Devlog 6 - Week 13: Testing

Implementation via user feedback

The checkpoint for this week included gathering feedback, fixing bugs, and polishing the game according to the feedback.

As mentioned in Devlog 5, much constructive feedback was gained. My feedback form highlighted many of my concerns surrounding the game, such as the attack fluidity, attack timing, and general appearance - a lot of which turned out to be misplaced. Here is a list of feedback I had gained, and what was done to improve upon such elements.

Attack indicators: many testers noted that there was a lack of indication that attacks successfully hit; other than the zombies exploding upon death, there was no visual clues as to whether a zombie's health was depleting. To accommodate, I added further visual elements in the form of damage particles for the zombies (to emulate blood splatter), which could be added via a game object variable in their zombie health script. I attempted to implement a circular radius to the player to indicate the attack range whenever the player pressed the attack button, but attempts fell short - I wasn't able to disable the visual radius once it had appeared (i.e. via couroutines).

Newly-implemented attack indication, in the form of blood particle effects. So. Many. Particles.

Graphics & colour balance: testers noted that the graphics were pleasing; most were satisfied with the overall purple colour scheme of the level I had showcased during my testing session - which was most surprising. To alleviate my own concerns of its overwhelming cool-colouredness, I painted more yellow flower tiles, and also created a fluttering, yellow 'firefly' particle system, which I added to several spots on the map. While a majority were satisfied with the graphics, there were some who suggested further colour variety and props - these elements were expanded upon by adding a day-time scene, with a grassy, stony setting, and instruments propped around the arena to indicate that there was a band playing here. This scene acts as the starting level, from which the night scene can only be accessed upon defeating all spawned zombies. One of the guitars I drew is directly inspired by Devin Townsend's Stormbender guitar (though it may be hard to tell; pixel art can lack detail!). Furthermore, the green and brown tiles were achieved by applying gradient mapping to Cainos' tilemap sets. I also added walls to both the day and night levels, giving greater indication of the map boundaries.

Some testers mentioned that the attack animation should play for longer/in spite of player movement, but I was not able to set this up correctly. One approach I took was to restrict player movement while the "attacking" boolean was true (via the player movement script), but this seemed unsuccessful.

The implemented daytime level, with remnants of a band. The purple UI complements this level.

Remapping keys: a recurring concern of players was having the [F] key as the attack button - for most, this was an uncomfortable position, forcing most testers to moving their left hand away from the WASD keys for movement. To reduce discomfort, I took testers' suggestions and moved the attack key to the right side of the keyboard, onto [L], creating more ease of controls. Unrelated to attacks, but I was clueless to the fact that I had already implemented a player dash (as taken from the KIT109) - this was discovered by testers playing with the [Spacebar]. To clarify the button mapping further, I implemented a simple controls scene, which can be accessed via the main menu. This simply displays the control scheme, as used with keyboard and mouse.

The controls menu scene, displaying the control scheme, a 'back to menu' button, and a simply animation.

Enemy balance: most feedback mentioned that the zombies were cute and goofy, but the mint-coloured zombies were overwhelming due to their speed. This was easily adjusted via the zombie speed variable in their movement script. However, as I wanted to maintain the challenging gameplay, I created a new zombie that was faster, but also less likely to spawn. This pink zombie would also drop a heart pickup, in case the player needed to heal. Furthermore, the overall mass of zombies was lowered so that the player was not easily pushed into obstacles.

The newly-implemented pink zombie, with the highest speed. They give emit pink blood particles when attacked, and heart particles when killed. An NPC runs around aimlessly.

Alternative Approaches

• Attack range/hit indication: as aforementioned, a circular radius added to the player could be used to indicate the attack range of the guitar. I attempted to implement this by having a circular game objected childed to the player, which would only appear if the player executes an attack. Unfortunately, I was unable to implement this successfully, though it still stands as a valid approach.
• Custom control scheme: instead of hard-coding attack or movement keys into the player scripts, it could be possible to allow players to choose their own control scheme. This could be done by creating an input manager script that listens for user input and maps the user's chosen keys to in-game actions.