Week 4 I - Testing, Results, Testing, Testing, and Sleep

Today last week I make a small level in UE4 using the landscape tool, and began trying out the controls of the project.

The response to the controls were riddled with things to adjust, including:

- Release of the controlling movement should halt mid air velocity

- When charging up for a jump, the player should be in control of when to jump, rather than it firing regardless when fully charged

- Holding gown the jump button in air should allow you to fall at a slower pace

- Double jumping

- Ground movement felt sluggish in comparison

- Short jumps should be effective without the necessity of the double jumps

So here's what I've done; All of that.

I made the character move faster on the ground, which also made the shorter jumps better as there was more of a launch going into them.

I added a double jump that you can fire up to 3 times before landing (A Quad jump).

I removed the auto jump when it became fully charged.

I slowed down the movement to a halt in mid air if the player wasn't putting in any input.

I added in the slower falling while gliding, and to balance added a 3 second usage to the ability, forcibly reverting to the default fall speed if the entire bar is expended.

An interesting term has popped up while I was testing, that has come up in 100% of people I asked to play; Floaty.

Whenever I've heard a game described as 'Floaty' it always felt negative. A game that can't really let it's players feel any weight to the world, seeming as if everything is loose or flimsy. However here, after hearing this term, one of the playtesers (Who is a VERY big fan of 3rd person platformers) found no errors with the jumping/flying mechanics, and said it "Felt really nice". They went on to mention they especially liked the application of the double jump, a mechanic that if anything makes the game MORE floaty.

With this all in mind, it seems I'm beginning to crack more into Game Feel from a real time response perspective, even if it's not what I intended to do for this 3 week project.

In terms of my original goals for the 3 weeks project, only 1 person decided that the running animation was superior, and the rest were very settled on the skiing animation. In fact, going back to the last playtester, when I switched they proclaimed (And I quote) "What the fuck are you doing? Put it back!"

I feel there's little more to explore in the area of a character's aesthetic movements and feel, as from this single project I've discovered that a vast majority of people prefer to have more fluid movements. However, there are plenty of other variables to consider, like if Marcus Fenix from Gears of War began skiing through the levels, would that be preferred to him chugging away with his hunched running animation?

No.

However, from this I've learned a lot more about the feel of a game, and how the project I'm making can reflect the tone just in how it controls, evidence by everyone having varying suggestions, yet agreeing that all of them implemented make a better feeling game.

Something I could look into more?

The door's open.