Project & Portfolio V Prototype

Project Postmortem: IAT5 Prototype Level

In Project & Portfolio V: Interactive Technology, I was tasked to make a prototype level based on a game I pick from its genre. Originally, I wanted to make a survival horror game like Resident Evil, but I changed my plan because it was hard and stressful for me. So I decided to go with platformer as my genre to make one like Astro Bot. Right now, I'm gonna talk about what went right and wrong during this project. 

Link to Gameplay Video: https://youtu.be/M_wD7hC_IA8?si=0ijPYk_3jLAIekW4 

What Went Right:

1. Switching Genres: Making a platformer prototype inspired by Astro Bot was the best change of plan I could've made after finding the survival horror genre complicated. 

2. Laying Out The Level: Adding the details and colorful environments blew me away realizing that I have a level layout design skill, even play testers loved it. 

3. Adding Sounds: Part of my task was to add sounds, and I managed to find good sounds to use for my actions like collecting coins, hitting enemies, and jumping. 

4. Defeating Enemies: How I wanted to defeat them was to make the punch animation timing hit right to make it look like the player punched the enemy, and it worked. 

5. Displaying "You Died" Screen: Although I couldn't do it when the enemy kills you, I made it work when the player falls off the map. 

The most important thing that went right was switching genres because it made me realize that I didn't had the skill to make a survival; horror prototype like Resident Evil, with the things I imported to make it, the project couldn't be packaged and I didn't know how to fix it. Because of this, I decided to make a platformer prototype like Astro Bot because I learned that it's better to work on the things you are more capable off rather than what you aren't. 

What Went Wrong:

1. Not Having a Health Bar: I could've made the enemies attack you so that your health bar decreases and once its at zero, you die and respawn.

2. The Punch Animation I Used: The animation wasn't bad, the problem was that when you punch, the timing is slow and not immediately like what you would expect. 

3. Jumping Sound Repeat: While pressing the SPACE key and jumps it does make the sound, it can still do it even if your on air and not jumping. 

4. Breakable Box: I was gonna add one, but I had to take it out because I wanted to break the box first and then collect the coin inside of the box. But the problem was that you could collect the coin without breaking the box. 

5. Pause Menu Bug: I didn't realize that play testers could pause on the options menu from the Pause, which made the mouse cursor disappear when you hit resume and stay stuck on the options menu until you reset the game. 

In Conclusion, I was still proud of the work I've done because it's all part of learning the basics towards the Game Design degree program. Nobody is going to get everything right from the start, and it's a good thing that I analyzed the issue myself because it helped me learn a new lesson in the end. Moving forward, I'm going to take these steps and improve the more I learn from my mistakes.