Some of the factors were easy to ask for feedback on, however some were pretty tough to ask for feedback on at this stage as elements like gameplay are hard to gain feedback on when it is still being worked on parallel to this work.
I have received feedback from two of my peers and will detail both the questions and answers below.
The questions I asked were as follows;
Task 1 – Level Blockout.
Questions:
1. Do you feel as though I should the
sheriff/lawkeeper’s square be populated with more buildings
2. Do you feel the courtyard is of an adequate
size, bearing in mind I intend this to be populated as the end of the project?
If not, should it be increased or decreased in size?
Peer 1 Answers;
1. Give or take but it feels good to play, density of the
area/’buildings’ feels solid.
2. Yep, you’d be tweaking and this will be easier to deal
with when you actually have the scripted events occurring.
3. At this point it looks pretty solid to eyeball from a
birds eye and when actually in game, however once we implement the actual
combat and AI you might feel you need more space because obviously the AI
tracking we’ll be using will lose sight of you at certain distances and
dependant on how you tweak speeds of both your character and AI you may or may
not need more space and so on.
1. From what I have seen in the gameplay you have got a good
amount of buildings for the level.
2. The size that you
have got now works well. Even with the place populated, it will still be able
to fit them all in.
3. The boss area is a good size. You have got plenty of room
for the AI to track you and you can even expand it by adding some extra
elements to the area such as barrels or crates.
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Task 2 – Gameplay.
Questions:
1. Do you feel that dusk sets into night time at
the right pace, if not, would you suggest a quicker or slower transition.
2. Do you feel I should add any more enemy conflict
situations into the level, for example a possible conflict in the higher class
area or around the lawkeeper’s square?
3. Do you feel the level pans smoothly enough from
one area to another? Could I make the transitions any simpler and what would be
your suggestions to achieve this if so?
4. Do you feel the boss arena would benefit from
adding meshes for cover, for example randomly placed shipping containers, or
would you leave it open for the conflict with the boss?
1. Yea the pace is decent, what might be a cool alteration
is per area move the time ahead slightly a certain amount whether that means
limit or not limit it per area (via trigger boxes) who knows.
2. I might sound like I’m repeating myself but this is
easier to answer when we can actually jump into the encounters and really test
that. From the text renders you have it looks like the pacing should be at
least decent.
3. Yea, this is well done imo. Feels smooth, decent
distances per area. Cool.
4. I’m honestly not sure how our finished AI will work with
geometry blocking line of sight and aspects like this as it could make or break
the idea of having cover in. I mean you could add your cover into your scene
outliner and group it into a folder and just hide/unhide it to test without any
impact on performance.
Peer 2 Answers;
1. The transition to dusk to night is at a suitable
pace.
2. You have got a good amount of enemies for this game. The
higher class areas don’t need any more enemies, but what you could do is to
increase the number of them as you go towards the boss.
3. The gameplay for the level smooths well. One thing you
could do for a transition is the have the player smash through some glass as
you goes towards the shanty town.
4. Depending on what kind of boss you are facing, adding in
some assets will greatly help for the boss encounter. Without them the boss
encounter may be harder.
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Task 3 – Moodboard.
Questions:
1. Do you think my mood board provides a relatively
fair reflection of what I have accomplished thus far with my level?
Peer 1 Answer;
1. I only really see a couple of shanty town pictures
going on. I see what you’re trying to go for with the western theme element but
this isn’t really shown in your map because it can’t really be with basic
textures and such like we’re using. Once you start adding dusty/roughness based
textures this will shine through easily.
1.1 A plus point is your
character, fits in as a western / biker type vibe which can fit.
Peer 2 Answer;
1. Overall you have got a good amount of resources needed
for your game idea. You got all the images you need to cover each of the sections
of them map and you can also use them to decided what kind of material you need
for your map.
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Task 4 – Lighting.
Questions:
1. Similarly to a gameplay question, do you feel
the dusk setting transitions into night time at the right pace, and should I
change the amount of light given off by the dominant directional level light at
all?
2. Do you feel the other lighting throughout the
level is appropriate taking into account the time of day which I have set my
level in, if not, how can I improve upon this.
3. Do you feel the flickering light leading into
the higher class district of the settlement flickers randomly enough, in terms
of speed, if not would you shorten or lengthen the period in which the flickers
occur?
Peer 1 Answer;
1. Nah its fine as is – I mean these really are all later
tweaks with proper lighting imo, but to test it as it is it’s already ahead of
a block out. It’s pretty nice man.
2. Don’t think there’s any issue with street lamps, you
actually have meshes and current lights spread out as to not clash or lead to
light bleeding / artifacts which fits. Once you start adding lights to other
buildings, lights on exteriors this might cause you issues but you’ll find out
as and when.
3. Nah these are fine although make the light shatter / stop
once you run upto this (DoOnce node) and it’ll add that bit of realism.
Peer 2 Answer;
1. The light for the transition will be ok.
2. Some of the lighting that you currently have should not
affect the overall map. The street lamps for example can have their lightness
removed via the use of a blueprint or the material when the day time comes.
3. The length that you have currently have will be ok and it
does not need to be adjusted in any way.
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Feedback Analysis - Level Blockout:
From at least these two peers, my blockout would appear to be progressing at a respectable level, and I will be taking into account the comments made about the boss arena as I continue to develop it, including the possible changes I have mentioned previously within the blog.
Feedback Analysis - Gameplay:
I tried to ask questions which would have been easy enough to gain some form of feedback on, as game play is currently being constructed within the level parallel to the level design. The feedback I have received for this aspect of the design process has brought to my attention a possible flaw in the "line of sight" methods we are using to allow the boss to track the player pawn. If I use meshes to cover, the line of sight may end up broken and the boss will no longer chase me, this may work well dependent on the structuring progress I make within the boss area.
As a result of this, I am now more likely to use smaller objects now to put in between the character and the boss than larger objects which could potentially break line of sight, this may allow the player to regain their bearings if attacked relentlessly by the boss and needing to evade temporarily.
Feedback Analysis - Mood Board:
I generally feel my mood board feedback is positive, despite it being pointed out that I have few resources displaying the shipping container style I have gone for with my shanty town.
The reason for this being that there are actually few resources that I'm aware of which have utilised these in the past, the main two being Defiance and iRobot.
The rest of the mood board feedback is positive and I have been told that my character fits the theme of the level well, I did not personally feel this myself at the beginning but the advantage of having my peers review my work is that I can gain fresh eyes on my work easily. This has pleased me and I will take this point on board along with the constructive criticisim, any other sources I find through research and general development will be added to the mood board for future reference.
Feedback Anaylisis - Lighting:
The feedback I have received for my lighting has pointed out some constructive elements which I can use going forward also, the points being that I could add a shattering effect to the lights which flicker as the player reaches them. This could add the effect of the lights being physically broken and would also serve as a further interaction as I could potentially add spark particle effects to the light if it were to break.
The second point I have had made is that the lights could be rigged to turn off at set times of day, I feel this is also a very good point and will look into implementing this within my design development pipeline. Even though I personally feel my level may not necessarily require the lights to switch off due to progression speed, and the boss fight ideally taking place at night, there is no guarantee that a player would be able to quickly beat my level's boss, and as such, the level could potentially do with this implemented feature.
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Overall I feel I have a good number of points to be progressing forward with through the design process and I will definitely look into all points raised constructively and address them appropriately as I continue development of my level, as these points could be easily reflected in the opinions of an end user in the games industry.
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