Chrono Shift - Prototype Sprint 4

For sprint 4, my team and I worked on getting the prototype ready for the System Playtest, where we were going to have our peers test our game to get helpful feedback on what we could continue to improve and what was already good. My teammates continued to focus on polishing up the code and adding some more minor important features like text instructions to tell the player how to perform specific mechanics. Meanwhile, my job was to prioritize the final level, which included all of the mechanics in one level. We wanted to prioritize this so that all of the mechanics were testable in time for the playtest and we could get as much valuable feedback as possible. I wanted to design this level to be themed around space and feel similar in aesthetic to the Zen section of the original Half-Life. To do this in a simplistic way, I made the environment a lavender color and made a quick skybox meant to resemble space.

Once I finished modeling the barriers in Pro Builder, I built the main platforms for the player to walk on. I designed this level as a multi-step process, where the player goes down three separate paths based around each mechanic, collects three keys, and unlocks the final section, where they have to use all three mechanics combined to get to the end. When I built it, I first went through each separate area, placing breakable walls, grapple points, and gliding platforms where I thought it best to provide somewhat of a challenge while still being enjoyable. I feel that I've gotten the general process of creating levels down pretty well so far. As I did with this one, I usually start by finding something in real life that is related to what I want the level to be themed around. For example, I used the neighborhood where I grew up as a reference for the tutorial level, ancient Kyoto as a reference for the Japanese-themed dashing level, etc. For this one, I used a constellation map of the Milky Way. I draw an outline of what shapes I want the areas to be in; then, I begin adding pits of varying spacing and sizes. Once that's done, I start adding in obstacles in their rough positions. Once I'm done with the map, I import it onto a plane in Unity and use it as a guide to build up the map in 3d space. Once I'm done building it, I then focus on testing and tweaking the map to be more accurate to the abilities of the mechanics.

I was able to finish building this level pretty quickly, much faster than I spent on the previous level, which was a goal of mine as that level took me about a week to finish. Devin came in after me and fixed an issue with the camera movement, and then added in some moving obstacles to various areas in each level for some added variability. The playtest went very well in my opinion, we got a good amount of compliments from playtesters about how the level looked and felt to play, and that it was a big improvement from the previous iteration. One tester played around a lot with what the mechanics could do and figured out ways to combine them that we didn't even realize were possible. It definitely inspired us to keep going through this last sprint and continue polishing things up further.

Overall, we didn't really have any memorable issues throughout this sprint. We communicated when necessary and completed all of our necessary work on time, and the second iteration turned out better than we had hoped it would. I'm looking forward to implementing the final levels and finishing up this prototype in the coming weeks!