Mage Escape

During the course of the project which lasted around 15-16 weeks, I primarily worked on designing and implementing levels/puzzles. At the end of the project we had a total of nine levels, seven and a half were designed and implemented by me. The game is playable from start to finish and from the reactions of people whom have played the game after the final build it looks as though Grimoire Gang has created a genuinely enjoyable experience.

This was the first time I have designed levels for a puzzle game and I believe that I gave it my best go and the end result is good. This was really valuable experience. Creating fun and interesting puzzles was a challenge and a puzzle in of itself. I definitely had difficulties, however this didn't stop me from creating the best levels/puzzles I could within the time given.

The project overall turned out fairly well, however it isn't without its issues. Looking back on the game it still has a number of bugs that can slightly impede gameplay. Some notable ones are bugs where either the player or the spell books get stuck or become unusable. We were able to mostly navigate around these issues by adding in separate player and book respawn buttons. The respawn checkpoints are also always nearby so that the players don't have far they need to walk if they need to force a respawn.

One of the biggest challenges that came along with this project was maintaining thorough communication, and testing of the game itself. This was due to Victoria being in lock-down for the duration of the project. We mostly didn't expect a lockdown and we were all fairly new to working in large teams over a long period of time so it was initially difficult not being in the same room/building when working. It is also really difficult to test a local co-op game online. We overcame the testing by using an external program that allowed us to both play using the same PC, the program in question is Parsec. Even though we had a general solution it was still difficult to organize testing sessions when not in person.