Alpha Build 2.0
Night Plight » Devlog
PLAYER EXPERIENCE GOALS
Art
How does the lighting influence the game's mood? ______ The lighting's effect on the game's mood and environment changes depending on its color and intensity - cooler toned and harsh light increases the sense of unease and stress whilst the warmer, softer lights guide the character and give them moments of relief. |
Design
What is an essential component of the game's experience? _________ The completion of various puzzles and successfully creating or finding the correct path to reach your goal. An underlying sense of unease is also essential. |
Game play
How can I find the right balance between too simple and too complex for the in-game puzzles? ________________
Copious amounts of play-testing will be required to make sure that the puzzles are intuitive and relatively easy, whilst also requiring some level of forethought to complete. I want the game to be fun and challenging without being exasperating.
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More posts
- Halfway Point: Current GoalsDec 10, 2019
- Current Bugs as of 12/9Dec 10, 2019
- Implementing Fairy LightsDec 10, 2019
- (Not So) Fun With Physics DevelopmentDec 09, 2019
- Night Plight BetaDec 09, 2019
- Weekly Goals #3Nov 13, 2019
- Weekly Goals #2Nov 12, 2019
- Weekly Goals #1Oct 30, 2019
- Alpha BuildOct 10, 2019
Comments
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I think focusing complexity on the areas and items that lead the character through game play is key. Everything else could be simplified. I was so shocked in the reveal of the room when coming from behind the dresser and i think thats a very successful aspect of the game!
With such an open space though its hard to navigate and figure out which direction I should go and which areas are intended to be explored and which should not. The area in front of the doll house is a bit over loaded and I do think it's a great idea to diclutter it just a little bit. I found myself having to jump through the area and wasn't able to do much walking. This could be solved by giving the character a gliding jump since she has wings so that the player and do navigation from above the plane. That could also asist in game navigation as well.
As for the lighting I don't think there enough variation to get any feelings from it. Finding the warm night like doesn't have a reward and being the the cooler light doesnt have a consequence so all in all it doesnt have much impact. I think in order to convey the feelings you're going for you would need to add music/sound effects and then the consequences/rewardds i mentioned earlier.
All in all it's looking awesome! It's crazy how much you've gotten done on your own! good job!
I really like how the environment is coming together! It really succeeds in making you feel like you're in a toy story-like setting. I know your original idea was for it to be a maze but I currently get the feeling that it is more sand box like and I am not really sure what my objectives are. I also noticed some of the large environment assets were missing collision.
I'm not sure if it's the settings for the graphics here, but, the textures seem a little on the low res end of things. If this is intended, I would find a way to play with scale a little bit.
I really enjoy the world building here, but, one major area of issue I am having is navigating. At the beginning it is made quite clear how I progress, you give me just enough information to move forward. Once I clear the ball I am excited/overwhelmed within the first few seconds of moving. The invisible barrier is actually a bummer to find so often, part of this is, the path is unclear, so I just run into it quite a bit. A solution is using props/color to guide our eye. Similar textured props with colorful elements can be grouped to create a visual map.
Now for addressing the question of puzzles. Try to create a simple map of your level top down, and, address your puzzle making in phases of difficulty.
1st phase - easy - push block, climb over, push ball remove barrier
2nd phase - medium level of difficulty - do we push and STACK things? This would challenge how we climb and find our pushable items and how we line up the drop to stack.
3rd Phase - limited items pushed into place and timed jumping.
These are just some possible physics based mechanics that are simple yet effective.
Great work thus far!