GDD Complementary + Playtesting & Balancing

I just realized that this is the last blog post under the tag “5SD033″ to be written mandatory, so I’ll include what I’ve done last week as well as this week’s artifact task.

Like every other group, we had to complement our game design document. Although our teacher said our GDD was one of the easier and better ones, doesn’t mean it was perfect. For instance, in our game we use two police enemies but only one protester, where the police give the player more score upon defeating them with your standard cane weapon attack. Why was it important to change that? Because otherwise a biased message would be sent to the player that “all cops are bastards” and such alike, so we changed the score ratio to be the same no matter what enemy you defeat, and also added another demonstrant enemy so that they’re equal. This was only one example, and in my group I have the outmost responsibility for the game design document so I revamped it, but I asked my group members too since everyone is involved into making this game and thereby the GDD. This was mostly done last week aside from the code part, where I bestowed the responsibility to the lead programmer and instead jumped on the playtesting this week. The reason is because I got sick (and still am otherwise I’d try some more) but also because I’ve had enough time but didn’t reach an accomplishment, and with only one week left it’s better if the lead programmer takes care of the scoring system; I’d better use my time doing something I know which is playtesting, which I do in the picture below (picture coming soon!):

There are many parameters and aspects of the game that you must try to balance: the enemy spawn, the pumpmeter, power-ups etc. The best way to achieve a good and fair game is to play it a lot and see what works and what doesn’t. For instance, if the game should promote a more aggressive playstyle then an increase of the enemy spawn might be a good idea to do, as well as making every enemy defeat affecting the pumpmeter slightly so that you can hit more enemies without worrying that the pumpmeter level will hit the top, which otherwise results in a game over (sorry for a lackluster explanation…). What I do is documenting every parameter in numbers and then writing a short comment afterwards stating how good and balanced it seems for the player, and to get accurate numbers I playtest with the same numbers a lot before changing. One thing to take into consideration is that only because it seems balanced, doesn’t mean it is interesting. You have to balance to the point where it’s both fair and interesting!

Nonetheless, next week is the final week, and the game should be finished by that Friday. Apart from the coding, I’d say I’m pleased with my efforts in the group project that are documenting and playtesting. Thank you for reading!