Level 2 Boss Enemy Poop - UQdeco2800/2022-studio-2 GitHub Wiki
Overview
This enemy is the boss enemy in the game on level 2.
Final design
Basic design
Walking animation
Attacking animation
Casting animation
Pre-Design Testing
We conducted surveys to discover what potential players thought the boss should look like before building the boss poop enemy. This information would give us a design direction for the boss poop enemy, and we could use it to develop a suitable boss enemy for this game.
Analysis
From the survey, we can get the boss poop enemy needs to portray these characteristics:
- Giant: make it look bigger than the basic poop enemy and boss like
- Scarier: so that enemies with an enhanced appearance compared to the basic enemy
- Grosser: Enhanced dirty theme compared to the basic enemy
Design Inspiration
Based on these requirements, we have conducted some discussions and investigations. We chose to go ahead with the idea that the story team gave us, which is with tentacles, which makes the whole enemy look more aggressive than the basic poop enemy.
In order to make the boss poop enemy look more intimidating, we decided to start with the expressions. We looked at other angry faces; the furrowed eyebrows, angry eyes and clenched teeth were very representative, so we decided to give the boss enemy this expression to make it look scarier.
To make the boss poop enemy looks grosser, we looked at a number of characters and found that they were all predominantly green. So, we decided to use green as the main colour for the boss enemy.
Phase 1: Sketching
Phase 2: User Testing & Analysis
User Testing for the first sketch of the boss enemy
How do you think the boss enemy looks compared to the basic enemy, and what needs to be changed?
Analysis of the first sketch of the boss enemy
The feedback received pointed out that the black tentacles looked a bit monotonous, the bright green didn't quite fit the boss enemy setting, and the elements on the body didn't quite match the basic enemy.
With the feedback we received, our plan is
- Draw the tentacles in two colours for a richer look
- Change the body to a darker green, more in line with the poop enemy
- Try to make the body look connected to the basic enemy in two colours.
Phase 3: Boss poop enemy drawing
I used dark green and cyan for the pixel drawing to make the tentacle. The colours of its body have been changed to light and dark green to make it looks more consistent with the basic poop enemy. The expression was kept the same as before, using red to fill it in.
Phase 4: User Testing Boss Poop drawing
Do you think this poop Enemy is what you think a boss Enemy would look like? And why?
Analysis
From the looks of the boss poop enemy, we wanted to know if it fits the boss enemy that people thought. The answers given by the users tell us that it fits, so we continue to use this design.
Phase 5: Walking animation
Similar to the basic poop enemy, we have continued with its walking form. The difference is that we decided to make the tentacles move while walking to give this boss poop enemy a more vivid look.
Phase 6 attacking animation
Inspiration
Pre-Design
What weapon would you like to see in the boss poop enemy attacking animation?
- the plunger was universally suggested for the weapon
- strong suggestions that the weapon has to have a thematic connection with the actual enemy and the plunger achieves that
What attacking motion would you like to see in the boss poop enemy attacking animation?
- Throwing the weapon itself at the player is a suggested motion
- Using the weapon as a shooting mechanism is also a suggestion
- These attacking motions suggest that they want the motion to be strongly connected with the usability of the weapon
Analysis
The weapon selected was the plunger as it was heavily suggested by users and fit the criteria of the poop/dirty theme. The attacking motion had to match and act in a supplementary nature to the enemy and their weapon and therefore the attacking motion of shooting from the plunger was chosen as it enables the "poop" projectiles to be dispatched while thematically matching the enemy story.
Post-Design
What are your thoughts on the current boss enemy poop attacking animation?
- Unanimously most people like the outcome of the animation
- Appreciate how it fits the enemy and the weapon chosen
What do you think can be improved for the boss enemy poop attacking animation?
- Would like to see more convoluted steps in the attacking animation
- Would like to see a more organic way of reloading the enemy attacking
- Would like to reload the poop from the actual enemy itself
Analysis
The attacking animation fits the user vision for the enemy poop boss but they recommend an animation which spans more frames and has more functionality in terms of its reloading & shooting. This feedback was used to scale from 4 frames to 10 frames and translated into the action where the enemy absorbs poop from its own body using the plunger and then projectile shoots it at the player. This end result provides a more complex animation while sticking to the stronger theme story of the boss poop enemy.
Phase 7: Future direction
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Since the users really enjoy this design, we will keep it. But in the future, we will user test the animations of the Mega Poop and see if the users like those or if any changes need to be made. This will be done via a survey.
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Another method to test the enemy will be actual game play user testing with potential users in the game instead of plain feedback on the gifs out of context. This will allow us to gain actual feedback on the gameplay interaction and more specific changes that can be recorded for the boss poop enemy. Ideally this method helps us identify how to improve:
- Animation speed
- Projectile speed
- Gameplay assimilation
Moves
Single Projectile Attack
Originally, we thought the Mega Boss would be similar to the basic poops and throw single projectile poops at the player. But we then did some user testing. The results are shown below: The user testing indicates that people believe multiple poop projectiles would be more fitting, and they also believe the projectiles should be special by also leaving areas covered in poop.
Unfortunately in Sprint 3, due to time constraints we were unable to adapt the attacks to match the feedback given by the user tests. But in Sprint 4, we plan to completely implement these new multi-poop projectiles that leave areas covered in poop.
Then after implementation we can do another round of user testing to gain further feedback on these moves, and how they look when they are implemented.
Transport Skill
In order to increase the hit rate of flying props and the fun of the game, we also designed a new moving skill for the boss-- Transporting to the player nearby aka "TP" in MOBA games.
We are inspired by the character Shen in the League of Legends, his skill "Stand United".
User Testing Responses
Sprint 4
In this sprint, we implemented the multi-poop projectile move based on user testing from last sprint. The user testing is shown here:
We implemented this by modifying the shoot method in ProjectileTask.java as shown here:
public void shoot(String projectileType) {
if (projectileType == "poopSludge") {
projectile = createPoopsSludge(owner.getEntity(), target);
}
if (projectileType == "discus") {
projectile = createDiscus(owner.getEntity(), target);
}
if (projectile != null) {
if (owner.getEntity().checkEntityType(EntityTypes.MEGAPOOP)) {
Entity projectile = createPoopsSludge(owner.getEntity(), target);
ServiceLocator.getEntityService().register(projectile);
projectile.setPosition(owner.getEntity().getPosition().x - 0.5f, owner.getEntity().getPosition().y - 0.5f);
Entity projectile2 = createPoopsSludge(owner.getEntity(), target);
ServiceLocator.getEntityService().register(projectile2);
projectile2.setPosition(owner.getEntity().getPosition().x + 0.5f, owner.getEntity().getPosition().y + 0.5f);
} else if (projectile != null) {
ServiceLocator.getEntityService().register(projectile);
projectile.setPosition(owner.getEntity().getPosition().x, owner.getEntity().getPosition().y);
setTask(taskWait);
}
setTask(taskWait);
}
This allowed the Mega Poop to spawn multiple projectiles, thereby creating a better and more enjoyable user experience that conforms to what they wanted in the game.
Future Testing Plan
In the future we plan to do further testing on the Mega Poop and its move set. This testing will be play testing in order to determine whether the users enjoy fighting against the Mega Poop and if the Mega Poop provides enough challenge for the players. In order to test the challenge level, we will have 3 groups of 5 people each (as per the rule of 5). Since we want to determine the enjoyment and challenge for the players, these groups will be varied by player skill level. For example, group 1 will be full of people who have played a lot of RPGs and consider themselves skilled at fighting enemies in RPGs. Group 2 will be full of people who have not played a lot of RPGs or any, and consider themselves unskilled at fighting enemies in RPGs. Group 3 will be full of people who have played some RPGs, and consider themselves average at fighting enemies in RPGs. This will allow us to get a good understanding of how different players view the difficulty of the Mega Poop boss fight.
For this test, it will start in the boss room with Mega Poop as we don't want to waste the players time getting to the room as it is not relevant for this test. We will get the players to fight Mega Poop. Afterwards, we will interview them with questions like: "Did you enjoy the fight against the boss, Mega Poop?", "Was the fight too hard or too easy or just the right difficulty?", "What changes would you make to the fight, to make it a better and more suitable difficulty?", "Do you have any suggestions for moves that you feel the boss should have to make the difficulty more suitable?"
The answers to these questions will allow us to further improve the boss to make it an engaging and fun experience for all players to fight against.