Week 4 - Bernardo Mota

In the previous week, we developed a game design document.

Based on that, we decided that each of us should develop a prototype, to explore some concepts and mechanics for the game so that we could see what works best and use that information for the next development cycle.

I decided to explore the game mechanic of Wormholes. Playing the game Portal inspired me to prototype this mechanic.

When a player 'collides' with a wormhole, he gets teleported to another location, which can be a special room or a place ahead on the level, making it required for the player to use the wormhole.

Below there are two screenshots of this prototype/mechanic.

Some aspects for improvement on our prototypes are:

• The game collision masks could be smaller, or they could be replaced by a point (e.g., the center)—this is because the player can move the spaceship quickly and cause motion blur. Hence, it is less frustrating for the player to just avoid colliding the center of the spaceship/his mouse coordinates with the walls and other game objects.
• The wormhole mechanic could be compulsory — And this is an aspect that likely we will do in the next iteration of the game.
• Some other aspects about extra levels/rooms can be improved — They could sometimes be made visible so that the player is motivated to go there.

Here is a video with a demo:

On the next few days

We will receive written feedback from our peers and use that to make a decision about the direction of the development of our game and start the new cycle.