Capstone Process Journal
Week 2:
For my game idea, I wanted to build off of my final prototype from last class: HS Apocalypse Platformer. To recap the premise of the game, it is a platformer set in an apocalyptic highschool. There are only 4 students left to save the school. They each have their own powers that reflect their personality, that they then use to fight zombies. I like a lot of the game mechanics and story aspects of that game, and a lot of them I envision in an ideal form of the game. I like the multiple character aspect, and how you need to utilize all of them in order to survive. I also like the concept of each character having a backstory and having each of their powers reflect that. I want to use these parts of the old game in a new version of the game.
I will be working by myself for this project. I made this decision because I have a very specific vision for what I want to do, in a sort of perfectionist way. By working by myself I know I can achieve the things that I want in a specific way. In the past I have found myself frustrated if certain things don’t come out the way I thought they should, and have found success in working alone.
My goal for this week is to expand on the story and characters I already have. I think I have a good base, but I want them to be more unique than just the stereotypes with a deeper background. I might revisualize what the other forms of the character are. I am really excited about the character aspect, and a lot of the other aspects will revolve around that, so I wanted to improve that first.
Week 3:
This week, I went into more depth fleshing out my ideas for the game. I pivoted to a different game idea so I rethought the different characters and concept of the game. I am pretty comfortable where I am now. I also made a plan on paper for how I would start coding this project. I also want to create very primitive art to start off because I haven’t decided the art direction I want to go in yet. I am happy where the game is now. I think I made good adjustments
During last class, I changed a big part of my game. Since then I have been rethinking the whole game. Originally, I wanted to have four characters with a few different actions, with a series of upgrades for each character. Now, the game includes more characters that do less. Each character adds their own action or effect, but they each only have one. The goal is to add the right people to your squad, not to upgrade yourself. I like this twist to the game, it is a similar choice but made completely differently. I also think that creating different characters with different personalities is fun. This play style might relate more to a rogue-like than anything.
My main goal for the next week is to start the coding for this project. I made an outline of what I should work on first, so I am going to follow that. It starts with coding a game state and manager to distinguish between the play state and the upgrade state. This will make it easy for to integrate the play state and upgrade ui separately. I think that I could end up spending too much time adding different attacks for all the characters, but I will always need this system. This way I can test the game even if I don’t have all the characters.
Playtest Setup 1:
Playtest goal: Does the player enjoy selecting new characters to join their team? Does this decision alone make this game unique, and do they feel excited that they have crafted their team themself?
I chose this to be my playtest goal because the team building aspect is what I think makes my game unique. I like this idea a lot, and I want to see if the player of the game agrees. I want to test if they find this mechanic to be fun to use and look forward to. When I play, I like the fact that I made my own team and want to test if the player also feels this. Lastly, I want to test if this mechanic alone could set my game apart or if it is too small to do this.
Pre-Playtest Instructions:
Movement
Use A or D to move left or right
Use W or space to jump
Use left-click to attack
Left-click to select new characters
We are testing the gameplay not the art, so ignore the lack of assets in your feedback.
Make sure to say what you are thinking out loud so I can hear them, I want to hear all of your feedback. I will also not answer your questions during the playtest.
Week 4:
I did a lot of work this week and am very proud of what I accomplished. Before this week, I had a solid concept and had done a lot of planning on paper. I worked on the characters and the narrative and story, but I still had to figure out some of the specifics. I started to code the project this week, and first I mapped out the Game Manager and divided the game into parts. I knew there would be a main gameplay part and an upgrade screen so I made sure to build that transition. I then built out the main gameplay with characters, enemies, and attacks.
The first thing I had to change for this prototype was its simplicity. I had a lot of fun designing the different characters, but I had to simplify it in this version. I wanted to pick characters that would highlight different aspects of the game. That was certainly the biggest change this week.
My goals for next week all involve adding different parts to the game that I did not have time to this week. I want to implement things I want to add while also changing things from the playtest feedback. The main changes I will make from my playtest are making the character abilities and HUD simpler and more obvious. The game is more fast paced than I had originally anticipated, so it would be good for people to catch things on the fly. One big thing I want to change is making the character selection more modular. I eventually want to randomize which characters appear each time, so I need this system to be easier to manage. I also want to add more characters to the game. The playtest and the process of making the game have inspired more characters and character types.
Playtest Report 1:
The goal for my first playtest was to see if the playtester enjoyed selecting new characters. Building off of this first question, I wanted to see if this aspect alone made the game unique and fun. Lastly I wanted to see if the playtester enjoyed building their own team.
Overall, I found that my playtester enjoyed playing my game and exploring what it had to offer. They liked the feel and art in general, but more specifically they liked how the different characters had unique abilities. My playtester liked how the characters were introduced slowly, giving them a better chance to learn what each one does. They seemed to answer my question well, liking how the different characters interacted with enemies in different ways, and how they can be used in combination. My playtester also had a few critiques. The “Big Punch” character’s ability was hard to understand at first, and also seemed too similar to the starting character. They also did not see the HUD at first which I had not realized before.
I was surprised how quickly my playtester picked up the game. I tried to give limited instructions to see what would seem intuitive, and they picked it up very quickly. This was also reiterated in their feedback to me. The game was also a lot smoother than I thought it would be, which I’m happy about. There were only a few minor bugs towards the end of the playtest, but they did not interfere with the gameplay.
I got a lot of good feedback from my playtester, but while re-watching the feedback video, a few things stood out. I wanted to focus on the advice/critiques that interfered with the core of the game and parts I wanted to highlight.
For my first change, I wanted to address the HUD. My playtester said that they did not notice the HUD until the second run of the game, which needs to be fixed. I think the HUD has a lot of important information on it, so I want to highlight this more in my next iteration of the game.
The second important thing mentioned was more variety in enemy type. I want to add 2 more enemy types before the next playtest. I think this will make the game more dynamic and force the player to use their abilities in different ways.
My third change is more minor, but poses a deeper question for further down the line. Part of my feedback was that it was not clear how to use the “Big Punch” character’s ability. There was a follow up critique towards the end of the playtest where they mentioned how the “Big Punch” character just seemed like an upgrade to the original character. These are important for two reasons. The first being that I need to make every character’s abilities and drawbacks very easy to see so the players can pick them up quickly. I think this is true for the most part but important to note for the future. The second piece is possibly changing my attack system. My playtester had a lot more fun with the characters that had the ability to change the map, so going forward, I wanted to focus on and add more of those types of characters. This also made me think about reworking the attack system completely, which I want to ask the class for their input before I completely change gears. This new hypothetical system would make only your original character able to attack enemies. With this, you will be able to upgrade this one character to have different traits and abilities. You will still work as a group, but only one of your characters can attack. This will allow the player to choose how they attack, without being too repetitive. For the next playtest I will rework my characters to become more intuitive, and possibly (depending on class feedback) change my attack system.
Week 5:
This week, I got to implement a few things that I had originally intended to add, but did not have enough time to do before the first playtest. These were more structural changes and a few tweaks. The big change was making the character selection more modular for when I add new characters to the game. Now, it selects 3 of the available characters, and displays them to the player to choose from. If they are selected, it removes them from the character list so they cannot be displayed again. After this, I adjusted the enemy sensor system and made the “Big Punch” character’s action more clear, per player feedback. I’m also starting to add more characters to test out if this system works with more than just 3.
The modular character system did not change my overall vision for the game because I always intended to add it, but it will make adding new characters a lot easier moving forward. The play test also helped me see what I need to change and emphasize in the future. For example, my playtester liked how easy it was to learn each character, so I need to make characters very intuitive and easy to learn. I will achieve this by keeping actions simple and the sprites clean and unique. My mindset for the game changed a little based on what the playtester liked.
My goals for next week are to make bigger changes based off of my playtest report. In the report I said I would: Make the HUD easier for the player to understand, add two new enemy types, and rework the characters so their actions are obvious and intuitive. A possible change I am considering making is adding a new attack system based off of upgrading only one character. Because this change is a lot larger, I want to get class feedback first before reworking a big portion of my game.
Playtest Setup 2:
Goal
My goal for my second playtest builds off of my goal for the previous playtest. My goal last time was to figure out if the player enjoyed selecting different characters to work as a team. Now, I want to dive deeper, and figure out which category of player they enjoy using the best. They include Attack, Support, Engineer, and Movement. During the last playtest, I was surprised by which characters my playtester preferred, so I want to see if the answer changes this time. I want to use this information to help me figure out where to focus my time while creating future characters. My last playtester also mentioned that the game was really easy to learn. I want to double down on this and bring out more of these qualities for my next playtest. Because of this, my second follow up question asks: Is the game easy to learn? And are the characters easy to pick up? I want to see if this trend continues again.
Instructions
My instructions are very similar to last time, but I am planning on withholding more information to see if the player can pick it up on their own. I am leaving out the character switching and selection input to see if I can make them obvious enough in the game so the player can figure it out by themself: Use A and D to move left and right, use W or SPACEBAR to jump, click the left-mouse button to perform an action. During the playtest I encourage you to speak your thoughts out loud so I can gain as much feedback as possible. I will also be asking you questions as you play. I will not be answering any of your questions during the playtest.
Playtest Report Follow-up:
I would say that I completed most of what I wanted to accomplish going into this playtest. I decided to pull back on a few things because they would’ve changed the game too much, and I would’ve needed to implement too many additional elements before they would be balanced. I am referring to my implementation of enemy types. I added the tank enemy into the game, which I am really proud of and shakes up the game completely. I was about to add my ranged enemy but decided it would change too much. I realized that if I added the ranged enemy now, there would be no way to avoid their attacks (besides the wall). I thought that this would make it too difficult for the player, at least for now. I do want to add this feature in the future, but in order to do so I would need to add either a new movement type of character (which I intend on adding eventually), or adding a block system. The tank shakes up the game a lot. They hit really hard, and I started to get scared by them during my gameplay. My second, more minimal, change was making each character’s role more clear. This took more small changes rather than big implementations. I made sure that each character’s attack or action had some type of animation so the player could see it being performed. I also gave the attacks with wait times an ease in animation so the player does not get confused as to why the action is not being performed right away. I also made switching characters more intuitive with my next change. My third change was to the HUD. In my first playtest, my playtester commented that they did not see the HUD until their second playthrough. This is bad because there is a lot of important information on there. I decided to move it directly below the player, which makes it easier to see. I also emphasized a lot of the important elements like the XP and character index. These are two of the biggest parts of the game, so I did not want the player to miss them. I wanted the XP bar to tell the player how much XP they need before their next upgrade, which I think I did successfully. The new character index tells the player which characters they have, what they do, and what button to press in a very clean way. I also matched the icon colors to the characters so it is easy to relate the two.
Week 6
This week I added the rest of my changes from playtest 1. I added the Enemy Tank, which moves and attacks slower, but does twice the damage as the normal enemy. I also fully updated the HUD. It is a lot cleaner, easier to notice, and emphasizes key gameplay information like XP and the character index. Finally, I made a lot of small tweaks and debugs that make the gameplay a lot smoother and also makes it more difficult. Some of these include: adjusting the spray and starter character’s attack speed, adjusting the starter’s attack animation, changing the enemy attack speeds, and cleaning up their movement and player detection significantly.
These changes made the game play feel a lot better. The characters and enemies are much smoother than before, and they cause a lot less bugs and glitches. The change in the HUD makes the game feel more professional and intuitive. It is a lot easier to understand now.
A lot of what I do next week depends on my playtester feedback, but without it, here are some things I plan on adding. I want to make the game take place in a more of a traditional level environment, compared to the plain stage I have now. I think this will make the game more fun and allow for more additions in the future. I also want to add my ranged enemy and 2 movement type characters. I think that the new characters will be easy to implement because it will mostly just be changing variables. These characters along with the new level will allow me to add the ranged enemy as there are more ways to dodge their attack.
Week 7:
Since the last check in, I had my second playtest. This playtest gave me a lot of feedback and a new perspective on my game. Since then, I have not done a lot to the actual game, but I have been reviewing my playtest notes so I can gauge the best way to move forward. I got a lot of good feedback on small things to fix, but there are also some major changes that I need to make.
The new additions based on my playtester feedback will change my design a lot. First of all, I want to create an actual level before the next playtest. I think that this will resolve a few comments from prior feedback. I have also thought a lot about reworking the character system to make it feel more intentional. One piece of feedback I got was that there seemed to be too many characters, and that it was confusing. I want to change the system to address this problem, although I do not know specifically how yet. One potential solution would be adding the players to the game slower, so you are introduced to them at a more tolerable pace. These two adjustments would change my game significantly.
My biggest priority for next week is to make a full level. Right now the object of the game is to just survive as long as possible. I want to add an additional objective besides killing zombies. I think that this will add more depth to the game and force the player to use their characters differently. This was a big point mentioned in my feedback. I also hope to address everything in my playtest report.
Playtest Report 2:
The question I proposed before this playtest was: Which type of character do you enjoy using best? Attack, Support, or Engineer? This question was met with a pretty lackluster answer. My playtester said that “None of them totally thrilled me”, although he leaned more towards the engineers like my previous playtester. I think that this answer really opened my eyes and will force me to go deeper. After this comment, my playtester gave me some really good advice which I intend on following. He said that every character should push their powers to their limit. They should all feel insanely powerful and make it super fun for the player. I agreed with this. My characters now are baseline, there is room to make each one a lot more exciting.
My playtester enjoyed how the characters each had a drawback in addition to their power. For example the Big Punch character, he moves a lot slower than the others, but in return he hits twice as hard. My playtester also enjoyed the simplicity of the game. The fact that the character and level was very simple was a unique characteristic, and might be a cool thing to lean into.
There were quite a few things that my playtester had some feedback on, both big and small. One of the smaller things that my playtester did not like were the fact that there was no time to consider what new character to pick. I agree with this, I was planning on pausing the game at this stage but had not implemented yet. He also explained how there was a jump feature but nothing to jump on, and that movement should be a bigger part of the game. There were quite a few larger problems with the game that my playtester mentioned. One in particular was the fact that the game was one dimensional, which is very true. Enemies only show up on one axis, and you go back and forth defeating them. This loops back to wanting to add more of a level feel to the game. I think this will increase movement and add a lot more depth.
There were quite a few things that surprised me during this playtest. I knew that I had a long way to go before finishing this game, but some of the problems reached deeper than I thought, which surprised me a little. It was also interesting to see someone completely fresh play the game. There are a few problems in the game that I had no idea existed. The biggest surprise came when my playtester expressed that there were too many character options in the game. He said that there were too many to choose from, and he ended up not using most of them during combat. This is the opposite of what I had originally planned. I loved having a lot of options to choose from, it gives you more freedom in battle. I had never thought that this could be an issue, so I am happy that I got this piece of feedback.
Another comment I received was that the attacks should feel more responsive. I think that game feel could be a really big part of this game, so I want to address this small change first. Before, I delayed attacks for balancing purposes, but this made the punches feel a lot less satisfying. I think there could also be a better visual indicator for a hit. The first task I want to implement will be to make the attacks feel more responsive by making them occur right after the keystroke, and adding enemy knockback. I believe that these simple changes could make a big difference
The second change I want to make is to add a level to the game. I want the player to have an objective besides just fighting zombies. I think this will add a lot of depth to the game, and it is something I have been meaning to add for awhile. This will be a larger level with the camera tracking the character. There will be an objective to find, and on the way you will still be attacked by zombies.
My third task directly addresses the problem I had with my previous question. My playtester felt that each character was not exciting enough. To change this, I want to revamp each character to make them more powerful. I think this change will make the game a lot more satisfying. Some examples of this would be for the Big Punch zombie to deal a lot of knockback or one hit opponents. The Spray character could create even larger clouds of poison that do even more damage. In order to balance this, I am going to make the enemies appear more often, and make the tank zombies stronger.
Playtest Setup 3:
Goals:
Is there enough going on in the game to keep the player entertained?
Do they get excited by the introduction of new characters?
Are the amount of character options overwhelming?
Instructions:
My instructions are going to be pretty barebones like the last one. This ended up giving me a lot of good feedback. Use A and D to move left and right. Use W or SPACE to jump. Left click on the mouse to perform your action. Make sure to think out loud so I know your thoughts and feelings towards the game. I will also be asking a lot of questions and trying to encourage you to talk more.
Playtest Follow-up
I think that I did a pretty good job implementing the new features into my game for this playtest. The three tasks I set for myself were to make the attacks more responsive, create a level system for my game, and to make each character more exciting and powerful. I think I achieved most of this, but there were a few minor things I left out. I modified the actions for all the characters so they are more responsive and visually prominent. I made both punches quicker and responsive, and added particles to the cook and healer in order to see their effect better. I did not add knock back yet, but I plan on adding this with a greater character overhaul later in this process. I think these changes also made the characters more interesting for my third task. I still think there is a lot more improvement in this category, but I think it is a good start. My biggest change was adding a level system to the game. I created a minimal tile set to build out a tutorial and first level to the game. I also added an endless mode that is very similar to the model of my previous version. I think this was my best change so far. It added a lot more depth and challenge to the game, and also made it more visually interesting, instead of staying in the same place the whole game.
Week 8:
This week I addressed a lot of the tasks I set for myself after the last playtest. I adjusted the character actions so it is easier to see their action, and the attacks are a lot more responsive. I also changed the character movement so now it is a lot smoother and more consistent than before. I added a new level system to the game, which adds a lot more depth and dimension to the gameplay, and also makes it easier for me to add more levels and features in the future.
The biggest change certainly was the level system. This changed my game almost completely. I am now able to add different levels that tell more of a story, but also give the player a better objective. There are more factors to consider now, so the player will need to use their characters more carefully. This will also allow me to better highlight different character abilities in different situations.
There are a lot of features that I added last week that need debugging and tuning up, so that is a big task for me. Adjusting the enemy spawn, fixing the walls, and player hitbox issues are the big three. I also want to start using some of the feedback I got from my playtester, which also relates to these three. This would include a clearer end to the level, zombie spawn issues, and clarifying character actions.