Devlog 2

Author of documentation: John Kim

Devlog 2:

After taking some time to read the feedback, we’ve seen what went right, what went wrong, and planned out our changes for the final copy. A lot of this is going to be addressing issues that came up during playtesting and then afterward applying final visual touches to the game to bring it together.

As we were addressing the main bits of critique we ran into other issues that we had to address, one of which was a corrupted scene that occurred due to a github malfunction. I tried to look into the code and fix it from there but I had to use other methods to rip an earlier version of this project to recover lost work.

From the playtesting session to the final release a lot of development at this point was addressing issues, finishing up tasks, and stringing everything together to have a playable loop.

Postmortem:

What went right: I think the puzzle platformer format worked out for us as it gave us a way to continue building upon what we already made for our character animation showcases while designing challenges that let us take risks in developing new things. Also, it let us veer more from a more gameplay focused game into one that focused more on the art and the experience. The flow of the game developed into what Vasiliki and I envisioned so I’m thankful for that.

Challenges: One of the major challenges that we addressed was mitigating the risk we wanted to take against making a complete product. The beta version we presented during playtesting was set back by not being strung together properly. Also I think that we could’ve had some way to more easily organize tasks and things that needed to be done. I found myself struggling to remember who was doing what task so I feel that there might’ve been a blurred line between roles in favor of both of us being readily available to do whatever work is needed.

Lessons learned: Using github is definitely a thing that I need to learn more. This was the first project that I personally had to learn on the fly but thankfully it was pretty easy to pick up. Another lesson that I have learned is that there is only so much one person can do in a set amount of time. Even with the two of us working on whatever time we have available, this project still came together in the end and it shows that even with one other person helping out the effects can be felt.

Potential improvements: The puzzle menu screen is a remnant of an idea where we wanted the design of the puzzle at the last level to be the chosen image at that screen. We were never able to get to that idea so we would like to improve on that by making that idea a reality. Another thing to note are smaller improvements, like backgrounds to more polished movement for example. I think that with small touch-ups like those we can enhance the player experience a bit more.