Dev Log 3

Dev Log 3

Written by Stephen

Project Back-Up - Playtesting and Iterations

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-35aV6KUlyk

As we near our deadline for the game's completion, we got the chance to get external playtesting from some in our year in college. Going into the playtest, we only had a very barebones model of the game. We had a basic game world, interactable items and inventory, and a script that we had to read to guide the player between resets.

Of course, as anyone can imagine, the feedback we received was beneficial. Firstly, we were made aware of the importance of well-placed colliders. There are two worlds in the game, the exterior and the interior. When the player approaches a door and enters, the exterior world is turned off, and the interior one is turned on. The same is done for its colliders, the invisible walls. However, the problem arose at the corners of buildings and near the entrances, where the player would trigger the interior world without actually being in a building. So if this happened, the game would become unplayable, and the player would need to start over or just stop playing.

Aside from fixing collider issues, some people found that there wasn’t enough gameplay. This bizarrely was something we overlooked. In summation of what was said, the game felt more like a simulation, as in going through the actions, rather than actively engaging with any sense of urgency despite the 5-minute timer. This shocked us. We had become focused on the game world and narrative that the actual gameplay aspect was forgotten. Luckily, this playtest took place three weeks before the submission deadline, so we will have time to alter and make changes. In terms of making the gameplay engaging, we began thinking of smaller tasks rather than just having one long term goal.

The people playing our game commented on how the game world felt too empty and would prefer a smaller and more compact space or an increase in player speed. Rather than patching the problem by increasing the player speed, fixing the issue of the map being too empty would be better.

That’s all for this week from the team here at Matchboxes. Thanks for reading.