Outcomes
Development videos
In order to evidence my work and working practice I have recorded every step of development from Alpha build right up to the end of production. These videos have helped to identify problems for problem solving and have also allowed me to present my practical working for this project. Below I have attached an embedded interactive player for my videos and also a simple button that will direct you to a YouTube playlist with all of my development videos in day order.
Jake Williams
Jake Williams
2025 05 13 11 05 41
2025 05 12 12 58 59
2025 04 24 15 06 05
Development
Videos -
First playtest review
During the final week of development I carried out a mini playtest session, this session was held in order to gather feedback based upon the current build of my project, to see areas that I could improve and to also gather any bugs that the play testers encountered so that I could improve and fix the issues. For this playtest I created a Google Forms document that I displayed onscreen so that the playtesters had a set of questions to answer so that I could gather meaningful feedback, I then compiled the feedback to a Google Sheets so that I could visualise the feedback in a single place ready for evaluation. In this report I will be analysing the feedback and highlighting areas that I will improve based on the feedback and also areas that I feel do not require changing from the feedback.
What did you enjoy about the game?
The opening question that I asked the playtesters on the Form was: What did you enjoy about the game when playing it?, for this question I wanted to gather the players opinions on what areas they found most enjoyable and stood out to them, in order to see what areas might possibly be working for my game. The feedback on this question was extremely positive and one area kept appearing in almost every response and that was that they enjoyed the atmosphere and game environment “I enjoyed the overall atmosphere of the game”, this goes to show that an area that I identified as being extremely important for immersion has been executed correctly, the players are able to pick up on the atmosphere and immerse themselves within the game.
From this feedback I will not be making any changes when it comes to the atmosphere and overall environment of the game because the playtesters have identified these areas to work extremely well within my game, so by not making any changes to these two areas I will not tarnish the feedback and also the quality of the games atmosphere.
What did you dislike about the game?
The next question that I asked the playtesters was a stark contrast with that of the previous and I asked a very open ended question in hopes of gathering as much information as possible, this question was: What do you dislike about the game?. I asked this blatant question to the testers to gather straight to the point relevant feedback and that is exactly what I gathered in response, the feedback ranged from issues with combat to the map size being too big. The most common response that I received was that the map felt too big and empty, which made it hard to find the keys, “The Mall section was a bit empty due to its size”, now considering that this was a reoccurring response I will be updating the size of my map to a smaller area in order to reduce the emptiness and also the difficulty of finding the keys. In addition to this, amongst the responses calling for a smaller map, I had responses saying that it was difficult to find or track the keys, I can easily fix this issue by updating the HUD objective tracker and adding all the locations to there, this will be something that I will look into in order to meet player expectations.
When looking at a few outliers in my responses for this question, I have managed to identify two, the first being that the combat is too hard to track when hitting an enemy, the tester states that it is hard to see when you have hit an enemy. Now this issue was not identified by any other tester here, in fact most testers found the combat to be a positive area to my game, so after evaluating the need for change I will not be amending my combat system. In addition to this, a second tester found that the torch did not work well and also did not follow the player when moving, after testing this myself I have found that there is a delay between moving and the torch also moving, however, the delay is only a few milliseconds and is barely noticeable in game, in fact no one else mentioned this. After evaluating this feedback, I will not be implementing any changes to my torch mechanic and this is due to the fact that after testing this myself I found no issue with this feature and neither did the other six testers, so I will not be changing this. The only changes that I will be implementing will be the smaller map size and also the detailed objective tracker.
Did you feel that the story was clear and present in the game?
The third question that I asked the testers was whether the story was clear and present within the game, with this question I wanted to see whether the dialogue system was portraying the story enough and whether I should look into other methods of portraying the story to the player. When evaluating the feedback from this question, I am able to see that all of the testers did in fact understand the story and agree that the story was clear and present in the game. I can see that my dialogue system paired with the atmosphere and objective tracker the story of the game is clear to people who have never heard of my game or it's backstory, so I will not be editing or changing the way that my story is told in my game and will stick to the methods that the playtesters feel work best.
Did you feel that the goal of the game was clear and present?
The following question was asked in a continuation to the previous and instead of asking about the prominence of the story I asked about the clearness of the overall goal of the game. In my surprise six of the seven testers found the goal to be clear and present thanks to the objective tracker. This shows me that adopting a tracker at the experimentation phase and into development has paid off, the majority of testers are able to see and understand the goal of the game. When looking at the one person who responded with a clear no to this question, I can see that their feedback links closely to that of the difficulty of finding the keys and as I have previously stated I will update the tracker to reflect the locations of the keys, in order to make for a more enjoyable experience.
Were the controls intuitive and responsive?
The fifth question in the survey that I presented to the testers was relating to the responsiveness and intuitiveness of the controls to the game. When evaluating the responses for this question, I am able to see that all of the testers found the controls to be both intuitive and responsive whether that be controller or keyboard and mouse, this tells me that they are no faults with my control inputs and that I should leave my controls how they are because nobody found any fault.
Was the gameplay intuitive?
The next question was related to the intuitiveness of the gameplay, this means everything in the game functions and feels as if it has a purpose. For the most part, nobody had any large issues with the gameplay leading to the fact that everything in the game has a purpose and has been executed correctly, however, seemingly from this, one person found the map to be too big and so therefore affected the intuitiveness of the gameplay. In order to fix a number of issues it seems that the scale of the map may be leaning towards most of the influence on the feedback and in order to address numerous responses I will.be reducing the size of the map to ensure that the environment does not feel empty or uninteresting.
Did you feel that the game was balanced? / Was the difficulty balanced?
The following question was asked to the testers in order to gather feedback on whether they found the experience to be hard, balanced or too easy. I wanted to gather this feedback in order to improve the scaling of the difficulty in my game in order to reach my target audience. When evaluating the feedback I can see that it was a mixed bag of responses and this may be due to the fact that everyone has a different play type, however, I can see that the majority found the game to be fair and balanced in the difficulty department so from this I will not be changing anything when it comes to the difficulty of the game, because I can see that most people already find it to be fair and balanced.
What Bugs did you encounter?
The next question that I asked the testers was whether they encountered any bugs and what bugs they encountered. I asked this ever important question because I wanted to see if any of the testers picked up on bugs that I had not experienced before so that I could patch the issue before moving onto packaging and shipping. Almost every tester responded with a bug that they encountered and for the most part they seemed to be small errors that did not affect the gameplay, a bug that kept occurring for the testers was the ability to spam the attack button and instantly kill an enemy as well as the looping attack animation from doing so, this is a very important bug when it comes to the hierarchy of fixing and in order to fix this I will implement a cooldown to both the animation and also the attack, this will stop the bug and also bring about fairness to the combat.
A second bug that was encountered was that a tester was able to enter into a store that should not be accessible from the game, now this is not really a game breaking bugs however, if the player was to get stuck in this area then they would not be able to exit the area and subsequently play the game. In order to fix this issue I will ensure that I block the entrance fully to this store, so that it is completely inaccessible by the player stopping this issue from happening again. Another big thing that was reported was that the player camera sometimes phases through a solid wall, now this issue was noticed by myself however, I am unable to fix this because my custom first person camera is unable to be stopped by solid walls and so I will not be able to fix this.
Overall, what do you feel needs improving?
The very last question that I asked the testers was yet again another straight to the point question, it simply asked what do you feel needs improving?, this question allowed me to see an overview of the reported feedback as well as non area specific feedback and improvements to my game. The most common response was to make the goal of the game clearer, and as I have already mentioned this I will be improving the objective tracker to allow for tracking of all the key locations in the game. Another feedback that I feel was important for the improvement of my game was relating to the amount of lighting in the environment, a tester found a lack of lighting in certain areas of the map making the objectives harder to see and achieve, in order to fix this I will firstly increase the strength of the player torch and secondly add more atmospheric lighting to the dim areas of the mall.
In terms of feedback that I will not be carrying into production, I have decided against adding a sprint button and this mostly due to the fact that if a sprint option existed then no one would fight the enemy AI's and secondly it does not fit with the theme and genre that I am hoping to achieve. So I will be sticking with a simple walk feature due to these reasons.
In conclusion, I will carry out all mentioned changes, such as the updated objective system and also the smaller map size in order to meet the expectations of my players and audience. I will be recording all of these changes and will update my development video playlist on YouTube with these updated videos in order to reflect how I have been updating my outcome based upon feedback from testers.
Mini-Playtest
Review -
playtest & Website review
After completing my final build following the first feedback session, I have now carried out a subsequent playtest, hoping to gather feedback and improvements for both my game and website. I have carried this out in order to resolve any remaining issues and to also ensure that my site reflects the themes and genre of my game and also that the layout is efficient and easy to follow.
From the feedback gathered, I am allowed to carry out three improvements to my game and website, so I will be analysing my feedback carefully and ensuring that I improve the most important issues with both my game and website to ensure that both are presented to a high standard. I created a Google Forms similar to the previous playtest and then distributed this via a Google Sheets document that attached both my game and feedback form. From there I collated all of my responses onto a single Google Sheets in order to view all of the feedback in a single area, just so I could easily compare answers and feedback to view trends and anomalies in the data. In this report I will be looking through each question and subsequent responses in order to work out the trends and find areas of improvement within my work.
What specifically did you like about my outcome and why?
The opening question that I asked the play testers on the Form was: What did you specifically enjoy about my outcome and why? For this question I wanted to gather the player testers' opinions on what areas of both my game and website they found to be enjoyable and to also explain why they found this area enjoyable so that I know what specific features have worked in favour of my outcome. The responses from this question were extremely positive and one trend that I have been able to identify is that the atmosphere, theme and environment of the game stand out the most to players and thus have been voted multiple times as the most enjoyable aspect “I like the atmosphere of the environment and I think it definitely gives off the horror aspect.”, this paired with my previous playtest shows me that I have been able to perfect the environment and atmosphere of this project, as a large majority of testers have identified this area to be most enjoyable.
After analysing this feedback, I have also been able to see another large area that was enjoyable for the testers was the gameplay, and I assume that this refers to the overall mechanics of the game. This is all extremely positive feedback and has helped me to see what areas of my game have worked in the eyes of the testers. From this feedback, I will not be making any adjustments to any gameplay that is related to any point raised in these responses because these are areas that have worked correctly so I will not be changing them for the sake of change.
What specifically could I improve in my outcome and why?
The next question that I asked the playtesters was a stark contrast with that of the previous question and I asked, What specifically could I improve in my outcome and why? I presented this question to the testers to gather straight to the point relevant feedback for what areas need improving in my game, the responses gathered all stated very different areas of improvement and because I only have three changes that I can make I am limited to what I can take on board. One tester found that the second level of the mall was too empty and was lacking in environmental assets, now this is an issue that has not been raised before and due to the uncommon nature of this response I will not be adding more assets to the second level, because the majority of testers found no issue with any of the environments in the game.
When looking at a few more responses for this question, I have managed to identify an anomaly in the responses, this being that the tester said that the game could benefit from audio and sound effects, now I know for a fact that there is audio within the game having recorded it myself, so I am going to ignore this response and record it as anomalous. Some other notable responses found that I needed to add art and textures to my character models and also more textures for wall and floors, now as I am not going for an art role I will not be updating any of my art and textures within my game. From the second question I will not be making any changes to my game outcome because I found the responses to be unnecessary for the improvement of my outcome.
Were you able to understand the objective and goal of the game clearly? How and Why?
The third question that I asked the testers was, Were you able to understand the objective and goal of the game clearly and why / how?, just like my previous playtest I asked the exact same question to see if this new and updated system would bring any feedback or improvements. After analysing the responses from this question I was able to gather that every tester found the story and objective to be clear and present through the text and objective tracker, now this is a stark contrast to the responses of the last playtest where they found the objective to be hard to follow, so this is a great improvement. The only negative response was that one of the testers had a hard time exploring the map, however, as this is only one person I will not be making any more additional changes to please one person. From this feedback I will not be making any additional changes to the objective tracker or dialogue as I have now found that all of the testers found this new system to work perfectly with the game.
Where in my outcome can you see evidence of my experimentation?
The following question that I presented to the testers was a simple question asking whether from my experimentation they could see the implementation of the mechanics and features in my final game outcome. For this question, I wanted to simply understand whether it was clear that my research and experimentation had been used in my game. The responses in this question were yet again very positive and helpful at understanding whether an outside tester with no knowledge of my outcome could see clearly if my experimentation had been out to use and from the responses I was able to see that every person was able to see my experimentation and extended experimentation put to use.
This was very helpful to me, as I wanted to ensure that my experimentation was clear and present in my game and from this feedback I was able to see this. However, one person said that they could not see the jumpscare element, now I know that this is in the game and have highlighted this in my dev logs so they must have been oblivious or taken a different route to the first key, either way I will not be making any changes to the implementation of my experimentation in my outcome.
Did you encounter any bugs whilst playing? If so what were they?
The fifth question in the Google Form that I sent to the playtesters asked, Did you encounter any bugs whilst playing? If so, what were they?. Now this question is probably the most important question for me in this playtest session because this is where I need to focus the most of my attention for my three improvements because depending on the severity of these bugs that have been encountered I will need to use at least two of my improvements fixing them. After analysing the feedback from this question I was able to identify that the majority of people that were able to download the game found the starting of the game from the main menu to be difficult, now I identified this as an issue previously with the main menu UI and thought that it would resolve on the exported version, however, I have seen that this issue has carried over. The issue is that the cursor disappears and you are unable to click on the UI to start the game. As this is a very large game breaking issue I will dedicate one of my improvements on fixing this issue, to ensure that the UI can be controlled with ease.
A second response from one tester found that the player once killed is stuck at zero health but the game would reload or quit, so the player has no health but the game will still continue as if the player has health. No this is also a major game breaking issue because in practice the game should restart when the player dies, after testing this myself I have found that this issue does in fact happens every time the player dies, so I will also be using an improvement to fix this issue, because without this there is no gameplay loop, I will dedicate problem solving time in order to resolve this issue.
How difficult did you find my outcome whilst playing?
The next question was fairly simple and was only included so that I could gather some player feedback on how hard they found the game to be, excluding the two anomalies of people who could not play the game, the overall average on difficulty came to around 2.83 or round up at 3 which puts the game to be not too hard and not too easy, so perfectly balanced for the user. This was positive feedback because I can see that I do not need to change anything in my game in order to move the scale either way, so I will not be making any amendments to my game outcome.
How could I improve the overall layout and content of my site?
Based upon the layout of my site what would you deem the content, themes and style of my project to be?
The next two questions were both focused purely on my website and gathering any feedback based upon my site. The two questions were, How could I improve the overall layout and content of my site? And also Based on the layout of my site what would you deem the content, themes and style of my project to be? How can you tell this? From the feedback in the first question I was able to identify a key area that kept coming up and that was related to font and font size, now the testers said that they found the text to be too small and inconsistent in areas from page to page, and that by changing the fonts the text could become more readable. Now this being a large area of concern for the testers has led me to dedicate my final change to not only updating the font but to also improving the overall design of my site to better match my design plan for my brand and game.
Now this may seem contradictory to my responses on the second question, with every response saying a form of horror game, however, I feel that this is necessary to improve the overall design of my site to not only reflect the genre and theme of my game, but to also match the design plan that I set out in the pre-production phase of my project, because I need to showcase that I have been putting planning into action. So from this feedback I will be going ahead with an overhaul of my website design as a whole, so that it classifies as a single improvement.
In conclusion, I will carry out all three mentioned changes, and these include the updated menu UI that allows for the input of the mouse, the updated health system with the ability for the game to restart when the players health drops to zero and finally the overhaul of my website design to match the design plan set out. Overall, this playtest session has been paramount to the development and success of my project and without this I would not have been able to gather relevant feedback in a timely manner.
Based upon my feedback stated above I have now been able to update both my game outcome and also my design and layout of my website. Below I have attached both videos and photos of my improvements for before and after reference to visually show the change in action and how I have been able to utilise the feedback to improve my outcomes.
Updated Health system & Main Menu UI:
The first change that I identified for my game outcome was the updated health system so when the player dies the game restarts from the main menu. Now after carrying out problem solving which is available under Week 11 on problem solving, I have been able to implement this change.
In addition to this, a second change that I identified for my game outcome was the need for an updated input for the main menu UI to allow the cursor to be shown when starting the main menu screen. After carrying out problem solving and research into this issue I have been able to implement this change and it can be viewed as well as the updated health system in the attached video below, that states the before and after results.
Updated Website design to better reflect the theme of my game:
The final change that I was allowed for this improvement stage was related to feedback gathered around the design of my website, I decided that I needed to update and improve the overall design of my site to better reflect the theme of my game. I have now been able to reflect back upon my brand package that I made and have applied this to all areas of my site for consistency and to also reflect the genre of my game. Below I have attached before and after images of my site showing the changes made and also a lengthy video showing the improvements put into practice, to show how my design evolved.
Here is my Journals page on both my previous design and newest design. On the left we can see that there is an inconsistency in the colour scheme, there are a mix or red, white, black and green hues on the page. In my updated version on the right, you can see that I have adopted a more uniform and consistent colour scheme, the background colours flow and the titles and sub-headings pop more against the background thanks to the new colour scheme and updated font styles.
In addition to this, as stated in the feedback a person found the headings to be unclear, so I have now stated at the top of each page the section that you are correctly looking at. Furthermore, I have also added and continued the horror theme by adopting horror fonts and also blood drips on subheading borders.
In the older version of my site you can see that I once again had an inconsistent design compared to the journals page, the background colour was different and there were borders around the sections of text, as well as a lack of emphasis on the section headings. In the new and updated version you can see that I have carried forward the colour scheme from that of the new journals page and applied it to all of the pages on this new site. I have also added background borders for the section sub-headings in order to emphasis and show the sections of work. In addition to this I have also attached images and other forms of media to the pages to break the white space and break the text down.
If you look through my site and the video attached below you can see that I have continued this colour scheme and brand design throughout all sections of my website.
My most up to date version of my game as well as the playtest version can be accessed lower down this page, on the floating box to the left and also on the buttons attached below this line of text.
Playtest & Website
Review -
Improvements
based upon feedback
Alpha & beta versions
Below I have attached the Alpha & Beta versions of my game they can be accessed through the button linked below, that will redirect you to a Google Drive folder where all three versions of my game are held. (I was planning on uploading my game to itch.io however, there is a maximum file size on this website of 1GB and my builds exceed this amount, so I stuck with Google Drive. My Alpha Version has been uploaded to itch.io so I will also embed this below, to show how my presentation has carried over to this interactive platform as well)
Alpha / Beta
Versions -
Final Versions
Below I have attached the Final versions of my game they can be accessed through the button linked below, that will redirect you to a Google Drive folder where all three versions of my game are held. They are two versions of this latest build one being before feedback and the other being after making amendments based upon feedback. (I was planning on uploading my game to itch.io however, there is a maximum file size on this website of 1GB and my builds exceed this amount, so I stuck with Google Drive)
I have also attached a YouTube video below in case you can not open the .exe files for my packaged game.
This here is the version that was given to my playtesters and does not include the changes that I have made from this feedback. The final most up to date version is below this one, and is attached to the floating box at the bottom of the webpage screen, for easy access.
Below is my final version of my game that has come as a result of improvements from playtest feedback. In this version you can experience the new updated UI controls and also the updated health system that restarts the game when the players health has been depleted.
I have attached both a video and also playable .exe file. The name of this version is Post_Feedback Version.zip and is located in the shared Google Drive.
Playtest
Version -
Post-Playtest
Version -
Asset Declaration - Bibliography
Below I have attached the correct reference format to the assets that I used in my game that were not developed by myself. I opted to include pre-made assets because my main focus of the project was Game / Level design and Programming, so in order to focus in on these skills I used a mix of pre-made and own assets. All of the assets below either have a CC (Creative Commons Licence) or a Standard FAB Licence that grants the use of these assets in my project as long as attribution is provided. I have attached both the CC licence terms and FAB Standard Licence, to show proof that these assets are free to use privately and commercially with attribution.
3D Content Online and Sketchfab (2024). Waste litter Rubbish Trash 3d models. [online] Sketchfab. Available at: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/waste-litter-rubbish-trash-3d-models-69cefeda06f9432db199ed7613cbc0c5 [Accessed 29 Apr. 2025].
Dekogon Studios and FAB (2018a). Construction Site VOL. 1 - Supply and Material Props. [online] Fab.com. Available at: https://www.fab.com/listings/ba44a508-bfa5-444c-bbf4-69e8b5dee530 [Accessed 3 Apr. 2025].
Dekogon Studios and FAB (2018b). Construction Site VOL. 2 - Tools, Parts, and Machine Props. [online] Fab.com. Available at: https://www.fab.com/listings/079a0cd7-72e5-40d3-bc91-2ffff6bf1782 [Accessed 3 Apr. 2025].
Dekogon Studios and FAB (2022). City Street Props. [online] Fab.com. Available at: https://www.fab.com/listings/717d655e-923f-4c03-bc0b-3509fd1b0ec8 [Accessed 3 Apr. 2025].
Dylan Kowertz and Sketchfab (2021). Security Baton. [online] Sketchfab.com. Available at: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/security-baton-412e3c2828d1434f972e250099f9d74d [Accessed 3 Apr. 2025].
holydeerz and FAB (2019). Modular Scaffolding new/broken pack. [online] Fab.com. Available at: https://www.fab.com/listings/257aa19f-d26a-4504-bf43-49311d118406 [Accessed 15 Apr. 2025].
MeikWModels and FAB (2021). Mega Street Props Pack. [online] Fab.com. Available at: https://www.fab.com/listings/ac1948ea-7f82-44f4-ace1-070e578b4e7f [Accessed 3 Apr. 2025].
Quick Assets and FAB (2024). 500+ Road Signs. [online] Fab.com. Available at: https://www.fab.com/listings/ef0204f2-190d-4b4c-a0ca-e7545ee06975 [Accessed 3 Apr. 2025].
SilverTm and FAB (2018). Industry Props Pack 6. [online] Fab.com. Available at: https://www.fab.com/listings/b5603e44-e1b0-4346-9c3d-04887aa9f87d [Accessed 15 Apr. 2025].
Tate3d and Sketchfab (2015). Store Shelf. [online] Sketchfab.com. Available at: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/store-shelf-56ec26bd24e344749f132b3b7aaac12c [Accessed 29 Apr. 2025].
UB and FAB (2015). Advanced Glass Material Pack. [online] Fab.com. Available at: https://www.fab.com/listings/aa73c72c-0eb9-4745-88ff-34e82e32551d [Accessed 3 Apr. 2025].
Uisco and itch.io (n.d.). Melee Combat Animations UE by Uisco. [online] itch.io. Available at: https://uisco.itch.io/melee-combat [Accessed 29 Apr. 2025].
Asset Declaration
