Game Testing

Following this week’s testing session, several major changes were made to the game, most evidently regarding player movement and controls. Whilst opinions about the new control scheme were mixed, many felt that updating the players movement had removed a crucial element of strategy and skill required in the original Spacewar! and that the (temporary) removal of the central star in alignment with this update, meant the game had lost something that made it unique. More detail on how this feedback influenced the eventual direction of the game concept will be covered in the final documentation. However, in accordance with tester feedback, despite spending much time refining the new control scheme, the decision was made to scrap many of the changes and revert to the old style of player controls, albeit with some crucial changes.

I retained the addition of drag, although the magnitude was dialled back considerably, to restore some of the challenge in controlling the ship, whilst still allowing for gradual deceleration and a maximum speed cap. This change also allowed for the re-introduction of the central star. Additionally, I replaced the analogue directional control of the ship with DPAD controls that apply torque for rotation. This is notable, as the original game did not feature inertia for rotational movement, but including it in this instance emphasised the drifty, space like feel of the controls, and added an extra element of strategy that ties in well with the modified movement. The afterburner was also removed, and instead the default thrust was increased slightly, as most players simply used the boost continuously whilst playing. Lastly, I swapped to using the bumpers over triggers for firing missiles, and removed the cooldown, because the games fun factor scaled linearly with the number of bullets on screen. This also meant the game now uses entirely digital controls, making it extensible to other input types, such as keyboards, or older SNES style controllers. This need was highlighted during testing, as the number of respondents was severely limited due to lack of keyboard/mouse support.

In addition to the modifications made to player movement, I received suggestions from play testers regarding how they would prefer rounds be tracked, and they overwhelmingly preferred a tallied score over lives or a timer, so this feature was added accordingly. Lastly, I added some extra polish to the game, with new particle effects, and some added camera shake to emphasise when a player has been hit. With the removal of several minor bugs, the game was now ready for submission.

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