WEEK 5

Focus

This weeks focus was on testing the core mechanics of the game and gathering feedback from the testing session that was hosted at the end of the week. We gained very important and valuable feedback which we have already been implementing to improve our game further.

Testing Preparation

In preparation for the play test session, we pushed some major changes that made the project actually playable from start to finish. 

• Rooms could be properly cleared by reaching the gate at the end which would then send the player to the next level. 
• (fake) Loading screens added in between scene swapping to help guide the player on how to play. 
• Medium enemy interactions were implemented so panels in levels could be used to open doors that are closed (red as opposed to green)

Even with all this preparation, there were some issues that prevented the doors from being collidable in the WebGL build therefore we had to go for a scene switcher 1-6 number on keyboard method so all content could still be accessible.

Feedback

The feedback we received from the testing session on Friday was extremely valuable to us, as it highlighted some key areas that needed a lot of work. The main problem that people had with the game was that they felt there wasn't really any incentive to eliminate the enemies, and that they could just avoid them or wait until they need to switch. This came down to the player not doing enough damage to even kill one enemy before they had to switch hosts, so we've increased the damage that the player deals. This way they are able to eliminate multiple enemies in a life before they need to switch.

Adding to this we've also made it so that players have to eliminate all enemies on a level to be able to progress. This forces the player to fight all the enemies in a level, and incentivizes them to kill many of them rather than simply host swap. This fits nicely with the theme of the game being that you are freeing the colour within each of the robots.

The feedback we received that we are working on implementing is listed below. (Marked as "DONE" or "FIXED" once implemented, or crossed out for things that will take too much time to do)

• Kill box under level for the gaps the player needs to cross (DONE)
• Edge borders are need to stop player from falling off the level 
• Players should do more damage, but take less damage over time (DONE)
• Enemies not seeing the player (FIXED)
• Panels to open doors are not clear enough
• Can walk through some pillars (FIXED) 
• Virus bullet increased turning speed (DONE)
• Destructible boxes on last level cannot be destroyed
• When player dies there is no rag doll (DONE)
• Add explosions when enemies die (DONE)
• The player is hard to tell from the rest of the enemies in the scene
• Health bars overlap and the player's is not distinguishable
• The player sometimes dies very quickly, a grace period is needed (DONE)
• Outlines break when resolution changes
• performance issue on low spec pcs? 
• lower timescale when low health? 
• killed enemies left stunned so u can switch to them? 
• make it clear what enemy will be locked on? 

More Game Juice

Besides the feedback gathered from the testing session, we have added some more juice to our game by adding particle effects when the heavy character shoots, as well as when the player and enemies explode. This gives a greater visual feel and better feedback, while staying true to the games theme.

*colours weird cause compression

Game Play

As part of improving the balance of the game, it was clear that the medium enemy was problematic. When playing as the medium enemy, the high fire rate was fun but required the damage of each shot to be low. Conversely, the number of bullets on screen when playing against the medium enemy makes it near impossible to dodge all of them and distinguish between important game play elements.

To fix both of these problems, the fire rate and damage of the light enemy was turned up, but a burst fire mechanic implemented. The gap between bursts for the player is quite low, but for the enemies is significantly longer. This allows for some much needed space to dodge the enemy medium robots bullets, and makes the player feel more powerful when playing as the medium robot (their damage per second is the same, but the bullets doing more damage feels more powerful).

One key piece of feedback that was focused on was the feeling of the player that they were often being one shot. This was a problem that occasionally came up in development, but we resolved to have the number of enemies in a scene low enough that a situations that were truly unfair wouldn't occur very frequently.

In practice, these situations still came up frequently, and having only a few enemies on screen at a time was a limitation that made the game less exciting. To fix these problems, an invulnerability window of half a second was added for when the player reaches critical health for the first time(which already existed for when the player swaps to a new host). This prevents the player from ever being one shot by an enemy provided they are above the critical health threshold, and a visual effect was added to help communicate that the player has reached this threshold. The player still must make a split second decision on who to swap to, but importantly they always have such an option now.