Designer Blog 3

Hello and welcome back to Gobby's Farm! Kaeli Becvar here to give an update on how the game is progressing, what the goal of the sprint was, what got completed and what's to come with these next few weeks! The team has completed more props, our programmers have been working endlessly to get mechanics to work, enemies to do what they need to, and our level designers have been killing it by setting the areas up to be fun and engaging to players. If you'd like to see the specifics on how the team's doing, take a look at Nolan Owen's blog post for this sprint!

The goal for the build this week was to have a more fleshed out area in the Week 1 area to see how players moved about it and go about threats present in the level. Working with my level designer for the build, we changed parts based on previous sprint responses and made the maze a little more simple and easier for players to move around. We also began solidifying how the game will look for a night time scenery within a dome in the middle of winter, making sure it was dark but able to walk around and see most things in front of the player. With this being the starting area, I did want to add some threats that were going to be in the game so players weren't wandering a maze for fun. Our programmers got the main trap and threat ready and working, allowing the bear trap and turret to be added to this build as well.  The UI was also added to engage if it was too distracting or just right for players to look at and use as reminders on what quota needs to be made. 

Most of the vegetables were also added to the garden bed to be picked up by the player and to start incorporating the models needed for players to fully understand what they were picking up. There are some parts we need to fix, such as adding the plant for the vegetables and fruits and making sure that the plants are not floating in the air. Though it is funny and makes it appear as an arcade game pick up wise, that is not what we're going for in Gobby's Farm. Working with the programmer, we got the turret to function where if the player walks in front of the view of the turret, it will follow them for a short time before firing. For now, it's a laser that follows the player but we plan on adding a VFX of a shot charging and firing at the player so they're able to dodge it. Stepping on a bear trap will result in the player dying and having the option to restart the week or exit the game.

Based on the data from the latest playtest form (seen below), out of 13 responses, 5 strongly agreed that gameplay was fun and engaging, 7 agreed and there was one who disagreed. Watching the players run through the world, lots of people enjoyed the feeling of the game and how the character Gobby ran with his little block hands. One thing that I observed and brought up by players is needing some sort of screen to know what Gobby is fully capable of and what actions he can perform. Though I am still gathering everything needed for Gobby so he has a voice, having a small page that shows controls would be phenomenal and help players know the full extent of what they can do.  One thing in the responses was that the world was a tad bit dark, making players disoriented when trying to find their way around or remember where they came from. Some suggested different bushes to offset the similarities, brightening the world and even turning down the fog to make it easy to see into the distance for some areas.

Overall, player's understood the goal for the game and what they must do but some player's could not make their way back through the maze to Gobby's home. But so far, 10 were able to complete what they needed to do while 3 were not sure what they were supposed to do. I feel as though it can be rectified easily with an opening cutscene explaining who the player is, what they need to do, and how each week will progress the story then explain the dangers to come. Once that is added, that will help players know what they're doing, what to look for and creating a connection with Gobby as well.

Majority of people were killed by the threats laid out, turrets claiming 10 lives while bear traps got 9. While watching, something I saw happen a lot was players would see a turret at the end of certain halls in the maze and either charge past it to see if they could get by before it fired or if there was another way around the maze to avoid it. A lot of players did problem solving on the spot, which was great to see. But with bear traps. players either didn't see them or would try to jump over them and not jump high enough, landing on the trap and dying immediately. One way to change it is to possibly increase how far the player would jump when walking so they're not landing on the trap all the time. Players were also confused with the laser that followed them with the turret, thinking it was a death beam killing them slowly. When VFX is added, this issue should be fixed and decreasing the laser thickness will help too. The range needs to be fixed as well, it may be too far but more testing is necessary. 

There were bugs found as well, such as being able to duplicate points by throwing and picking up produce repeatedly, camera clips through the walls, on death screen if you spam escape key you can keep playing after dying. There are a few more as well but so far, we had a successful first build and know what needs to changed and fixed to make Gobby's Farm even more fun! I'm proud of my team for how far we've gotten but with this next build, I want it to be big and almost fully functional so we can add more features to the game itself.