Week 12 - Game Testing

Initial Implementation

After 6 weeks of development, we have reached the final devlog! The main even this week was the 1 hour testing session, with testers filling out an online form afterwards. Feedback was generally positive which is good to hear, but the testing session did produce some interesting findings and pieces of feedback for me to take into consideration. Unfortunately I've been unable to make any substantial progress this week due to a whole bunch of other things that I also needed to get done, but I was able to get a set of tutorial levels up and running complete with on-screen instructions which I am very happy with!

I had already suspected that players were struggling to grasp the concept of the gameplay, and the feedback received via my online form confirmed this. Two questions I included on the form were: "Do you feel that a tutorial level would be a worthwhile addition?" and "How easily did you understand the gameplay?". The answers from both questions indicate that payers were confused about what to do, and that it might have hurt their enjoyment of the game. This is perfectly understandable since so far I've given no clear instructions and just dropped the player into the deep end and expected them to figure it out.

To address this I wanted to make a short series of tutorial levels to get the player up to speed. I had considered having an instruction page in the game but I think trying to describe how to play is much more difficult in words, and so I opted to have levels where the player can learn by navigating very basic levels and get a feel for the controls.

The tutorial is split into 5 levels, each aiming to introduce the player to new gameplay elements and each with unique on-screen instructions:

1. Movement/Controls (a completely empty level with no debris, rocks or missiles)
2. Obstacles (a level sparsely populated with debris and rocks)
3. Force Fields (a level with a force field and a few obstacles)
4. Powerups (a mostly empty level used for showing the player how to acquire and activate powerups)
5. Missiles (a mostly empty level to give the player some room to dodge)

Once completed, the player can go back and play through the tutorial as many times as they like.

Other than the tutorial, there are more features I'd like to have a go at adding to the game over the next few days, including:

• Some kind of on-screen indication of what powerup has been activated/will be activated (this is definitely top priority, testers consistently indicted they were confused by them, however I have no idea how I'll implement this)
• Basic sound effects (some bassy, meaty explosion sounds would be great for when you obliterate the planet! )
• A reworked Free Play mode (at the moment I'm fine with keeping it as is, but testers have indicated the preference for an endless high-score type level, so I'll see what I can do)
• A new enemy type or obstacle (this might not happen, but I feel the game is a little dry in terms of obstacles/enemies)
• Music (as much as I'd like to add some tracks to the game, it's going to be a real pain to make something in time... we'll see)

Just as a point of interest, here are the tester responses to the question "Of the following features, which would you most like to see added?":

When I included this question I expected "Sound Effects" and "More Types of Obstacles/Enemies" to be the top responses, so I was really surprised when music was the top answer!

Overall, it's been a fun journey working through this project, and I hope everyone has enjoyed playing through the various stages of completion. Thank you to all who contributed to the form, and thank you to everyone who gave me feedback over the past few weeks!