What's New:
- Switched from InControl to Unity Input System
- Scene Transition changed from fade black to farming theme art
- Tutorial is now more refined with not only the text simplified
- NPCs now randomly take breaks, while working the field or after harvesting
- Camera now focuses on winning silo with the winning team on the side jumping
- Pause menu option added in Tutorial for player to easily go back to main menu
- Ready up screen modified with custom made art
- Now more visually obvious when someone has readied up
- Crops ready to harvest are now emphasized with a black outline
- Pause menu UI reworked to fit the farming theme
- Tutorial and in game medic/dead body sprite now with correct sorting order
- Now prompt comes out when player goes straight for start without playing the tutorial first
- Silos now have different shades for different teams
- High resolution circles now pixelized
- Dropped crops now expire after some time
- Trail now renders when walking through grass
- Game pace now faster with increased movement speed
What's the Motivation:
This week we mainly worked on making the game juicier and as you can tell from the title, more polished. A lot of new art (UI wise) is added and concerns heard from our playtesters are addressed. The goal was to make the game seem more professional and consistent. Here are some highlights and reasons to some of our changes:
- We switched from InControl to Unity Input System main due to feedback from playtesters who are having some trouble with the controls still.
- The tutorial text was modified due to people suggesting it being hard to read.
- Pause menu is now available in the tutorial since we oftentimes have some that accidentally pressed on the tutorial.
- The prompt that encourages player to play the tutorial first was added because players tend to skip the tutorial while the tutorial is very essential to the overall gameplay experience in our case.
- Ready up canvas was redesigned for the purpose of consistent art style.
Some playtesters gave feedback that it is too difficult to keep track of themselves, and that the mechanic isn't engaging. The proposed solution was to utilize two screens for the two teams, and each team would be able to see their characters outlined. This effectively eliminates the mechanic of "having to keep track of yourself". Much of the one screen vs. two screen decision hinges on the viability of this mechanic. Ultimately, after some experimenting, keeping track of yourself remains as a game mechanic that we believe in, for these reasons:
- Some successful games have incorporated this mechanic, e.g. Hidden in Plain Sight. We have reason to believe that this mechanic isn't inherently flawed or not fun.
- This mechanic makes our game unique -- a stealth-and-kill game is tried and tested but not novel.
- A single big screen party game is one of traits of the game our studio wanted to make since day 1. Games requiring multiple screens scale poorly since most consumers won't be able to set it up.
- Experimenting also led us to believe that it becomes much easier to stay hidden. Slip ups happen when you momentarily lose track of yourself. The game would feel boring -- both teams would be very well hidden, hence players would be killing much less, leading to less exciting moments.
- To reach some compromise, we made it easier to "keep track of yourself." We reduced the number of NPCs, and players are able to make themselves stand out quite easily. In the event that a player stands out and gets eliminated, they respawn at a known location (their barn) and at their desired timing (by pressing A), making it obvious where they are. In this way, players are punished for not keeping track of themselves, but not exceedingly so and they are able to reset.
What's Next:
For the next iteration, we plan on making the game even more polished. We will most likely finalize on all of our core design decisions while experimenting with ideas such as round systems, scoreboards and modified penalty towards failed attack. In addition, we plan on adding some more voiced lines for both the tutorial and the main game. We will also be working on an updated version of the trailer, so please look forward to it!
