Play-testing

As the method for creating our environment assets meant these assets were hard to change retrospective to future testing. I suggested to Team lead that before environmental modelling was conducted we should play test the grey box level first.

As everyone else was busy I got to work on preparing a new scene for play testing. I exported a lot of the game objects we had configured in our demo scene to prefabs, this enable us to immediately implement them into our new scene.

Megan gave me the level designs she had in mind over slack so I could configure the level as she intended it when doing the grey-box.

I also started grouping smaller assets into groups and saving these as prefabs. An example is shown below with the bean planter assets actually being a combination of several other assets. Namely the planks, and bean plants.

I imported Megan’s Grey-box and then positioned the characters And planters according to her diagram.

I also setup the dialogue so you can have the basic interaction with Meryl. But will need Megan’s help to setup the actual test dialogue if we decide it is needed for this play-test.

Initial Opinions.

There needs to be a ramp from the edge of the house to the drop-down, and back up again. As It is intuitive for the player to drop down to the lower level. If they do they are then stuck there.

The second note was that Meryl can be seen from the edge of the platform which player can easily walk through. I think it would be beneficial to drive the player to the Anemone before meeting Meryl.

When Thinking of this idea it could be fun to even implement a window in this “wall” to allow players a peek or Meryl as a reward for exploring across the bridge, while still forcing them to follow the rout we want them to take.

The final thought is that we should move the Anemone character further forward, as by the time you can see her you can also blatantly see Meryl. It makes the level very linear. I would suggest moving her to the base of the cliff under the bridge.

This Blog Will be shared with my teammates, and a separate post will be created documenting the changes we make as well as further testing results.

I also think It would be beneficial to move the beans so they are further spread out across the map. or at least not right at the beginning as currently If players do not pick them up they have to go back to the beginning of the map, which isn’t really that fun.

Here is some Gameplay of me testing.