Week 10/11 Feedback

Mostly minor things. General feed back was that the game looks really good.

Sell Presentation:

• Elaborate more on audience
• Why should someone play our game vs other games?
• Possibly go from demo to more detail about the game
• Talk about future plans
• Address replayability and game time
• Talked about LEG before it was introduced. Stop that.
• And stop saying gun.
• Add to intro slides "All you have is a flashlight"
• Address why the player isn't shooting the Alien in the demo. Say this in presentation.
• Almost too easy to power Reactor, add more of a challenge.
• More creature noises. We don't want them sneaking up from behind.

Scrum:

• Sound is weak, improve both effects and as a mechanic (not for next week, but term)
• GDD isn't just what you've done, but where you're taking the game. What enhancements are coming?
• Address player feedback in the presentation. Give summaries of feedback, and tell us where the game is going.

Note: Maybe we could make it so that the Creature hates light and wants to destroy it/put it out? This would explain why he follows light orbs. We could eventually have an animation of a creature ripping a power station out of the wall. That would be cool.

11/21 Class Minutes

Today's is a big update! Our game is coming along nicely and nearly finished. We have some heavy texturing to do, some sound changes, and polish - but we're nearly there. We presented an early version of our final sell presentation today, along with our newest build. We got great feedback and positive input, and it felt really great to finally hear that our product is become impressive.

Here's the notes I took today on both our sell presentation and our game demo.

Sell feedback (The number corresponds with the slide number)
2. Make the 'imagine' parts pop up one at a time
3. after 'you hear noise', jump to 'now you're on a spaceship'. Not straight to Game Start screen.
4. After 'on a ship', then game screen.
5. ??
6. Blend art and story here, don't separate. Incorporate screenshots. This goes for other slides too
7. Intended audience is good, just put intended rating as well
8. Introduce character > story > what player doing > intended audience (in that order)
9. Don't list individually. Maybe ditch slide. As we put images, we can mention some of these things. Demonstrate these, don't list. Video?
10. Include this on the story
11. Include this after story? Gameplay slide? Can go into small detail as to how the creature is finding you (heatmap)
12. Great slide. Maybe get scale, get better pose of Henry. However, this is a little deceptive to in game - creature seems smaller in game than this screen. Reared up pose in game to demonstrate size and fear?
13. don't break this out. concept art is great, try to get matching screen shot. This doesn't need its own slide, should be in gameplay explanation
14. This screen shot could go with story. don't title 'Demo Scenario'
15. good, same as above
16. this shouldnt be seperate slide. incorporate these slides throughout
17. get updated gun model. ditch concept art. this goes with gameplay, doesn't need its own slide. Have gun pictured with energy pickups, show they work together.
18. have gameplay demo, then Question?

- Less lists and back and forth
- Video right before game screen? Want to give them sense of fear before game screen.
- Too much back and forth between story and gameplay, have it flow better.
- If we show Henry, needs better poses and look.
- Introduce Henry before explicit story. explain why he's the only one. show game screen, then talk about Genry and why he's only one there
Demo
- Audio/visual clue when pickup ammo
- More monster audio
- Make generator spin, turn on lights? make it more obvious that its now on. give more payoff, a clue as to what's next? cliffhanger!
- Footsteps frequency needs to be upped
- More scares! valves and pipes bursting? lights that were on turning off?

11/7 Class Feedback

Today we presented our week 7 scrum. Overall feedback was positive and we've made some great progress. Things we need to work on over the next few weeks are implementing sound effects, getting animations in, and texturing the world and objects.

A lot of players seemed to be confused about what exactly the generator was, and they had trouble figuring out what to do once getting out of the intro room.

We also need to figure out a way to convey to the player that the monster should not be shot, and can't be killed. While most people figured this out on their own, most players attacked it first.

We also need to work on the alien's vision distance. Right now, in the dark, he can see you from very far away. Originally, we wanted the monster to be pretty blind in the pitch black parts of the game, and it would only find you if it bumped into you in the dark. However, he'd have no problem seeing you from a distance if you were standing in light.

We need to polish up these aspects of the game, but so far so good.

Oct 10 Class Meeting Feedback

Today we presented our first 5 minute sell presentation, our prototype, and scrum presentations from the past two weeks.

We got some valuable feedback for all of them, which Jon wrote down and I'm recording here.

Feedback on our Sell Presentation

• Have a more interesting, not all-black background
• Include more images
• Have some kind of teaser in the beginning
• The title slide should have a tag line
• Realism - it isn't unique
• Be careful with setting the bar in relation to big-name games
• Go more in-depth on sound and light
• "Story" instead of where & when
• Character portrait sketch
• Research station sketch
• Paint a consistent mental picture for each person in the audience
• Relate 'who it's for' with fans of other games
• Why we are making it/marketing, why people will buy
• What does the player...
• do?
• know?
• see?
• how do they know it?
• why is it fun?
• Potential design idea: monster consumes energy orbs, gets energy/speed/power
• Perhaps in the dark, player's cant tell the difference between colors, possible puzzle?
• Whole team participates in next sell

Feedback on Scrum Presentations

• Background has same problems as sell
• Role-specific tasks (who's doing what)
• Don't jump back and forth between things (Don!)
• Sufficient detail on how things were done
• Videos of animations
• Psuedo code
• Pics of models
• Give enough detail for critique