Props, puzzles and Playtesting

Since I finished my work on the robots last week, I’ve moved on to modelling props for the environment. As you might recall, I made some cogwheel stations last week and I have now added alot more props to the list. I find it quite fun and easy to work with props, but I want a long list of things that needs to be modelled, otherwise I find that it’s easy to lose track of time. If I have a full to-do-list infront of me while I work, I’ll work more effectively and also find it more fun to see how much I will be able to create in one day.

Here follows some new screenshots from our game:

Last week we playtested our game. We let our classmates try out one of our levels and explore the puzzles. It was alot of fun watching others play our game and also very rewarding since you always notice things you had not thought about before. Most of the people I watched while playing thought that the robots were cute and fun, but since the level they tried out isn’t supposed to be the first level in the game, we had to explain to everyone what the game was about in the beginning. They also wanted more feedback and some had problems with figuring out the goals in the level.

Right now we have our sound designer, Roland, who is working on sound effects for the game. We already have some of the sounds we have not implemented sound yet. Once that is implemented I don’t think people will have the same problems with the feedback. We will also add highlights to all the interactive objects in the surrondings to make sure that the player knows what she has to work with in the puzzles.

We have also had some design discussions. Simon and I discussed the different robots and the thought of what would happen incase we decided to remove the Controller robot. Why we even started this discussion was because the Controller robot means alot of extra work since the player will be able to control it and every fusion with it. We also discussed how the player would be able to see anything while controlling the different fusions, since the player, in the current design, is placed right behind the robot. The camera would only show the back of the robot and if the player took controll over a Controller + Thrower, which is able to pick up boulders, she would never be able to see where she put down the boulder.

Once we continued this discussion we realized that we could not remove the Controller. If we would do such a thing, the whole game would have to focus on fusions with the Stationary. Since the Stationary robot is placed in a specific spot by the level designer and the player is not able to move it, this would mean that we would always have to put a Stationary exactly where the player should put a fusion. This would make out game alot easier. It might have worked as a different concept, but then we would have had to design every puzzles for those rules from the beginning. We came to the conclusion that such a big change was not possible this late in the project. We also really liked the Controller and the different fusions with it, so if we could only fix the problem with the camera while controlling robots, we really wanted to keep it.

To fix the camera problem, we decided that once the player takes controll over a robot, she will see everything through the robots eyes instead. This solves everything and makes if alot more easier to work with.

Today I have worked on some more puzzles for the next level. I try to come up with different solutions for every puzzle, but this leads to soem problems. If I make a puzzle that the player can solve by either using a Controller + Grabber fusion or a Controller + Shield fusion, I have given the player a choice to have to finish the puzzle. Then when I am about to start designing the puzzle in the next room, I have no idea which of the two different solutions the player used. Depending on what solution the player used, I don’t want to make the next puzzle into something that can be solved in the same way. So depending on how many solutions I offered the player in the previously puzzle, the less solutions I can choose from for the next room. It’s a bit tricky but alot of fun once I come up with something good. It will be interesting to playtest the different puzzles later to see which solutions are the most popular once.