Sprint 4 Summary

Team 1

Team 2

This sprint, Team 2 continued to focus on performance improvements and ensuring the game was actually playable. Up until this point, level 1 was having performance issues that rendered it unplayable. After a lot of small troubleshooting throughout the three sprints, we discovered that the issue was the overuse of obstacle entities used in the building of the level. We fixed this by expanding the tile map and rebuilding the level using primarily tile entities (which use a lot less resources).

We also decided to go through the assets that were being used by the game, and reorganise the assets directory. This entailed deleting what was not being used (or things that had become obsolete by new work) and moving items into new directories according to what they are used for. The hope is that by doing this, the asset folder will become more organised and human-readable (which is important given the open source nature of the game) and help us as developers know what is there and being used. From a performance perspective, doing this helps us identify and remove areas in the code that were loading unused assets (which could increase loading time).

Reorganising the assets directory also allowed us to change naming schemes and atlas files to be more consistent, which allowed us to more easily load assets, and even dynamically load them. This allowed us to implement the ability for all four levels to load their own unique textures, finally giving each level their own unique look and feel according to the moodboards that were created in sprint 2. Doing this did require minor changes to some of the existing textures, as well as recreating and repacking said textures to ensure each atlas file was consistent with what textures it loads and the naming of said textures.

Finally, we also continued working on pausing functionality as well as improving level saving / loading and adding the ability to add (de)buffs to levels through the level editor.

Team 3

For Sprint 4 Team 3 had a focus on user testing, with a few miscellaneous tasks to complete as well, these include making the voids movement dynamic and reducing the number of code smells reported on sonar cloud. The void's movement had to be changed as previously the player could outrun the void extremely easily making the game lose it's sense of challenge. To fix this the void's movement speed is increased if the player moves a certain distance away from the void which essentially ensures that the player is no more than 12 metres in front of the void allowing the player enough time to overcome obstacles while keeping pressure on the player making the game feel more like a game.

In regards to user testing, Team 3 conducted play testing of the game to gather feedback on users' experience interacting with the game. It focused on aspects such as first impressions, game aesthetics, playing experience, and additional feedback from users to improve their user experience. To ensure for consistency with testing, a testing plan was established outlining the purpose and process by which the test would be run and adhere to. A questionnaire was also developed for users to complete, following their game play. Responses from the questionnaire was then evaluated to gather meaning from testing to inform what has been done well and what areas of the game could be improved.

User testing was conducted with 7 participants, and the full evaluation can be found here. Results were shared with all teams so feasible improvements which could be made this sprint could be implemented. Generally, it was found that first impressions of the game were fairly positive, users were quite satisfied with the aesthetics (visual, sound, etc.) of the game, and gameplay saw users finding the game to be easy to play and enjoyable to a certain extent. However, much feedback for refinements were given, with specific fixes being pointed out to better enhance the game and its completeness and polish. The game saw an average rating, on a scale of 1 (worst game ever) to 10 (best game ever), of 5.71/10, which is a moderate score, though demonstrates that improvements can definitely be made.

Team 4

In the final sprint, Team 4 split into 2 main groups. One group covered the re-creation of levels 2/3 to allow for better playability, as well as improved movement speed/tweaking. While the other team closely collaborated with Team 1 to completely re-format the wiki for enhanced readability and general professionalism.

The wiki reformat was a joint venture between Noah from Team 4 and Jack from Team 1; this included a complete re-design of the home-screen, and a visual overhaul of the table of contents. Such a task required the creation of several new pages, as well as the re-design, splitting, and merging of more than several other pages. As of the end of this sprint, the wiki is believed to be in a state which is not only more readable, but generally more user-friendly for those not in our studio. This wiki is a development wiki, and not a traditional wiki you'd expect from popular games; it will not give you tips and tricks, but it will show each and every step of our studio's progress when and where you'd expect it to be.

The other half of Team 4 covered minor, yet essential tweaks to the game's general movement, UI, and levels. Movement speed and jump length was increased, to fall in-line with Team 3's addition of a dynamic void and allow for a more menacing and genuinely threatening chase. The aim for this was to increase the general flow of the player through each level, and entice users to pickup more speed and make more mistakes (causing death and re-playability etc.). Levels 2/3 were also re-made to implement the interactable elements previously left-out, and to also increase size between platforms/jumps as the player had become bigger in previous sprints.

Team 5

In this final sprint, team 5 decided to do a Second Quality of Life which included more music effect implementation, loading screen implementation and functionality, background refinement and user testing of our features. Many of these features carried on from the previous sprint. The team aimed to further improve the games features and its integration to the entire game.

The loading screen implementation took alot of time in this sprint but we really wanted it to be completed in order to enhance the games experience. The camera movement was worked upon to improve tha backgrounds positioning in the game. Level 4 sound was also created, following on from sprint 1 and 2. Alot of user testing was done with our features as a team in order to make sure there was consistency. Heuristic Evaluations, Pluralistic Walkthroughs and Think Aloud user testing was used in order to have qualitative and quantitative data.

Overall, this final sprint gave team 5 the time to look over past work, fix implemented codes and bugs, fix functionality and, ultimately, tidy up our features. It gave us a change to make sure our features enhanced the games experience and made the game "juicy".