From CS 160 Fall 2008
Assignment Description
Final Presentation and Report
Prototype Comments from Prof. Canny
- Concentrate on improving the gameplay in Campaign Mode for the final demo. It's ok to use Wizard of Oz techniques.
- Think about your naming conventions - "Campaign" mode sounds like something from a military game. Maybe it would be more appropriate to use DJ terminology. Or, if you want some humor, you can go for a military theme throughout, but that's probably not the best metaphor for this game.
- Overall, the Campaign play screen "seems a bit stark."
- Make gameplay a richer, more engaging experience
- Concentrate on improving things related to the skill of the player
- Consider giving users feedback on the "quality" of their transitions... as in whether they barely made a transition or whether it was perfectly on beat. If it was a high quality transition, they get a bigger score or a bonus
- When users make a successful transition, flash an encouraging / success message. In general, spice up gameplay and improve replay value by giving "rewards" (i.e. animations) on successful player actions
- Consider making the gameplay slightly more DDR/Guitar Hero-like by using "transition windows..." "it seems a bit weird that they can transition all the time." The user can transition only with certain instruments during certain windows - if they transition with other instruments or outside of the window, they still gain points but much less
- You want to go for increased replay value - that is, users should want to _go back_ and replay Level 1 multiple times to gain a higher score.
- Emphasizing the score more is good. Emphasize success more with score by using increments that emphasize _how much_ player's score actually jumped - on a successful transition, say "+100" or "double skill transition! +200"
- Biggest design issues:
- Provide more real-time user help. What if the player blows through the tutorial? If the player takes a long time to get started or do something in Campaign Mode, use the same pop-up motifs as in the tutorial to provide help during gameplay. Set triggers to bring up the tutorial dialogs, and it's ok to use Wizard of Oz techniques.
- Provide more dynamics in scoring, and give more encouraging feedback to players.
Prototype Changes Suggested By Jingtao
- For the final demo: Select one song that best demonstrates the gameplay, and use it in place of "random" tracks we have now. For example, Guitar Hero selects the songs that best showcase their game for users to play, they don't let users select their own songs. (Anthony will look into this)
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Change the cursor on track toggle button mouseover (also over volume sliders), so it's clear they're manipulable controls
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Make the score indicator bigger and more central; it's not necessarily clear that the user's score goes up after they've completed all 8 transitions in Campaign Mode (since the score indicator is kind of small and de-emphasized)
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Continue to increment the transition counter if the user completes more than 8 transitions - grant "bonus transitions" with another counter in a different color
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Include messages / notifications when significant things happen
- Enhance audio feedback
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Use gimmicks like earning medals as feedback for user (not doing)
- Spice up gameplay with animations (e.g. on power-up acheived, etc.)
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Penalize user by subtracting score for doing nothing (not doing)
- Consider prompting user to play if they're inactive in Campaign Mode for more than 30 sec.
- Add bonus points for each unbroken vinyl at the end
- Fix bug where in some cases you can still do transitions after using up all your vinyls; there seems to be a problem "breaking" the last vinyl. This seems to occur during a "retry" of the level, and results in a "null object reference" error.
Bugfixes / Prototype Changes
High Priority
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Use an initialization frame to prevent global variable refresh (apparently you can use if-then to check whether a variable has been set--before it has even been declared)
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Prevent the credits music from starting over
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Tints / auras / flickers
- Points /
strike indicators / notifications
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Only one beat synch light, labeled, non-clickable
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Light-up button to toggle each track on and off
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Greyed-out controls when the track is off (note by Stuart: I am not sure this makes sense to do when the change in volume slider still has an effect on the track when it is re-enabled)
Greg
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Power mode in tutorial
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Tutorial - add assist (flashing)
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Tutorial is going to need to be revamped after interface edits...
Medium Priority
- Power-up animation / better graphics
- Timer bug (To reproduce, start campaign mode, leave campaign, and go to the tutorial. If you leave it in tutorial, bug appears)
Low Priority
- Find good tracks
- High score view
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Theme music
Super-Low Priority
- Add an extra track after 1000 points
- Bonus level - with tint, 3x power-up, new tracks
Prototype Notes From Jingtao's Office Hours
- In general, help users realize the goals of, and their status in, the game
- Give user feedback about what is / is not recommended in gameplay
- Encourage users to do things correctly (maybe use more power-ups?)
- Don't worry about adding another new, completely redesigned 2nd level unless we have time
- However, consider "Leveling Up" as a compelling design pattern to engage users during gameplay
- What is important:
- Spend more development time enhancing gameplay, enhancing audio/visual feedback, and making gameplay more clear
- For best final project score, demonstrate the engaging factors of gameplay
- Make users more aware of their goals and progress in the game
- User should have fun, and learn something
- Things like the following are less important:
- extra features in general
- saving progress through levels
- high scores
- import and save
Presentation
Poster
Writeup
