Test Run

As I mentioned last week this week was the first time we got to test Super Sky Mech in the QA lab. Me and Matt went and tested my tutorial level to see if it could effectively teach people how to play the game. Before testing I added on a third part to the level based on feedback I got from the team. This section taught the player about crushers, destructible walls, and the power cores that must be destroyed in order to destroy the level ships. After those were put in the level was ready for testing. Even without a certain elevator in the level testing went very well. To test it we just wrote down the controls on a whiteboard and unleashed the testers into the level. Almost all of them understood the game and beat the level first or second try. We got tons of awesome feedback from the testers on what made sense and what didn't. One remark that I thought was very intelligent is that the crushers are one hit kill and because they're at the end of the level if the player is killed by one they have to redo most of the level. The other big issue with the level is that because of the way destructible walls look and the way I introduce them in the level players don't immediately understand that the walls can be destroyed. I think that once we get art onto the destructible walls this won't be a problem.

The other thing I did this week was very roughly conceptualize the three part boss fight. To do this I took into consideration general pacing as well as how to introduce the boss in a way that contributed to the narrative and made sense. The outline is very rough right now but I think it's headed in the right direction. On an unrelated note I'm going to GDC next week! This means that I won't be doing very much Super Sky Mech work next week. However, I'm super excited about getting to learn from and network with industry professionals and I can't wait. Wish me luck!