Assignment 3 - Postmortem
Firstly, it is important to discuss how unlike the previous prototypes, this one was developed with a team which consisted of 4 members (Including me), so my approach to this prototype was very different compared to when it was just me working on a prototype.
What aspects of the readings helped inspire your design process?
When working on this team project, I found that for me personally, that Chapters 8 and 10 helped my process more than any other chapters.
Chapter 8, as discussed in previous posts, focuses heavily on playtesting games digitally. While Playtests were not an extensive focus for the whole team, I found that it was important to make sure the game was built in increments and having each increment tested, even if only by other team members until we had an opportunity for a much larger playtest with a wider variety of players (Playtest Party).
Chapter 10, which I have also previously discussed, focuses on functionality, completeness, and balance of games.
This chapter also inspired me to work on developing each feature in steps to ensure they each were functional, felt complete, and were balanced. For example, I played around with the box creation system a lot as I had several parts of it that needed to be developed for it to be called functional, including it being a projectile against enemies, only damaging them when it is in the air rather than on the floor, limiting how many you could place, and indicating the age of blocks by changing their color as more spawned to show which ones will break first when the limit is reached.
Whatâs one thing youâd change about how you developed the prototype?
Overall, I had issues with communication with several team members, causing a very slow process of development, or team members overlapping content and thus lots of confusion ensued. The thing I would most want to change if I could, I would go back and line out a much clearer list of each teams role and tasks, as alot of the workload was put more on myself and one particular teammate rather than it being a fair balance of work, thus leading us to having a much smaller prototype than intended.
Whatâs one thing youâd change about the design of the prototype?
The main thing I would change would be a lot of the visuals, moreso adding more visuals and making the environment of the level feel more varied. In my mind, this would include more types of platforms, a more detailed version of the players block so it looks more unique compared to the level, more alternate sprites for the robots, a background for the scene, and a visual representation of player lives rather than just text.
Reference:
Fullerton, T. (2018). Game design workshop: a playcentric approach to creating innovative games. AK Peters/CRC Press.










