It's being tested! Finally I made a so called beta and Kensei and friends are testing it. Well to be honest it was betas, because the first beta didn't work properly. After he gave me some critical feedback I.. well I'll write about it in a second. All in all the game is nearing its development cycle and the closer I get to finishing it the more impatient I become. There were many things that chaged, especially control related.
One of the the major things that was pretty obvious for the testers and not me was the lack of air control in the ball. Such a simple and small thing made a big difference. As a whole the control of the ball sucked! I was comfortable with it because I developted the thing. There is probably a term for this kind of situation.. Anyway beside lack of air control the ball felt heavy and not flexible enough. If a player didn't knew what was coming next in the level he would surely fail because the steering was slow and flegmatic. Ofcourse it was very hard for me to see this because you know.. I created the levels. After more testing the controls and feel of the ball was near perfection. Now it is easier to control the ball and you feel more flexible and more in control of situation(because it is easier to control the ball..yeah). And I think this is a both mechanical and design topic about game development. Let me explain:
The difficulty of the game is going to be leaning towards hard. Now you could create a hard game in the context of the controls of the ball. In other words the obstacles are hard mainly due to the controls. Not that obstacles don't pose a challenge by themselves, but the difficulty comes from for example a slow turning rate -> the player needs to start steering as soon as he/she figures out he needs to steer -> if the players is a little bit late -> fail. Lack of air control -> player jumps towards a moving platform -> he/she didn't calculated correctly the speed of the platform -> fail. Now some may say that this is somewhat casualization of the game and I see the point. For instance if the player didn't calculated correctly the jump why shouldn't he/she be punished for that mistake? The answer is that he/she should be punished, but also should have a chance to correct the mistake if it's small enough. That is the main thing that I think and feel is the problem here. Not that players shound't have second chances (except for game which are designed with this particular purpose) but a second chance should be obtainable ONLY if the mistake is small. After seeing the difference when I adjusted the controls I believe that difficulty because of "bad" controls is to be avoided (unless ur like an exa pro and know ur stuff). Just like a self-respecting horror-survival game should not rely only on cheap jumpscares. Every thing has it's place.
Now after adjusting the controls it was time to adjust every obstacle on every level! Cause now the difficulty shifted from the controls to the actual obstacles. Everything seemed too easy and easy does not have a place in the game! The end result is that the player feels more free, more in control and is still challenged. The levels got even more polished. It was good that the obstacles were easily scalable. Now that everything is good I await more feedback. I think that there will be only minor adjusments but we'll see.
One of the the major things that was pretty obvious for the testers and not me was the lack of air control in the ball. Such a simple and small thing made a big difference. As a whole the control of the ball sucked! I was comfortable with it because I developted the thing. There is probably a term for this kind of situation.. Anyway beside lack of air control the ball felt heavy and not flexible enough. If a player didn't knew what was coming next in the level he would surely fail because the steering was slow and flegmatic. Ofcourse it was very hard for me to see this because you know.. I created the levels. After more testing the controls and feel of the ball was near perfection. Now it is easier to control the ball and you feel more flexible and more in control of situation(because it is easier to control the ball..yeah). And I think this is a both mechanical and design topic about game development. Let me explain:
The difficulty of the game is going to be leaning towards hard. Now you could create a hard game in the context of the controls of the ball. In other words the obstacles are hard mainly due to the controls. Not that obstacles don't pose a challenge by themselves, but the difficulty comes from for example a slow turning rate -> the player needs to start steering as soon as he/she figures out he needs to steer -> if the players is a little bit late -> fail. Lack of air control -> player jumps towards a moving platform -> he/she didn't calculated correctly the speed of the platform -> fail. Now some may say that this is somewhat casualization of the game and I see the point. For instance if the player didn't calculated correctly the jump why shouldn't he/she be punished for that mistake? The answer is that he/she should be punished, but also should have a chance to correct the mistake if it's small enough. That is the main thing that I think and feel is the problem here. Not that players shound't have second chances (except for game which are designed with this particular purpose) but a second chance should be obtainable ONLY if the mistake is small. After seeing the difference when I adjusted the controls I believe that difficulty because of "bad" controls is to be avoided (unless ur like an exa pro and know ur stuff). Just like a self-respecting horror-survival game should not rely only on cheap jumpscares. Every thing has it's place.
Now after adjusting the controls it was time to adjust every obstacle on every level! Cause now the difficulty shifted from the controls to the actual obstacles. Everything seemed too easy and easy does not have a place in the game! The end result is that the player feels more free, more in control and is still challenged. The levels got even more polished. It was good that the obstacles were easily scalable. Now that everything is good I await more feedback. I think that there will be only minor adjusments but we'll see.
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