Final Post for Solitude GX

        The Game Con was a great success! I was a little sad that we did not win one of the prizes, but was still very happy with the feedback we got from the game. A lot of the people who played the game really enjoyed it. It seemed that once someone started to play our game, they kept playing for a couple of levels. We even hand players who got to the final boss! This meant that the game was able to hold their attention and that they were enjoying playing it. Players also got to try our older games, which helped show the team’s progression over the years.

        Overall I believe the levels in our latest game have been well designed. Everyone who played it knew exactly how to traverse the levels and what the objectives are. This was desfantyl made possible with the aid of iteration and playtesting. This shows that we have defiantly grown in terms of level designing. Over the summer I might even work on adding more levels, but I’ll have to see (most of the time things come up and extra projects get delayed). Overall I am very happy how the game came out and am looking forward to a nice and relaxing summer.    

Game Complete!

        As of now our game is 100% complete. We were able to get the last component, dead-reckoning, working in our game. Currently, a lot of our assignments are also almost complete. For purposes of the post-mortem presentation, I had to go take screenshots of very old builds of our game. It was astonishing to see just how far our game has come in terms of being visual and functional. I personally have learned a lot about game design though making this game. I learned when designing the levels and puzzles, I need to give some guidance to the player to help them understand what to do. Without this, players would get lost and frustrated, something no designer wants. For example, the puzzle with the buttons, I had simply put a faded black line, thinking the players would eventually get it. Unfortunately, I was thinking as a designer, not from the player’s perspective. When the player is first introduced to the puzzle, they have no idea what the buttons do, how many there are, that they need to be pushed in a certain order, etc. I had to start thinking from the player’s perspective in order to make the puzzle simple and accessible to all who play it. By adding the bright yellow arrows as well as a darker line, one would think that I am making the puzzle way to obvious, but actually it was necessary to do so. It made it easier for the player to not only discover the order, but to figure out how the entire puzzle worked. 

         

Its come a long way.