CAGD 270 - SimpleDNDMap v3 Feedback

 The assignment was to create a level with a theme of aliens and a prison break theme. My idea was to create a post-apocalyptic prison where two prisoners tried to escape. The prison would be filled with aliens and locked doors. The doors would be locked, and the players would need to collect the keys to escape the prison.


In the level, there would be many doors and a couple of bosses, one at the middle of the playthrough and another at the end. This level is linear; there is only one way of finishing the level. Maybe a semi-linear design would have made it more interesting; however, there would be a chance for the player to get lost and not understand where to go when finishing the level.


In my last project, there was an excess of detail in the level design. So in this assignment, I decided to make something more simple. I decided to put more thought into the mechanics and to balance the game to be playable instead of putting heavy detailing. 



Playtesting:

During the playtest, the players went through the puzzles reasonably quickly. Their player statistics were very boosted, so there wasn’t much of a challenge with normal enemies. However, there were a lot of challenges when facing the mid-game boss. In fact, there was a lot of time invested in this boss fight, so the players weren’t able to finish the level. 


Feedback:

After playing the game, the players seemed to want more. There wasn’t much of the level available, so adding some more enemies or items available for the player could have made the level more enjoyable. The enemies didn’t really face many challenges because the players were able to almost insta-kill them with their bare fists. Maybe lowering the player damage stat or adding a but more defense to the enemies would have fixed the problem. The puzzle was simple; however, it took the players more than 20 minutes to complete about half of the level. 


Another thing is that the mechanics were in my head; however, the players didn’t really know what to do or where to use them. The keys were a big problem, since the players thought they could use the keys in any door that they wanted when in reality, each key opened a specific door or set of doors. Another game mechanic was that some items have a specific use. However, this was not specified. So the players tried to use the fire extinguisher as a weapon instead of its intended use to extinguish the fire.


The darkness in the level was implemented; however, it did not feel necessary in the level. It added mystery to the game, but it didn’t add the feeling. Maybe making the darkness less dense, so that way the player has more freedom of choosing which path to pick as well as looking at which door opens when they pick up the key.


Conclusion:

Many things can be improved in this level, starting by adding detail and props to the background and bringing the level to life. This was a minimum buyable product designed for playtesting, but I believe that more details could make the level more interesting and more appealing. For the balancing of the players and the enemies. The base defense stat is very hard to balance with the player attack stat. Playtesting more at this level would help me polish it. For the boss fights, I think they were alright, but maybe giving the player more item variety would help make it more memorable and more strategy based instead of luck based.

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