2011 Spring Semester Playtest Session 5

This week we actually playtested the Beta level with a larger audience, rather than just having specific people test the level. Players still thoroughly enjoy the game, but there is always room for improvement. While watching testers play the game I noticed that many had trouble with the flight controls.

Car turning axis depicted with white line.

The handling of the car was too responsive and rotated too quickly. Since the physics programmer was there he noticed it as well, and felt, as I do, that the flying controls should move towards a sweeping motion. Right now the car just rotates on its vertical axis when you move the left joystick right or left. Outside of the flying controls, testers wanted more feedback from the game, such as a completion meter for the track, and an indication of what tricks the player is doing. One tester mentioned that they wanted a point system for the tricks which should definitely be done as it just gives more feedback to the player. But if the trick point system was made then it would have to have a purpose, I wouldn't want there to be points that the player gathers and can do nothing with them. An answer to this could be done simply by having a high score system at the end of each track that rates the player on their speed, and tricks. I should also mention that the player only receives feedback on the trick that they are doing when they land it. The player should also be receiving some feedback before they land the trick as well so that they are fully aware of what they are doing.

Car trick system as it stands.

Testers also gave feedback on the HUD and had some interesting ideas. One tester mentioned that we may want to go for a HUD more like Split Second, where the HUD is actually displayed on the car rather than in the corners of the game screen. This is an interesting idea, and is plausible to do now since we have artists. I've already spoken to one of our artists about the idea and they are willing to create a few concepts for it. Another idea a tester mentioned was to allow the player to hit a button to slow down the car's rotations to have a better chance of landing a trick. This is a great idea and I will definitely be speaking with the physics programmer about getting this mechanic in as it is something to make landing tricks easier for the player. Beyond testing, our game still needs a tutorial and it also still needs controller hints for the player when they are upside-down or when they are getting close to going off of a jump. When I say controller hints I just mean that the button the player has to push would pop-up on the screen so that the player knows what they need to press in order to get the car to do what they want it to do.

Beta Level Testing

With the beta level I wanted to create an environment that felt more intense, and was more menacing to look at. I feel that I was successful to this end, but not without the help of the rest of the team members, especially the artists. The artists came up with the color scheme, and many of the models that are in the beta level. When I tested the level, testers were telling me that I should make the level even more difficult than it was at the time of the playtesters. I also wanted to know how the visual appeal of the city was. Testers wanted more dynamic objects in the game, more vibrance. So, I placed fans down and scaled them to be able to fit the road within them. This added a lot more dynamic movement in the game, but it wasn't enough.

Traffic Quad texture, it's actually moving in the game which is why it's blurry

I needed something to give life to the game world. This is when I noticed that our graphics programmer was working on a quad that had parallaxing textures that looked like traffic moving in one direction. I decided that I would put that into the game, and it gave the game a more lively feel. Things were moving around in the game world, and they are not there just because the player is there. Dynamic movement was still not enough though. I now needed lighting to make the game more vibrant in itself. So, I placed more lights into the world, and changed the alpha of many object textures to make them more vibrant. To give the game an over-the-top feel, one of our team members created a glass road that gives that "wow" sound in the crowd that our team was looking for.

Traffic Quad texture, it's actually moving in the game which is why it's blurry

With the beta level, I really wish I had not assumed that I would have time when I got to school on the day of the beta presentation. I found that I had no time to tweak some things in the editor to make the level feel better. Luckily, the level was already laid out and was playable. But I should have planned for the worst and worked on the level more before the beta presentation. Next time I will plan for this and be prepared for the worst. The thing that came out of creating this beta level and receiving the beta presentation feedback was that our car needs to have better controls and we need to have more people playtest the level. My focus for the gold milestone is to get the car to feel better, and to get a tutorial into the game. If the tutorial needs to be dropped then so be it. The controls for the car are paramount when it comes to a game based-on a driving a car. I'll keep you updated on any more playtesting that is administered for Nitronic Rush or any interesting design issues that pop up.

So You Want to Work in the Video Game Industry

This video seems to be travelling around like wildfire. I noticed that a lot of my friends are posting it on Facebook, and I felt that I should post it here. This video is definitely spot on when it comes to the video game industry. You still have to love it to do it though. 80 hours a week is too much to spend on something you do not enjoy. The "knowing that a game idea is going to be fun" thing is also an extremely important part for a game since it's expensive to prototype games, though the gaming industry is getting better at it. DigiPen had a company day for blizzard a few weeks back and one of their guys was showing off how quickly they could produce prototypes, roughly 2-3 weeks, and it's possible to only have 1 or 2 people working on it. This cuts down on costs and if the idea doesn't work out, well, at least there was not an entire team dedicated to the idea.

Great Trailer for a game

This is probably one of the best trailers I've seen for a video game at this time. It's even a zombie apocalypse type game which is sort of shocking to see the creators come up with such an amazing trailer when they are dealing with such a gimmicky type of game (as most new zombie game are, but this one may be different). The trailer is actually moving. Great music selection for what the creators were going for as well. Here's the video.

The forward and backward chronological portrayal of the trailer works really well with showing the viewer what happened and what is going to happen. It even makes the trailer more depressing since the viewer already knows what is going to happen. Like I said, one of the best game trailers that I've seen so far.

Fastest bicycling Event!

I never knew that the fastest bicycling event could be considered the slowest as well. The riders try to trip up each other before they reach the 200 meter mark. Its a mind game until they hit that 200 meter mark. It's interesting to watch, and it's crazy to think how much skill the riders must have to hold still as long as they do.

2011 Spring Semester GDC Playtest

No feedback from the track

While I was at GDC, I had some people playtest the game. Most of the feedback that we received was pretty standard feedback that we had received from previous playtests. There were some interesting comments though. Even though it seems obvious, we were told to have the arrows flash in the direction of where the player needs to go. This is a great idea and will definitely get into the game. It will probably not be in for beta, but definitely for gold.

The testers at GDC also wanted the track to give more feedback to the player, such as changing color when the player crashes into it. The road could also point the player in the right direction by having arrows pointing in the direction the player should be going. Testers at GDC were also having trouble with the sensitivity of the car especially with the flying aspect of the game. This issue has been known and is being worked on. In the end there will be a sensitivity setting in the menus so the player can choose how sensitive the controls are.

Also, just like from previous playtests, the testers wanted more tricks, and just more opportunities to do tricks. Testers also mentioned that the game world was too static, and our team is currently working on changing that. We are working on having moving objects in the background, moving obstacles on the track, and having obstacles land onto the track. Having a more lively world is the game team's goal for beta and we have made some good progress towards that goal.

2011 Spring Semester Playtest Session 4

For this playtest we wanted to know if testers wanted more to do in our game other than just driving around. As one might imagine, the testers unanimously said, "yes". So what we will be working towards is getting more obstacles into the game, and thanks to a team-on-one that we had the other day we know what our plan is for the beta milestone which is in 2 weeks.

Other than asking the question of testers wanting more we also received quite a bit of feedback from players on other issues in the game. I'll also be throwing in a few observations of my own into the mix as well.

First off, here's the new control scheme. There are slight variations from the ground and flight controls.


Testers didn't mention many issues with the control scheme, but I still feel that the controls may be a bit touchy to some players. The flight controls sensitivity still needs to be dampened. In fact, we just need a sensitivity setting in our menu options. This sensitivity issue has already been discussed, and the devs know about it. I just need to keep pestering them about it and they'll eventually add it in.

Flying needs to be faster

In addition, testers have been saying that the flying itself is too slow, and I agree with them. I've already had a playtest meeting with the team and we've come up with some ways to speed it up, such as having the boost mechanic speed the car up more when it's in flight. We also need more ways for the player to be able to cool off the heat meter while flying.

Other than flying, the car still needs a visual cue for when it is about to blow, whether this be done by the screen flashing red, or the car catching on fire. The car catching on fire would be a better effect, but the screen flashing would be easier to implement. Testers also wanted to have an 'auto-upright' feature. This feature would basically allow the player to hit one button and the car would upright itself if it was upside-down.

Another feature that is still missing is a system to direct the player back to the track if they fly off of it. Some testers are still getting disoriented when they are in the air. The textures on the road could fix this have having arrows on them that point in the direction that the player should be going. Creating a wrong-way sign would also help with this.

Testers were also wanting more tricks to do, but before our team can do this we need to solidify our trick system. Figure out what we need to do to actually make it feel apart of the game, such as having the ability to make combos of tricks and having a point system that the player can see. On top of the point system, we also need some sort of rating system for the tricks as well. All of this will help with integrating the trick system into the game, and making it more enjoyable for the player.