Devlog Post 2- Postmortem with 4 sections: Successes, challenges, what we learned, and possible future revisions.

Devlog Post 2- Postmortem with 4 sections: Successes, challenges, what we learned, and possible future revisions.

Successes: The successes we had for developing this treasure hunt adventure game were that the different maze scenes had good navigation, creativity in its obstacles and traps, and also had a meaningful narrative style design where the player could learn about the game just by experiencing each maze level. Throughout each of the maze levels, the player was successfully designed so that they had to collect different parts of the key to build the key before being able to unlock the doors on each level. The player also was successfully developed to maintain health by avoiding obstacles like barriers and objects that would put him at the beginning of each level. Also, another success was designing the scenes so that the players had more motivation to explore the entire level because of how the treasures were placed all around the maze levels. The player’s surroundings helped give hints as to how the player should move towards collecting treasures and every level required different navigation skills from the player so that the player would be able to avoid obstacles and traps. 

Challenges: The challenges for this treasure hunt adventure game was designing each of the smaller obstacles and having it mesh well with the player’s ability to navigate. There would be obstacles that would interfere a lot with the player’s overall game experience because designing the maze with obstacles and other traps or barriers would make it more difficult than intended. Also, the placement of each of the obstacles and traps was more challenging because we wanted the player to experience all parts of the maze levels while also maintaining a reasonable amount of difficulty. Additionally, it was challenging to place the obstacles around the maze because the size and position of the obstacles had to be precisely made so that the player would not be able to find routes around the maze that were too easy or too hard for specific maze levels. Also, designing the smaller animations and creating a more adventure style appearance was also a challenge because we wanted each of the animations, player surroundings, and level design to show the narrative or give hints about the right game navigation to the player. It was also challenging to design the storage of the parts of the key after the player collects them and how many obstacles or traps should be placed near parts of the key so that the game maintains a good difficulty. 

What We Learned: We learned that the placement of different obstacles in each of the treasure hunt maze levels was very important for the overall game experience for the player. If obstacles were placed too close together or too far away, it could change the difficulty and also increase or decrease the player’s motivation in completing the game. Also, having the player find different parts of the key throughout the maze really changed how the player of the game could understand the game’s narrative in design. If the treasures or parts of the key were placed closer together, the player would finish their maze levels a lot faster because of the lower difficulty. Also, this adventure game made us learn about how there should be balance between player navigation around obstacles and how much the player finds and collects the treasures or key parts. When we tried including more obstacles on specific maze levels, it did not align well with the rest of the game and also would change the user’s experience playing the game. If specific maze levels had more obstacles, the player’s navigation should lead to some kind of goal or treasure. Otherwise, the obstacles do not positively affect game experience, lose player motivation, and create confusion in the game’s narrative. 

Possible Future Revisions: Possible future revisions for this treasure hunt adventure game include adding more features to the player’s surroundings including animations related to the player’s health. Also, another revision would be having the treasures or parts of the key be in hidden areas where it is not initially visible by the player. Another revision would be having secret doors and disappearing obstacles in the maze where players would have the opportunity to find easier routes around the treasure hunt maze levels. Players would be able to try and pass through barriers and obstacles directly instead of having to navigate longer paths around the obstacles. Another revision for this game would be adding more visible text feedback for the player when they cannot get through obstacles, take too long moving through the levels, and when the player reaches the doors at the end of each level. Also, another revision would be adding a time factor to each of the maze levels where the player would have to complete each maze level in a specified amount of time. Other revisions would be changing the placement of specific harder obstacles and keeping the doors on each level further away from the treasures and parts of the key.