Playtest Session #3

Hey everyone! Sam here to tell you guys and gals about the latest additions to the game as well as discuss our findings from the latest playtest. The biggest additions to the game is the rough first pass at implemented art. As you can tell from the above picture, we have made great strides in developing the “ethereal” landscape that we initially pitched. Obviously, this is not the final art for the game, as elements, such as the terrain and grass texture, are still being worked on. However, our implemented art should give you a great idea of what type of mood we are trying to invoke and the overall aesthetic of the completed game. We also had our 3rd major playtest this week and many playtesters felt that the strongest aspect of our game was the visual style. We also received a great deal of feedback concerning game objective and controls. While the vast majority of intended gameplay features are currently integrated in the latest build, they are all in a rough state, especially the level design of the game. Many noted that the art style was particularly strong, but would oftentimes obstruct the player’s view of their objective and other puzzles, which is something that needs to greatly taken into account. Thankfully, we are still relatively early in development (we are not yet in the middle of production), so these changes in environment placement can be iterated on quickly. Another big issue that emerged with playtesters was the controls and movement of the player. Our game uses typically movement for platformers on PC (WASD to move), but we deliberately made the character have weight behind their actions (as foxes cannot turn on a dime) and need to turn before moving in a direction. This was not something that playtesters enjoyed and either wanted the weight behind movement to feel realistic or gone completely. Thus, in our team’s next big design meeting, we will discuss whether or not we want to continue to pursue a weighted movement style or forgo realism for play-ability. In terms of moving forward, we will be primarily tackling art asset creation (mostly concerning our fox character) and level design, as our programmers our out at GDC.