Hello, Ducklings!
Yes - I know it's been a while. Yes - We said this would be up last weekend.
...but I'm EVIL so really it's your fault for trusting that.
UI Playtest
Through February and March, we collected volunteers to test out our UI and give us their feedback on the screens before spending the time and effort to put them in the engine. Overall the responses were positive! Many liked our designs but there were key problem areas we had to address they were:
1. ) We need a better email system
Do you like this fancy new email template? We realized we probably needed an easier and safer way to contact all of you besides what we were using. We hope this reaches you guys with less hassle, missing images, and without vanishing into the dark depths of spam. 2.) Navigation
We met as a team and clarified the UI Flow chart. We made sure that all the buttons go to where they are expected to go. Part of this may have been the system we used to put together the demo, but better safe than sorry. 3.) Take Me Home...
Some of you wanted easier access to the home menu and options from the activity screen. We're revamping that screen to have those buttons so you can access them without having to navigate through multiple screens. 4.) Mission Clarity!
A lot of you expressed interest in seeing how many missions are left but without revealing any spoils for the story. We're editing the mission list so that your newest unlocked missions will always be at the top. Completed missions will come after those and be clearly marked. Locked Future Missions will come after those but their titles will be corrupted until you've unlocked them. 5.) Mission Debrief & Brief These screens are going through a lot of reformatting so that each section of the page is distinguishable. We hope that dividing up the Summary, Objectives, and Optional Objectives into three distinct sections will help improve readability. We'll also be adjusting the color of the [Optional] tag so that it is easier to see. We'll also be moving that to the front of the text so it's the first thing players read when reading objectives. The mission debriefs screen will go through similar changes but will also have clear check marks and different colors for completed objectives as compared to objectives you missed during that mission. We'll also be including a mock-up for the chat log next time. How did we miss that one, ducklings?
6.) Hey, Listen!
S.A.M will have an animation and a glowing pulse when he has a hint for you. We hope that will make it clear when to click on S.A.M during an activity for a hint. 7.) Accessibility & Settings
We always planned to have a colorblind option available. We actually bought a fancy new tool to allow us to easily swap between the main options. We're now also looking into a dyslexic option to swap out the font we have for a dyslexia-friendly alternative. This new setting will be available in settings as well as the color blind option. In addition, a tutorial and master volume option will be added as well. We'll also be looking into adjusting our font settings since readability issues were reported in general. 8.) "Juice" Ideas
We have a lot of what we call "juice" to add. Flashy effects, particles, screen shakes, etc, etc. Some of you suggested what we already had planned which helps us push those choices up higher on the list. We've got tools to add glitch effects, scan lines, and distortions that we think will really add to the polish down the line and are excited to show off when the time comes.
Finalized UI Screens
These screens were done by our UI & UX designers, Mickey Parrs and Tetyana Kolomiyets.
Missions
Based on responses from the playtest we were also able to finalize what puzzles we would include in the base release of the game.
We were glad to see that no one was uninterested in any of the puzzles we had. Most had a good interest in them like Nonograms or a mixed result like Ciphers. With the draft of the first chapter of the game provided, we were able to go through and start matching which activities would best fit with what was happening during the story at the time. Here are some examples of that annotated old draft for chapter one:
With all that information, we were able to start putting together an asset list for what new screens, writing, code pieces, etc we would need to accomplish this. The asset list is to help provide an overview of everything that needs to come together to get through phase one. It's also to help improve communication among the team members:
Studio Development & Future Planning
To further help encourage communication we redesigned our Discord Server so that all internal team members can view all project channels.
We've also added a "future-game-ideas" channel. As art starts to come to a close on project SAM, I wanted to ensure that we had the next path forward so that we wouldn't release a game and then be quiet for years figuring out what to do next.
In addition to that our Twitch channel reached Affiliate at 50 followers. We were able to further expand our brand when developing emotes, subscriber badges, channel point icons.
All of these art pieces were created in-house by our artist, Tetyana Kolomiyets. She can also be found as @FrostyLeafWater on Twitter. We also continued our podcast, The Pondcast, and reached 24 episodes posted on Pandora, Amazon Music, Spotify, Itunes, and recently Youtube.
Wrap It Up
I know this update is long overdue but I hope you guys can see all the progress we've been making during our time of silence. For more consistent updates follow us on Twitter, @EvilQuacks. I am much better at updating that every week! I hope that in a few months I'll have even more to show you guys as development picks up and art gets added into the engine. I'd love to have gifs to show you and videos of us playing through it with pieces of the art there.
We'll talk to you all next time, and remember Ducklings, stay EVIL.
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