UPDATES
Emergent Goals and Experimental Levels:
This week, team seAker continued trying out different approaches to the physics-based exploration style of play, creating various levels and testing them to find out what players want to do. Overwhelmingly, players have most enjoyed using angles to create “trick shots,” and so the design focus is on creating interesting opportunities to reward players for doing this well. Players mostly are intent on reaching the end and collecting gems along the way, and so it seems best to make reaching the end of the level the goal, and to rely on gem collection as one of the primary scoring elements. Basic scoring systems have been devised and tested, and the team is trying to determine how different elements of play should be weighted. The plan for next week is to continue along this iterative path and finalize a primary goal and scoring system. The team’s main objective is to create a level that makes it challenging and rewarding to reach the level’s end, provides opportunities for the player to make interesting trick shots, and balances gem collection, shot difficulty, and other elements in an interesting way in the scoring system.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Implemented scoring system, life tracking, shrimp death function, new level; created and tested experimental level (Build #9), devised an array of different types of level designs, produced additional art assets for feedback and UI elements.