Summer DIGM 540 - Final touches on the game

 Overview

    This week, my initial plan was to finish designing all the levels. However, while creating one of the levels, I encountered difficulties in implementing the flickering effects of the shader that I intended to achieve. This issue caused a slowdown in the overall progress of level production. Additionally, I received feedback from a few friends whom I had invited to try out the game. I used those feedback to make some necessary changes to the game.

 Playtest Feedback

    I received feedback and one of the points raised initially concerned the design of the game cover. In the original game cover, I used basic phrasing to convey the game's title and startup options. However, the feedback indicated that this approach seemed overly plain. As a result, I made the choice to make it more beautiful. Given my lack of formal training in art, I opted to utilize OpenAI's DALL-E 2 to assist me in generating various cover designs.

(Main Menu)

    The second piece of feedback that holds greater significance pertains to the game's controls and mechanics. During the design phase, I had inadvertently omitted any introduction to the gameplay and how the game should be operated, assuming players would become acquainted naturally as they progressed through the initial levels. However, I failed to consider that I hadn't provided explicit instructions on how to play and what actions to take.

    In response to this feedback, I decided to create a tutorial level within the game. This tutorial is accessible through the "How to Play" section on the main interface. By incorporating this tutorial, players will gain an understanding of how to operate the game and comprehend its objectives.

(Movement Instruction)

(Action Instruction)

The basic implementation of the tutorial level is to detect the player's buttons and actions. If the player has pressed the corresponding button or performed the indicated action according to the instructions, it will jump to the next instruction.

Shaders Problem Again

    As mentioned earlier, I dedicated time this week to developing the spotlight flickering effect, but I encountered some challenges. The issue I'm grappling with is that whenever I attempt to make the spotlight blink, it ends up blacking out the entire screen instead. Consequently, the initial spotlight effect vanishes, persisting through subsequent levels and obstructing gameplay. This problem results in players encountering a black screen after being on the second level ("Turbulence" - teenage years).

    Aside from this problem, some shaders change opacity and the speed of the game character is reduced. These are some numerical modifications, and I believe that there will not be any difficulties when I implement them.

    However, I am aware that our class time is about to end. I'm uncertain whether I'll have enough time to delve into studying and comprehending the solution for the spotlight flickering issue. Despite this, my aspiration is to make some notable headway on this matter before submitting the final report. On a positive note, the game's mechanics have been thoroughly refined, except for the flickering effect that is helping to tell the story.

Demo Game Link

https://0maple0.itch.io/lights-gold

Next Week

    Next week, which will be the last week of this class, my goal is to complete the flickering effect of the spotlight and implement as many levels as possible. Finally, it is the summary of the whole project and the writing of the report.