Design Blog 6

Sprint 6 was the penultimate sprint for Stumblebumps Unite and things are getting a bit hectic. I made the call to cut achievements from the game, originally these were planned as a method to unlock cosmetics, but we won’t be moving forward with them due to time constraints. Instead, programmers will have to focus on addressing UI / UX feedback from recent playtests. Level design has hit a good flow and has continued to address feedback.  By far the most time-consuming work this sprint was getting the lighting setup, but it was worthwhile as the game now appears closer than ever to the original vision. By the end of the sprint we dialed in the list of tasks needed to complete and the expectations for each. 

UI / UX Playtest

I ran a playtest to confirm UI functionality and a seamless user experience. Was that objective achieved? Heck no! Almost every player needed help getting the game set up correctly. The most frequent issue was players skipping the lobby before all the other players were connected. After matches, the points scoreboard did not seem to have much impact. As a designer, my job is to choose elegant solutions to these problems.

Thankfully there are changes that can be made without consuming too much time. Added button icons will show the player what input can be used to progress. This should alleviate uncertainty while navigating menus. In the lobby, the continue button will change from A to START / ENTER. Previously players would press A to jump but end up skipping the lobby. I will write descriptions of each mode that will be displayed on the mode select screen. Familiarizing players with the rules of each mode should increase anticipation when the points screen shows up. Additionally, we will implement refined menu assets which will increase the overall visual appeal. Being simple tweaks or already planned, these changes will not be adding too much time to our dev cycle.

Level Design Findings

Likewise, level design has hit a good stride and the playtest on yielded tweaks rather than overhauls. Quickly I would like to run through some of the changes we are making per level. 

Moving Blocks Level

Ther primary issue was jumps being much harder than they look.  The blocks will be moved closer together. Additionally, the maximum and minimum height each block moves to will be staggered block to block, creating more time during which the current block will be higher than the next block. 

Trains

The Jenga bridges will be moved up slightly so players do not have to jump onto the train tracks.

Hotwheels

The speed of the hotwheels cars should be increased.

Lincoln Logs

Additional checkpoints should be added to each level. Furthermore, the last bumper in one of the Lincoln Log levels should be removed because players found it frustrating to jump.

Laser House

After discussing playtest results with the level designer and producer, it was decided that there should be fewer lasers but they should also be bigger. An additional checkpoint would also help some players.

Ducks

Making the ducks that move perpendicular to the player travel a shorter distance will reduce wait times without compromising the level's design.

Ice Block Run

A long conversation was had with the level designer and producer about feedback on this level. In the end we decide to make the blocks flash red before they fall to reduce frustration. Spike traps should also be added preventing players from running along the outer edge.

Lighting

As we move towards final iterations of our levels, I set up lighting and post processing that will be shared between all the designers. We will be using a mixed setup that combine baked global illumination with baked and real time shadows. The Stumblebumps bedroom is primarily lit by indirect light pouring through the windows and bouncing around the room. Leaving the indirect light strength low led to an over dark scene, while cranking indirect strength created an unnatural glow-ey look. My solution used a rectangle light across the ceiling to evenly flood the room with light. The directional light still provides bounce lighting and shadows, lending the scene a natural look. This was not the end of baked lighting issues though. 

The bedroom is unnaturally large so that the Stumblebumps appear small in relation to it. This presents a problem, since baking at that scale in Unity takes a very long time and produces noisy results. We can work around this limitation by shrinking the entire scene before baking, then scaling it back up after the bake. Doing so quickly produces clean results.

The images below are combined results of lighting setup, baking, and post processing. Following them are images from the mood board I assembled at the start of the semester. Even though that mood board was made over 3 months ago, you can see how close the final product ended up being. I am proud of the team for their dedication in bringing the game to this point.

Lighting Tutorial 

Now, the samples above are just one level. Every level will need to be set up and baked separately, but we still want to achieve consistent results. I set up as much of the lighting as I could in a prefab that will be shared across all levels. However, some steps could not be automated, so I recorded another video tutorial showing level designers how to set up and bake lighting themselves using the prefab I made.  These videos have been very successful with the team so far, so I was happy to make another one.

Conclusion

With a lighting solution and playtest results, we are dialed in for the final sprint of work on Stumblebumps Unite. There is a lot that remains to be done but, barring any surprises, the end is in sight. I believe in the team’s ability to finish our remaining tasks and put out a great game this December. This will be the end of traditional design blogs, but please stay tuned for the final postmortem after the game launches.