Some Thoughts From Black Rock!

What I Liked Most

You've focussed on the technical details of building a generic world building system with reasonable results. The physics integration appears to work and is stable. Hopefully this will give you a platform to build up the gameplay and puzzle elements.

What I Liked Least

There's very little feedback to the user which indicates what the aims of the game are and whether they're achieving them.

The puzzle elements right now aren't very enjoyable. For example although I know how the plank and boxes puzzle can be solved theoretically, it still took me a long time to complete it. This is because for most of the time I was competing against the quirks of the control system rather than thinking about the challenge itself.

Ideas For Improvement

In a third person game much of the pleasure for the player will come out of the feeling of control they have over their avatar and the environment. I'd suggest spending some time playing other third person games and understanding how both the camera and the player move in those games. Then return to Pharoh's Tomb and see if you can capture elements of that feel in the case when the main character is just running and jumping.

I think that you'll find user testing very interesting. I suspect that people who haven't played the game before won't do what you expect them to do when first coming up against your puzzles.

There are a number of ways to indicate to the player what they need to achieve. The simplest will be to put some text up on the screen. But most games are more subtle then this. For example a simple thing like putting a desirable object on the other side of the chasm in the plack and boxes puzzle will lead the player to want to find a way across. (Taking that one step further, maybe the aim of the game could be to collect 10 pieces of an object, each obtained by solving a puzzle.)

Also don't forget to use sound in your game!

Page URL: https://twiki.graphics.ethz.ch/bin/view/GameClass/BlockRockInterimReportFeedbackTeam6
2024-04-19
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