CTE Advanced Studies

Production

Playtesting Data

End of the Road Playtesting Form (Responses)

This is the data we collected from the very few play testers we have had. At this moment, we have only had 3 but we will get more in the future. A trend I noticed in the feedback was that people struggled with not knowing what to do. A lot of the bugs made the game unplayable for the play testers. Police station chain was confusing for a lot of play testers. The strengths for many play testers were the visuals and weaknesses being the bugs. I found it surprising how many bugs and game breaking glitches there were that never appeared when I played it. Currently, the game does not meet the needs of the target audience but once it is finished and polished, it should. Other than bug fixing, three changes I will make based on the feedback would be: an objective panel either in the notebook or main HUD, a tutorial along with a starting and ending cutscene, many tweaks to the dialogue lines to make the objectives clearer for the player. These all should solve the problem of the player not knowing what to do and significantly improve the player experience.

Playtesting Survey

Our survey contains questions that will help us identify our target audience and highlight our strong points and weak points in our game. We chose a large variety of questions to make sure we are gathering as much information on player experience as possible. We will use each answer and thoughtfully incorporate the feedback into the final product. Since we both spent a lot of time making the game it's hard for us to play it unbiasedly; having a wide variety of playtesters can help us with this.

Whitebox Level

2025-10-22 21-55-13.mp4

I converted my original level plan to a white box by using basic shapes and models to lay out the vision for the level and then scaled it appropriately to our player. The player plays as a mouse so everything should feel large. I used this idea to scale objects proportionally. The most difficult part of white boxing was definitely the placing and scale of these objects, I was struggling to make it feel compact but also large at the same time. I have improved significantly throughout my time learning unreal, during my white box last year, it wasn't nearly as thoughtful or stylized as this one. It definitely shows how much progress I have made while learning unreal. Next I need to work on the gameplay loop and Nuclear Reactor sublevel of our game.

Pre Production

Brainstorming Concept Ideas

Idea #1

This game would be a platformer/rage game. You play as a frog, the only way to move is to jump. The objective of the game would be to make it to the top of a very large tree to save your eggs. The player would have to climb the tree by hopping from platform to platform, there would be many unique obstacles. The frog would also have a special ability that allows them to use their tongue as a grappling hook in certain points. The game would be stylized with a cartoony feel to it. The controls would be very simple; Space to jump, WASD to aim, Right click to use your tongue as a grappling hook. The game "POGOSTUCK" shares a similar gameplay mechanic to this. In this game you pay as a character stuck on a pogostick and you have to navigate the map stuck on a pogostick.

Idea #2

This game would be a strategy/stealth game. The player plays as a prisoner in a high security jail, they must find their own route out of the prison. The objective of the game would be to escape the jail without being caught. There will be multiple endings as well as many different routes you can take to escape. You would be able to interact with NPCs and set up events. This game would be very similar to the game "The Escapists" but it would be 3d. The escapists is a 2.5d game where you essentially are given a level and have to escape. This idea has a similar idea but would be more story-focused. Players would be able to have create relationships with other prisoners and guards and use their surroundings to their advantage to escape.

Idea #3

This game would be a puzzle/exploration game. The player is a scientist who discovers the world is gonna explode in 5 minutes but every time he dies or the world explodes he would wake back up at the moment he realized the world was gonna explode. The objective of the game would be to prevent the world from exploding by gathering new information every loop. The game would slowly feed you new information everywhere you go. By the time you understand how to stop it you would need to rush to visit multiple parts of the map to collect items needed to save the world. This game is similar to the game "Outer Wilds" where you are in a time loop, the universe explodes every 22 minutes, and you are trying to find the center of the universe. My game is similar to this but instead of exploring a solar system, you will be exploring a town on earth.

Game Pitch

Game Pitches

Game Dev Schedule

End Of The Road (Working Title)

We decided to choose this subject because this was one of the more unique ideas we had. We decided that we would need a game that stands out to the judges and this one would do that. We also got a lot of positive feedback from the class and the teacher, people were very interested in the time loop feature of this idea and Mr.B also really liked the idea since it was unique. All of this combined led us to choose this idea.