Date: 18. 5. 2022

Activity

Worked on improvement of MysteriousIsland playtesting version. Tried to incorporate feedback from both online feedback and in-person playtesting with friends. Created start of level 2.

Notes

I skipped devlog with attached playtesting game as I focused on development instead and reviewed other students’ games.

The most important points collected from the feedback I received:

1. unresponsive controls (camera controls are too sensitive, Ellen doesn’t turn around instantly)
2. jumping puzzle too difficult
3. colliders often don’t match their 3D models
4. getting lost in the game (not knowing the next goal), info posts fading out too fast
5. enemies running in place (not recognizing the walkable surface properly)

Some other points:

• disturbing sounds of the menu and enemies
• crystals on the main door are too high which makes them hard to spot
• water texture seems too unrealistic and it ruins the overall impression

I’ve addressed the following points:

1. I’ve found camera sensitivity settings under InputManager.CameraX.sensitivity and InputManager.CameraX.sensitivity (accesible through Edit -> ProjectSettings). I decreased it significantly from 0.1 to 0.01. I find it difficult to test because the behaviour differs in Unity editor and built game. Camera is still more sensitive in game’s executable than it is in the editor. I hope I managed to set up better camera sensitivity but it will remain opinionated. I might have messed up Ellen’s turning speed while trying to deal with camera sensitivity in the playtesting version. It should be ok now, Ellen turns around almost instantly to the direction camera is focused on.
2. I’ve extended moving platforms trajectories and scaled some of the rocks Ellen is supposed to jump on.
3. I’ve removed predefined BoxColliders from the prefabs I was using (platforms, walls, pillar…) and added MeshCollider instead. Some of the prefabs are quite complex, composed of many child objects. These objects are also provided as individual prefabs with MeshCollider assigned by default. But when they’re used in some other prefab, they have no collider assigned even if the corresponding Mesh exists. I didn’t know what other solution I could use so I just assigned MeshColliders individually to prefabs’ child objects. At least it updated prefabs themselves and thus all instances in the scenes.
4. I’ve focused on sphere colliders of the info zones and often scaled them to bigger size and moved them to better location. The most important one was the starting info zone which is crucial for quick game start. It informs the player that Ellen has to go to her dropship to boost her running + jumping abilities (using the plant inside). Another important one was the Grenadier info zone informing about the upcoming bossfight (it hints where Grenadier has his vulnerable spot and how many lives has). I’ve also added a few info zones to clarify the current goal. And I’ve hidden key canvas at the beginning of the level when it’s not relevant to avoid confustion. On the other hand, I’ve decided to add two more keys that are required to be found.
5. I’ve tried mulitple fixes but without any success. Chompers just keep getting stuck even on a freshly baked flat ground. I tried to set their initial position in the air to avoid spawning them too low but the issue persisted. I’ve decided to replace them with Spiiter enemies in the most problematic spots.

As for the extra feedback points, I didn’t find out what causes the disturbing sound (it must somehow be 3D Game Kit default because I didn’t edit sound effects manually except for adding one time pick up sound effect). With water texture, I didn’t know how to make it richer and more realistic using only the 3D Game Kit. It doesn’t look so flat in the example Level1 but there’s no such huge continuous water area as it is in my level. I think I would have to use prefab outside of the 3D Game Kit or reorganize the whole level to have just small water areas. I decided to keep the water area as it is. So at least I’ve moved the info crystals a bit lower to make them stand out and also added an info zone mentioning them.

Invested hours

• Development of playtesting version - 23 h
• Incorporating feedback, testing - 14 h
• Playtesting + writing feedback - 2 h

Outcome

• Uploaded playtesting build
• Uploaded progress build with incorporated feedback and level 2 start