Compilation
Most of the play testers seemed to receive the game very positively with the worst sentiment being that it was ok. The best compliment I think being that the tester wanted to play the game again.
Many of the issues that were presented were things that are already fixed just not implemented, being fixed at the time, or fall under the category of polish. These include issues like smoother controls, working on different keyboard controls, instruction screens and sound effects.
The most common issue that presented itself that would fall outside the polish category was the need for some type of reward/punishment system since currently there are infinite lives. As one tester said, they could be more brutal but that would seem to be a given as the levels progressed further. A ranking/score system is in the works but not fully implemented yet. Hopefully this will address that concern.
So things to do:
Polish, polish, poilish. Specifically, sound effects, character design/animation, smoother controls, better control layout, level designs
Implement the instruction screens and make it so that the levels can go beyond the small number we have now
Implement a scoring/ranking system for the end of each level and/or discuss other options for reward
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Play Tests
The play test went well with most of the negative issues concerning small things and aesthetics.
First the positive, the tester thought the overall game idea was good and the mechanics for the most part worked well. He was grumbling a bit every time he died during the later levels but since he died quite a bit this might just be because he wasn't that good : )
Something he brought up was the explosions on the background and whether or not they should disappear. I pointed out that they were an integral mechanic in helping to reveal the level and especially the traps that had just killed him. He wondered about the possibility of a player dying so much as to cover up the majority of the screen making it difficult to navigate. I pointed out that the bg was a different shade to the player and the blocks so that even if the extreme case occurred where a player died so much he covered up the entire level, it should still be navigable. (Though personally, we should think about the colors some more as some are too dark and others too bright)
He thought the controls worked well though he said some of the mechanics seemed a bit slow such as double-jumping and wall jumping. There was a slowness or stickiness to those actions.
He pointed out that in the early levels there was a lot of empty, white space that could be filled with something so as to not make it so jarring. Some suggestions he came up with were having a watermark of our team's name or logo, or a hint as to what the level requires or is trying to teach.
He also thought the main character could be bigger or use more personality to increase marketability and make the character more iconic. By personality he meant more animations as well as more noticeable physical attributes to make the character more "lovable" a la Kirby or Yoshi.
He also thought it would be helpful that besides the instruction screen being an option to view at the main menu, that during startup we could show a layout of controls for the player for a few seconds before going to the main menu screen. Some things that come to mind is when you download a demo and in one of the startup screens they show you an image of a controller and what all the buttons do.
Another thing he suggested was that since we don't have lives and deaths being an active penalty that we should implement a timer or something in which playthroughs and repeat playthroughs can have more meaning and that players have something to challenge themselves against or reward them for playing well.
A few glitches that I noticed was that the character occasionally appeared as the same color two or more times in a row after respawn and it may coincide with the image of the character getting captured on the background as that glitch appeared to happen whenever the character came out the same color.
Again, overall the tester liked the game and most of his concerns I think would fall under the polish category rather than as huge obstacles or bad mechanics that require an overhaul.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another tester had problems due to a glitch we had in our current keyboard system. He wanted the W key to be jump and felt that space bar is not intuitive because "it is below the moving keys. He also was not terribly crazy about the arrow keys being used to throw paint in directions. At the time of the test, the build used still moved the character as you threw paint. This did create an interesting affect with the player dashing back and fourth to reveal the world. The first tested did not like this, where as a second tester was more accepting of this mechanic, broken though it was.
The first test suggested having some sort of AI in the game. He expressed an interest in "blasting something with paint", at the very least at the end you could have a moving boss that you would have to hit with paint. He also complained about the slipping that the character does after a dashing, but this was while he died... a lot.
The other tested hummed the music!!!!!!!
Also at one point he correctly guessed where spikes were... DO BETTER RAY!
His final comment was "if you have infinite lives, make it more brutal".
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another play tester commented that the controls needed to be reworked since she found it difficult to use both jump and shooting at the same time. She also felt that the height of the jump needed to be reworked since it seemed off to her.
She also thought the music was annoying and that we should change it... sorry Josh
A big thing for her was that it was difficult for her to pick up the instructions on her own during the first run through. We have instructions, they're just not in yet so this may be a moot issue. After having the instructions explained to her, she found the game to be easy.
She liked the game in general but didn't seem to have any huge positive interest in it.
The other tester also thought the music was a bit annoying. She thought the character could be bigger and more animated than it was since it was difficult to see for her. She also felt that the controls could be reworked since she was having difficulty using the keyboard.
She found the flow of the game to be good. She wondered if the shooting paint mechanic was necessary but it was explained that the mechanic is optional and as a player becomes more experienced they would not need it or could challenge themselves without using it.
She thought that the game overall was a nice little casual game but that it could use more polish in terms of visuals, sounds and controls.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The play tester thought the game was really fun. She had little difficulty figuring out the controls after a spending a short time experimenting with the keys on her own.
Things she enjoyed: the explosions, the music, the cute main character, the difficulty and challenge of some levels
Things she thought we could fix: the title screen, specifically the one character in the upper left which doesn't seem to be animating, up the cuteness or quirkiness level with sound effects and cuter character design and implementing some kind of motivator for the player.
Most of the suggestions she made were along the lines of polish and aesthetics, however the one thing that was more game play based was the idea that since we have infinite lives we should have something to motivate players to do better. She suggested max number of lives. When I brought up the idea we ad about the scoring system tacked at the end of each level, she said that could work if the player felt like they were losing something by dying so much.
Another suggestion she had was that the collectibles might be used as keys, i.e that you can't use the goal til you collect all the brushes.
She also wanted to play some more levels as she thought it was too short and she wanted to play some more.
Another play tester also enjoyed the game saying it was really cool. He also found the game easy to pick up and understand after a little experimenting.
His only issues were that some of the controls needed to be smoothed out and that he had some difficulty with the current layout of the keys. Also like the previous tester, he felt he needed something more to motivate him to do better and die less since with an infintie number of lives, anyone with enough time could eventually beat the level and they would still be in the same place as someone who didn't die as much. He also brought up the idea of max lives or a ranking system in order to reward players who do well and punish those who don't.
