What a schmozzle (again).
There were so many problems with this play test that it is hard to know where to start.
For a root cause, I would probably start with the lack of private play testing before hand. Again, most of the bugs would have been identified before hand.
For a second problem, we had no way of building again the morning of the play test. The designer incorporated .max files in the repo which meant that no one was able to build from their lap tops, and as we were using Unity 5, we couldn’t use the college computers to create another build.
As a result, we were stuck with the build that was created the night before, that we knew had serious bugs.
The player controllers worked well, but the camera required boxes that changed the settings for the camera and the target. The problem with these boxes was that they recorded the previous target, but when boxes overlapped, the original target was overwritten by the boxes and eventually, the distance target was lost completely.
What I really needed, for this game was to have a camera that would have the ability to free roam, without the wild erratic swings when the players changed direction, and incorporate them with the camera box triggers that would direct the player to the right area. The ideal would be to have triggers that would load up points of interest within the scene and give a weighting to them, but I doubt there would be enough time and I wonder over the effectiveness of this method, when the ideal is for the players, in the tutorial area, to experience the fun of an unorganised area, where there is no pressure on them. Where they can enjoy getting to know the mechanics of the game and learn what can be done with them.
The other main problem was with the shrines, themselves. I needed to take absolute control of the camera and create a cut scene so that no other actions, either by the player, or from any other source, could affect the camera at this delicate stage.
The fog will also need more effects to hide the actual spawning of the fog, and the transforming of the fog from spawn mode to full scale fog.
I didn’t learn anything new from this play test, except that shit can go wrong at the worst possible time. We repeated many of the mistakes from the last play yest.
richarddanielstein 