A game really feels like it's coming together when you begin to see the art for it and it fits the game. Our UI artist got some great new art assets to us this week and we implemented them for our FIRST demo with kids. Along with the art changes, we also added additional sound effects and visual feedback for the demo. Each alien character had their own individual sound that plays when a player finds an object. These two layers of feedback help A LOT. The kids and their parents that played the game all understood who their character was, when they found an object AND how many points they received.
The multiplayer results stayed relatively the same with a few small changes.
In addition to the playtest, we had a surprise visit from some people who are involved with the games platform that we're developing for. We had them play our game and they really enjoyed the experience. Definitely a huge plus for our team.
We are still in the process of creating our menu navigation system. The level select menu is being created on one end while the phone navigation is being created on another. Using your phone, you will be able to navigate through the game screen on the tv; select your levels, choose difficulty, select the mode, and start the game. Once this is in place, the complete overall game experience will be together.
If we had to say what stage of development we're in, it's a mixture of polish and finishing some final features. Without a doubt, we still have some more layers of visual and sound feedback to make the game more exciting and create a good feeling for players. We're also making some new content but that's an ongoing thing. We would liek to have great guidelines for future designers to make more fun levels for the game after we hand our project off to the EA team.
Next week is Thanksgiving so it will be a short week for us. Work hard and eat a lot!
-Faceless Prod.