Prototype
I created a prototype for my top down stealth game to test the mechanics and level design, since it was a prototype I didn’t create any artwork and my game is greyboxed. I also implemented my mechanics into my prototype so that I could test them to make sure they work since my focus is on my stealth system it is important that I get it right, I also designed my level and received feedback on my prototype that will help me improve my game.
One of strengths of my game was that players seemed to like my level design as one player even said “The level design is well-layed out” which I’m quite happy with since I spent quite some time planning my level so that all my mechanics were utilized and that the enemy placement hindered the player and created a fun challenge but was not too hard so that it would get annoying when you die and I’m glad to see it payed off. Another strength of my game was the core gameplay/mechanics as once again people really seemed to like it and found my game fun to play, one player said “the game has really fun stealth mechanics” and another said “I like the way the game plays” and once again I’m happy this is the case since I spent a lot of time making all my mechanics fun and interesting and making sure they all worked which leads onto another strength which is that no bugs were found which I expected since I had been play testing my own game to find and remove any issues I found, 2 bugs were reported but neither was actually a bug as one player reported about how right clicking despawned the guards which was something I implemented to test guard spawning and to make testing my game easier for myself and another player reported how 1 of the guards spawned before the others which is the knife tutorial guard so neither turned out to be an actual problem.
One of the weaknesses of my game that was brought up constantly was the lack of graphics which given that my game was only during its prototype stage is something that was expected so I believe this response is because nothing else could be thought of as a weakness. I did however have one weakness which was the control scheme as while it was alright for most people I did not take into account left handed people because with the current controls its harder for left handed people to play my game which is something that I had not thought about previously. Another weakness is how certain aspects of my game are not exactly clear such as the guards spawning after being seen by the cameras or the generator plus its purpose since the audio cues and graphics are not yet implemented.
To improve my game I will remove the dev testing features that I left in as a bit of an oversight to prevent people from cheating. Another improvement I will make is support for left handed people by either controller support or arrow key movement or possible both. Another improvement will be the addition of graphics and getting the scale of objects right since that is the next thing I am working on since my prototype is complete.
Graphics
After implementing the graphics and animations into my game I received some more player feedback. My aims with my graphics was to have a coincident style due to me not being good at art and have things be easily recognizable/distinct to the player to avoid confusion.
One of the strengths of my games graphics is the artwork as I’m really happy with how everything turned out as since I’m not great at art I tried to keep a consistent style and have managed to do that quite well, I have spent a lot of time to make sure my art was the best I could make it and tried to stick close to my final designs and used my reference images to help me. The feedback I received shows that players also liked the artwork as one player said “I like the graphics” plus another said “easy to tell the difference between each graphics” and nothing negative was mentioned about it and one player even suggested added some distinct colour to my enemies to make them stand out which is something I will try.
One of the weaknesses of my games graphics is my animations for the player and guards which I expected since I’m not very good at creating movement animations and have only done so twice, while they are better than no animation they still don’t look great, this was not mentioned in my player feedback however its something that is very clear. A few issues were found such as a part that you could get stuck at due to a guards getting stuck which will be easy fix, another bug that was found was that my player has a slight offset when doing a fast rotation however this is something I cannot fix as previously the offset was quite bad and I did my best to fix this and lastly an issue was found with my guards spawning which is something that has yet to be replicated so there’s not much I can do about that.
I made some of the improvements from my last feedback by adding arrow key controls to make my game accessible by those who are left handed, I also got all my graphics implemented however my dev testing features were still in since I was still using them but they should be gone after my sound is implemented. To improve my game I will next implement sound and fix the guard bug that was found.
Audio
After implementing audio into my game I received some additional feedback about the added audio.
My goal with my audio design was to have distinct sounds so the player could easily link a sound to an event plus have it so that that all fit together and with the theme of my game, I also wanted fitting music as its something that I find really important in stealth games so I wanted to get it right.
I received some feedback about my sound design and it seems that my sound was one of my games strengths which is good since I spent a lot of time getting the right sounds that would work with my gameplay and I really like my sound design, I found that I met my audio goals as each sound is distinct and fits well with my game. The feedback I received was all positive as people seemed to like my sound design as one player said “I like the sound for the guard deaths and the checkpoint” plus another said “I like the sound design in the game” and my music was mentioned quite a bit as being good. No issues with the audio was found and the negatives that were mentioned were how my pickup sound isn’t the best but since its not a frequent sound and it was the best I could find there’s not much I can do about it and it doesn’t really ruin my game, another thing that was mentioned was how the audio is quiet which I was expected since I balanced the audio for my pc’s volume settings and other peoples is bound to be different so there’s nothing I can really do about it.
One player reported an issue which was that without a knife the patrolling guard in the corridor is impossible to get past which is not the case as you just need to get the timing right.
Presentation
I found that presentation is one of my strengths as the presentation of my game on my itch page is a lot better than my previous projects as I added in screenshots, banner, background and a logo to make it look better, in my other projects I either didn’t do much with my itch page or just quickly put something together that didn’t look good. I also made sure my presentation in game was good by having a start screen and an end screen plus I also added a screen listing controls and some helpful information for the player.
Reflective Paragraph
After having finished my fmp I believe that my progress and performance was pretty good since I was ahead of schedule with my work at most times and never fell behind during all areas of project while still keeping a good quality of work over the duration of the project, I was able to keep a good quality of work since I was always on schedule which allowed me to have more than enough time to do the work required to a good standard. I did have some issues during the project such as making my production art due to my lack of art skills which led to me to finding it challenging but I overcame that difficulty by just getting on with the work. Another issue I had was creating the artwork since I had not done a top down perspective before it was completely new to me however after looking back over the research I did into top down games and using my reference images/production art I found it a lot easier to make my final artwork. Lastly I also had issues with implementing my music which I discussed in my production since I had never made music stay on while changing between two layouts but changing while on a different layout however after trying enough code I eventually solved the issue on my own. In the future I would try to create better animations since that is something that I’m still not great at doing for example my walking animation while it got the job done it didn’t look that good, I would also try to record my sounds myself since I found recording my guard death noise to be so easy and fun to do plus the sounds in my game will be closer to that of what I want since I’m creating it.
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