This is it

This week I did the final playtest report. I also finished up the art for the main menu and got that all put in. Made the logo have spinning souls. Malik or Corey are going to whip up a control page for the help option of the menu and then that will be done 100%. I'm mainly looking for bugs and things that need polish or tweaking at this point. Looking at a little bit of everything.

Continually Iterating on Art

This weekend I have been working on texturing our Grim Reaper model in Substance painter as well as tuning up the Main Menu art assets. I also added some textures to help make the UI not as flat and add some additional flair that it needed based on feedback. Will be continually iterating on other art assets based on criticism given and help Malik in any additional tasks we have left for the most part.

Where We Stand

Things are coming together fairly well.  The UI and aesthetic of the game is constantly evolving, based upon playtest feedback and feedback from our class.  The sounds also have undergone a fairly recent overhaul.  I personally have been trying to find and fix any bugs I can.  There is one bug that has been popping up constantly, even after we "fix it", so that is my current project.

Final Stretch

Sound effects are complete for the most part, some need minor tweaks. All there is left is the background music for the intro screen/end screen, as well as a timed mode music, will work on those throughout the week.

Final Playtest Report

We conducted the playtest with one recurring playtester, and four new playtesters. In regards to UI, it was still a bit iffy to them. There were lots of things popping up at them with each soul, so trying to keep up and interpret it at the same time was hard. As Brian said also, the +/- souls were hard to tell how much they gained/lost exactly. We had mixed results about the diegetic ui, some saying it was fine, others wishing it stood out more to them.

In terms of sound, they said it was okay, but also still lacking and not blending into the game well. Some sounds were louder or much more apparent than others. There was confusion about what style of game it was intended to be (arcade, relax, rush) because of the sound feedback.

Overall game feel went well. There was unanimous approval of the environment aesthetics and understanding of what the game was about (Grim Reaper catching souls). Several made comments about the Reaper being green from lighting, but that was the only “complaint.” A couple mentioned that they liked the options to do manual/auto and timed/endless. One said it was like a practice kind of thing where they could sit back and get a feel and try to come up with strategies (if there were any).

It seems our biggest focuses in the last stretch are going to be spent on polishing/finalizing the UI. Getting the sounds in place and bug free and hopefully meshing them into the game world better. Sound has been worked on as a priority the past week, so that is updated. And UI is constantly being switched around and tampered with to try and find a good layout that feels good and makes sense for the game and for the player.

UI

I worked a bit on UI and the overall layout of it. I did trial and error with some of the existing art. I put in the menu twice, but we ended up going with different builds. So I will have to put it in a third time.

Art and Game Feel

Further work has been done to implement more art. With the exception of the souls themselves, our art is nearing its final state.
There have also been further game feel and performance optimizations. There has been plenty of tweaking to make hitstops feel right, and the detection for catching souls has been refactored to be more efficient and consistent.
The game also now properly uses the launcher, where you can remap controls and pick between intentionally designed visual presets.

Menu Art Pass

I worked on the main menu. I edited the original art for the menu that received negative feedback in our playtests. I simplified it, and redid the button placeholders we had set up. I also added in a button for choosing endless mode or not.

Implementing Art and Balance Changes

This week, it was time to step things up and make the game a lot more complete looking.
The focus was on implementing the vast majority of the art and making the game feel better overall.
Changes were made to the various schools, to make them more deliberate in how the player would interact with them, and the hook now takes time in between hooking souls to give the player a chance to follow the action. A hit stop is also included for game feel.

Sound effects complete

Sound effects are complete, will tweak anything if needed. Mainly need the background music now, which is working in progress.

Reducing the chaos

The big focus for this week is to continue to make the game clearer in how it works, and to make interactions with the clusters of souls more interesting. I have been tweaking the spawning parameters to make there be more distinct groups with clearly ideal ways to interact with them.
Some of these will need to be redesigned, as there are often too many souls on screen, particularly Penalty (red) souls.

Particles/Colors

This week I went and played with the particle systems and color schemes we had going. I lowered the overall range of the glow the souls had since they were becoming too cluttered. I made them confined and bolder colors to represent each soul. I also went and shorted the trails of them a little and modifed the colors of them to match the souls. I did this for all the prefabs and the school groups.

Polish sounds, etc

Most of the sounds are done currently, all there left is polishing the sound effects, as well as the background music. Still debating on what to do with the BG, will come up with it in the next week or two. Tone down some sound effects that buried other sounds as suggested.

Balance Tweaks and Communication

This week the focus was making the game feel better. This meant lots of iterating variables based on feedback we received. What I did to make the game feel better:
-Souls can slalom to give a greater sense of more dynamic motion
-The soul generator spawns souls more often, but now it spawns less schools per spawn. This is to encourage players to interact with individual schools and not get overloaded with information
-Penalty Souls now penalize less than Bonus Souls reward. This is to cut down on "Anti-Fun"
-Cut mechanic in which you would hook things while reeling in. This could sometimes cause the player to instantly lose if they reeled while Penalty Souls were coming in off screen. It also was the source a good deal of bugs, so for the sake of time we've removed it


To Do:
-Hitstops on hooks and add slight delay before a hook proceeds
-Slight camera shake
-UI pass and possibly icons for soul effects