Post Playtest 2
It was no glaringly clear to all of us that the game had one main issue. It was quite boring and felt a bit lifeless. The interactions felt dull meanining there was little motivation to keep playing. Joe and I felt the most strongly about this and sat down together to revise mechanics and the gameloop.
We started to draw more inspiration from resource management and colony simulators which we were aware strayed from the GDD by putting the narrative focus to the side. We thought about making the game feel more alive and dynamic by having in-game time, this would completely get rid of the end day/week buttons and keep the game moving constantly. This also meant the player could have a bit more control. However, this does give the player character less of a “human leader” role and more of a powerful overseer one. We agreed that the game world should also no longer be confined within a screen, ditching the machine UI and just zooming in on the island/cape the game is set in.

To give the resources in the game more use and importance we considered the idea of the player building up the camp over time, but that in order to do so they must interact with the family members and complete requests specific to a particular resource. This way there would still be that interactivity and narrative weaved in, albeit not at the same depth as before. It’s important to note that at this stage (week 9) our narrative designer had not been involved with the project and was not communicating, not having the narrative at the forefront meant we did not need to worry about chasing them up on it.

Joe had said this was very feasible to complete during the Easter Break and that he had it covered. I was concerned that this was way too much to do on his own over the next four weeks but he insisted that it would be fine and that he would reach out if he needed help.
In summary, we would be introduced 3 major things:
- Time control
- NPC tasks as progression drive
- Introduce camps as the player builds them
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