HOW GRUP WAS MADE

Grup was developed over multiple weeks, with multiple revisions. Below depicts our progress throughout this quarter.

We started with a brainstorm session and a Trello Kanban board. The next step was setting up our source control repo on Github. After that, we started talking about our ideas. We came up with concepts that we wanted to explore and test in Unity to see the feasiblity of being able to complete the work in the time allotted for the quarter.

We initially attempted to do an Agile sprint style design, but honestly, it just devolved into us getting our assigned work done and picking up whatever we needed to in order to ensure we met deadlines and had a polished product. In that case, we were extremely lucky to have a very balanced team. We have someone who has spent a lot of time working with Unity, artists, an experienced coder, and someone who would keep us on track; the team balance was excellent for a short-term project.

Next up was the Alpha Test. This is where we put our prototype ideas together for the first time and got to see the beginnings of our game. It may have just been a few colored blocks and Grup, but it was playable, and we saw our concepts come to life. We created a couple levels and let our classmates try it out! We took their feedback and continued to refine the game.

These refinements, in addition to more features and art, became our Beta Test. We got over 20 people to run through the Beta version of Grup and give us their thoughts, and they held nothing back. We got lots of good feedback about the playability and feel of the game, but we'll go over that more in-depth in the "Playtesting" section. We took this information and polished the game even further and presented our pre-release version to the class. It was a hit!

And that's where we currently are...we would love to keep adding to Grup, and who knows? One day we just might. We would like to keep refining it and complete the vision we had at the start of this. In the meantime, please enjoy the current released version of Grup. We hope it provides you with entertainment and some fun. -- Team Grup

For the Alpha version of our game, we only had a few levels created, and most of the art had not been developed yet. Grup had their basic walk animation, but the idle, climb, and jump animations had not been implemented. After listening to feedback from classmates that playtested our game, these were the most common observations:

Movement

Jumping was inconsistent, and hard for players to manage. Many platforming sections were difficult to clear as such.
The player character would get stuck on walls.
The player was unable to jump on diagonal ramps.

Interaction

Plant growth mechanic was well-liked. Players enjoy the growth script.
Knowing how to interact with plants is unclear for players. Suggestions include adding a prompt, or some animation to indicate the object is interactable.

Trampoline

When trampoline pushes players to the left, this causes issues with platforming.
All players adjusted quickly to the trampoline, and understood its function in applying momentum to the player character.

Level Design

The closer scale was overall liked by the player.
Blind jumps in level 3 were confusing. Some suggestions included adding more platforms, or background elements to guide the player.
The platforming in level 1 was difficult to manage for players. The first jump to make, in general, prevented most players' progression. Changes to be made include lowering the platform height, and modifying jump height to be more consistent.

After listening to the feedback provided by our classmates and adjusting our game accordingly, we released the Beta version of Grup. The Beta version included four new levels, sound effects, and new animations and artwork. Some of the levels were redesigned to make it easier for the player to understand where to go, and we also added a prompt in order to help teach the player about how to interact with objects, such as ladders and pollutants. In addition, we added a prototype that would add color back to plants once a pollutant was cleared near it. We had 23 people playtest the Beta version of Grup, and these were some of common observations:

Movement

Jumps needed to be more precise in later levels than in the earlier levels.
Players felt like they couldn’t jump high enough to clear certain obstacles.
The player character would get stuck on walls, but not as frequently.

Interaction

Unclear when players could interact with pollutants due to the lack of visual feedback. This made the interaction feel inconsistent.
Vines grew too slowly.
The bounce off of pollutants was too uncontrollable.

Immersion

Music, backgrounds, and storytelling was missing.
The artwork was appreciated, but players wished the trampoline had art as well.
Credits moved too slow.

Level Design

The water in Level 3 was very difficult for players. It was hard to jump over the water hazards in order to progress forwards.
Players enjoyed the inclusion of the mini-map.
In Levels 2 & 5, if player fell down in some areas, they couldn’t climb back up. Players had to die and restart the area in order to progress.
The light in the intro level needed to be closer, so players know where to go.
The platform in level 5 was too high for players to reach.

In-Game Bugs

Players could finish Level 6 before getting rid of all pollutants.
Some players fell off the map so they were unable to progress through the game.
Some walls would glitch when players pressed the spacebar.

After listening to the Beta playtesters, we had a lot of work to do to polish up our game for the Final deliverable. We made modifications to how the character would spawn, and added additional assets to help make the game feel more finished. We also added more prompts to indicate to players how they should move, and added a visual indication of when the player can interact with an object. What you see now is the culmination of their feedback and our team’s personal preferences. Thank you to everyone who took the time to playtest our game; our game would not be the same without you.

As a team, we found that we worked really well together. Some of our biggest strengths are initiative, communication, and work balance. A prime example for initiative was when we would get together and talk. Ideas that were tossed around would suddenly be shown within a couple days, whether it was technical or artistic. Communication was an interesting challenge due to the fact that our team never got meet in person. Despite that, by leveraging tools like Discord, we were able to keep in touch very easily and talked multiple times a week to plan and discuss. Responses were always given, and you never had to guess what people wanted. Lastly, we balanced work really well: Scott was able to handle all the special effects and shaders, Erica on the art and level design work, Shannon also contributed to the art and game mechanics, and Ed handled the game state mechanics, working with the Git repo, and general bug fixes.

As a team, we worked really well together!

If there was more time available to keep working on the game, our next few things we would want to implement are:

Add our vision for the end of the game - Grup looking over the world that they had not yet cleared, seeing the lack of color everywhere
Add more sound effects for world interactions like growth/jumping
Implement clearer cues for pollution clearing/jump height

This is our final presentation that we did over Zoom for everyone who attended our last CSS 385 class.

This presentation gives credit to the outside resources we utilized in our game. Anything outside of this presentation was created by a member of our team.

Thank you to everyone who supported the creation and development of Grup! We hope you enjoy the game.