Posted January 05, 2023 by anold house
#Update #Splash
Over the past few days, I've been lucky enough to have a few friends play the game and give me notes (and encouragement!) on it. Some of what came up were ideas I'd already considered while making the initial draft, but many were brand new, both obvious and really really clever. The current build contains some changes that came out of those conversations:
I can't stress enough how instructive it is to watch somebody play your game live, whether you're in the room with them, or watching a screenshare, or whatever. People use character controllers in wildly different ways. They will look away from things you thought were directly in front of them. They will not hear the sound cues that are obvious to you.
If I have one major takeaway from these playtests, it's that you can't go wrong putting redundant feedback and signaling into the game and level design. Make thing make noises, fire particles, do funny little animations, change colors, rumble the controller, flash lights, shakes the screen, or anything else you can think of. Players minds are build to wander, so you need a whole load of tricks to keep them focused.
Thank you Robin, Ian, Milan, and Holly for sharing your brilliant thoughts with me and helping to make this goofy game better.