Blog 5: First Playable

Our game is called Sneaky Sphinx. I work as both designer keeping track of the assets in-game, as well as designing and drawing the assets for the 2d platformer.

Overall, players responded with mixed reception. Everyone wanted a larger level and overall to see the concept pushed, both in art and in gameplay.

Cassidy thought the visuals and movement for the main character were great, and thought that the game's design should push for an Egyptian temple or pyramid aesthetic rather than a cave. She did understand intuitively that the statue was to be avoided, and tried to jump over it. She said she would have liked it if the statue tried to shoot a lazer from its eye.

She also pointed out that the camera was all over the place, and would move all over the place each time the character turned.

Shi Yao also liked the visuals and background music. They found some issues with the character getting stuck when falling, so fixing the colliders on the sphinx would have to be addressed. They also suggested flying enemies, like bats and adding animation for when the character gets injured by enemies.

I would agree with the majority of the feedback. We fixed the camera issue right after. While a lazer shooting statue sounds great, I am unsure if we would have the time to implement it in. For now, the statues will remain an instant-kill enemy if the character touches it. I am very fond of both pushing for an Egyptian aesthetic and the implementation of flying enemies. I'll get to work with designing the flying enemy and animations, though I am unsure of how we'd set the keypoint perimeters for an enemy that isn't grounded to a platform like the statues.

With tiles set up and tilemapping figured out, we have the proper time we need to create a larger level. Speaking of tiles: I will be getting to updating the base tiles and creating assets in the background to add to the atmosphere and mood. I already made an animated torchlight between the playtesting yesterday and today.

We will also be speeding up the running and jumping speed for the character. One person mentioned preferring a slower speed to go with the sneaky theme, however we're moving away from the sneaky theme and more of a treasure hunter vibe. We will probably change the name of the game to fit this more exploration-based mood.




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