Ian's Update 11/11/20

This past Monday we did our second round of in-class play-testing for GRVTY. Unfortunately, we weren't able to make as much progress on the game as we would've liked, because we were all really busy with our other classes, but we were still able to get some really useful feedback which will hopefully be able to inform the rest of our development. At this point, we have a pretty good amount of art and sound assets implemented into the game, along with a handful of mechanics, but it's not yet fully playable from start to finish. For these play-tests, players were able to play through the first three rooms of our level and explore the large interior area.

I'll start off by talking about some of the critiques we received from play-testers. In the play-tests I watched, the biggest critiques we received were that some of the mechanics were a little clunky or hard to perform and that the game needs more guidance for the players. In terms of mechanics, a handful of players pointed out that when they used the telekinesis mechanic to pick up large objects, the object would block a large portion of their field of view. I think we should be able to fix this by simply moving picked up objects slightly further away from the player. Additionally, players found moving and jumping on top of the barrel-shaped objects in the second room to be too challenging, because the barrels would roll freely. We'll be able to address this by replacing them with cube-shaped objects. Testers also weren't really sure where they should be going or what they should be doing in most cases, which we'll need to address by adding more environmental queues to explain where they can and can't go--but that will definitely require more play-testing.

In terms of positive feedback, we got a lot of that too, which was really nice! Lots of players liked the aesthetic we were going for and thought we did a good job of constructing an environment that fits in the world we're trying to create. As we continue adding art assets to the game, we'll need to make sure we stay consistent with what we've done so far so players continue to feel that way. A lot of testers also really enjoyed the telekinetic throwing mechanic. We didn't include enough objects for testers to test the mechanic out on, but they all mentioned enjoying the mechanic, despite not having that many opportunities to use it. Finally, one play-tester said our game reminded them of Portal which I though was awesome, since it was definitely something we had in mind when designing the game.