Over the weekend, the entire group (save Dylan) jetted over to Melbourne, where we exhibited at PAX Australia, courtesy of Media Design School.
The 3 days on the booth provided a huge amount of information for us - namely, that the first level actually serves as a poor introduction in a convention space. Players want to get into the game quickly, spend a short while playing, and then move on to the next booth or stand. The first level only has movement around and jumping, so it is not that great for showing off what is unique about KLEPTO. From Saturday onwards, every time I reset the game, I would set it to one of the later levels (3/4/5) because players found it way easier to get into the title and play for a while, because the first level was not only boring but weirdly designed. Some other issues I found included explaining the pressure plates to players - explained in the second level and very few actually played that - and general mechanical mastery. I expect that if players had to play through all 5 levels sequentially, they would not have an issue progressing eventually. The convention setting means that many players simply don’t ‘get into’ the title as much when they are pressed for time or eager to go and see another stand. Smaller-scale playtests with other students result in the majority of them pressing through the first two levels to get to the more structured and interesting levels - much like a properly structured title. Another issue I noticed was the way that the levels were presented - currently the jungle levels we are working on look much better, because of our usage of assets. The transition to closed-area environments definitely helped the presentation of the next world, and pending the move into accelerator we will certainly be changing the different ways that we approach level design - mainly looking at it from an environmental perspective first, before diving in and adding puzzles in each area. Weeks 7 & 8 should be all polish polish polish, and make sure that we're ready for the final submission, which we are on the verge of already.
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