2011 Spring Semester Playtest Session 8

This level no longer exists in the game

This is the playtest session that basically forced me to create a new level. I was sick of seeing people get destroyed by my level because of my lack of attention to detail. Keep in mind that the level that I'm speaking of was a fairly old level and I've learned quite a bit since then. Anyway, I created the new level and it can be seen in the Gold milestone video on the Nitronic Rush project page, or on the Welcome page. I am happy to mention that all the testers were able to get through all the levels regardless of the horrible level. In my view this shows how good our controls are at this point in development. Even though the controls are fairly good, they are still touchy for some players. We still need to get sensitivity settings into the game. We also need to get in the ability to have different control schemes as there are already two plausible control schemes that work very well for our game. One is where the trick system is activated through the left bumper and then tricks are made using the left-joystick, and the other control scheme is that the right-joystick handles tricks. Both systems are good, but testers enjoyed the right-joystick setup more.

The camera is looking at the side of car which needs to change

Something that still and more than likely always will need work is the camera system. We need to get the camera to not go to a side-ways view of the car when it is backing up. The camera needs to be more like Forza or pretty much any car game that allows the player to go backwards. The camera needs to flip to facing the from of the car when it starts going backwards, simple as that. As I watched playtesters I also noticed that a few were getting turned around in the level which means we need more indication that the player is going in the wrong direction. More than likely this will be done through a wrong-way wall that would pop-up when the player goes in the wrong direction for a period of time. Playtesters were also wanting to be able to destroy stuff in the world. This could be done in many ways and the team has spoken of it before and were interested in possibly implementing destructible stuff in the summer. Some of the ideas that came up were bashing through barriers and blowing up towers and such with missiles that are fire and forget as this gets rid of the issue of aiming. The game also needs tips for the player when they are having trouble doing particular actions in the game. Basically, this is for reversing the car, flipping the car over (though this may be automated later on) and even boosting over jumps. This will greatly increase the playability of our game. Not to say that not too many people can play our game, but only that doing these tips will allow more people to play it effectively. That is about it when it comes to this playtest session, all the other problems are minor or have already been changed by the team and I. Thanks for reading!

2011 Spring Semester Playtest Session 7

The camera does not lock-on to the back of the car

There are still issues with the camera. Testers are still bothered by the fact that the camera does not stay behind the car. This was mainly done to not make the car snap to looking in front of the car when it is going in reverse but it is probably something we will have to revisit. In switching the camera to act in this way, we can possibly playtest having the right joystick be used for doing tricks rather than camera control. Other than camera issues, testers were having trouble with remembering the car's control scheme. Basically to mitigate this the game needs to give feedback to the player when they need to do something, such as popping up a tip when the player needs to back-up or when they need to boost to get over a jump. These are little things that can make a player's experience more enjoyable as the tips are helping the player learn the control scheme. Some testers mentioned that the tricks were hard to pull off. This is true as there is not a system in place that helps the player complete a trick. This system is needed to make the trick system feel right to the player. The physics programmer knows about this system and will work on it, but to make this system we need some other technology to be created to make it work. Basically a line that follows the track. This is so at any point in time we know where the track is. This will help with setting up a lot of other systems as well, such as an arrow system that points to the track when the player is flying.

Failed tricks happen more often than not in Nitronic Rush

Testers also mentioned that the announcer should be more predictable, or at least make more sense. Right now the announcer will basically say random things when the player completes a trick and when they crash. Player's wanted the announcers sayings to match what is happening on the screen. So if the player were to crash into a wall the announcer may say "Stonewalled" or something along those lines. That is about it for tester feedback, but I also noticed some issues with the game that testers did not mention. One of the biggest issues that I noticed is that the heat meter just gets in the way of the fun in our game. To mitigate this issue the heat meter is going to switch to being a heat more akin to the plasma gun in Halo. Basically, this means that the car will not blow up when the player reaches a full heat meter; the car will just not be able to boost until the heat meter is fully cooled off. I also noticed that testers were not using the trick system at all. This may be due to the unintuitive controls so for the next playtest I will be changing the trick controls to the right joystick. That is everything that came of this playtest and I hope to continue doing these playtests into the summer. Thanks for reading.

2011 Spring Semester Playtest Session 6

You have to hold down a button and flick a joystick to flip the car over, would you know that without a tutorial?

From this playtest we received a resounding need for a tutorial. So we've created one and will be testing it today actually. Now the tutorial was not created specifically because of the playtesting incident; we have known that the game has been screaming for a tutorial for quite some time now. We just haven't had time to do it until after our Beta milestone. So one of our goals for our Gold milestone is to have the tutorial for the game and to update our menus. That is it unless we find time to do other stuff like updating the HUD or getting the trick system fully integrated into the game experience. Even though we're not looking to do more than what was mentioned above I can still think of things that need to change and the team can work on them over the summer as our game is going beyond our junior semester. Some things that I noticed during playtesting is that we still need sensitivity settings for the car controls, this goes for flying and ground controls. Some players seem fine with the controls while others are having trouble keeping the car straight. This is more for flying than the ground controls though. The obstacles in the level that testers were in also seemed a bit tight for them. They didn't have enough time to react before they crashed into the barrier or whatever they were crashing into. To mitigate this I'm beginning to test levels by counting to a second or two before I react to give a sense of a player not knowing what is going to happen next. I should also keep in mind that the level that testers were in was one of the later levels. I also noticed that dieing takes too long when the car flies off the road. This is partly because

Having a system that would rotate the car when the player is not pressing any buttons would be a good system to have for player empowerment

of our wing mechanic, but it is also because of our static kill plane that is a good distance below the road. There are a lot of ways we could fix this, but I believe it will deal with us getting a spline or some sort of system that follows the track to determine when the car is off the track. We will more than likely use this system to setup logic for rotating the car to land on the road. This system will empower the player as it makes them feel more badass since they are not crashing as often. Once this system is implemented it will be very useful for making the game feel better to players and making it easier to setup logic that deals with the track and the car. That is it for this playtest, everything else is just small things. I'll keep you updated on anything else that occurs with the game. Thanks for reading.