prototype
I created a prototype for my platformer 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, I also designed my level and received feedback on my prototype that will help me improve my game.
One of the strengths of my game was the level design as I created it so that all the mechanics would be utilised and placed the enemies in locations that hinder the player but are not annoying which I quite like the current design since it is fun to playthrough and based on the feedback I received others also really enjoyed my level design as I got a lot of four and 5 star feedback on my level design and people said that they enjoyed the level design and found it fun to play and another said it was quite unique. Another strength of my prototype was the the controls which work well together since I used the standard control scheme for a keyboard and mouse in my game of WASD and space to control the player character, When I received my feedback others seemed to also like the control scheme used as I received quite positive feedback since I got quite a few fours and even a five star feedback on the controls and the controls were said to be nice and simple to use and they were described as good twice. Another strength of my prototype was that there were no bugs found within my game which is good since I tried really hard to make sure there were no issues.
One of the weaknesses of my game is the mechanics which I believed would be a strength since I though my mechanics were pretty good however the feedback I received was quite mixed as I had some four and five stars but some two and threes which surprised me however after looking at the reasons it explains a lot as the two star was given as the person couldn’t wall jump out of the pit at the start which I have never had any trouble with. The rest of the feedback was quite odd as all the reasons were something similar to the wall jump is a good mechanic however the stars given varied despite the reason being the same. I found it interesting that nobody mentioned the stealth section at the end which may be because the prototype is greyboxed it isn’t clear what it is since its just a several different coloured boxed however once the artwork is implemented it will be more clear.
To improve my game I will list the controls and how the wall jump works so that there are no future issues with the usage of the wall jump since someone got stuck in the first pit. While my controls were received mostly positively I may add controller support in the future to my game so that it is more accessible. Another improvement I will make is is scaling the player, enemy and objects as since it was just a prototype the scaling isn’t perfect and so later I will scale everything to better sizes.
Graphics
After implementing my graphics and animations into my game I received some more player feedback.
My goal with my graphics was to make simplistic designs that were easily recognizable using only black, white and grey minus the one use of red on the main character to distinguish him. The graphics were designed to match the games aesthetic and theme so that they did not look out of place in the world I was creating.
After receiving feedback on my graphics I have found that one of the strengths of my game is the artwork itself as I am really happy with the way they turned out and while I am not particularly great at art I put a lot of thought into my designs so they would look good and I thinking that It shows as in comparison to my previous projects my graphics are considerably better. Upon receiving feedback it seems that players also liked the graphics as I received mostly positive feedback with the negatives only being smaller things, players also really liked the colour scheme and aesthetic I was going for which I am happy about.
After receiving feedback on my graphics I have found that one of the weaknesses of my game is the animation, as while they are ok they don’t look that that good now I’m not saying that they are bad and it is my first time animating humanoid characters however I still feel like they could have turned out better than they did and the feedback I received mirrored as it was mentioned how my animations were a bit simple. Specifically my jump animation which I found the hardest to do did not end up looking as I had imagined and while it is better than no animation is still not very good.
I improved my game by including the previous improvements listed as I added some indicators on what the player needs to do to my game so that it is less confusing, I have made sure to have a reasonable scale so things are not out of proportion to each other however I did not implement controller support as getting my graphics completed was a higher priority to me. After receiving feedback on graphics my main improvement is to make sure that next time I try to improve my animation skills so that they look better and less simple than they do currently.
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 audio that all worked well together and fit the theme of my game, Another thing I wanted to do with my audio was to make sure that the music and ambiance did not get annoying after some time has passed. I wanted to make each sound distinct from each other so that the player could more easily connect the sound to the performed action.
I have received some feedback about my sound design and so from this I can say that one of my strengths was my audio as I and Those who played my game really liked my sound design, I found that I met my goals with my audio design as each sound is distinct and fits quite well with my game which is a lot better than my previous project as my audio design was not as good as it is this time as I have learnt how to better implement audio. The feedback I received was all positive as people seemed to like my sound design especially the music and rain ambiance which people seemed to like quite a bit. No audio issues were found by players since I had fixed all known issues previously. The only negative that was mentioned was the lack of a sound after beating the level which wasn’t included as I couldn’t find anything that I thought fit my game so I did not add one.
Presentation
After implementing everything into my game I found that presentation is one of my weaknesses as while I started to improve the presentation of my game on my itch page by adding in screenshots and a logo as well as many other things to make it look better, I still could have made my presentation better as while its not terrible I could have done better than what it ended up being.
Reflective Paragraph
After having finished project 5 I feel that my progress and performance was good as I was on schedule with my work at all times during all aspects of the project and never fell behind with work I needed to do while still maintaining good quality work throughout the entire project, I was able to keep a good quality of work since I was always on schedule which allowed me to have enough time to do the work to a good standard. One thing I had issues with was creating the animations as due to my lack of experience I found creating them was quite hard and took longer than expected however I overcame this by difficulty by looking at examples of other animations to help inspire me, Another difficult I encountered was the enemies walking of the edge of the platforms which I overcame by changing the hitboxes for the enemies. Another thing I found difficult was creating the production art which because of my lack of art skills caused me to find it difficult and I ended up overcoming that difficulty by just doing the work despite how hard I found it. Next time I will try to make more of the audio myself as to better help capture what I want my game to sound like and so that my skills in making audio will improve, secondly I will also try to add more detail into my graphics as while I was going for a simplistic design I feel I could have added a little bit more detail into some of my graphics and lastly I will try to improve my animations as while my animations were better than my previous project they still require improvement as they were not particularly good in certain areas such as my jumping animation.
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