Sprint 4

This sprint was interesting, not just because a number of interesting things were added to the game but because we got some experienced eyes on our project in the form of our professors! They were able to give us some valuable insight into what we should be focusing on for the final legs of our journey with this game and what they saw as design flaws and such. As with each sprint we also had a playtest done but this one went a little sideways from previous ones, so lets just start with that.

Playtest Results: Zombies OP

There’s a story that these two pairings of stats show and there’s a story they don’t tell. The first story they tell is that the zombies are at the point where they feel a little too oppressive and thus stopped every respondent from winning. The story they don’t tell that I got to see with my own eyes, is how not one player lasted even 5 minutes into the game before dying. This combined with no mechanics in place yet to restart the scene made for incredibly short playtests that basically shot most of this playtest data in the foot.

Something happened with our zombie detection where zombies were flooding out from buildings that didn’t even have line of sight of the player. This resulted in zombies surrounding the player right off the bat before they could do anything about it. What makes this even worse was that we don’t have a good indication of when the player is on low health, no way to regenerate health, and no sound or visual cues for when they’re getting attacked by a zombie. All these factors together created this unstoppable monster that was our game and killed everyone who tried it. One bit of information we were able to obtain was that the zombies were much scarier now that they had animations and actually ran + attacked you but even that would me more true when zombies are surrounding and hurting you so quickly.

All this is a bit of a disappointment for sure, but it’s not all lost. We did find an upper limit for difficulty of zombies vs how much ammunition the player is given at the start which was something we didn’t have any metric on before because the zombies were incredibly easy to kill before. This silver lining won’t last too long as player abilities will be adjusted along with zombie stats and behaviors but it’s a jumping off point at least.

Gameplay Action or Stealth?

One of the very first questions our professors both had was is this an action game or is it a stealth game? I always had in mind that the game would primarily revolve around stealth but I realized that there was nothing really telling the player that. Moreover, there were actually more things telling the player the opposite. One good point that was made was that we gave the player a big, booming M4 equipped at the start of the game instead of the stealthy silenced pistol. 

There are a lot of little sound cues, voice overs, or UI elements that we could use to enhance more of the stealth portion of the game, but I think what’s hurting it the most right now is that there’s no way to interact with the zombies in a stealthy way. There’s no equipment or actions the player can take to distract a zombie, stealth kill a zombie, or even sneak past at this point. If there’s no way to act stealthy with a zombie, what's the point of acting stealthy at all? They’re the only obstacle! So I think that behavior is something that will have to be addressed quickly in the next coming sprints. I think zombie behavior along with adding things like stealth kills and more UI overlay and sound cues would make being stealth feel like a fun option and push more of that stealth gameplay.

What Am I Doing?

Another thing I felt very strongly about while watching my playtesters was the complete lack of easing or a tutorial area for the game. Players are dropped into the middle of the street with no mention of what they’re doing, where they’re going, or why. It’s incredibly jarring and is really like throwing them into the deep end of the pool and expecting them to swim laps. We still have a tutorial zone in mind where the player would be making their way down a building with a series of skill gates mixed in with some light exposition to get them on their feet with how the game is supposed to go and why they’re doing what they’re doing. I’m confident I can create this building that would draw the player to the correct locations, get them to do the actions they need to and allow it to flow into the streets below, but I don’t know if I’d be able to articulate it to our level designer. A lot of my process right now revolves around being in the physical space and mapping out what needs to go where, seeing where my eyes land, what way I’m facing once I finish something, things that are impossible to articulate effectively without having the space made to begin with. I’m sure that could be a weakness of mine as a junior designer but I just can’t imagine trying to explain that to someone, let alone writing it down on a doc to explain, so I’ll probably head up building that space myself.