After receiving feed back on my game during my presentation I was told to refine the design of my game. What I mean is, at the moment the player does not have a clue what they are doing in the game, there are no visual queues.
At the moment every thing in the game is static, there is no indication of where the player should go or what they need to go. Also I need to have daily feed back on my game to iterate my game more quickly.
Due to this, it may take my game two or three iterations to fix this process.
How can I improve the design?
- Add more visuals to the planets and trader ship and the player ship, e.g. make them glow and pulse
- Add some sound effects when player interacts with trader and planet
Something I have been meaning to add to my game is making the inner ring on the trader ship rotate. This is so simple yet I forgot to add it to the game. I would also like to add a force field to it and make it change when the player interacts with it.
What have I done?
I decided to create a simple tutorial level for my game. This is because many people found they did not know what they were doing in the first level. Also the Instructions screen was badly written.
Player Interactions:
Planet:
It was suggested when the player interacts with a planet a visual response occurs. For this I decided to do two things. Initially when a player interacts with a planet and is extracting the resources from it, a particle system from the planet activates and is pointing towards the player. When I was refining this it was suggested to make it more instant, therefore I made the particle system operate more quickly. Also because it points to the player ship it gives the player a clue they are gaining some kind of resource.
Another thing, I made the ship glow green (the same colour as the mass resources) when the player is gaining mass. This is to aid the player so they know then they are gaining something and a transaction is occurring. When the transaction has finished, the particle system stops and so does the players green glow.
Also I have a green particle system attacked to the player, therefore when a transaction occurs as well as blue fuel going towards the player, green mass particles are shooting off in the direction of the trader ship.
Trader Ring:
When the player interacts with the trader, I made the bar sizes more more gradually do the player can see when a transaction is occurring. Basically, when the player is converting Mass to Fuel, the mass bar goes down gradually, and the fuel bar also goes up gradually. Also the traders inner ring spinning speed increases to show a transaction is occurring and slows down when the transactions is complete.
HUD & Player actions:
Planet Mining and Mass Cargo:
Initially when I created the Fuel and Mass head up display bars I just had red and blue bar in the bottom left corner. When the player mined mass from a planet or traded it with the trader ring ship, the bars would changer then transaction had finalised.
However from a design point of view this was bad since the player was not gaining any instant feedback on their actions, therefore they did not know what they were dong.
To fix this I firstly adjusting the values so in real time things changed, e.g. when the player is gaining mass resources the mass cargo value for the player gradually increases by 'x' value every second until the ship has fully mined the mass resources. The value of the player's mass Cargo is directly linked the the width of the 'Mass cargo bar' foreground image for the player HUD. This means when the mass Cargo value increases, so will the width of the bar in real time whilst the player is mining a planet so the player can see directly how much mass is in their storage. Along with the planet particle system, this links the player actions in to the front end and HUD.
Also with the mass storage I changed the colour of the foreground bar to green to match the colour of the mass particles mined. This was a legacy thing from a previous iteration that slipped in. I should have noticed this earlier.
Another feature I added was, when the player is mining mass the fore ground bar pulses it's alpha value, from 25% visible to 100% back and fourth. When the transaction is complete, the opacity changes back to 100%. Many people liked this since it occurs when the player is mining a planet.
Player fuel drains:
I have done the same thing with the player fuel resource depleting. The player fuel drain and the HUD was already like how I have connected the mass cargo value to the HUD bar. The fuel drained gradually as the player moves and the value was directly connected the the HUD bar width representing how much was left. However it was still difficult to work out what is was connecting to.
To fix this is did a number of things. Firstly I found some royalty free game icons and modified them for my purposes. (I will add the references to these images to my bibliography shortly if they are not already in there as of posting this). I used a battery icon with an electricity bold in it to indicate the blue bar is a fuel gauge. After implementing this players still find the link between the fuel bar and their movements difficult to see. To fix this I added a particle system to the thruster of the ship model. Initially I made the particles blue link the ship and the blue HUD bar. However i changed this because play testers did not notice the blue particles due to the dark background and the texture of the ship.
After this I changed the colour of the thruster flames, to a colour that goes from yellow to red, like most thrusters. I also adjusted things like the shape and size of the flame to make it more recognisable. When I held play testing sessions, many people found the link between their actions and the front end easy to see. I may need to polish this slightly, like the flame life time , shape and so fourth but I am further.
I also gave the mass cargo bar an icon of a glass tank type container to indicate what the bar represented. However the icons are merely the icon on the cake since the particle systems do most of the job.
Trader ship:
With the trader ship, I wanted to make the transaction more obvious. Because all that happen is the inner ring rotates faster when the transaction is occurring. Some payers notice the speed change but don't know what is occurring though. To fix this I added a particle system to the top of the inner ring, which emits blue particles down towards the player when they are gaining fuel from the trader. When play testing most people understood a fuel transaction was occurring.
Along with this I made both fuel and mass cargo bars opacity values pulse. Players liked this because as well as the blue particles going towards the player, the fuel gauge size increases, and this indicated the player is receiving more fuel and is exchanging it for the green mass.
As another addition I added a green particle system to the payer ship that aims to wards the trader ship. This emits green particles like the planet to indicate the player is trading them for the blue particles. I need to test this on more people, but so far testers like the change.
At the moment it all needs polishing so I will spend another week or two on it.
Other design features:
Planet Glowing:
When a planet is ready to be mined, it glows, and it's glow range pulses between two values. I did this to attract the player and let them know the planet can be interacted with and grabs the player's attention. I also made it so the colour of the halo glow changes corresponding to the quantity of mass it is holding. I.e. when the planet's mass value is full, it glows green since this is a positive colour and red means the planet it dead and cannot be mined at all. When the planet's mass is drains over time and decaying the colour of the glow fades from green to red. This is a gradual change. So the planet will fade from a shade of green, to orange to red. Meaning a planet's mass capacity is based on the different shades of colour. Many people like this since it's an obvious indicator to how much mass it contains and the player has to think less about which planet to visit.
Planet recharging:
When a planet it recharging, it glows yellow. This is just another indicator for the state the planet is in so it makes it more obvious to the player the planet is still ok, but it will be ready to be mined in due course.
At the moment I will spend another week on the front end of the game, improving what I already have and adding more front end stuff I have over looked. Due to presentations and other assignments this may take another week on top of this. However, it will be done.
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