Summary:

For this game, the goal was to design a game based around the concept of a traditional adventure game that was meant to be played on Android mobile devices. Indeed, the concept of the project was based on creating a functional adventure game, in the likes of the Zelda or Pokemon series to name a few examples, with simple mechanics and concepts that have their own creative take on the genre and, especially, in level design. As a result, we decided to create a game based around the idea of a scientist exploring an unknown world in order to learn more about it, by interacting with the planet's surfaces and collecting various samples from different elements on the planet.

What Went Right:

We had quite a few successes in designing this game, based on play tests and our own experience working with it. Indeed, we wanted to create a play experience centered around exploration and collection, where players could walk around the world and gaze and what was happening and look for samples to collect for analysis purposes. We had successfully worked in creating levels and various scenes that captured the concept of journeying through a strange world, where one encountered strange beings, that was packed with samples and intricacies to encounter and collect. Another thing that we believe we captured successfully was how the aliens present in the game looked. Indeed, we managed to translate our ideas from our concept designs and ideas very well into the game itself. This was also true of the main character himsels, which was based around a scientist wearing an oversized hazmat suit with a jetpack floating around the world.

What Went Wrong:

We had quite a few issues related to the art process, the collaboration process, as well as the mechanics process. Firstly, in terms of the art process, the main issue was in line with how the character moved around the environment. Since this was a 2D top down world, it appeared strange for the character to follow the mouse drag which meant that, at times, the character could move upside down toward the bottom of the screen. This created a strange effect which appeared to not work well with the reality of the game. Nevertheless, having the character follow the mouse drag and seemingly move anywhere that the mouse pointed was meant as an ironic and joking matter as though the player was pulling the character anywhere toward their will. Secondly, in terms of collaborating with each other, we had a serious issue with the Git and Source Tree functionalities that we were using in that, at times, we would get strange commits that other team members had nothing to do with, but would still appear in their source tree to be committed. Furthermore, we particularly encounter merge conflicts through one of our teammate's commits that disallowed them from actively working and checking on the project, which proved as a hindrance to our production process. Lastly, we faced an issue, that we did not realize until the end of our release, which had to do with the arbitrariness and lack of purpose of one of our mechanics: the shooting mechanic. Indeed, we initially aimed to have a firing mechanic which allowed to blow back aliens for our player. Nevertheless, by the end of the production process, when we decided we would create a simple, non-fighting exploration game with no death consequence and no enemies, we realized that the firing mechanic was pointless since it did nothing in terms of expanding the gameplay experience. Indeed, the shooting of the character's gun simply existed and did nothing else; it would not damage enemies, nor push them back.As a result, it served to confuse players and give them nothing to grasp at or look forward to when using it.

Next Steps:

We have multiple further iterations that we are considering for this game. The primary iterations lie within the aspect of expanding the interactivity with the alien lifeforms present in the game while also improving the player mechanics to be in line with the game experience itself. By saying this we mean that the player could now go into a combat phase of the game with the alien lifeforms, choosing to fight and kill them for additional perks or to otherwise collect samples from them. In doing so, it would also give the character's weapon purpose and, as an extension, emphasize the mechanic of shooting, which we labeled as integral to the game. Continuing, we will want to work on the asset animations and particle systems for the game itself, in an effort to integrate all of them into a more cohesive and wholesome style. At this moment, the animations appear to be not working exactly fluently and organically as we would want them to, which would lead us to the objective of developing them further to be crisper and smoother with more time. Furthermore, it would be a good idea to further improve the particle effects so that they may be in line with the artwork aesthetic of the game, rather than simply have them as particle fillers just to add more juiciness to the game. Lastly, we wish to expand the play experience by adding in more collectible options and, more importantly, a more rounded and organic experience and ending schematic based upon these collectibles. For now we have two endings that are simply quantitatively linked to the amount of collectibles you acquire. As such, we wish to give the collection more purpose and narrative as well as a deeper incentive to collect these items.