I created my own re themed version of pong, which was space themed, I was also tasked with adding more mechanics to the game that would link back to the games theme so that they did not seem out of place or random/forced,I also needed to add new sounds to the game that once again would fit the theme of the game.The new mechanics I went with were health to replace the scoring system as the barriers were spaceships that the ball would damage,moving obstacles to add a challenge for the player and interrupt the balls path,spawning obstacles once again to add challenge as well as interrupt the ball path and spawning fake balls to try to trick and confuse the player to make it so they have to focus or else they may lose track of the real ball due to all the moving objects on screen.
The weaknesses of my game were that while overall the graphics were good some of them could have been better and more refined than they were for the final product and similar the choice of sound was good however also could have been better.Due to this I would improve the graphics and some of the sound,I would improve my graphics by spending more time creating them and by creating more production art as i only made 2 or 3 pieces for each asset so when it came to creating a proper version of graphic i had a quite limited supply production art to help me make it.To improve the sound I would once again spend more time on it so that it is better quality,the best piece of sound in my opinion and that was mentioned in the feedback was the music which is what I spent the most time looking for however not all my sound would need to be improved as some such as the previously mentioned music as well as the score and shield hit sounds are good and do not need improving where as others such as the comet bouncing and paddle moving sound could have been better,the comet bouncing effect could get annoying after a while so i would find a sound less annoying or make it quieter and for the paddle moving i would make it quieter.
The strengths of my game were the new mechanics that were well received in my feedback with around a 4 star average review,I believe that the reasons this was liked by players is because they all fit the space theme of my game and were quite fun as it caused a lot of chaos to be on screen because of all the object moving about and the sound which meant it was very chaotic like i had intended, this made the game an enjoyable challenge.Another strength was some of my sound design which people enjoyed such as the games music which was well received,I think this was due to it fitting the game very well and another part of the sound that was well received was the sfx for when something hits a paddle that was also liked by players.Another strength was the no one found any bugs within the game because i fixed all of them after i found them in testing.Lastly the games space theme was well received with a 4 star average and some 5 stars being given,I believe this is because the theme allowed me to have a lot of options on what to do with the game and so due to these increased options I could make better decisions for other aspects such as graphics and new mechanics.
For my next project their is a lot I will do differently because of the way this game was received and my increased knowledge of construct for example,one thing I will do differently is spend more time on my graphics by practicing my art skills in and outside of the project so that all my art will look better and less basic than they currently do,I will spend more time on the production art so that in turn my main graphics will have more things for me to base them of so that they look better next time.Another thing I will change is that because of my increased knowledge of coding in construct I will try to add more advanced mechanics into the game so that it would be more fun as while my current mechanics were good and functioned as intended they were very simple.Lastly I would improve my sound as while it most of it was good I could have done better as well as that some of it wasn’t good and needed improvement,Overall next project I will not make as many mistakes in my design choices as I have this project due to me learning from this experience.
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