UT INDIE NIGHT THOUGHTSAs often as I can, I take the 3-4 hour trip down to Salt Lake/Provo Area to meet up with other devs and show off the progress on the game. There are some really awesome games being made by some cool people down there. You may have played a Kingdom of Kelflings, that's made by Ninjabee. A Ninjabee-er or two are usually there giving a talk or checking out games. Some other really cool games made by people in the group are
Magnetic By Nature (Team Tripleslash),
Together: Amna and Saif (Lyle Cox), and
The peeps playing Script Kiddies. These two had a great match.
Anyways, as always there was some REALLY good feedback and one of the playtesters came up with a solution to one of the biggest issues in the game:
The Virus Selection ScreenWhen a player accesses the terminal on any given floor, the computer usually just goes right to the button script. But when your special meter is full, the 'Virus Select' screen pops up. Originally, before this screen existed, the idea was that the next virus you sent after getting your special meter full was your special virus. I figured "I'm sure everyone will want to use their special as soon as they get it." Turns out that's not true. As I realize more and more that the 'fun' of the game is
outwitting your opponent, most people want to save their special until the most opportune moment.
So I put in this virus select screen.
That solved the problem of letting people choose when the best time to use their special would be, but it created another problem: You see, one of the biggest aspects to Script Kiddies is the
wonderful stress that's created by competing on the same floor/same script against your opponent. The reason why people generally walk away having a good time with the game is because it is really
stressful to go head-to-head on the scripts and really
rewarding to just BARELY beat-out your opponent. However, in these situations, time is everything, so having to go through a random menu screen was really irking a lot of people in neck-and-neck matches.
Having to go through this extra screen has been one of the MAJOR complaints over the development of the game. So I've been trying to think of a solution to this problem for a long time...
Well, a playtester this week had the simple and elegant solution.
The Value of PlaytestingEvery time I bring my game to one of these get togethers I get incredibly nervous. Although most people do enjoy the game (I'd say like 90% of the people who play it are pretty happy!), it's always that one person who is a jerk and is basically like, "This game sucks and you suck too." But the reason why I bring it to these meet-ups, beyond making friends, is to get feedback on how the game can be better than it is. A few big problems have been fixed that way, but no one had an answer for the Virus Select issue until this time around.
Two friends were playing the game and complained about the Virus Select problem. When I asked them for any ideas on how to overcome the time-investment issue while still maintaining the needs of player choice, one of the guys turned to me and said, "
Why don't you just have them press 'Y' instead 'X'?"
'Oh okay, ya why don't I just have them do this easy thing instead of this complicated thing that's dumb and annoying?! Huh?' -me in my head
I was just floored with how simple that was. To expand for anyone that is lost, players press the '
X' button to access the terminals on each floor and execute the script. The scripts only use the '
A', '
B', '
L', and '
R' buttons. By using the '
Y' button, players with their special can wait to use it when they want to AND not lose time in high-stress matches where time is everything.
A bit anti-climactic I know, but this has been one of the top issues in the game since the very first build. It just showed to me again, the real awesomeness of playtesting on random gamers. I can't say enough how many great ideas have come from it. It's hard to have your game critiqued. But sometimes the raw honesty of people not connected to you or your project can be the difference between an okay solution and the
RIGHT solution.
Before I move on to AI/Story Mode/Etc. in development, I really really really want to make the gameplay as slick and perfect as possible. So it might be a month or two before any kind of AI is started in prep for Story Mode, but I'll have the consolation that the game already plays pretty dang well...
Toodles,
Austin