The final week of our Beta development has now concluded with a full playable version of Klepto, featuring 5 levels to be unlocked and played through. The final week was a fairly slow week in terms of production as the majority of the team attended the New Zealand Game Development Conference. This conference took up the majority of our production time and as a result a large focus was placed on polishing up the final build of the game and each level within it.
The conference was a great learning experience for the team and provided great insight to different approaches which could be used for existing features within our game. For example, the cinematic shots which occur within the level select are currently hard coded and slightly "jittery". From the conference we learnt that this issue can be easily implemented using a new feature in Unity known as CineMachine which allows for easier and smoother camera transitions and set up than the current implementation. With this knowledge gained from NZGDC we now have the ability to further improve these current features in the near future.
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Production slowed this week as we polished what we had. The deadline for the beta phase coincided with NZGDC so our potential development hours were limited. Based on playtest feedback, I made final changes to my level and implemented the new Klepto checkpoints.
We did show our game off at the Auckland Game Developer Meetup. We had a booth where people could come up and play my grappling level or Dylan’s glider level. The feedback was both positive and helpful. It was great to see people getting excited about our game and taking photos! This week our art team has been working hard to bring out the character in Klepto. We have given him a new face rig which includes facial animations, continued working on the interior of the van and much more.
The last week of Beta has been interrupted by NZGDC. With most of our planned assets for Beta done, Corne worked on the important ingame UI elements which we have neglected for a little while since Vertical slice. The main elements we needed to address were the in-game icons to represent the medals for times, the icons for the secret token and the icon for the floppy drives that the player has to collect. The floppys that the player collects in the levels are meant to represent the data that he is collecting in his simulations in order to be a better thief. The speed running/ time trial gameplay mechanic became apparent to us after playtesters seemed to enjoy speed running through levels. We decided to capitalise on this and make it a feature of our levels. And to reward the player with Gold silver and bronze times. The secret token in each level is there to give players the impetus to explore and not rush through the level. Similar to the bread crumb style floppy drives that the player collects, the secret tokens unlock mini games back in the space van.
Week seven has been a massive week for Klepto’s art team. This week, we’ve managed to implement most of the art assets made so far, and we’ve also made a whole lot more. We’ve solidified Wild West World’s theming, as most levels now have proper lighting and colour grading set up. We’ve gone through each level and finalised the placement of most assets, excluding the van. The van will be finished off next week. New environmental objects and structures have been implemented, such as massive canyon rocks, water towers, cactuses, wagons, horses, etc. The world has really come to life, and the humour has found it's way back in through the art style.
This week a large focus has been placed on level design and building as the team started creating and finalising the final levels to be used within our first world of the game. Level four has now been completed and represents the first world in which the player is introduced to the glider mechanic within the game. The level is designed in a way which requires the player to first work their way up to the glider by climbing up the centre of large pipes with various challenges along the way. Once the player has reached the glider they are then able to soar high above the ground as they travel through a canyon before plunging into a cave near the end of the level. Because this is the first time the glider is introduced, much thought had to go into the placement of objects throughout the canyon to help the player get used to the controls as well as the concept wind gusts. Once the level had been completed some serious playtesting was conducted with participants who had never flow the glider before to stress test the difficulty of the level. Overall the feedback given was very positive with all participants saying that they thoroughly enjoyed the glider. Players were also happy with the control scheme and the way that the mechanic behaves in the way that you would expect a glider to behave (stalling at the top of arcs). The first level was also rated as a perfect introductory glider level for new players since its learning curve makes it fun and slightly challenging. One of the major problems found during the playtest was the fact that players did not always choose the path that was intended whilst flying through the level. To solve this problem, the path was defined more clearly using rocks and other props to give players the illusion that certain areas were not meant to be accessible.
Other than this the level select room has now also been fully furbished to represent the first worlds theme of the “Wild West”. By using the wild west props, the level select now gives the player a clear indication of which world they are currently in. After the playtest from last week, I had implemented numerous changes to my level design and the player mechanics to address problems that players identified. Some were minor tweaks and others were more significant changes to the level’s structure. Naturally, I was eager to conduct another play test and see whether these changes paid off.
6 detailed playtest responses were received. These responses consisted of observations I made while watching each player play through the level and answers to questions posed on an online survey that players completed after trying the game. The results were incredibly gratifying. The improvements to the grappling mechanic were immediately noticeable. During the last playtest, many deaths occurred due to the grapple being difficult to control. This time, however, there were significantly fewer grapple deaths save for a couple spots where the grapple points were placed slightly too far apart. People had fun with the grapple and that was fantastic to see! Additionally, the changes to the level layout made navigation easier for players. There were fewer places where death regularly occurred. Unfortunately, there were a couple awkward jumps still in the level which most of the play testers had some trouble with. I quickly corrected this after the playtest. This level was also the first time that people had played our game with the floppy disk and arcade token collectables in. Some players were determined to hunt down every last collectable, whereas others were content with getting the floppy disks that weren’t too far off their desired path. Regardless, everyone was interested in these collectables to some degree and this was amazing to see. I compiled the responses in a playtest report which summarised the actions we needed to take to refine our product. Most of these actions were carried out in the same week. The playtest report can be seen here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IRRqlrtSeWnJ87wIdoJjsrsnmjCR0BwP63HDbDW-P6w/edit?usp=sharing Playtesting has been an incredibly powerful tool for our game, especially in the last couple of weeks. It has shed light on issues in our game that we would never have noticed otherwise. Week 7 has been a dramatic increase in positivity for me. Developing the new level, Sunset Showdown, has been both entertaining and hugely productive. As of Friday (after 3 days work) the level is complete functionally, and can be played from start to finish. It is the hardest level (as it is the final one of our beta build) and other than collectible floppy disks, is ready for players to experience. I have had a few non-team members play through it, and have had a positive response.
This week I also rebalanced and finished the second level, ‘Falling Down’ to make sure it was ready for the artists to attack with their wonderful art brushes. The level was tweaked to make it much easier, as well as adding in both checkpoints and floppy disks throughout. I am pretty happy with how Falling Down functions, and am positive about its position within our overarching structure. I fixed some small issues with this level, as well as adding in the energy fence, which is now fully usable. The energy fence blocks the players’ way until it is deactivated, and usually will require players to use a crate on a pressure plate in order to proceed. There are both button-activated and plate-activated options within the game, to make sure that players understand how both of these concepts work. Making this level complete also energised my desire to complete the final level as well. In the meantime, we also created a bunch of new assets for the game. On my suggestion, Conrad and Scott between them created a wagon and a horse, as well as textures and other props. The massive prop injection into the scenes has made the game look a lot better already. Sunset Showdown, the final level, is something that came together in the first few days of week 7, which was hugely inspiring. The final level uses all of the mechanics present in the other levels, and presents quite a challenge. I am happy both with the level of challenge and the level of entertainment presented to the player. Some platforming and grappling parts in particular are more challenging than any of the other levels, and the requirement for player skill is somewhat higher. I still have to go through the level and add in new content (like the water towers) as well as tidy up some elements, but I am hugely positive about the result that I have reached with Sunset Showdown, as well as the bounce back from last week’s mediocrity. This week I have also tidied up my documentation, and am starting to log everything properly. The documentation in the group log that I created I have not been using as much as I should, so I have gone back and added in the tasks that I completed over the past week. The last few days that we have to work on the game will be productive and result in a title that we can be proud of, fortunately. I spent Week 6 entirely working on different concepts for new levels. On Monday, I decided that I would work towards a much larger level, with the goal of creating a much larger and open space for players to move around.
Initially I had a lot of problems with this, as I was unable to come up with a way of creating a level of such size that also felt like it was focused. I went through three different prototypes over the week, trying out different puzzles that never really seemed to fit. On Friday, I re-evaluated the focus that I had on making a much larger level, and decided that my approaches were largely a waste of time. The little progress that I had made had resulted in very little entertaining, playable content being produced. I was unhappy with my week 6, mostly because the work that I created was not entertaining or interesting at all, and felt largely like a waste of time. I am optimistic about the next week, as I have a plan in place to make sure that I am more productive and create something entertaining. For the opening of the beta section of the project, we outlined new milestones and goals that we wanted to achieve. In terms of the art of the project, the milestones were:
Whilst working on the main milestones, we also achieved a lot of little in-between things as well over this first week. During week 5, we added in textured floppy disk pickups. We gave them large areas of reflectivity and strong grey/white/red colour scheme to help them catch the player eye in a potentially busy scene. This week, we textured the Rotisserie Engine that will be powering Klepto’s Space-Faring Van. This is an environmental prop that adds a bit of flair to the inside of Klepto’s van, and it’s this engine that powers the vans ability to be smaller on the inside, as well as the vans space travelling abilities and the warp room. Finally, we began planning out the props for the Wild West Environment. We looked at cliché’ cowboy and western imagery as out inspiration. Klepto, in his quest to become the greatest Thief in the galaxy, wants to replicate the various places on earth that he wants to rob, so everything in Klepto’s simulation is hand made my him. To this end, we’ve decided that everything should be made of cardboard, tape and other rough materials that would be easy to find. All of the mountains and scenery are huge hand-painted cardboard facades, and most of the props are as well. We did a page of concepts, and then made a few props to see how they’d feel in-game. The final thing we got in-game this week was the 'Zap-fence'. This is a simple barrier that if the player passes through, they get electrocuted and lose all momentum. |
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September 2017
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