PDP Week 7

This week I continued to research improvements I could make to my level and started to iron out some more bugs and glitches.

Firstly, as researched by (J MatthewZoss, 2016), a game and its level needs to have a certain amount of 'polish' to it. To sum it up in a quote from that source, "In a general sense, our group of developers defined a polished game as one that lacks issues that pull the player out of the gaming experience." This is a word or phrase that is difficult to define in gaming, as it's used in such a variety of contexts: from a game's core mechanics being really polished, a game being delayed so it can be polished up and have some bugs fixed, or even in my case polishing the level design. Essentially this term means that a polished game contains a quality standard and finished touch which really goes the extra mile to immerse the player into the gaming experience, while also adding an extra layer of finesse and attention to detail which really makes the game 'click'. It can also be related to how consistently your game performs, which is very much relatable to level design in the games industry sector I'm looking to improve in!

As discussed by (Paul Suddaby, 2013), a well designed level keeps that high level of polish and quality throughout the whole experience, without have say one really memorable and well planned out part of the area, only to be followed by a tacky and unplayable mess of a stage, creating a vast contract of quality. There are various other factors which add to the game's overall polish (as in, how much time and care was put into the level), from having a gradual, yet well-tested difficulty curve throughout the whole game which lends itself to the player's skill (something that's difficult to achieve in my own level due to the more open-ended nature of it, but is still completely possible in the smaller puzzle sections) to ensuring all of the collision is correctly done so the player can't glitch out of bounds outside of the map where the developers never intended you to go. It's the little details which really add up to make a great experience.

Using this research this week I will be working towards polishing my game to improve the existing experience over expanding on it's scope. This means I will retest all of my different areas so far and add anything that I feel is missing, while also redesigning parts of the level to make it more streamlined or interesting. So for example I might add some more different platforms to jump on throughout the level, as strangely enough the player doesn't actually need to jump that much to navigate around the stage, and they can accomplish most tasks just by walking! This is possible since the player automatically performs a short 'hop' whenever they walk off a ledge, which is a feature that was already programmed into the base Unreal 4 third-person platformer template. So to amend this I'll add and change various parts of the level and platform distances depending on the character's jump trajectory, so it's compulsory to reach the other side of a gap by pressing the spacebar to jump.

This week within my Unreal 4 level as talked about above I fixed various issues with my level. The first thing I did was change the player's spawn point as that there's more of the level to traverse, as right now they spawn in the centre of the room. I also added various pieces of decoration to my level, like birds and furniture, to make the area seem more alive and more interesting to explore. As in its current state with grey platforms everywhere the stage was quite uninteresting to look at. I still plan on keeping the monotone grey aesthetic, however the decoration and objects will be shaded with drastically different colours to stand out. This is a very interesting visual style that I've chosen to go for, and gives this demo a very original look and feel making the area interesting to play through.

The bird is a royalty free model from the Unreal 4 Marketplace.

I also added a few question mark coins scattered around my level, in the general area and proximity of a secret (as shown below), indicating something interesting is around there and the player should go and explore that area, while also not giving away the exact location or what it is. This preserves the sense of adventure of the player's mindset while also helping comfort them in know that they won't miss anything too important during their adventure.

A floating ? coin, just out of reach to the typical player which encourages the user to explore.

Next week I will build another section of my level which is at the same level of polish I researched this week! The new mechanic will be a security system using a camera, which closes the door needed to proceed when the player is spotted.


References:

J Matthew Zoss, 2016. The Art Of Game Polish: Developers Speak [WWW Document]. Gamasutra. URL http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/132611/the_art_of_game_polish_developers_.php?print=1 (accessed 3.8.16).

Paul Suddaby, 2013. 5 Important Ways to Add Polish to Your Game - Envato Tuts+ Game Development Article [WWW Document]. URL http://gamedevelopment.tutsplus.com/articles/5-important-ways-to-add-polish-to-your-game--gamedev-7642 (accessed 3.9.16).