Post Mortem
|
Overall, Friendship Down turned out surprisingly as planned; the final product shipped with all intended features implemented. The final game is a 2.5D side scrolling shooter where the player is able to move, fire projectiles, and to activate a shield to block enemy shots. Additionally, the powerups of the game come in the form of allied NPCs (referred to as ”Friends”) that aid the player in defeating the incoming waves of enemies. The difficulty of the game was designed in such a way that the player would need to keep their Friends alive to reliably be able to defeat the enemy units and progress through the level. The challenge of the game, thus, was not only about defeating the enemies, but to protect one’s allies. To enhance the relevance of this challenge, enemies were made to occasionally fire homing, deadly projectiles that target the Friends specifically; this would be motivation for the player to use their provided shield to block the shot and save their Friend. We found these game mechanics, especially the homing projectile that needs to be blocked, to translate well into such dynamics that would contribute to the final goal: to evoke feelings of friendship in the player. However, some complications impeded this aesthetic from truly coming through. In fact, the mechanic of the homing bullet was not planned and implemented until mid-development, causing the game, even the final version, to have issues with properly communicating these mechanics to the player. Throughout playtesting, it became clear that few players noticed the aspect of homing bullets and the need to cover your allies. All was explained in the instruction screen, though the in-game presentation was lacking. Ideally, the game should have given off energetic visual, auditory (and by any other means possible) signals informing the player that the homing projectile is a major game event, even if it on a mechanical level is not that hazardous. In a sense, it would steer the player towards considering that their greatest impact is to protect, not kill.
I believe the reason that this aspect was ultimately lacking in implementation was because we as developers of the concept did not adequately consider the gameplay from the perspective of one unaware of the game’s desired aesthetic. In short, we may have been blinded to what was essential to communicate to the player, because we were so familiar with the concept. I believe that, ideally, we should have identified and narrowed down the core mechanics to revolve around deflecting the hazardous enemy attacks. This would likely have produced more planning on how this particular mechanic could be presented in the clearest way possible, even to one that has never heard of the game before. The greatest learning outcome of the Friendship Down project is, therefore, the weight of the pre-production phase and how this optimises playtesting potential. An early, comprehensive exploration of what specific mechanics produce dynamics that are instrumental to the aesthetic goal ensures that the very earliest prototypes of the game revolve around these. In short, had the homing projectile been identified as the central mechanic towards achieving the aesthetic goal of Friendship Down, effective communication and implementation of this feature would have been the primary target of iteration. We as a group would also have been able to more easily narrow down playtesting surveys to provide pin-point precise insights about this specific mechanic and its readability to the user. Instead, the project felt as though it lacked this form of core gameplay for a long time into production, essentially wasting a significant amount of playtesting feedback that would have been useful when purposefully iterating upon the game. In summary, the result of the game is positive in the sense that all parts of the game came together and composed a functional product delivered on time. It is, in our eyes, a complete game, with its core mechanics in place. As such it has the potential to fulfil all the aesthetic goals of friendship and comradery we envisioned but falls somewhat short in its  |