Mentor Feedback

This week we met with our mentor Ben Wander with the intention of getting his feedback of the “feel” of the game and mechanics, controlling only one character. Luckily, he had no trouble playing the game. We asked input on controls, movement, and the magnetism mechanics, to make sure our base was strong. Ben had no problem with the controls and said that the movement and physics seemed fine, though other people who we have shown think that the jump is too “floaty.” Something that surprised us was that he used the magnetic burst more than the beam and was confused why any player would use the beam if they have the burst because it is stronger.

It was good to have his eyes on it because it helped us figure out what we should do next. Since we have the basic interactions coded and playable, we need to test what it feels like with two players. Ben was concerned that it would be annoying with two players, so this is a priority for us. In addition, we should create what a level would look like in order to test the two player interaction. For our next meet up with Ben, we should have actual levels and not just a playground for the player to mess around in.

He also mentioned that he could see our game becoming a speedrunner’s game, if it were one player. Though this might be fun to do, based on out initial game play goals, we want to create a slower paced, collaborative experience.

What we did

On the art side of things, Hai fixed one and create another tileset in addition to animating the characters. We also created sprites for the spikes.

In order to make creating levels easier, Willie made the magnets and other intractable objects into prefabs with descriptions and instructions for all of us to use. He also changed the camera so that it tracks between the players and made sure that two players works with two controllers. Ben integrated these objects and Hai’s tiles into Unity and created a few mock levels based on last week’s sketches, showing visually what a level could look like.

Ben and Nolan worked on preliminary menus. Nolan implemented Ben’s design for player select. This is the concept for the level select:

Nolan added some of the sounds from last week into Unity. He also contacted a fellow student who showed interest in working with us to make music for our game, but he didn’t respond.

Priorities

Based on the conversation with Ben and Matt, we know that we need to test the cooperative aspect of the game. There are concerns about how annoying it will be if the players are pushing and pulling each other all the time, so we need to see how this interaction plays out in order to make the necessary changes. In order to do this, we need a few basic, real levels. These tests will also help us hone in on the details of movement and physics.