next »

[Guert]

Roach toaster 2

Roaches toasting on a potential fire

   For centuries, the roaches have been living a life of peace and harmony, eating whatever they can and breeding in the shadows. It was without any malicious intent that they infested some of our homes, looking for some tasty snacks. But years of human oppression has turned those neutral crawlers into blood thirsty beasts aiming for world domination, Doom is at hand as the evil pestilence spreads in our homes, organized in boss-controlled battalions, slowly taking control of the whole planet. So is the background story of the strategy/puzzle game Roach Toaster 2 by Shotbeak Games. Your job will be to exterminate the invading pest, one battalion at a time. 

   In this grind, I first analyze the game from an emotional point of view, investigating if the game is intuitive, immersive, how many levels of experimentation it offers and if the player is kept motivated throughout the experience. Afterward, I will move on to dissect the game under a technical point of view by examining the game’s mechanisms, its economy, ergonomics, flow, stability and accessibility. Finally, I will suggest various possible modifications to enhance the game.
 
Before I start, I’d like to clarify a few things. First of all, I will be referring to the player as “he” but this is only a matter of simplicity. The context applies to both male and female player. Also, I will refer Roach toaster 2 as RT2 to ease the reading of this grind. 

Emotional
How does the player feels when playing RT2? What emotions rise when living the experience? Let’s take a close look at the game, emotionally speaking.

Motivation
   Many factors motivate the player during the experience. These factors are quite varied. The player’s goal, the story, the originality and the emotional involvement of the player in the game universe all affect how the player will desire to play the game. 

Goals
   As mentioned in earlier grinds, there are three common types of goals: long-term, mid-term and short-term. As their name implies, these goals are achieved after a certain period, motivating the player in different ways. What goals do RT2 offers?

Long-term goal
   Unfortunately, RT2 offers only one long-term goal and it happens to be the most common game of them all: winning the entire game.  The game has many elements it could use to create long-term goals but alas, it fails to use them. It’s always important for a game to offer at least two long-term goals to insure what is commonly referred as “replay value”.

Mid-term goal
In terms of mid-term goals, the player finds a bit more to sink his teeth in but there’s not as much meat on the bone as it may appear.

  The main mid-term goal is unlocking all of the possible units. A very good goal in theory but in RT2’s case, it fails to motivate the player as much as it possibly could. The first issue with this mid-term goal is that most units will be available to the player at less than halfway through the game. For example, there are 50 levels throughout the game. After finishing 23rd level, the player will have access to all units. This means that the player has nothing left to discover during the next 27 levels. When the player has nothing left to hope for, it greatly reduces his motivation.
 
   Another mid-term goal found in RT2 is the level discovery. The player is offered many different levels right off the bat and the curiosity to explore all the levels keeps the player motivated until he has at least played a bit in them. However, once again, this mid-term goal could have a stronger impact on the player. Since the player has everything at hand when he starts off, he has nothing to discover. He knows that, whatever he does, he can access everything right away. Giving too much to the player has he starts will have a perverted effect: the player will want to see it all but will loose interest quickly and feel like there’s no point of playing the game at all.

Short-term goal
   Short-term goals are slightly more abundant but are no more than a handful. The various solutions to a level, the management of the budget and the different types of roaches are all interesting goals. It’s fun to retry a level and use a different strategy or try to carefully manage money or discover how certain types of roaches react to certain weapon but, in the end, these short-term goals do not offer enough motivation to palliate the lack of other goals. In addition, the levels do not surprise the player has much as they could. The player will always know what he will face during the entire level, making the game somewhat predictable. 

   RT2 offers few goals that are not exploited to their maximum potential. The player’s motivation would need to be stimulated a bit more by having more goals and refining the one already within the game.

Originality
        In terms of originality, the game offers a good first impression but doesn’t live up to what it seems to offer. The idea behind an action puzzle game where you destroy invading roaches is somewhat original and funny. The game then sends mixed message to the player. The first one tells him that the game is ludicrous by having armies fighting roaches with lasers, missiles and shotguns and having two characters making jokes at the beginning of a level. Then, the game sends the message that the game is serious with its dark colors, moody music, sober characters and shy special effects. These opposing messages break the impression of originality and replace it with a feeling of confusion. Instead of having the player go “Wow, this is totally original”, the game ends up with the player thinking “So, is this serious or not?” 

Storyline
   RT2’s storyline is more a background story than anything else. Inside the game, the only storyline elements found, discussions between the two mascots of the game, do not develop the story further than what the introduction has already established. This is not necessarily a flaw. A more developed storyline would be an interesting feature but it wouldn’t compensate for the lack of goals. It is a good thing that a story as ludicrous as roach world domination doesn’t try to go too involved as there are high chances of becoming completely absurd and would distract the player from the actual game.     

Emotional involvement
   How much emotional involvement does the player get from playing RT2? Why would he play the game? How do the actions within the game world make him feel? Emotional involvement is one of the most important parts of the player’s motivation.

   Emotionally speaking, the player is uninvolved in the game world. Since the player cannot see a difference between acting or not in the game world, he is emotionally uninvolved in the experience. Why would the player finish all of the levels completely if there is no difference between a finished and uncompleted level besides its color? Why would he save a city from destruction when the city doesn’t seem to care whether the roaches are there or not? It’s important to provide emotional involvement to the player so that he feels like his actions actually have a repercussion through the virtual world.   

In summary...
   In summary, RT2 lacks motivational elements to keep the player in the experience. The lack of goals and emotional involvement are the main factors that fail to grab the player’s attention or to pull him back in the game after he left.

Intuitivism
   Does the player clearly know what to do at all time? Intuitivism is all about allowing the player to do what he wants to do at the time he wants. Intuitivism can be divided in three sections: the goal clarity, the solution clarity and the mechanism behaviors.

Goal clarity
   As mentioned earlier, the game has to supply various goals to the player in order to keep him motivated. These goals need to be clearly identified so that the player understands what his objective is.

   The goal clarity in RT2 is very clear. The player always knows what his next objective is and there are no doubts in his mind. Whenever he sees a roach, he must kill it until they are none left. That’s all he needs to know.

Solution clarity
   Knowing the goal is one thing, achieving it is another. Solution clarity is about how the player solves the challenges placed between him and his objective.

   It’s very clear what the player must do to achieve his goal.  It doesn’t take much experimentation before understanding that the units available will all kill roaches in one way or another. 

Mechanism behavior
   Once the solution is found, executing it becomes the next step. Does the game mechanism react according to the player’s intention when needed?
   
   RT2 has a bit of troubles in terms of mechanism behaviors. It’s hard for the player to tell exactly how to interact with the game. The basic idea of placing the units on the highlighted grid is simple; the problem occurs when the player cannot place a unit on a certain position or he tries to select another character in the unit bar. Also, not all the statistics of a unit are explained to the player. Some units have limited fire range and the player cannot know what it is before placing it. This makes unit positioning very complicated since the player cannot know how the unit will affect the game precisely before using and the game doesn’t allow the player to revise his actions.   

In summary...
   RT2 is intuitive but would definitively need to work on how the mechanisms work and give a lot more feedback to the player so that he can efficiently plan the positioning of his units.

[Guert]

Experimentation level
   Experimentation is an important part of the game. Players will want to experiment within the game world in order to discover subtleties and hidden details. Experimentation can occur at various levels in the game, such as experimenting with the general rules, trying to modify the avatar or play through a level in a different way to see if the outcome changes. Let’s see how RT2 allows the player to experiment.

Mastership
   Mastership is all about understanding every rules of the game world and applying them efficiently to any situation found during the experience. Mastership in RT2 is difficult to achieve because of the unclear mechanism behaviors. For instance, a player may want to learn how to place a unit in the most optimal fashion but he will not be able to do it because many variables are unknown to him, like the amount of square revealed by the unit when placed for example.

   The budget balancing aspect of the game has a strong role when mastering the game but, again, the mechanism managing the cost of the units is not as obvious as it could be. The rules seem easy to understand but the player doesn’t have access to all of the details of those rules to learn how to manage the budget as efficiently as possible. Mastership is not impossible in RT2: it’s just that, in its current state, it is not accessible

Avatar experimentation
   The game offers no avatar experimentation. Of course, since the player has access to 8 different units, there are no necessary needs to modify the different avatars. Still, if the player could modify the unit’s statistics in some way, it would add an extra layer of depth to the game.

Level experimentation
   The levels found in RT2 offer enough experimentation to the player since they seem to be created without a fixed solution. Combined with the 8 different possible units, there are nearly endless ways to finish these levels. It’s a shame that the game doesn’t reward the player who goes through a level after he has beaten it once. 

Challenge experimentation
   The challenges found in RT2, such as budget maintenance or terrain limiting the player’s unit positioning, are limited but are in enough numbers that the player will not find them redundant. In addition, these challenges can be beaten by using multiple strategies. So in the end, the game offers good challenge experimentation even though there are only a handful of challenges.

In summary...
   RT2 offers a good level of experimentation to the player. All it truly needs is to tighten up the mechanism to allow the player to grasp the rules in a better, more efficient way.

Representation
   Graphics also affect how the player feels when he plays the game. Good graphics isn’t simply about how well crafted they are; it’s also how well they represent the correct ideas that must be delivered to the player.   

Graphic direction
   In general, RT2 suffers form a lack of graphic direction. Different art styles are present throughout the game and most graphic elements used while in the game do not clearly represent the ideas they are suppose to. For example, the “big city” doesn’t feel like a city at all. In fact, if the game wouldn’t tell us about what it’s supposed to be, we wouldn’t know. In addition, in the game area, it’s impossible to tell exactly what are the tiles creating the game terrain. Are they buildings? Boxes? We don’t know. The experience would be greatly enhanced if those elements would be revised so that the player can know what the ideas they are representing are.     

Character design
   As far as character designs, RT2 would need some refinement. The characters feel too repetitive and we cannot feel their personality. Even the roaches would need a bit more personality to make them more satisfying to defeat. Overall, the ideas behind the characters are interesting but the game fails to breathe life into them.

Universe design
   The universe found in RT2 is greatly undeveloped. It features a city but we don’t feel like it is one at all. It’s very unfortunate that the universe in RT2 features so little elements. It would be interesting to add more details about the world we play in to make the experience a lot more believable. Perhaps the game could even expand its universe by adding more cities, giving more impact to the back-story: if the roaches are out for world domination, it’s a bit odd that we only find them in only one city.

Sound and music direction
   The musical direction in RT2 suffers from the lack of general direction of the game. While the storyline features humorous dialogues and the character designs are extravagant (gigantic roaches, quakers, kamikaze units…), the graphics and the music feature a darker, more serious approach. The in-game music featured in RT2 would fit perfectly in a stealth sci-fi horror context. It would also be very interesting for the game to have more than one in-game music. In general, the tracks are well crafted but do not seem to match the mood of the game.     

Sound effects
The sound effects are acceptable. Even though they feel generic, the sound effects do the job they are supposed to do.

In summary...
RT2’s graphics, sounds and music would truly benefit from a strong and clear game mood. Also, the general graphics would need more personality and details to make the whole game a lot more believable.

Immersion
   Immersion is all about keeping the player within the game world without ever reminding him that he is in a virtual world. How does RT2 immerse the player within its game world? 

Information divulgation
   In a game like RT2, immersion isn’t as important as in other games. RT2 is a game of statistics and, put it in one way or another, displaying important numbers will always break the immersion of the player. At the same time, since the player needs those statistics, it will not detach him from the game: it will in fact keep him inside it.

   So no, RT2 doesn’t try to completely remove interface information or display statistics using non-numerical characters but it works anyways. In fact, one of the game’s flaws is that it doesn’t show us enough statistics.
   
Controls
   In terms of controls, RT2 can be considered immersive. All of the possible actions within the game world can be executed using one button of the mouse. With a control scheme like this, the player will always know how to perform the desired action and will never get his immersion broken.  The only flaw is that the mechanisms regarding controls feel broken. It’s very hard for the player to select different units because there is no indicator telling if the players has selected or not a unit. These broken mechanisms disturb the good vibe that the game has with its controls.
 
Continuity
   In terms of continuity, RT2 does a very good job to keep the world constant throughout the experience. This is heavily linked to the fact that the game has very few different challenges to offer. It’s a lot easier to remain constant when there is little variety. But as mentioned earlier, this lack of variety is not a flaw when we talk about challenges. However, if the creator decides to add more elements in the game universe, he will have to make sure that the new elements fit with everything that has been done so far in the game.

In summary…
   RT2 can be considered an immersive game. It simply has to fix little problems regarding the controls, add more information about the units the player can use and make sure that the game remains consistent if new features are added.

Fairness
   RT2 is a very fair game. Whatever the computer can do, the player can counter attack easily. If the player doesn’t have access to certain upgrades, he can still defeat the stronger challenges; it will simply be a bit harder. It will be very important for the creator to keep this fairness when the bosses will be implemented.

[Guert]

Technical
     In this section, I will take a look at all the aspects of a game that the player should never see. A game’s ergonomics, stability or flow should never bother the player as he tries to enter a new universe.   

Mechanisms
     In this section, I will look at how the game provides feedback to the player whenever he performs an action. Since listing all the mechanisms would be a tedious task and would not bring much to this critic, I will simply make an overview.

     Most mechanisms found in RT2 do not offer enough feedback to the player. Some work very well, such as the expanding action red circle, but other basics, such as until selecting, suffer a lot. For instance, the game doesn’t indicate well in the interface which unit is selected by the player. When placing a unit, the game should tell where the unit can be placed or not and how it will affect the game as well as tell its firing range.  Additionally, all mechanism should feature a visual and sound effect when they occur. Therefore, when the player selects a unit in the interface, the selected unit should change visually and a sound should play telling that the mechanism has correctly functioned.

    It would be very important to review all the mechanism to make sure the player always have enough feedback to know if what he did happened correctly or not.     

Flow
   RT2 has an acceptable screen flow. There are no unnecessary steps before reaching the game screen. The only little thing that could be enhanced would be to merge the profile and continue screen together. Since the continue file uses the profile information, it could be placed in the same screen. The player could then decide which profile he wishes to continue.

Economics
    Economically speaking, RT2 offers only a handful of elements that could be polished to enhance the experience.

    The first economical element found in RT2 is money. The player receives an amount of money at the very beginning of a level and, whatever he has left at the end of that level, will be kept for the next level. This means that the player cannot win money during the level but rather save it for later. Money becomes a very valuable element since the player doesn’t have chances or lives. The player can only loose once he has spent all of his money. The player can only spend money inside the game area, spending it on the second economical element of the game: units.

     Units are special economical elements. Units behave in a different way than money: first, they must be acquired by winning a certain amount of levels. Then, in order to use them, they must be bought in the game area. In addition, the cost of a unit increases every time the player buys one but it resets every round. This makes the units a very particular element in the game economy. Since all units offer something special in terms of gameplay, they are very good elements but they are acquired too quickly during the experience. Since they are a strong element in the economy, they should not be completely accessible that quickly.

     The game would benefit from having a more elaborated economics. Adding only a few more elements, such as un-lockable content, secret levels or special weapons would help to keep the player a bit more motivated.

Ergonomics and accessibility
       RT2’s ergonomics are acceptable but its accessibility needs improvement. There are no options to make the game full screen or windowed, no volume control, no multiple save files and the font used in the game is very hard to read.

       The main menu features very clear, easy to read fonts as well as good feedback to the player when moving the mouse over the menu options. But when the player gets inside the game, the important messages are written with a very small font and the player has little feedback to what he does. The game could also use as much space as possible in the screen.

Stability
    In its current state, RT2 is quite unstable. I have encountered many bugs, some of them even fatal for the game, while I played. They mostly occurred when using the late units. In all cases, the creator will need to perform a very exhaustive testing job to clean this game.

[Guert]

Personal suggestions
   So how to fix RT2? Well, my first suggestion would be to get rid of as much bugs as possible. Then, I would focus on enhancing the game graphics so that we clearly know what they are suppose to represent. Once those steps are done, I would add a lot of feedback to all the mechanisms of the game. From placing a unit on the map to clicking the map, I’d review all of what the player can do and add clear feedback to the player. I’d also add multiple profiles and save files so that the game can be easily shared with family and friends.

   In general, the basic game elements of RT2 are good: they just need to be featured in a more polished container. Of course, the game needs to be balanced but at this point, too many broken features distract the player from the game and it becomes hard evaluate the full potential of the game.

   The game would truly benefit from a clear heartbeat concept. Is the game supposed to be funny or serious?  The mixed feeling the game sends us right now makes the game uneven and hard to grasp.

Conclusion
   In conclusion, RT2 possesses a lot of potential but it has not been able to show it completely. All of the game’s features are shaping up but they are still too immature to offer a solid experience to the player. We know it’s capable of it, we can feel it, but we have yet experienced it. I know that eventually, the game will feature solid gameplay and features but there’s a lot of job to do before that happens. The ingredients are there, they just need to be mixed the right way to make it all happen.

------------------------------------
     So there you, go another grind. I tried not to go too much in details this time to make it shorter. It's still big and I hope I didn't reduce too much. Tr00g, if you have any question or wnat me to get into details, please tell me.

Time for the traditional...

DISCUSS

[Melly]

Indeed this is quite shorter than usual Guert, but I like it. I also like how you now have a specific section for improvement suggestions.

Haven't actually played the game, so I'm not sure of anything you might be off the mark about, but good job anyway.

[Radnom]

Personal suggestions
   So how to fix RT2? Well, my first suggestion would be to get rid of as much bugs as possible.

But... that would defeat the purpose of the game!  :D

[Golds]

Hey Guert, it'd be great if you could put a link to each game's website/download at the top of grinds (where applicable)!

I love the grinds...  and i Kind of want you to grind Cave Story, or maybe the original Metroid

[Guert]

Melly: Thanks!
Radnom: Ah ha! :D
Golds: I'll add a more explicit download link to the grinds. Like in this one, you can click on the title to get on Tr00g's website. As far as grinding games like Cave story or Metroid, well, I haven't decided yet. I'm just not sure if it would help anyone by doing this. I'm not closed to the idea, I'm just not sure if it would bring anything to anyone.

Thanks for reading!
Later!

 

[Melly]

Do it if you have too much free time and is bored/burned out of game development.

[Tr00jg]

Wow, this is just awesome! Thank you very much! One of my biggest concerns in the game was if the player would continue playing and now I know. I'll have to work on the motivation/goals.

Right, some replies/questions:

-Ugh. You are not suppose to be able to choose any level right of the bat. In fact, you are never able to choose any level. The game is linear. ie click "play" and it goes to the next level. There is no "back". I implemented the ability to choose any level for testing purposes.

-Thanks for the goals. I realise now that I have to pick up on the midterm goals. I have some ideas, perhaps allowing unit modification after you received the whole army?

-Interesting ideas about originality, definitely. I am realising that I am sending mixed messages. Argh... This is going to be a tough one.

Then, the game sends the message that the game is serious with its dark colors, moody music, sober characters and shy special effects.

Can you elaborate more on this? Is there more?

-I never clearly though about the emotional involvement in the game. Thanks for brining that up!

-Mechanism Behaviour: Yes. I will have to work on providing more "feedback" for the player and yeah, I will have to show more stats for the player. I just don't know yet, where I will display this "stats", or "how". I've got one idea down already. When "moving" your unit around when you want to place it, it will show his "shooting range" and his "range" that he will open up.

>Budget mechanism (unit costs). Yeah, again, I will have to show more stats to the player. Each unit has an "add" cost, that increases the cost for the next unit (ie placing a kamikaze will greatly increase the cost of the next unit, but a melee won't). I haven't told this to the player... But I am kinda stuck on that again, since I don't know where to place this information. I'll have to think about it.

-Graphic Direction:

>Just a question: I am definitely trying to go for a "funny", "light-hearted" game. Does the anime-drawn characters fit with that style?

-Music:

Hmmm... The impression I got from the music was "enlightening" and "uplifting" and kinda "epic-ish".

-Economics + (goals) (sorry, this post isn't exactly categorised):

The game was initially designed to have 2 "leader" characters (ie the 2 mascots) that you place in the beginning of the level. After each level, the money that was left went to your global budget (ie extra money). You could then use this money to buy enhancements for the leader characters to sway the battle in your favour. By "enhancements", I mean a "ring" on the ground that decreased the cost of all units that was placed in that ring (per say). I removed it (quite late, from v0.75 up), because it is an insane mission to balance it properly. + if you have all the enchancements then where does the money go?

but, I think I am going to reimplement it, since it CAN add that extra "mid-term" goal to the game. (The extra money "could" help with the ability to modify your units in the "end-game").

-Technical stuff:

>Yes, I'll just have to trudge through the exhaustive testing to clean out the bugs. gawd, I hate it.

-Final stuff:

Thanks a lot for doing this Guert! This is priceless!

@Golds:
-I was planning on not releasing anymore "public" versions, but I am thinking of reinstating it for the next few version in order to test changes following Guert's grind.

[Tr00jg]

Hmmm... Me and my bro had time to muse on the subject and we have come to this decision:

I am going to scrap the whole "Big City" idea and make a proper storyline campaign like in Roach Toaster 1. By "scrapping" the idea, I mean throwing away the whole "progress" and "fight" mindlessly aspect. The current levels aren't designed with a proper plot/story in mind (not like Roach Toaster 1). It is more like grinding in WoW. It's kinda fun on a short-term scale.

The current levels will all still be used as a major bonus for completing the game. It will be like in Roach Toaster 1 where you were able to just play a quick game. The mascots will then do it like they do it now and just say some funny stuff.

In the campagin their talks will follow the storyline.

The new campaign will be like short-ish (aiming for 25 levels) like in Roach Toaster 1.

I'm probably getting a "wtf" here, but you will see.

[Guert]

Then, the game sends the message that the game is serious with its dark colors, moody music, sober characters and shy special effects.

Can you elaborate more on this? Is there more?

>Just a question: I am definitely trying to go for a "funny", "light-hearted" game. Does the anime-drawn characters fit with that style?

If you are going for a funny game, I suggest making everything abit more caricaturised. Not too much, jst a bit more. Right now, we don't get any emotions from the charcters which make them look stiff, impartial and serious. Adding emotional reactions would really help, like laughter or war cries.

For example, the character artwork could be just a bit exagerated so we can see the look on the unit's face. Perhaps in the HUD when selecting the unit, instead of having the actual unit, there could be a icon wit it's face? In all cases, try to tell the player how this guy would look like if you'd meet him in the streets. How would a guy like a quaker look like? How about the kamikazee? Always remember that the player is dealing with people who dare confront roaches bigger than them. Not all characters have to look too demented or extravagant but a few couldn't hurt. The team leader you have right now would fit perfectly if they were surrounded by one or two serious guys and a couple of completly demented ones (kamikazees for example).

As far as special effect, I think the mood would lighten up if you really spill out as much as possible. This doesn't mean to splash blood around. This means that you have to exagerate the effects you have in the game. If a bomb explodes, it doesn't just explode, it really explodes! The laser could look like it could pierce an heavily armored tank. Take the typical american action movie. At some point, there is so much stuff exploding it becomes funny. Well, that's what you want to have. You want to tell the player the game doesn't take itself completly seriously so it's okay to fight gigantic roaches trying to take over the world. You don't want to go too far tho: the basics of the game remain serious.

A game that pulls out a similar effect is Starcraft. Caricaturized units, over the top explosions but still, very serious. What you want is a similar effect but a bit funnier. I'm thinking Starcaft+Metal slug mixed together. The anime style you are going for would work with this direction.

I hope you understand what I mean... If not, I'll try to make it clearer somehow.
Hope this helps!
Later!

[Tr00jg]

Thanks! That makes sense.

I like the idea of having faces as their icons!