Softs
All throughout the past couple of weeks, we have been doing our best to prepare our project for Softs Presentation, and all of our effort paid off wonderfully. The costumes and our enthusiasm for our product drew in the crowds as they each took a turn to play. During our demo session, a multitude of people (including a few ETC alumni) stopped by, played our game, and gave us invaluable feedback. Many felt that the mechanics were fun to use and they were drawn into the action of the experience. The cuteness of the baby kraken character also charmed players.
There were also valuable critiques of the game that were gleaned from this demo. Outside of a few minor bugs, players felt that there were at times a lack of direction and that we could have created more objectives and objective markers in the game for guests to use to navigate our levels. Many of the text boxes describing what to do in the game went by too quickly for people to read, and there was not enough instruction about how to interface with the world. Since we were asking the guests to return the baby kraken to it mother, they wanted to go to the kraken that exists at the edge of the level to kill players if they stray too far. Once they had seen the kraken, they thought, “Oh, this must be the mother. I’ll go over there and hand the baby ba- Hey, why did I just die?” Other players found ways to go around our game; for instance, one person was able to maneuver in such a way that the enemy ships would park themselves at the edge of the screen and do nothing while the player attacked them. The other major piece of feedback we received was that players wanted a repair feature like health packs or a slow regeneration of the ship so that they could survive the tougher levels.
Given that we only have a week and some days left before finals, we will do what we can in the remaining time to polish the game to a glossy sheen. A few tweeks here and a few additions/subtractions there, and we will be ready to finish our semester magnificently.