Magnetic By Nature Post #14: Zone's of Enders

Well this has been a fun week.  This past Thursday professionals from prestigious gaming companies such as EA, Eat Sleep Play, and others, came to demo our game's Beta.  We had our first zone, (which consisted of 5 levels), all completed and ready for them to play, and the response was very positive.  Each level has a "Roger" moment in it, (a term we coined after our professor Roger Altizer who initially suggested we have certain moments throughout the game that will be extremely impactful on the player while on his or her journey), and each zone will have its own theme.  Zone 1 is set in an underground, cave-like environment with areas that are generally claustrophobic.

We also had a new control scheme implemented for them to try out called the "Bubble."  In short, it gets rid of the need for using the right analog stick to aim the magnetic beam, and instead attracts or repels the player from the nearest magnet from them.  This by far was the biggest change we had made to our game since our alpha, and it has been praised by almost everyone who has demoed our game.

After the Beta demo, we chatted with the professionals on what we could scrap, what we could tweak, and what they liked.  They said that it might look better if the robot were cell-shaded and that the "bubble" control could be tweaked in that, wherever you point the left analog stick, the magnets in that direction would have preference over the other magnets effecting you.  We took their feedback and are working on implementing it into the final version of the game.  Overall, though, they all loved the game and had a really enjoyable experience with it.

Oh, and if you're wondering about the title of this post, it's in honor of Hideo Kojima's games and the release of the spinoff Metal Gear Solid Rising: Revengeance this past Tuesday, (and the name also ties nicely to our Beta's zones that we are pumping out in these final weeks of production).


What I accomplished this week:

• Created 2 death animations and exported sprites for a 3rd programmatic death animation
• Designed and constructed a level for Zone 1
• Created and updated a Youtube account for Tripleslash Studios 
• Reviewed a game and contacted the developers
• Created concept art, (poster), for Magnetic By Nature