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.