Design & Development
Week 9:
Game Version 5
Tuesday 26th April 2022
WEEK 9 -
TO DO: Assess Game Version 5​
PURPOSE FOR THE DAY
Today, I am scheduled to begin the creation of promotional material, and Kiera will be focusing on the fifth game version. There are a few more refinements to make, with additional features to further develop the experience. I will be assessing the fifth game version, by evaluating the changes made and what needs to be further improved.
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WHAT WILL WE BE DOING?
Kiera has been working on the fifth game version, by replacing the snowflake assets with our new snowflake design, and importing a placeholder for the 'Begin' button, for the time being.​
GAME VERSION 5​
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THE FIFTH GAME VERSION! Today Kiera has made slight improvements to the environmental design, involving the replacement of our snowfall assets, background and 'Begin' button. As well as this, she has adjusted the quality of the detection.
THE DEVELOPMENT​
PROCESS:​
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Imported new background illustration into the space.​
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Replaced snowflake assets with the new design
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New snowfall assets
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New 'BEGIN' button - placeholder (grey)
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Desired score for detection was increased - to avoid being too jittery. (0.1 - 0.2)
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Bird no longer flips
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The main improvements Kiera made to V5 is asset replacements with our new asset designs, as well as improve the detection, allowing the bird to fly much smoother and less chaotic.
GAMEPLAY DEMO​
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Game Version 5 underway:
NOTES​
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New background looks nice - could be improved, composition and lake illustration could be further developed. I can do better!
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Love the appearance of the snowfall amongst the main snowflakes/crystals
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Bird still flies incredibly fast - a little chaotic and still jittery
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Could be made smoother, to slow down players physical movement
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CHANGES MADE​
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The detection has been made much smoother than before, however still performs a little too jittery for our liking. We also improved the visual design, by replacing our placeholder assets with our new creations. This gave us a greater insight into what the end outcome should look like, minus our pretty animations. The snowfall is now much more appealing, and players are able to distinguish between normal snowfall, and interactive snowflakes.
WHAT WENT WELL?​
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It was great to see another version of our game developed, and we are happy with the results. There are no major issues from review, however, we certainly have a to do list of refinements to make and ways to improve! We are happy with our progress and can't wait to expand across two screens, so we can really evaluate the effectiveness of our intended player experience.
WHAT DIDN'T GO WELL?​
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Detection extremely fast and not as slow and controlled as we'd like it. I also feel the environment design could be improved, as the composition is a little different to my previous concept. I'll be happy to recreate this over the next few days. But for now, the thing we need to focus on is improving the detection and reducing the speed of movement.
GAMEPLAY​
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Gameplay so far works as we'd expect, but will come into fruition once we have implemented all tracks into the space. Snowflakes are ready to be associated with these tracks, and therefore, will be interactive - better now that players can distinguish the two snowfall types.
VISUAL DESIGN​
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As mentioned before, environment can be improved, in terms of composition and environment details to look at. This is something I plan to work on over the next few days. The BEGIN button also needs designing, which I am scheduled to complete on Wednesday/Thursday, alongside other User Interface.
PLAN FOR FURTHER DEVELOPMENT​
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Bird still flips a little
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Movement of the bird is too fast/chaotic
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Bird movement needs to be slowed down - dither to be increased
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Snowfall to be made slower
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UI to be made to replace BEGIN button
NEXT STEPS​
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Taking into account the results from today's assessment, we are aware of what needs changing and refining to further improve. Kiera will be working on these changes this week and producing our sixth Game Version at the end of Week 10. For now, I will be continuing with the creation of promotional material and User Interface.​
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