This week we created a version of the game for Beta Testing, and lots of improvements were made from our previous version. The biggest of our changes was the addition of the enemy AI. Local enemies of the level (Knights, Hawks, etc) patrol certain areas, and then chase you when you enter their areas. Professor T chases you no matter where you are, and follows you through all of the levels.
Visual elements were also improved upon, with background images for the levels being added as well as work on the assets with coloring and texturing.
Here is the link to play the Beta version of our game:
We got lots of feedback from the Beta Playtesting. Many bugs were found in the game (as was expected), but there was also a couple of points of emphasis that was important to us to address:
- Need to add look up and down feature
- Platform height and size adjustments
- Let the player know they don't have enough food yet for the portal to open
Positive feedback that we got from things that were working well:
- Running from enemies was intense and was fun
- World exploration was interesting and enjoyable
- 45 degree camera turns are an improvement over the 90 degrees
In addition to making changes based on feedback, we also have a new level to add. The first level of the game takes place in the the robotic retro future setting (both the bunny and the Professor T are robots), and we want the 4th and final level to also take place in the same time period. Our idea is to have the end of the level be reaching Professor T's lab where the game started, so that ultimately if you win then you truly had a fun time running around at your owner's expense and ended up coming back home. This would connect the 1st and final levels, bringing the game full circle and adding more details to our retro future world.
Luc and Chance had an ideation process for this final level and sketched out what we wanted it to look like. Gio continued his work on the UX of the game. For our final playtest coming up next week we want to be able to implement all of these changes, but are quite limited on time. Throughout both our alpha and beta playtests we've heard that the camera movement needs improvement, but it has been a struggle to figure out. This is our current biggest obstacle blocking the development, and so we believe it is best to leave the camera work as is (with the addition of looking up and down) and focus on the gameplay and fun of the game. Ultimately we'd love to have free panning camera controls, but at this point it looks like it isn't going to be feasible to get done for this project.
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