Week 2 Postmortem (Prototype 2)

This week's round of playtesting yielded some interesting results. For the "Corrupted Vision" prompt,  we both had to go against the original vision of a tough, fast-paced platformer. Alex's prototype mainly focused on reversing the "fast-paced" part of the concept, instead making a more casual, exploration-focused experience where the player is free to move wherever they like. Dylan's instead reversed the diffuculty part, by making a level with obstacles that are easy to beat and give the player lots of time between them, while holding the player's hand in an over-the-top condescending and patronising way. 

To our surprise, players enjoyed the freedom of not having to worry about timed objectives or challenging obstacles, instead just appreciating the feel of the movement. Although is was good to see that players liked the grapple's physics more than last week's, we now have to consider abandoning our original vision for the game.

Next week's prompt is "Time", which is perfect for our group as we are already considering mechanics relating to time. Dylan's project will feature a "Bullet Time" mechanic (like the Matrix) allowing the player to briefly slow down time in order to better time their inputs for an obstacle which demands high precision to conquer. This mechanic was already part of the original high-concept, so this week is the perfect time to test its viability. Alex's will quickly ramp up in speed similarly to some platformers and endless runners (Subway Surfers, the Google Dinosaur Game, etc,...), but will also slow down noticeably when using the grapple hook at certain angles in order  to explore the possibility of a procedurally generated, endless runner style game.