This Saturday, QuestLine participated in ETC’s Playtest Day. At this event, people are invited to come to ETC and playtest the projects that we have creaeted this semester. The event is essentially 12 20 minute consecutive playtests.
Build Updates
In preparation for playtest day, we added a large collection of build updates. The goal was to complete as much as we could that would round out the experience we are stiving for. We ended up adding:
- Sound effects to the environment, player character and interactions
- Added voice over dialogues with subtles
- Edited the 3D model of the player character
- Connected the player character to mulitple animations
- Added vines to the temple entrance
- Added trap VFXs
- Iterated on the floor 1 level structure
- Created and implemented new UI tutorial boxes
- Created mulitple tutorial videos and edited the intro video
Playtest Structure
We created a standard structure for each of the playtest. They were done in a computer lab. 6 computers were set up with the game and head phones, then 2 backup computers were also set up but without headphones.
During the first 5 minutes of the playtest we had guest settle in and gave them a brief introduction of our project. Then they spent roughly 10 minutes playing the level. The last 5 minutes were dedicated to gettign feedback and taking them to the next playtest.
The level we presented started in the outside scene but without the walking tutorial bits. That information was presented in the powerpoint. Then had to complete the two entrance puzzles. After, the players would stealth through the first and second floors of the temple. Most of their time was dedicated to floor 1. Floor 2 is still incomplete.
Playtest Feedback
Overall the playtest went pretty smoothly. We had a couple of bugs here and there and some people weren’t interested in this type of game. However, we got some really glowing reviews from our target audience; 14-25 year old stealth game players.
Design Issues:
- Balancing difficulty of the first two puzzles
- Need to add hurt sound effect/VFX
- Walking feels too slow
- Enemies aren’t too challenging
- More need to use the abilities
Bugs:
- Respawnings- when the player respawns they are an abnormal size
- Some collision issues on stairs and in the outside area
- Overlapping audio and subtitles
- Falling off the map
Next Steps:
The next 3 weeks will be dedicted to finishing/polishing the rest of the level. We have Softs and Festival to prepare for as well.