Week 8: Beta

We started off the week by getting some in-depth feedback from Elias. Based on this feedback in preparation for the Beta build we aimed to resolve the following concerns:

1. The painting process was clunky and complex to do:

Currently the player has a 2 block paint radius, which meant that the player needed to use the right analog stick to select which block to paint before they could do so. But everytime the player walked, the selected block defaulted back to the player’s position. Since the player needed to paint in front/beside them most of the time it was annoying to keep needing to toggle three different buttons to paint a block. This was especially prevalent when using green to walk in a straight line.

We decided to spend the evening brainstorming new control mappings to fix this and had a team meeting the day after the feedback session to combine our ideas on how to make the painting experience more fluid. Based on the feedback to restrict the painting range to one block to keep things simple, we decided to make the following changes for the Beta build:

• The default selected block would still be beneath the player but holding the right joystick in one of the four cardinal directions would shift the selected block to be painted in that direction, removing the need to toggle multiple times to switch between painting the left block vs the right one.
• Holding down the paint button will apply paint continuously. Which makes painting green much more easier, the user does not need to toggle 3 different buttons now but simply hold down the paint button and walk forwards.

1. It is confusing that painting on top of a “red” or “yellow” block reverts its effect before applying the new effect.

 We saw that throughout the past playtesting sessions and presentations this concept was difficult for players to grasp even after we added a tutorial section. Hence we decided to remove this “reverting” game mechanic such that applying red then yellow to a block lowers and then raises it back to its original position.

Before

After

1. Another important piece of feedback that we got was that it’s very easy and frustrating when using the blue paint to accidentally paint underneath the player causing them to fall off the stage and have to reset.

Since this mistake is extremely easy to accidentally do given that the default selected block is always beneath the player, in our team meeting we decided to prevent the block from falling if the player is currently standing on top of it. We still wanted the puzzle aspects to have a block that reacts to gravity so once the player walks off the block will begin its descent.

Given the importance of the Beta deliverable, we gave big priority to having as many updated models and animations in as possible. Given the fact that we started this week with only a basic walk cycle implemented in game, a huge thanks to our animator, Stephen for animating the rest of the painting, idle transition, pushing animations very quickly in the beginning of the week, as well as Cheryl for additional animation support; and Stark and Jisu for supplying the updated textures and models of the NPCs and environment assets.

For the Beta presentation we had updated the new block models for each type of paint colour effect, as well as the models for the special creatures and lighting for the checkpoint/exit.

There were also new visual lighting changes to further emphasize the new colour being switched to:

Another major update that was completed was the revamping of the paint quantity UI to be more clearer. A few design iterations were tested:

But finally  we decided to change it from listing the paint quantities in a list to showing them in a diamond shape to match the orientation of the Xbox One controller buttons. We hoped this would make the controller mapping more intuitive and easy to look up if needed on the fly.

Before:

After:

Xbox one buttons for reference:

A new footsteps trail was also added when the player walks across different blocks to visually indicate where the player has been:

The music team (Hayden and Brianna) also created and helped implement the second background music soundtrack in the new levels along with some ambience updates.

During the presentation, we received another round of great feedback on how to improve our game. Some key points that we will aim to address in the following weeks is:

• Panning to the exit at the beginning to give the player a sense of where to go.
• Unique and satisfying sound effects when switching to a specific colour.
• Use the left joystick for walking and, right joystick for panning.