Development Blog Week 2

This week I spent a lot of time doing my character analysis and other segments of my game (with more detail into both the singleplayer and multiplayer segments). Writing up a full-on gameplay analysis on all 16 playable characters. My various blog posts really helped me think about what mindset would be used when making the game, and really affected various gameplay decisions I made.

First off was my research into flow channel, which assisted me in writing about the storymode of my game and the things that occur, There will be various objectives and missions throughout a single level, and things like a boss may spawn halfway through the match. This keeps the gameplay interesting and helps prevents the player from getting too bored or frustrated with the game even if they play for a few hours at a time. Likewise this needs to carry over into the multiplayer section, and this goes hand-in-hand with character balance (written below). Because every playable character class have their own strengths and weaknesses, playing against a character who keeps easily killing you can be completely infuriating, so to remedy this there's always a certain character who counters them and is a much more favourable match-up in a fight.

Balance was another thing strong in my mind whilst I was writing about all 16 of the game's playable characters. Since the game is an online multiplayer experience, it being a fun and well balanced experience could be crucial to its success. Simply because having one dominant character who's better than the rest could completely break the game, and in an ideal world I want all 16 characters to be viable choices that suit a variety of different people who each prefer different playstyles. So to accomplish this I made every character have their own niche and purpose, with their own individual weaknesses to make people playing as other characters necessary. For example, the long-ranged sniper characters are bad at a close-range fight, the healing characters can't do much damage but excel at keeping the team alive and the small speedy characters hurt quite a bit, at the expense of having low health and being easy to kill.

I also went into great detail about my game's visual style, and my game using this to impact certain emotions (like joy and laughter). I stated in my design document how the game features a cartoony, yet stylised look, using a unique blend of watercolours to create a very iconic visual theme which not only give the game its own identity, it also immerses the player into the game world with these very charming and creative characters/landscapes. This also makes the game much more marketable, as cute and quirky character designs always appeal to children while the goofy, yet more matured water-coloured appearance can still intrigue older viewers.

I also noted how there is a lot of endogenous value to be seen in the game's items, which is a big part in what makes the game so addicting. Since the whole time the player is invested and playing the game, they're constantly making progress and feel like they're not just wasting their time. From earning Bird Bucks to spend on new customisation items and clothes, earning exp to level-up their character and increase their overall player rank, or collecting new abilities for the playable character cast to change-up their playstyle. The player always has something to look forward to and nothing earned ever feels like a complete waste with no purpose, everything all adds together for some sort of reward at the end, which is a huge mechanic to keep the player coming back time and time again wanting more.