PDP Week 8

This week I tasked some of my fellow university students to play my level so far and give me some feedback, in order to gage an idea on what I should improve on. This is the written feedback I received after they played through the entirety of the current level:


Ben Musgrave:

"Feedback

Invisible walls = bad

Moving platforms don’t come back down

Can skip the stairs if you don’t feel like them

Invisible walls = bad"

Tom Fabry:

"adam's game

feedbak.

- invisible walls sometimes got in the way 
- some bits could use invisible walls when the player is trying to get out of the way
- adam should move the second trampoline platform back (the one you have to turn around)
- adam's lifts need to go up then down as if the player falls off then can get stuck
- give the fence in adam's secret garden collision
- directions around the place is necessary, especially in the trampoline segment."


Ty:

"Very good work. Fix the moving platforms and invisible walls and you've done a good job so far."


This is all very useful information and constructive criticism from my peers, so this week I made it my mission to fix, or at least diagnose, every criticism listed above. Following this feedback I amended my moving lifts so the player doesn't have to restart the game when they fall off, and instead the elevators follow a set movement pattern. This required me to rewrite the code from scratch using blueprints and the marquee tool, and I used this tutorial (https://wiki.unrealengine.com/Blueprint_Lift_Tutorial) to do it. But in the end of this ordeal it really did wield positive results, as the player doesn't need to restart the game if they accidentally fall off a moving platform. Getting stuck and unable to progress is a terrible practise for a game to follow, so it's good that I made adjustments accordingly.

I also added various other quality of life changes as suggested in the feedback to balance the game, like giving the fences in the secret garden collision so you and movable furniture can't be kicked off the side so easily. I also moved the bounce-pad slightly back as requested, and added a couple of arrows pointing that the player needs to turn around. It was mentioned in the feedback that the invisible walls are bad, but unfortunately I must include them as a necessary evil due to not having a death system in place.

Some of the other criticisms made (like being able to skip the stairs in the bounce-pad section) was actually a design choice done on purpose. I made it specifically so that veteran players can speedrun the level if they know what they're doing, while most other people will instinctively go up the stairs... And if they don't, well they just found the secret bounce-pad as a reward for exploring!

I also tried to implement a death system this week follow professional standards set by platformer franchises like Donkey Kong and Sonic, where if the player falls off the stage they will hit a huge invisible collision box, restarting the level and reloading them at the start via blueprints. However, after following various tutorials (such as from here https://answers.unrealengine.com/questions/37113/player-death-or-level-reset.html with a Kill Z Volume and here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1c7tsacXTg), I simply couldn't get it to function, possibly due to me using the latest version of Unreal, but other variables may be in place. To compromise I will carry on using the invisible walls I implemented before into this PDP task.

Because of this feedback and other changes that I worked towards and introduced this week I will implement my camera system next week, and place those inside a maze for the following week ready to start bugfixing and finalising my level.