May 2, 2023
Blog Post 9
3D Game Level 2 v1 Feedback
Hello everyone, my name is Angel Suazo and welcome back to my blog. Today I will be going over the feedback that I received from the playtest on my 3D level 2 project. With this level we continued to work with the Unity engine to create it and we were also given a new theme and goals to work with this time around. Our new theme would now be Medieval and our new goal was to create a level where we can challenge the player leading up to a boss fight. With that being said, I immediately got to brainstorming a couple of different ways to implement our new theme and goals. When I landed on a couple of good ideas, I sketched up an annotated map to visualize it a little better and then I got to work. For the actual playtest we got into groups of 5-6 people in class so that we could get as much feedback as we could.
What went right
This time around with my level 2 project, I honestly had high hopes of creating something good where I could almost picture it being perfect. Unfortunately while there were some areas of my level where I felt things went right there were also a few areas that went wrong in my level. I’ll start with the stuff that went right. During the playtest, almost every player told me that they could clearly see the critical path in front of them and that they did not have any trouble knowing where to go. They also mentioned that the way I structured my level was very cool.
One player really liked how I added some composition to my level to where I could show the player the path ahead or in this case the ending at the very beginning of my level. That was something that I intentionally added to my level so that players could see the finish line without actually knowing how to get there and it turned out to work really well. Another thing that I felt went right in my level was perhaps the interactable's placed inside my level such as the enemies, checkpoints, crystals, switches, doors and breakable cubes. All these things seemed to have been working perfectly during every single playtest and players did not have any problem with them at all.
What went wrong
Moving on to the stuff that went wrong with my level 2, there were perhaps 3 major things that I noticed right away at the very beginning during the first playtest that needed to be addressed. Number 1 was that my level was very short. It did not take my first play tester very long before he could reach the end of my level. Even though I saw him die a couple times, It did not stop him from completing my level faster than I expected. Number 2 would have to be that I underestimated the level of challenge I presented to the players.
I had originally thought that by adding more enemies into my level it would create more of a challenge for the players. What I failed to realize was that I did not increase the health of the enemies. That could have caused the players to more effectively fight them and keep an eye on their own health. Another little side problem that I saw was that I did not add any health boxes to my level at all, which resulted in many of my play testers having to die from enemy damage and then simply just respawn at the checkpoints.
Lastly Number 3, was that I did not implement any boss whatsoever into my level. Originally, I had also thought that we weren’t supposed to create a boss but rather challenge the player leading them into a boss fight. I totally misunderstood that part of our goal for our level 2. Whatever the case may be, I can definitely say that I am going to continue to work hard to improve on these little and big mistakes and prevent them from happening again.
April 18, 2023
Blog Post 8
3D Game Level 1 v2 Feedback
Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog, my name is Angel Suazo and today I will be going over the feedback I received from our Version 2 project of my 3D level in class. Our goals and objectives for our version 2 were exactly the same as before, we did however have an opportunity to improve on last time. This time however, I will try to go into more detail from my feedback, since we were put into groups of 5 for this playtest. This allowed me to gather some more feedback from players and overall have more people try my level.
What went right
Getting started with what went right, ultimately there was a lot of good feedback coming in from my playtesters.All of them agreed that they thought the critical path was very clear and obvious for my level. No one really had any issues finding where they had to go or how to get to the next area of my level, which was very good. I do want to point out that I did have some newly added areas to my level towards the end so players could have more game time and it indeed turned out to be cool. With that being said, players also really enjoyed play testing my level because of the level of challenge I created for them.
With my first version of my level, I had gotten some feedback from players saying they loved the specific jump points in my level that originally made it challenging, but that they wished the platforms for the jumps could have been scaled up a bit. So that is exactly what I did this time around and players seemed to have enjoyed it much better. Another thing that went right was that players found all the barriers of my level to be in fact working and this time around, there were no areas of my level that I had missed where players could go beyond the boundaries of my level and explore the outside plane. So, I definitely consider that a win. Aside from all else, the enemies and checkpoints of my level also worked perfectly fine, which all of my play testers let me know as well.
What went wrong
For what went wrong with my level, there were a few things that were pointed out to me during the playtest. One specific player had only good things to say about my level but he did say that if he could fix one thing it would probably be that there was no color whatsoever in my level. I pretty much had left my level in grayscale and had not added any colored walls or backgrounds.
He pointed out to me that he would have loved to see some color in it but besides that he really enjoyed my level. I will definitely be adding color to my next level I work on so that this doesn't happen again. Another player pointed out to me that during the play test he had originally thought that he had activated the checkpoint before dying, but that once he respawned it did not respawn him there. It had actually respawned him at the previous checkpoint he had passed.
After looking back, I had realized that the area in which the checkpoint in question was located was so big that he must have walked around it and missed it by accident. This is definitely something I am going to be improving on so that it also doesn’t happen again. Lastly, one other player suggested to me that she really liked my level but wished she would have seen some more variety in it with how the level was laid out. Other than that, I will also work hard next time to improve on these little issues so that I can bring the players a more fun experience.
April 11, 2023
Blog Post 7
3D Game Level 1 v1 Feedback
Hello everyone, my name is Angel Suazo and welcome back to my blog. Today I will be going over the exciting feedback I got for my 3D level this time for our new unit in class. As you can see this time around, we are working with 3D level design, so with that being said this project was done on Unity Engine. I would like to mention that this was my first time ever working on Unity, so I did have some extra work when it came to getting familiar with the software. However, this did not impact me in any way shape or form and the fact is I did a wonderful job and was able to properly handle the requirements for this project. For this project we were given a new theme and goal. Our theme for our level was Sci-fi/Jungle and the goal was to teach the player the base mechanics along with simple combat. Knowing this, I sat down for a brainstorming session to find the perfect way to incorporate these new requirements to my level. Once I had come up with a solid layout for my level it was time to go to work.
What went right
One thing that went right in my level was that I came up with a simple but challenging layout to my level that I really wanted to grasp the attention of my players. This definitely proved effective because when I had players play testing my level, they were really interested in getting to the end to finish it. Part of this was thanks to the level of challenge I implemented into my level when it came to getting across the acid pools.
I definitely did not want to make it super hard to the point where players would get angry or annoyed if it took them too long to get past these. I also did not make it too easy for them that they would find the level of difficulty to be rather boring and easy to get by. Therefore, making the challenge just the right amount of difficulty was definitely a success. Another thing that went right with my level was the enemy scaling. I had in the early stages of my level introduced a couple of the enemy chompers, so that the player could go ahead and get familiar with them as well as learn the combat skills.
By doing this it also allowed me to introduce a health kit box into my level early on into my level so that players could once again interact with it and learn what it does. One last thing that went really well with my level was perhaps the doors and switches I incorporated into my level. Players got to come across these resources and engage with them to find out the purpose of them and how each thing worked.
What went wrong
For the actual things that went wrong with my level they were only a few minor things. However, these are things that I will have to work on next time to try and improve on. One of them was that there were a few spots where players were able to find a way out of my level boundaries due to some structure gaps, I had left unnoticed.
This was definitely something I should have caught with my own eyes before having people playtest my level. Another thing was that one player suggested to me that during one of the acid pool areas of my level it would have been nice to have a checkpoint in the middle on one of the platforms so that when they would die, they would not have to restart from the beginning. This is also something that I will definitely fix for next time.
Overall
My first 3D level was not that bad, and I can't wait to start on my version 2
March 29, 2023
Blog Post 6
2D Mega Man Level 2 Feedback
Welcome back everybody to my blog. My name is Angel Suazo and today I will be going over the feedback I received in class for my last and final level for our 2D Mega Man Level. For this level we were tasked with creating a mid to intermediate level showcasing some of Mega Man’s abilities as well as introducing them to our players. That being said, I had to brainstorm up some ideas that could help me execute them properly. As for the abilities that I ended up going with where the NADO power-up and the SUPER. A. Once I decided on these two it was time to find a way to incorporate them into my new level. Luckily, I think I did a good job at doing so.
What went right
First, I’ll start with what went right. During the playtest most of my play testers liked how I designed my level to where they could easily know where they were supposed to go, so naturally they all saw a clean path. For the new weapons/ abilities that I went with, players definitely found them easy to use and understood how to use them for the specific areas in my level.
One player especially liked how I had a specific area of my level intended for the NADO to be used only. When I was creating my level, I specifically made that part so that players could just blow right through the line of enemies I had lined up for them with the NADO weapon variant. Another player really liked how I made a couple of jump areas where they had to time it correctly in order to reach the other side of my level and they thought that the level of challenge presented to them was not overly hard but not super easy to them as well. Making the difficulty just right to make them want to finish my level. While I did not find anyone having difficulty using the new weapons /abilities to get past certain areas, there was only one player that wished I had not forced the new weapons or abilities so much to the point where they could not use them more freely. So technically this was something that doubled up as something that went right and wrong with my level. Whatever the case may be, my level ended up turning out good with the help of other qualities.
What went wrong
For the actual stuff that went wrong, I can’t really think of much since mostly everyone enjoyed play testing my level. However, there was the case of perhaps maybe allowing the players more free time and experimentation with the newly added weapons / abilities for this new level.
This way the players can get the chance to witness the full potential of the weapons and use them to their liking. So, this is definitely something I will take into account for next time and also work hard to improve. Another thing that I saw for myself that I thought went wrong was just that my level was once again a bit too short for the 10-minute minimum. I saw that the majority of my play testers were finishing my level at around the 4–6-minute range, which was of course due to the underestimated anticipation of what I thought would take my play-testers at least 10 minutes to defeat. Having this in mind definitely motivates me even more to try harder next time to at least get to that 10-minute mark. This is something that I will work harder to improve on.
Overall
This was a nice wrap up of our in-class unit for our 2D Mega Man levels and I definitely had a lot of fun creating them.
March 22, 2023
Blog Post 5
2D Mega Man Level v2 Feedback
Hello everyone and welcome back to my Blog my name is Angel Suazo and today I will be going over the feedback I got in class for my level 2 version of my Mega Man level. This time I am happy to say that things did go a lot smoother, and it turned out to be a lot more fun for the people playtesting my level. The only real change we were allowed to do for our version 2, was that we were allowed to introduce keys and doors to our level for players to interact with. This allowed me to go back and brainstorm a couple of good ways to implement these brand-new mechanics.
What went right
As for what went right, I can honestly say that everyone who play tested my new version 2 of my level was definitely surprised at how good it came out. Since I had some of the same people from version 1 playtest my level again, they definitely saw major improvements and overall, really liked how it played out this time. They especially liked how I was able to execute the new implementation of keys and doors. One player said they loved how every door was different and required a different number of keys each time around.
When I was creating my version 2, I intentionally thought about doing that so that players could find themselves busy and require some challenge on their part and it turned out to be a hit. Another player said he liked how the last keys for the last door were kind of hidden along the pathway and needed some creativity and exploring in order to find.
When I was doing this, I did not want to make it super obvious for them that they would find them right away, so I made sure to make it a little difficult for them to find at first. Overall, the play testers all agreed that they liked how they knew where to go as well for my level, meaning that there was a clear path this time around with little to no confusion at all. They mentioned how this was very cool and important because they did not feel like they were going in circles or having to pick between different routes to take. Lastly, I did receive some feedback on how I was able to balance the enemy placement pretty well and did not overwhelm any of the players with heavy enemy attacks. Only one player mentioned that perhaps one of the enemies I had placed could be pushed back a little to the left so that It would not be just waiting to attack you once you made it up the ladder for a specific area of my level. That was perhaps the only thing that went wrong this time around for my version 2 of my level.
Improvements
Other than that small note of the enemy placement, I did not hear any negative feedback from my play testers this time around. Everyone really seemed to enjoy playing it and had very much fun. For improvements however, I would like to add a small note myself that I did notice players could finish my level around the 5–7-minute mark. For my version 2 I did go ahead and add more stuff and areas that I did not have before in my level, which ultimately made it better and a little longer however, I could probably go back and revisit this to the point where I can have players play for at least 10 full minutes before they complete my level. I will definitely work hard every chance I get to make improvements.
March 7, 2023
Blog Post 4
2D Mega Man Level v1 Feedback
Hello everyone, my name is Angel and today I will be going over the feedback that I received on Monday 3/06 on my first version of our Mega Man level for level design class. We had to find at least 5 people to playtest our levels in class and gather some feedback on it. So that is what I will be going over for you all right here. For our level we were tasked with creating a level for someone that has never played Mega Man before and is completely new to the game. That being said, our level design had to be on a tutorial level in order for players to get to know the mechanics of the game and overall learn how to play. One last thing we were also tasked with when creating our level’s, was to at least make it 10 minutes long. This was definitely something I underestimated but for now I’ll dive into the feedback I received.
What went right
First, I’ll start with what went right. At the beginning of my level, I gave the players an opportunity to choose different routes that they would want to take instead of just giving them one simple pathway. Ultimately, everyone liked this feature of my level because it gave them a sense of control. It allowed them to take a longer path but easier or a shorter path but with more enemies and finally an in between pathway that was easy but challenging at the same time. I definitely received good comments about this at the end. However, this was particularly something that doubled up on something that had gone right and wrong at the same time and I will go over that right now as well. Another thing that I received good feedback on, was the certain areas that I had in my level that required the player to perform some parkour. Meaning that there were some challenging jumps that needed to be timed perfectly in order to proceed into the level. When I designed these areas, I wanted to make sure that I did not make them too challenging for the players that they would find themselves getting frustrated over. As well as too easy for them that they could just find a way around them or ultimately avoid them. This proved effective and everyone enjoyed that.
What went wrong
As for what went wrong, I’ll start with what I mentioned earlier. At the beginning some players felt there was no sense of direction for the reason that there were 3 different paths to take right from the start. This caused confusion for some players and kind of threw them off. Aside from that however, they all got a chance to explore the 3 paths completely which was fun they said. Another thing I noticed that went wrong was the enemy placement for one of the beginning paths. One player mentioned that they felt overwhelmed and that they were bombarded with enemies early on in the game. This was ultimately the harder path I had designed for those players who wanted a bit more of a challenge. Unfortunately, not all players develop skills at the same time, for some it can take them a while to master something, and others can pick it up immediately. This is something that I will definitely fix. Lastly, one thing that also went wrong was that for the most part all of my play testers were finishing my level way before the 10-minute mark. So ultimately, my level could have used some more creativeness. I thought that by adding a few more enemies or paths it would cause for more gameplay on the players end but that did not stop them from completing my level sooner. I definitely underestimated the meaning of 10 minutes long, but I will definitely work to improve on this.
Overall
The play testers had fun while playing my level and the feedback I received from them will definitely help me out when working on my version 2 of our Mega Man levels.
February 26, 2023
Blog Post 3
Simple DnD Map v3
Hello everyone, my name is Angel and today I will be going over the feedback I got from our last playtest of our final version of our DnD map for our level design class. For my play testers, I had Jacob and Muhammad playtest my map once again. Jacob played as the Warrior class while Muhammad played as the Ranger class. This time around we did have a different rule sheet to work around with that made it very crucial for at least one person to choose or play as the Warrior character type and I will explain to you why in a minute. Along with working with a new rule sheet we were also tasked with recreating our whole map with a new theme and an objective to be accomplished. The theme was Alien invasion, and our goal was to create a prison break style map. With these changes came some new challenges to be faced as well as some room to experiment with some new and fresh ideas.
What went right
This time around there was a lot of stuff I felt went right with my map. The implementation of the new rule sheet and theme was just the start of it. Jacob and Muhammad both said that they had a lot of fun playing my map. With version 3, we were also tasked with adding a checkpoint system and Items to our map, something that we weren’t allowed to have in the first two versions of our maps. These new changes definitely helped in creating a whole new atmosphere to the game.
Both Jacob and Muhammad got to use the checkpoint system at least once and the items that they came across in my map. They both thought I did a good job representing both resources very well in the map, as well as locating them properly throughout my map. As for the pathways I designed for my map, they also said they enjoyed how they were constructed and prompted with different routes to take. This gave them the opportunity to choose a certain route without knowing what kind of path it would take them through. Muhammad especially liked how I implemented a jump path in the beginning with the chance to either roll an even number to successfully make the jump or an odd number to fail it causing them to take 1 damage point to their health.
What went wrong
Fortunately, this time around there wasn’t anything that went majorly wrong with my map. The only stuff where I saw could be improved on was on some of the enemy stats. Not all of them needed this, but there was 1 or 2 that had this issue of unbalanced stats. Where they either had too much health or their defense stat was just overpowered to the point where they blocked almost all of the players' attacks. This is where I said earlier that somebody playing as the Warrior character was crucial because they would have the highest defense and attack stat for the group which could have helped them in combat.
Both Jacob and Muhammad let me know that perhaps that was the only negative thing they had something to say about. However, when they were giving me this feedback, they did say that since there had been some major changes done to the rule sheet especially to the stats of the enemies for this specific version, it was almost impossible not to run into this situation. I guess for the most part, I did miscalculate on the stats of my enemy characters. “However, it is a mistake that anyone could make”, they both said. I will definitely improve on this next time.
Overall
This was definitely a learning experience for me and is one that I will never forget. Nevertheless, I will continue to work on other ways and ideas that could potentially help me fix some minor issues where I can improve on so that next time, I am having a playtest for one of my games/maps I can provide a more smoother fun gameplay experience.
February 19, 2023
Blog Post 2
Simple DnD Map v2
For our second playtest I play tested with my same partners from last time Muhammad and Jacob so that we can see and test each other's improvements on our maps. This time around we did select new roles for their characters in the game so that we could get a different experience from the player’s side. Muhammad went with the Mage character type and Jacob chose the Warrior character type. This allowed them to engage with different stats that these characters have and use them to their advantage.
Improvements
I’ll start with some of the improvements that I made to my map since last time. First, I changed a couple of the beginning pathways leading to my first enemies on my map by adding some jumping points where players would need to use their jump action/skill in order to progress further. I also made some changes to the enemy's stats including health to force some conflict there. Lastly, I created a fake pathway in a sense that would lead the players to believe they have chosen the correct path later to find out the complete opposite.
What went right
As for the improvements I made to the map, they did indeed prove to be effective and overall great with some minor exceptions. However, both players communicated to me that they did in fact like the way my version 2 map came out. They really liked the variety added to it since last time and enjoyed playing it this second time around. With these improvements they actually got a chance to reach my last boss fight as well. Something that was definitely missing from last time's playtest. This allowed them to see the full potential of my map as well as the creativity that went into creating it.
What went wrong
As for the major problem that went wrong this time around was that there was a particular moment in my map that felt unbalanced and just out of place.
It was the confrontation between the players and the first enemy. The players were stuck for quite a while fighting off what should have been a pretty easy enemy to kill. However, I had given this specific enemy the defense stat of a boss level. As frustrating as it was to see, the enemy kept defending the player's attack causing it to receive no damage for at least a good 5 turns. Later in the feedback that I received from both players, it became clear that my first enemy just seemed too overpowered to begin with. They mentioned that it would have been nice to see that my other enemy ahead, which was the guard they had to defeat in order to retrieve the key for the locked door, had the stats that that enemy had. That would have made a little more sense at least they said. Which I totally agreed with.
In this case it resulted in them kind of being slowed down a bit causing them to reach the boss fight with little to no time to spare in our playtest. This was something that could have easily been avoidable and that I will work hard to prevent it from happening again.
Overall
This version 2 map did improve on some of the areas that needed some work from last time, such as creating new pathways for players to adventure and allowing the players to use their skills and actions early on in the map. However, it did create a minor but big problem that could have easily been avoided. That is definitely something I am going to have to fix about my map while making improvements on it.
February 12, 2023
Blog Post 1
Simple DnD Map V1
For our first playtest of the semester, I partnered up with Muhammad and Jacob and we each got to play each other's Level 1 Maps. The start up for my map was pretty easy. Muhammad chose the Ranger class and Jacob chose the Rogue class.
Things that went Right
For my playtest with my partners, there were many things that I felt like went right. One thing being that there was not a whole lot of confusion from the players side as soon as we began. For my particular map there wasn’t a narrative background per se, but I did quickly mention to my partners before starting that I had based my entire map around outer space and aliens so that they could just get an idea of my map. Which at the end they came to like really well. As for the characteristics of my map. I think they enjoyed playing on it, as I found them being really motivated to reach the end of it, which was the boss fight. Unfortunately, our playtest session came to an end before they could get there. However, during the playtest, they got to experience the majority of my map through the many options I provided to them in the form of pathways. Especially when it came to a specific task, I had planned for them to accomplish before getting to the final Boss fight. This provided them with something to do before they can access a specific area of my map by making them explore the rest of the map first. They had lots of fun and overall turned out really well they said.
Things that went wrong
For the stuff that went wrong I can honestly say that only a couple minor stuff went wrong. One of my partners suggested that perhaps I could have had a little more variety in the beginning pathways of my map leading to the center. After careful review I agreed that perhaps I could have added some more enemies in the beginning causing the players to choose their pathways more carefully. Another suggestion was that I could have added some jump spots early on in my map instead of leaving it open for more open moves to be played directly. This caused for some faster playthrough that could have been slowed down a bit with some more enemies and smaller activities to do. Overall, though, these minor issues did not impact the quality of my map so much but there is room for improvement.
Improvements
Like I was just mentioning earlier there are a couple of things that I can improve on with my map that could cause for a better playtest next time. For starters I will begin by adding more variety of options for my players to choose from at the beginning so that it's more actively engaging for the players. Such as adding more small enemies that block your progression to the other side of the map. Another area of improvement could be that I should probably relocate my jump spots on my map from where I originally had them. Since mine were particularly at the end. I did not allow the players the chance to try that skill/action. I would like to at least double up on the jump spots available on my map so that all players can experience at least once.
Finally
Overall, it was a good beginning tutorial level map and performed well with the exception of some minor details. I will definitely work hard to resolve those so that my next playtest can result in a more smoother run.
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