Having finished the majority of my Fungus game, A Soft and Squishy Dungeon, I spent much of this week refining the overall experience. This involved playing through the game multiple times, searching for any bugs or typing mistakes, and ironing them out where found. I also spent some time adjusting volume mixes, to ensure that audio fades in and out correctly at various points.
Based on my previous experience playtesting for game companies such as DONTNOD, I am aware of its importance in creating the best possible experience for your players. I also found an interesting article that highlights the importance of it (Roketronz, 2016), especially with the pretence of using a large variety of people from diverse backgrounds, many of whom may not be familiar with games. Taking this into account, and of course wanting to create the best game that I could, I decided to run some playtesting of my own. I built the game and sent it out to some close friends and family members for them to playtest. I also had some of my flat mates play the game in the same room as me, so that I could assess their reactions to particular moments (this in particular was something we had been taught about in our GAM130 lecture for week nine). Their feedback helped to iron out the game further, as they were able to report on any bugs or issues encountered during their playthroughs. They also gave me their overall feedback on the game. This provided me with some great early impressions, such as how the game made them feel, whether it was too long, if it was well-written, etc.
On the whole, early impressions were positive, although one point raised was that the ending seemed to be slightly abrupt. I spend some time adjusting and slowing it down over the weekend, so hopefully that has been greatly improved now. Another aspect that was raised multiple times was that players unfamiliar with game conventions were often unsure of what the ‘baggage’ stats in the corner of the screen actually meant. To rectify this, I have added a short tutorial message that explains their functionality to the player early on in the game (fig. 1).
(Above) Figure 1: Screenshot. One of the tutorial messages that teaches the player about how stats are affected.
While I have been busy refining the narrative game this week, I have been even busier creating my level design in Unity. I am mostly going off of the initial design that I drew up. In the first iteration of my block-out, I tried to lean more fully into the rigidity of the human settlements by having the level be very rectangular and perpendicular (fig. 2). While I like the look and it certainly conveys the human faction’s aesthetic, moving through the space felt too artificial, with little variation in shapes and flow. Taking note of this, I remade the area to be less blocky and exhibit better flow, while still retaining the rigidity I wanted to get across (fig. 3).
(Above, left) Figure 2: Screenshot. The initial block-out for my level. This one was much more clinical. (Above, right) Figure 3: Screenshot. The final block-out for my level. This one has much better flow and variation in space.
I am much happier with how this layout looks, and it appears to exhibit good flow between narrow and prospect spaces. I have included a rhizome shaped area that will give the players some agency in how they move as well as an acid pool which will require platforming to traverse. I’m hoping these spaces break up the gameplay and add some variation to the stealth navigation. There are also some examples of optional areas with loot that the player can find if they take the time to find them. This will hopefully promote thoughtful exploration of their environment. I have tried to represent the building as best I can with my limited ProBuilder knowledge, by extruding rectangles out of the main structure, which tower above the player as they move through the area. Ideally these would look much more authentic, however I think this method still gets the idea across.
After that I added in many of the gameplay objects, including enemies (represented by red orbs), cover, doors, crystals, moving platforms and loot (fig. 4). With these objects all included, the level looks far more dynamic than it had before and I think it is easier to see what the finished product would potentially look like. I also had a go at modelling the Spirit Tree (the objective of the quest) to mixed results (fig. 5). I will certainly be brushing up on my modelling skills over the summer!
(Above, top) Figure 3: Screenshot. The final level block-out, populated with the necessary objects.(Above, bottom) Figure 5: Screenshot. The Spirit Tree made in ProBuilder using a cylinder and some low poly spheres.
The deadline for these assignments is next week. I will likely spend much of my remaining time tweaking elements of my level and writing all of the remaining annotations.
References:
RoketronZ. 2016. The Importance of Playtesting [online]. Available at: http://coffeepoweredmachine.com/the-importance-of-playtesting/ [acceswed 8 April 2021].