Week 9
Based on the feedback we got from playtesters and former submissions, our team went through major discussions regarding changing the core mechanics of the game this week. The group met up several times throughout the week in order to discuss what could be done regarding some faults of the core mechanics of the game as mentioned below.
First, the time loop system was not working as effectively as imagined. The core mechanic of the game involved that the time 'resets' for the player after a certain amount of time passes. However, the progress of the game would stay the same and the player is just spawned to the beginning of the level, required to pick up where they left off. This process came across as unnecessary and even annoying to some playtesters. It has been agreed that the time reset does not serve a real purpose in creating a fun experience for the players or adding any new challenges. This issue was solved by increasing the time limit so the level is beatable under that time. When the time runs out, it would classify as a failure and the player would have to restart the level. Along with this implementation, we also address another problem that the player was not led by anything while navigating the level. Some time droplets that add time were added to guide the player in finding the collectibles. The last problem we addressed was that the mechanics of the collectibles and lighting up the lights were not serving any purpose to the main goal of the level. Collectibles and lighting up lights were part of the level but it didn't really do anything. We solved this issue by changing the main goal of every level to saving a sibling and to reach the sibling, all the collectibles need to be collected. The lighting up task was given to a separate level and made so that it would serve the same purpose as the collectibles.
More playtesting was done using the updated version of the game and Alpha Code requirements were filled in by the copywriters, including graphs and diagrams (Bubble Diagram, Overview Map, etc) Minor bugs in the code was fixed and parts of the narrative was implemented as well. UI integration was also discussed.