Testing and Feedback – Devlog 6

Hi, this is the 6^th and final devlog for my game “Escape from the Mansion”, focusing on the testing feedback received from the formal testing session that took place last week as well as the changes and bugs fixed as a direct result of the tester’s responses and feedback. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who managed to test my game and provide amazing feedback to let me make these changes.

Some feedback that I got from the testing session was praise for the audio choices for the player footsteps, the background music that was played in the levels as well as the title music. One tester requested for audio clips to be added to the enemies to add individuality. One of the issues many of the testers found was that at the start of the levels you were able to walk out of the level and essentially walk into the void, this was unintentional on my part as I had forgotten to close the tilemap walls at the starting area. Another major issue was that the player could get stuck on the wall colliders completely as well as being able to walk through the wall to some extent, which was caused by two different issues that I will talk about during bug fixing sections below.

First, I’ll talk about the updates to the enemies, more specifically audio wise. I added unique sounds to each of the enemies to make them more unique. For the “Rat” enemy, I added a squeaking sound, using an audio clip called “Tikus” by SondangSirait419 from pixabay.com. For the “Bat” enemy, I added a sound that resembles real bats squealing and screaming about, using an audio clip called “bats” by freesound_community from pixabay.com. Lastly, for the “Skeleton” enemies, as suggested by the tester, I added bone rattling noises as they move to add to the authenticity of the skeletons, using an audio clip called “Rattling Bones” by freesound_community from pixabay.com.

Next update was to update the level layout to prevent the player from walking out of the map at the start of the levels.  I simply closed off the tilemap at the beginning area as opposed to having it be open which was totally intentional I promise. That combined with the collider updates I’ll be talking about in the next section. The new starting area layout is pictured below (lit up for the screenshot):

The next major bug fix was to fix the issue of the player being able to get stuck on the edge of the tilemap colliders. While debugging, I realized that the player only could get stuck if it turned on its backside, facing the backpack as pictured in the sprite below:

The collider was shaped along with the backpack which caused the collider to sort of phase into the walls when the player turned his back on the walls. The fix was simple by just reshaping the collider to be more uniform and equivalent on both sides. The fixed version where player can no longer get stuck pictured below in a GIF:

The other major bug was that the player would seemingly be able to walk through the walls especially at the bottom of the scene. The issue was being caused by my camera being in perspective mode instead of orthographic which basically meant the camera was in 3D instead of 2D. The fixed version now no longer being able to walk through walls is pictured below in a GIF:

Lastly, there were some feedback that I thought I would address and explain why I’m not making some of these changes, though the main and most prevalent reason will just be time constraints unfortunately:

• Light source being the torch instead of the single light source around the player, and the torch being able to lit up the areas by itself

I wasn’t sure how to implement this mostly as it would require bit of tweaking as well as having the light source move with the player, my main issue being that I couldn’t get the flashlight effect to be enough to light up the area. I would definitely have to spend more time on the idea, and it would improve the game immensely.

• Sprite being updated to include up and down movement, as well as unrestricted flashlight movement

This issue was mostly caused by me being unable to find a suitable sprite, especially one that included a flashlight, in fact I was pretty lucky to even find an animated sprite of a person holding a flashlight in the first place. I can definitely see why this would disprove the game from being a proper top-down game as I intended it to be, unfortunately time and artistic skill restrictions, as well as a lack of editing skills (GenAI did not help in generating the sprite at all either so there’s that), not really a feasible change to make. The flashlight being restricted was also caused by this issue, hence why I had changed to feel bit more realistic and smoother to suit the sprite animation.

• Enemies being attackable

Now this one I would have to refuse making a change as it goes against my original concept, which was that the point of the game was to evade, not attack the enemies, which added a layer of uniqueness as well as making the game ever so slightly more difficult knowing that you can’t get rid of the enemies and simply halt them.

• Exits being more clear

This change I wasn’t sure whether to implement it, as well as how to implement it in the first place that would fit the theme of the game. I decided not to do it adding a bit more difficulty to the game as otherwise it might become a bit too easy, though I can see how it would improve the game performance. One change I would’ve made, barring the time constraints, would be to change the exits entirely and make it an animated GameObject instead of simply being a door.  

Once again, I would like to thank everyone that took a chance to test and provide really really valuable feedback for my game, it was a pleasure writing these devlogs as well as constantly updating the game. Hopefully sometime in the future I will come back with more updates to the game to make it more fleshed out.  

References:

Audio clips all sourced from pixabay.com:

Tikus by SondangSirait419: https://pixabay.com/sound-effects/tikus-220067/

bats by freesound_community: https://pixabay.com/sound-effects/bats-33995/

Rattling Bones by freesound_community: https://pixabay.com/sound-effects/rattling-bones-105394/