CAGD 270 - SimpleDNDMap v1 Feedback

This week, we were assigned a group to playtest our simple DND map with a basic rule sheet given to us. The map was meant to be simple and under 20 minutes. They chose the Mage and the Knight characters for their playthrough which was a good combination, both were very strong characters. The playtest went surprisingly well, and there was a lot of feedback given me about what I should change for the map to be more enjoyable.

● What Went Right:

The playtesters seemed to really enjoy the map's theme; they were very involved in the choose your own path topic surrounding the map. There were many paths available for them to take and explore. The variety and attention to detail were something they noticed and appreciated, and that showed me that good level design was a pivotal concept to grab the player’s attention.

Because there were many paths available for the player to choose from, the players decided to separate to cover more terrain. There were evenly distributed enemies and bosses along the paths they chose. There was a constant challenge in front of them, varying in difficulty, keeping them engaged during the playthrough.

The map was very entertaining and had a lot of temptations along the way, like vines that would block your eye-sight until they were cut or holes in which you had to jump or float to get a pass. Since we weren’t given any rewards that we could offer the player-like items, all these tempting but dangerous paths worked as shortcuts to make the player reach the ending faster.

● What went Wrong:

The map was too big to play in under 20 minutes, there were many rooms to explore and there wasn’t much time to explore the whole dungeon and fight all the bosses within the time limit. The choose your own path topic played as a double-edged blade because they enjoyed exploring; however, exploring took too much of their essential time.

Another thing that was pointed out to me was the enemy's difficulty. The enemies on the map have about the same characteristics as the player having magic, defense, and attack statistics. The purpose was to make the enemies challenging and make the battle between players and enemies more interesting and involving. However, this intended difficulty also made the players take too much time-fighting normal enemies instead of the most interesting conflicts, which were the bosses. Now the bosses were ridiculously strong and powerful. They were very unbalanced because of their height fortitude, this could be fixed by lowering their defense and damage stats and keeping their big health; that way, the players can deal more damage to the boss without taking the challenging part out of the equation.

During the game, I implemented the light ability by which the players were able to light up a 3x3 radius around them and were able to see what was inside the dark caves. However, there were many times when they would walk into a dark room without knowing what was inside, and they didn’t like that. It was very unpredictable and totally disregarded the skills of the player.

● Conclusion

Many improvements can be made to make the map more engaging and entertaining for the players; having the opportunity to have others playtest throughout your level gives you a different perspective of what they think and how they act when they encounter challenges. There might have been some tunnel vision while detailing the levels and disregarding the enemies and boss's statistics compared to the players that would attempt to defeat them.

Now the improvements have to be implemented into the game to create a better version that can be played in under 20 minutes in which the players can have a fun time without feeling powerless.