Week 5
Using assets to create a simple obstacle course where the player would be required to use abilities to get through.
Building the puzzle for the prototype
Creating the first movable object in game, when using the gravity ability the player should be able to jump on the car to the next platform once mid air.
(Giving the car a box collider and rigid body to allow the player to get on the back of it).
Testing the movement and tweaking the jump through creating a constant velocity of the jump, preventing the player being able to levitate and improving the player movement to feel more fluid.
When testing the player character’s jump wasn’t high enough to make it to the car platform, which led me to increase the jump speed and add a constant velocity to stop the player from glitch jumping. Learning basic coding skills and asking Ross for help. Furthermore, adding movement improvements to the player, changing the speed and Camera Follow Asset
Preparing for the play-test, improving the gravity ability and finalising the prototype-level
Sprint 4
Needing to make a usable prototype through designing a level prototype which would showcase the gravity ability and the interaction the player has with it’s props.
Steps I need to take:
Level blocking the concept of the puzzle and what the player would need to do to solve it, place objects around the map.
Week 6
Guest lecture American Juan VR in games and game managing VR
- Who are the game’s intended audience? Accessibility options for easier instruction of where to go and what to use everyone hopefully remote support
- The storage of the Metaquest is low almost like a mobile device
- To make the game E for everyone, the game should not portray drug references, blood skeletons.
Limitations you could encounter in a small scale project:
- Small team only six people working on this project and having to work on every little bit even needing time to hone new skills and software.
- Aimed for a niche market but ended up being the biggest success the studio had.
Possible solutions
- Start small
- Stay open-minded
- Take inspiration from anywhere, even (especially?) from non-video game sources
- Find the solution that works for you
- Hone your skills
- Take pride in your craft
- Have fun
Leaning Abelton
My draft piece for Kinetic Panic
Inspirations from the playlist Parker made in his GDD, and Empire of The Sun music.
‘Empire of The Sun’: ‘Country’
And ‘M83’: ‘Wait’
Their melodic sound and instrument choices resemble that of Parker’s playlist however I found them less distracting and more calming which would allow them to ‘vanish’ with the gameplay only being for the background music.
Note from Future: ‘Ended up only using Esi’s piece due to for the game due to complications integrating it’.
Using inspirations to see how player interacts with the environment
After discussing with my team and reviewing the feedback from the play testing session, I set up to create a tutorial. I looked at Portal 2, the start tutorial teaching the player through baby steps and acting like they never played a video game before. Then soon out to give the player space to experiment:
Decided the player would need indications of where to go, through a cone / flag of where the nearest checkpoint is.
The players believed more roads and fun swirls are essential for the game less of a ‘pause and think gameplay’ more fluidity.
Researching Environment and mechanics in Marble Marcher and Marble Blast
After Playing the games
The movement camera and character of the ball resembles that of ours with levels being a wide world open world like feel, the clock at the top puts pressure on the player to find the hole with a good time rather than explore and adds replay-ability value.
The character would move like a marble needing acceleration to get through obstacles.
How can I implement it in my game? Through creating different elevation points in my game, maybe needing velocity to get somewhere or the quicker you go the higher speed you could reach. Talk with Sam what could be possible to make
Different gravity in Marble Blast Ultra:
Arrow convey the different use of gravity rotating the level around, relatively simple locations to go, through narrow ish levels, roads are fun
Sprint 5
Grey-boxing a level prototype:
Experimented around a grey-boxing scene to hopefully get an insight of how to create a better puzzle level. The above picture shows a simple short obstacle course I made just thinking how the character ability could interact with the blocks above the orange sphere and to test out what additional mechanics the player might need to complete puzzles more fluidly.
Presentation
Things I covered in the presentation,
My role as a level designer, what I have done and what I plan to do, with the playtesting session.
The presentation covered a lot of the player feedback, which were asked with more wanting fluidity in the movement which led to pick the idea to include roads in the game, like in Sonic and skate games where your character would need velocity and momentum to reach certain places and having to race against the timer at the top like in Marble Blast Ultra.
Presentation Link below: