Week 3 Prototype

Week 3 of our project is finished today, this week we had a theme of 'time' to use, and it was also the last time we will be making two separate prototypes.

Lauren's part:

Consistent feedback on last weeks prototype "Corrupted Vision" demonstrated that  Playtesters actually preferred the lower gravity jump, and the space setting over the real world "parkour" setting that we had originally envisioned.  For this week's "Time" prompt, I wanted to bring that idea a step further and implement a mechanic that would reinforce that setting and gameplay.

I decided to create a mechanic that tracks the player's current height , and once the player gets above a certain altitude, begins gradually decreasing their "oxygen" meter. The player must either progress to the next Oxygen station / checkpoint, or return to a lower altitude in order to restore their oxygen. If the Oxygen reaches 0, the player gets a game over and must restart. This allowed us to implement "Time" as an oxygen management system, rather than as a straightforward Timer counting down to zero. Scaling up, the oxygen restoring checkpoints would be placed further and further apart, and players would need to complete more challenging platforming / parkour elements in order to reach them before they run out of time.

The original vision in week one, would have had players racing against a countdown timer to get from point A - B, and the oxygen management system implemented this week is more immersive and creates the same sense of tension.  Going forward I would like to make the UI more diagetic and really try to create an experience for players where they feel "alone in space" and have to manage their resources effectively.

Rachel's part:

I got some brilliant feedback from my "corrupted vision" prototype last week about the controls of the game and what other features can be added. While we have changed the scope and idea for our main game, this feedback is extremely valuable to the future of the project.

This week I ran into many problems, mainly with trying to make an enemy that follows you using the Nav Mesh Agent. I had issues with it not walking around, and also couldn't properly set up colliders between the enemy and the structures I had built. The enemy also has a shooting feature built into it which I could not get working with the time I had available. In the end I managed to get the enemy follow the player and try to push it off the map.

I did include a countdown to add a time limit to the game itself, which makes the game quicker and has the player want to try to avoid the enemy as best as they can. 

This week's playtest I want to ask the players about the enemy speed and how they feel in games about enemies chasing them.

Lauren's video:

Rachel's Video: