History of the proposal

At the beginning, we hesitated between two different games, and then we had two different "first rough" game proposals at March 8th:

• Race Game Proposal
• Llams And Egral Proposal, slides

Finally, thanks to the comments of our classmates, and the one of our favorite lecturers we decided for Llams And Egral. The final proposal is here

Here are reported the final feedback as well as all the comments, for the two proposals. Thanks a lot for these!

GameLabTeam - Final Feedback

We appreciate your choice to go for the 2D platformer.
You will see, as it makes development much easier (e.g. 2D physics), stuff like graphics, animation and effects rendered in 3D still creates a visual appealing game.
You also adapted the schedule properly.
We think that with moving the heaviest features to the extras, you have very good chances to achieve your goals.
The final proposal also includes some new uncertainties as e.g. why not always combine Llams&Egral for having this powerful attacks?
Be aware of such pitfalls, they will reveal themselves latest in the alpha testing.
All in all a very appealing game idea.

Mutual proposal critiques: FINYT

Christian Schumacher

1. I like the tactical possiblities, e.g. staying near the money or doing laps.
2. In your sketch of a race track, the "longer way" is basically just a slightly longer way, but not much different than the "shorter way", and there is basically only one place on the track where a confrontation around money can take place, which would be rather boring. I would consider making a track that splits and merges (with shorter and longer routes), with different places to collect money.
3. If you manage to program a nice AI, the following game mode would be interesting: Every lap (counted by the first who finishes it), the car with the least money gets kicked out of the game.

Marina Spaeni

1. I like that you want to make your game as realistic as possible.
2. The gameideas/items/gameplay seem all very known and common to me. Probably you could think of something special that makes your game more unique.
3. If you can't work out an idea that satisfies all of you, why don't you combine both approaches? Maybe something like a racing game where you have to collect those crystals with the background story of Llams & Egral adapted to a racing game. That would make the racing game less normal.

Fabian Kulman

1. The money idea could make it really interesting.
2. The money idea seems to be the only interesting about the game.
3. Conclusion: focus on the money part and balancing the game mechanics.

Thorben Bochenek

1. Very unusual combination. Totally new and could be very cool
2. I think you should really work on the "staying at the money" idea. If you don't give incentives to race, why do you call it a racing game?
3. To solve 2. I would suggest to give players money when they finish a lap.

Jan Rüegg

1. I like the point that you would have strategy elements in the racing game... makes it much more interesting in my oppinion.
2. I miss some sort of story around the game...

Michael Morandi

1. The strategic component could be fun!

Fabian Hahn

1. Well... we don't have another racing game yet, so go for it
2. I'm not sure about the goal of the game. From what I heard, it sounds preferrable to just wait for "big money pots" and gank enemies instead of actually driving laps.
3. If your car is big enough, you could driver over enemies (remember the flash power up in Mario Kart?)

Daniel Bucher

1. Money wins not speed
2. Game balancing (drive only from one supply to the other instead a lap -> no racing game any more). But I think this must be tested will gaming.
3. Add rockets to stun opponent (for example before money supply)

F. Serre

1. Original, fun, strategical, looks like Mario Kart => promises a lot of multiplayer afternoons
2. Looks like Mario Kart => you will have to make the difference
3. I think this will be more fun than a labyrinth game, especially when playing with friends

Manuel Sprenger

1. Mario Kart FTW!
2. Unclear goals (if being fastest doesn't matter)

Alain

1. Smells like fun!

Lukas Humbel

1. The idea is funny.
2. It may somehow take out the "racing" of racing game
3. How about adding different ways to terminate the game? (Like "Collect 100 coins" or "Finish 3 laps" or "kill all my oponents") And the player who first catches one wins. I know, this is somehow similar to gain money for every destroyed enemy/collected coin and so on, but this way you have to focus on one.

Dominik Giger

1. Varies the racing concept a bit more.
2. Could be possible that the players find a strategy that will always win.
3. Maybe add these special abilities from mario cart that affect your opponents.

Florian Köhl

1. Variations of racing games could actually make a lot of fun!
2. However, if it's not the fastest one who wins, it is not actually a racing game anymore...

Mutual proposal critiques: Llams & Egral

Christian Schumacher

1. I like the notion of having multiple ways to solve a problem/quest. It increases the replay value and appeals to different kinds of gaming styles.
2. The resources mana and stamina may be a source of frustation. In the case of stamina, the player might have to wait for it to refill and he will get bored. In the case of mana, the player might run out of it and it will be harder to defeat enemies that are sensible to magic attacks. Generally, the balancing is important.
3. As Llams focuses on magic and Egral on weapons, combining those two seems to be an interesting possibility, e.g. Llams can enchant Egrals weapon to increase the damage.

Marina Spaeni

1. I like the story and the fact that you have to steer 2 characters that are different.
2. If the crystals are hidden too well, it gets probably frustrating to find them all.
3. Overall opinion: I would go for the first approach, the racing game, maybe adapt that one a bit, as mentionend above. I think you are trying to achieve too much with Llams & Egral. It's a nice story and I like the ideas but it seems a bit too much work for only one semester.

Thorben Bochenek

1. The co-op between the very different characters. Also your drawing are very good, looking forward to your actual models
2. Your level design is very critical to the fun of the game. I fear that you could destroy a very good game here by not properly balancing
3. Overall opinion: Definitely go for the first approach. The game idea is much better and I think this counts most here. Also the first game for me seems to be in the scope of the course, the second could get too complicated to handle. Go for the cool small idea!

Jan Rüegg

1. The artworks and story of the game are awesome! Great work! I also liked the idea of having a small and a big bag you can fill with items.
2. This sounded like a lot of work... I hope you can achieve what you wish in this short time.
3. Maybe you could even add two-player mode instead of switching between Llams & Egral?
4. Overall opinion: I liked this much more than the racing game... but then, I don't like racing games in general, so that could be a reason

Michael Morandi

1. Really cool artwork and a nice story!
2. I can imagine that you have too little time to create these mystical worlds and detailled models you strive for. (Unless you have much experience with modelling,rigging,animation etc.(

Fabian Hahn

1. Well, you clearly are very visionary and have awesome drawing skills...
2. BUT: This is completely out of scope, I don't see any way of how this could be implemented in this course
3. The game is so overly complex already, there's nothing more to add. Go for the first proposal.

Daniel Bucher

1. Puzzle with two characters
2. Little guy took wrong stuff, how to recover? (thrown to a plattform with wrong tools. How to get back to the Large guy?)

Manuel Sprenger

1. Nice idea to change the caracters
2. Doesn't it become boring if once played?

Alain

1. Catchy slogan and sketeches!
2. The game play might be too complicated and frustrating.

Lukas Humbel

1. Nice artwork/story/scenario
2. Fun really depends on maps/levels, make sure you have some fun (and simple enough) ones. Also there were too many ideas presented, focus!
3. I would not start implementing this unless you have really figured out some maps and removed some features (maybe inventar?). I would go for the racing game!

David Meier

1. Great artworks
2. Idea not really new and difficult implement and animate characters as nice as the artwork

Stefan Wenger

1. Great idea that for the concept of "large & small"
2. The game you presentet looked like a game that a large team with a lot of time could implement nicely

Dominik Giger

1. Very good idea to have multiple solutions to the puzzles.
2. Could get too complicated with different characters with individual abilities and inventory.
3. Maybe have the two guys interact with each other (for example the big guy can throw the small guy).

Alex Horton

1. I love the idea of a racing game that allows players to pick how they want to win.
2. Racing games can be very frustrating (just see how much mario kart makes people swear)
3. Really emphasize on the money collecting. Try to make it interesting and allow money to buy you items or something. Customize-ability of your car would be fun. Try not to make items that directly harm the opponent. These can be utterly maddening!

Florian Köhl

1. Really embedded the theme here!
2. However, this sounds like a 2 year project.
3. Think about it again... Could you drop some aspects and still make it fun?