Thyme - Prototype 3 Devlog

Declan

Last Week's Prototype:

Last week's prototype wasn't what I'd hoped it to be. There were numerous issues with the prototype. The maps were pretty problematic; spinny-things not colliding with the player, layouts were too small, one layout was practically impossible to eliminate the other player on. Also, there wasn't enough maps. Not being able to rotate to face the player also made the game extremely frustrating. Kicking didn't add enough force to other players to make it effective enough. I should have added more interactivity between the players like a grab mechanic. 

The Playtest:

The playtest went alright. The most common issue people had was not being able to face the player. How I would rectify this is by instead of just rotating 180 degrees, you would instead either rotate to face the player or rotate towards where the camera is facing. Which does lead on to another bit of feedback I got which was the camera. People found it to be pretty awkward trying to control the camera and the player. This was the same feedback I got last week. Fixes for this issue could be to just have the camera facing the same direction the player is or have the camera lock on to the other player. Both of these options free up some controls which could be used for other things like bending the players body. What I've enjoyed the most about these playtests is seeing all the different ways players play my prototype. Everyone had their own way of moving and attacking and it was really cool seeing them develop them. 

Questions for this Prototype:

The ideation process for this prototype was pretty fun actually, especially compared to last week. I had a lot of different cool ideas. They all boiled down to time travel but it was still fun developing them. One idea I had that didn't have time travel was one that I have been thinking about for awhile. Basically, time constantly progresses and events in the world happen, whether the player is there to witness them or not. I know this kind of sounds like just a basic thing but I've some really cool ideas to go a long with it that I hope to explore in the future. Ultimately, I decided to go with a portal style game where you can save points in time and travel back to them in a portal. Basically, the game, Portal with time travel. Which was ended up being my question for this week's prototype:

Can I make Portal but with time travel?

Aaron

Last Week's Prototype:

In last week's prototype I asked the question? can I make telekinesis to make it where the player can bring the wall's to them instead of the player having to run over to the wall's themselves. The overall prototype that I had ready for the playtest I was overall pretty happy with it, there wasn't really any big bug's or anything that I hasn't happy with.  I felt this prototype was a good direction for where I wanted to head in the near future. One thing that I wasn't to happy with was the rotation while holding a game object using telekinesis, I noticed that some times It was hard to use to wall run but other than that I thought my prototype was good as it could be.

The Playtest:

The playtest was a real eye opener for me, in the playtest the main issue that I seen people struggle with was the telekinesis. When people were using the telekinesis I noticed that they didn't try to wall run and try to throw the wall at the same time they were wall running, which was one of main thing's that I wanted to use the telekinesis for. The main reason's for this issue is because of the way the wall rotates and also the way the wall kind of obstructs your vision when you are holding it with the telekinesis. So when I notice these issue's I thought instead of the throwable wall's being visible,  I would instead make them transparent so the player can see past the wall and it wont be as big of a issue trying to see where you are going while holding the wall. I also wanted to add a feature to where instead of the wall rotating automatically, it would only rotate when the player press a button. This fix would make it easier for the player to use the wall to wall run. Overall the playtest was very useful for me to get a better vision of what I need to do and what else I can do to make the prototype even better.  

Question for this Prototype:

The prompt for this week prototype was TIME, this prompt really made me hit a wall. The question for this prototype I really struggle with, I didn't have any idea of where to go with the prototype. I tried testing out stuff with time, for example I tried speeding up time, completely stopping time, making time rewind and so on. From the test's I made I didn't really like any of the things I test out, nothing really fit into my prototype and I felt like adding these different things made my prototype over saturated with abilities and I felt that was so much going on to where it just didn't work and at this point I had so many controls to where I felt like it could be too overwhelming for the player. So I decided to go with something that made me feel like the prototype was going into the right direction and that was slow motion. I felt slow motion was perfect for what I wanted, it is something that works with a parkour type game as you can turn out slow motion while falling, setting up your jump, wall running and more.

So for the question for this prototype I went with: 

Can I make slow motion using time?