Sam Iteration II - miwamiwa/CART315GroupPrototypes GitHub Wiki

Iteration II: BallTower V3 Melissa and Samuel

Description:

In this iteration of Balltower craze a number of fixes and small changes were made to better the game. Changes:

  • player can now stand temporarily on top of balls. Many playtesters jumped alot early in the game to get a better view of the play area, and one mentionned standing on balls as something that they have liked doing.
  • Tried issues with the overload of sounds playing. Seemed like the executable build worked a bit better but turns out was unsuccessful in improving the WEBGL build performance.
  • Added a menu screen so the player can read instructions before being thrown into the game. Also extended the time during which the controls are displayed when the game starts. Some playtesters said they learned to use the controls gradually as the difficulty increased, which is great, but others expressed having missed certain things in the beginning.
  • Floors now counter up to level 40, and floor count is now part of the UI since the numbers on the wall become increasingly difficult to see.
  • Arrow crate spawns increase gradually as levels increase.
  • More ergonomic key inputs :)
  • Changed fonts and some colors
  • Tweaked the rate at which balls appear and disappear

Design questions to be answered by the prototype:

Some of the playtest questions are more or less as the same as for the last prtototype, since we want to see if we made any progress in adjusting the difficulty, as well as the playability of the game. The goal for these questions would be to find changes that could be made in the instructions and presentation of the game in order for the player to enjoy it to the fullest extent.

Questions for playtesters:

BallTower v3 Playtest Questions

Did having the buttons on WASD, SPACE, O, and P make sense to you? (Was it easy to control)?

Did you use your whistle and "power move"?

Did you jump on top of balls to get a better view?

Do you feel overpowered by the environment or do you think your tools are fit to overcome it?

The number of arrow crates increase each level. How do you think that impacts the difficulty? in later levels?

How far did you go? Wanna go further? What's something that would make you want to beat your best score?

Did you find it useful to have a reminder of your moveset in the first few seconds of the game? Does it feel redundant?

Any notable glitches?

FEEDBACK

  • controls were generally better understood and key controls got better feedback this time.
  • power move seems a bit underpowered by the end of the game - perhaps that could be something that the user gets to power up over the course of the game. The jumping on top of the balls seems intuitive and useful.
  • performance/sound becomes an issue at some point for all testers
  • testers respond positively to wanting to play on but point to the absence of a kill mechanic or reward
  • players still prefer using a few select moves, as any of them can be used to reach their goal. Though it's more to test and adapt, it's nice that different players find their own preferred behaviour.
  • the unending increase of objects comes as a nice surprise after an easy going start.