Daily Devlog #5

Learned some new things recently...

Okay, so I learned a lot of things over the weekend after having my sister test an Alpha version of the game. It was literally my first time seeing someone else play the game and it was fascinating!

11/11/2024

Okay, so some context. As far as I know, my sister has not played a video game in probably10+ years. She liked fighting games, and only because she can button mash her way to victory. I have very rare memories of her playing Kingdom Hearts and I don't remember how far she got. Honestly, gaming just wasn't her thing. On the other hand, she enjoys watching. Now having her play the game may seem counter productive, but I imagine that the game has to be easy to understand - to the point where a non-gamer can, in fact, pick it up and play. Controls are easy, save for the fact that you have to remember where some keys are. There's also Mouse control. It might have actually been her first time doing mouse and keyboard for gameplay purposes. Here's what I learned:

• tutorials need to stay up until the player is ready for them to disappear; the game currently has a lot of prompts that appear and disappear after a delay; the more important game input directions need to stay up so the player can read the lines and confirm button positions on the keyboard
• including instructions in dialogue, may not always work, especially if you can see the instruction again
• some of the prompts only appear once, and they may need to appear again if not caught the first time around
• the delay between certain events in the storage room need to be tightened up; it is possible to literally run past the main event and avoid it altogether just by RUNNING PAST EVERYTHING
  • I was shocked when she did this; "You skipped the whole event" - "Yeah cause I knew what was going to happen!"
  • indeed, she did; this may not be the same with new players, but the risk is too high - the event in the Storage Room will be tightened up to avoid this... bug
• The To Do List worked as intended and served as a good guide to follow the sequence of events in the story
• There is one NPC that you need to return to often; I will be moving this NPC so that the travel time is shorter
• the functionality of the Camera is interfering with completing objectives in the main game; you complete objectives by pressing R then E, but it is also possible to use R the [Left Click] without performing any function at all
  • I will more than likely remove this functionality to remove confusion altogether; I may turn it on for a certain segment, and then turn it off
  • the confusion is just not worth it; you complete objectives by equipping your camera with [R] and take a picture with [E]

As you can see, the majority of what I wanted to remedy was to remove confusion. If you can do a camera flash with [Left Click], why doesn't this complete the objective? Honest answer: [Left Click] does not always work in the blueprints, I needed to use [E] to interact, and while holding the camera, you initiate a Camera flash which completes the objective. And when certain things didn't work, I realized that it would help to see the game tip again and this would have led to less "frustration" on my sister's part. It was funny to see, but honestly, she slams the keys on my laptop pretty hard, and I felt bad that the game was not responding when she clearly did what I needed her to do to interact with the game.

It was so fulfilling to see her enjoy what I have completed so far. This week will be full of bug fixes and decorations for the Studio level. Once all of that is done, it's on to the Soundstage.

Fun idea: I'm thinking of recording this process. I'll try and reduce the amount of spoilers, and focus more on how everything is being put together for the level. Hopefully things will be... cleaner.