External playtests  |  by Nicky Du

The game was externally played in two sessions, one by our classmates, and one in my discord server.

The feedback from the class, despite the obvious ones such as complete the playable loop, includes simpler controls, clearer instructions, and better sound design. These will all be taken into action in prior.

The feedback from general gamers from discord is more interesting. Players quickly got bored by the length of Chapter 1, but they kept playing because they were informed by the trailer that more interesting graphic content comes afterward. They suggested that:

1. Shorten Chapter 1, or break it down to many smaller parts that can be collected in Chapter 2;
2. Add illustrations to Chapter 1;
3. Optimize the audios in Chapter 1 and 2;
4. Let the player go back to Chapter 2 after entering Chapter 3, just like the previous ascension.

All of these suggestions are taken into consideration. Since Chapter 1 is an important part of the storyline, we will work on making Chapter 1 more interesting, instead of cutting parts of it off.

C1 Playtest/Feedback  |  by Will Piao

Through playtesting myself in the beginning stages of the development, I noticed that many parts of the dialogue don't flow naturally, nor do they express the right messages. I went through it myself multiple times to make sure everything is short but concise at the same time. Furthermore, I wanted the story to be played through in under 10 minutes. After playtesting for the first time with a few people, it appeared to be right around that range. Another feedback was interaction. Using both space and the mouse appeared to be not as intuitive, so one feedback was to maybe isolate interactions to the mouse only. Moreover, one visual feedback was the use of text for imagery. From the playtests, the feedback was pretty positive about it, so I decided to continue in this direction and expand on it.

C2 Playtest/Feedback  |  by Alex Wang

I receive criticism on mostly the character controller in the playtesting of the very first version. The camera smoothing is too high that makes the player feel dizzy; the controller is a typical rigid_Body type of controller which moves and accelerates linearly and can move in all directions. That certainly doesn’t fit the 2D pixels game. So I improved it by introducing a grid-based movement to the character with a hard-snap camera on top of its head that both contribute to a crispy and responsible movement.

The second playtest makes me focus on interaction and UI designs. It is hard for players to reach different control keys so I reduced the interaction input to only two keys beside the WASD. The Player will use E to interact with everything, and Esc to exit the interaction.  That will make the game single-handedly playable. 

Some feedback that we do not have time to implement but will be in future versions includes missing audio on specific interactions; having a unified interface of UI; more side stories and interactions are encouraged to include. 

C3 Playtest/Feedback  |  by Cecil Boey

After white boxing the scene, the immediate feedback was the controller. The multi-directional and axis movement necessary for the scene must utilize controllers with these functions as well. Therefore, I asked Alex to script a customized controller with the rotational ability on the z-axis through the Q and E keys. Moreover, lightings are essential in the scenes. During the playtest stage, the scenes are dark in purpose for the moods. Consequently, navigations to essential segments of the station are compromised. Therefore, I reiterated the lighting design to ensure visual navigation effectiveness, while also ensuring the integrity of the articulated lighting schemes of the scene.