Two Schizophrenics The Devblog

Well?

Hey! Can’t say I have a good reason for not having updated other than the weather.

Don’t worry though! Just because of the radio silence doesn’t mean I haven’t done anything. For the past few days, I’ve been wrapping up all the technical bits in World 1 so that everything in it works as it should. I’ve also gotten a lot of work done on the bossfight of World 1, though I’m not giving anway too many details on that. And lastly, I’ve been busy with organising playtests.

Playtestting is often a bit of an afterthought in the indie community, I’ve noticed. I never really gave it much thought either, up to when I got a class in how to perform and what usability tests are. Up until then, I only barely knew the difference between a bugtest and a playtest. Now bugtesting, that stuff I do every other minute. Programming always gets me so excited, I just want to see what it looks like! However, just because it works the way I want it to, doesn’t mean it’s good.

Having performed my first playtest today, I have to say there were a lot of things that I missed in the design. For example: after implementing it months ago, aiming at a 45 degree angle is the most natural thing in the world for me. However, new players don’t know the button combination and get plain stuck at the part where you have to shoot upward at an angle. Another case: the prototype I’m testing with has placeholder graphics, which means I didn’t use seperate sprites for doors and walls. Having a door on a ledge with a high roof makes it look like a wall, and the player wouldn’t even think of shooting it. These things might be simple, but when players get stuck, players quit games. And I don’t want them to quit my game! Enjoy my damn game, players!

The testing being part of a school assignment, I had to record everything; camera, voice, screen, the works. Turns out Camtasia messes with Windows settings in an attempt to get both the microphone and its own sounds, but thanks to that it didn’t record the microphone. Oops! Another lesson learned I guess.

Shape up or ship out!

~Brian