Letting them loose on it....

So yesterday, we had our first proper playtest session where the other teams got to play our games and we got to play theirs..... Eeeek.

This is a good thing as you can become blind to your own game when you are working on it and other people will see the flaws and bugs.

We set the game up so that the players got to see to key parts of the game.  The stasis section and an example actual level.

The feedback was good to get overall even though not all positive.  There are a few of main points which stuck out for me, apart from the obvious bugs we knew about, like the ladders not working.  The main point was that the game itself is too dark, as in lighting and not subject... The stasis scene is meant to be like this with the ECG light going passed to show your way.  A suggestion though was to have some kind of light around the player so he can actually see and use the ECG to see where you may want to travel too.  I like this idea.  In the main levels though, I had to agree, it was just too dark.  There definitely needs to be more ambient lighting around to show the scene itself, otherwise you just completely in the dark and keep dying.  Quite frustrating....

It was also mentioned that, because we are doing a platform game, we really need to make the character controller movement and play-ability a lot more slick.  This and the key mechanic of dying in the dark really need to be focused on and less on coming up with new design ideas for the levels.  I kind of agree as we haven't even got the basic right yet and I'm still being asked if things are possible in programming to achieve a new design idea that has been thought of.  We have been advised to lose the temporary character model and go back to just a block, as the model is distracting and nothing like the model we are hoping to have.  We have also been advised to create a new level with perhaps just one or two puzzles in that we can develop to a polished state for the vertical slice presentation.

We have a lot to think about and I hope Max can get these points across to the other guys who couldn't make the session last night.

Hmmm..... lets sort this out guys :)