Designing MARRED #3

Hey there, nice to see you again.

My name is Jen Davalos And I'm the game designer for MARRIED.These past couple of weeks we've gotten a lot of good play test data,  so we're going to be including our normal sections into the plate test data and feedback.  after reviewing each section will be discussing any design changes that have been or will be made  from these findings. As a reminder, our three pillars of design are Shootin’, Lootin’, and Scootin’

Playtest Data

This was a great playtest for MARRED. We got a total of 24 playtest responses and a wide variety of responses.

Demographics

After reviewing a few player demographics of her playtesters, we've deduced that the most common player ever games is a male who is between 18 and 22 and plays 0 to 3 hours home games per week.  however, none of these metrics were overwhelmingly leaning in their favor.  To me, this is a good sign because that means that there is an opportunity to expand our audience further.

I understand that having your target audience is part of good game design,  but there is also married to trying to entice potential players.

Shootin’

There were a number of notes that were given by our playtesters on  what they enjoyed and did not enjoy about the guns and the shooting mechanics in MARRED. Many players noted that the SMG fired too slowly and was too weak to be useful as opposed to the nail gun. 

Other issues that we noticed  was that the shotgun pellets fired too slowly. Too slowly as in the player could run in front of their bullets and be hit by them. 

On top of this, the player has had all guns available unlocked for them in these play tests. I'm deciding that for the next playtest the player will have to unlock them in levels.  That way the player doesn't always default to the most powerful weapon (Railgun)  for every engagement. 

We can see some of these sentiments reflected on this question seen below.

Players also expressed that they found that the nail gun, which is supposed to be the equivalent of a pistol in another FPS, feels too powerful.  I agree with the sentiment, as the game is currently stuck in a place between Half-Life and Ultrakill where the pistol either does a one-hit kill or ends with an 8 hit kill.

So the Laundry list of changes that we have is…

• Reduce Nail Gun Damage
• Increase SMG damage and rate of fire
• Increase Shotgun pellet speed
• Instate individual ammo capacities 

We’ve got our work cut out for us

Lootin’

Unfortunately, we weren't able to get our looting system fully up and running for this pass play test.  We didn't include any questions about it on our feedback form,  but we did get feedback in terms of what people said on their own free will about the skeleton of the looting system.

My producer Sam and I had the pleasure of actually sitting down and watching a  few play testers play the game  and some of the direct feedback that we received was eye opening. What we found is that players were instinctively drawn to something that an enemy would drop. 

It doesn't matter if it was ammunition, help, Shields, or just a mysterious yellow Cube that didn't do anything.  We saw players do visible double-takes after they shot an enemy, look away, and look back to see what popped out of them.  These findings change one of the pillars of emphasis of the game.  we've wanted the idea of looting to be prevalent in MARRED, However I never envisioned it becoming a “looter shooter”

As for design decisions, I'll have to talk it over.  but I'd like for there to be a push to add more than the four upgrades we currently have in the game. 

Scootin’

We're still dealing with an issue that stems from unity’s physics system. A slight majority of players reported that the jumping was still to floaties for their liking

 This is a simple fix, and it just needs some tweaking. 

Other players mentioned that if they don't feel that the movement has enough impact yet or gives the player enough feedback.  to this I wholeheartedly agree.  Currently we're working on adding visual indicators that the players are sliding versus crashing as well as adding weapon and Camera bobbing to show when the player is walking or standing still. 

Bugs encountered

The largest of the bugs we encountered was parts of map geometry not functioning as well as it could have. Beyond that, our second biggest issue was players being softlocked due to incomplete levels.

Another major bug that players ran into was that the shotgun only reloaded one shell after being emptied.  We did not expect every single one of our playtesters to run into this issue. But we also didn't expect for the shotgun to be seemingly the most popular weapon. 

Playtest conclusions

The largest conclusion we have is to Make the game harder.  a majority of our playtesters Left at the game as being a 1 on a scale of 1 to 6.  that means that right now the game is way too easy 

We did not expect the aspects of looting to be as popular as it was, And that's a good thing.  As much as making a game is about wanting to see the things I've designed be put out into physical form,  it's nice to see what people enjoy about the game and if we can cater towards those experiences while still retaining the original vision of the game.  

I'm very happy with the amount of playtesters that we got;  but I know that there can always be more. I'm excited for the progress that we made since the playtest, and I’m even more excited to share them again in our upcoming playtest next week.

I'll catch you in another couple of weeks after our third round playtests, stress headaches, and a full nosedive on how we’re dealing with me drinking a Monster energy in every class See ya!

Jen Davalos 

 Game Designer