Sprint 2

The first build! This has been an exciting, if not also exhausting, sprint to be sure. This was the first time we were bringing together all of the pieces that have been worked on together into a single, playable game that gives us something to actually test with players. It’s exciting! And also gave a lot more insights into how the game is operating and where we are at with players, let’s jump into the playtest data.

Playtest Results: Controls

Controls in the game seemed to be very well received by our playtesters, who come from a variety of backgrounds when it comes to first person shooters. This was a really important point for me as it showed that my research and decisions about the controls were mostly on point. This is also a very good sign as we didn’t even have a tutorial for the controls on the screen at all (Time constraints, it was a long night, we should’ve had them somewhere). The two biggest complaints regarding the controls were the interact key being on “F” and the melee key being on SPACE (There was no jumping). I admit that “E” did feel more natural to me as I was playtesting it but I found that Call of Duty’s control scheme had “F” as the general interact key. I figured that it being the most popular FPS on the market that it’d be the key to choose but it seems that the playtesters and I agree that “E” feels better. As for the melee, that went hand and hand with players wanting to jump, really, really badly. It’s just expected to have I suppose and I can’t disagree, a person can jump, a player wants to jump, plain and simple.

Obviously I needed to redesign the control scheme a bit, so I did research on what I could move the melee button to that would feel natural and not make the player have to go out of their way to hit the key. I checked around to other games like Valorant and Overwatch as I knew they had a lot of different ability keys they had to fit together along with a melee key. As I tried those out they weren’t bad, but didn’t feel right. I asked friends and my professor to also weigh in on keys that they thought felt natural and easy to hit and settled on the “F” key. I also changed the grenade key as well so I’ll be interested to ask this question again to playtesters and see if they agree more with this next version.

Playtest Results: Objectives

This one I really should’ve seen coming. Again, limited time and all but…. I know players don’t read. I know I don’t read, but still I put all of my instructions as text you have to read. I know the tutorial was very weak and the introduction to it was not well done so this is something I’ll be trying to work on with the next build. This will require me to lead the player through their decisions more than before, giving them the reins to play the game and guide them into learning how to play while they do it. I’m not sure I’ll be able to get it as fleshed out as I want it for this next build, but I know it’ll have to be a lot more “show” than “tell” to get players to understand the game more. Additionally, I’ll hopefully be making the tutorial in a believable way to try to keep the suspended disbelief, and keep things more interesting as the player navigates through.

Game Additions: Attachments Have Entered the Fray!

Yes! To address the ever growing need to keep all our programmers (and my producer) at bay I designed and sketched UI for an attachments system for the game! I think this could be a really fun way to allow players to tune their kits even more as they choose exactly what they want to specialize their weapon for. I think this will also help to extend the unlocks for the game so players have more to spend their in-game money on. The attachments will be small stat buffs and debuffs depending on what each one does. Additionally, because weight plays a factor in the player’s movement speed and noise, I’m toying around with the idea of letting the player choose how many extra magazines they take into the mission objective with them. This would be another question to ask and debate that doesn’t have too complex of consequences. You could max out your magazine count and run slower, or go light on ammo to run faster, and rely on your stealth capabilities more. I can’t wait to playtest it myself and see how it works out.

Design Up Next

I think for the next sprint I’ll be much more involved in the level and the tutorial. I do know I need to get more events involved around the map that shake things up for the player (Roaming hordes are in the works but that’s only one thing). I think how big the level is and how much is involved with going from one side to the other will help me feel out the pace of the game and how much tension is involved. Sounds should be coming to the game soon as well which should be awesome for adding to that immersion and I’m sure I’ll be sticking my finger in those pies as well as I’m messing with ambiance, gunshots, and zombie groans. It’s really going to start coming together as we put in more of the props that the modelers have made and I can’t be more excited for the level to really start building out and feeling like it's its own place.