the text goes over grouping and how spacing out certain UI elements can make it harder for the player to maintain or notice them. Again, Count on Cooper had a large UI control scheme that covered a potion of the players visual screen, once players had a grasp of the controls they felt like it had the opposite effect and rather noticed it too much. The UI controls would overstay its welcome and would hide asteroids entering the screen.

If Count on Cooper were to be continued, the first step would be fixing the asteroid clarity either by enhancing the asteroid borders, or by changing the colour of the asteroids/background. In hindsight, the ideal asteroid colour would be one that contrasts heavily with the background, so a hue that is bright and neon would work well. The next step would be to apply a timer to the controls UI, after that timer finishes it will disappear. Simple change that can affect the player experience greatly.

#postmortem

Platformer Postmortem The development of the platformer game in hindsight was rushed and problematic, as dictated by the playtesters. The game had missing features that are vital to keep the players interested such as a lack of noticeable objectives and premises. These were implied through gameplay exploration however never explicitly notified to the player on how or why they need to achieve it. The pictures above directly screenshotted from ‘Game Design Workshop’ by Tracy Fullerton display the importance of having both a clear objective and premise. The premise can draw engagement before the player starts playing, whilst the objective draws a similar engagement through gameplay and goals for the player to achieve. If the platforming game were to be further developed upon, introducing a premise via a recognisable theme (e.g. you are jumping on slimes to avenge your late partner) as well as an objective that supports said theme (e.g. jump on every slime to avenge partner and proceed to next zone) would increase interest within the game.

#portmortem #platformer

Drag St. Postmortem Looking back at the development of Drag St: Postmortem

The above photo is taken from the textbook Game Design Workshop A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games, Fourth Edition, Tuning Game Systems p.159.

This section is specific towards providing an understanding on how to tune a game depending on player feedback in different demographics. Although there was no target in mind during the development of Drag St. the difficulty was subjective towards the designer without the playtesters in mind. There were certain stages that required specific paths that could only be found through trial and error. With the short playtesting period most playtesters of Drag St. were not given appropriate time to figure out the optimal path and found the game to be disinteresting and became demotivated into finishing the game.

With this knowledge in mind, future games I create will be less designed towards creating a difficult experience for myself. My new goal is to initially be more appealing towards a larger demographic and to tune the game difficulty from multiple feedback reports.

#postmortem

Player feedback for Drag St.

Players were dissatisfied with the sensitivity and inconsistent player movement, another issue rises in the initial player speed as it was deemed too slow. This is an issue most prominently noted in stage 3 where a good 3 seconds is spent searching for a buff to finally gain speed

#feedback

Screenshots for a more developed Drag St. The player is separated within their own lane against an AI opponent where they race to be first to reach the finish line. The player has WASD controls and has to navigate towards buffs to reach top speeds.

First look at Drag st. Simple design from the tutorial but stretched to the desired drag race length

Race game elevator pitch - Drag St. Elevator pitch for drag st. A top down 1 on 1 racing game against AI

#elevator_pitch #elevatorpitch #elevator pitch

Asteroid game playtester feedback Feedback from Count on Cooper

The general consensus was that the background and the asteroid colours were too alike which lead to the player taking damage from asteroids they could have avoided. This issue could be fixed in one of the three options:

-Changing the background color -Changing the asteroid color -Applying a border around the asteroids

This would remove the confusion upon playing. Another change would be to the UI that depicts the player controls, as after a certain point the player no longer needs that reminder and it takes up a large portion of the screen.

Count on Cooper within the Gdevelop engine

The goal of the game is displayed for a short period in the middle of the screen. The control scheme is present on the top right of the screen whereas the top left is reserved for the player lives and score

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