Over a period of a few days give or take a few days the team worked on developing and completing level 2 as well as kinking out and bugs we could possible kink out. The team and myself a member of the team continued to internally play test and find, document (a short reference to a little later on) and attempt to iron out potential issues we have found. The internal play test were vital for us, so we may anticipate feedback that external play testers may note. This gives us a leg up on our play testers. However, there was still quite a number of feedback we received from our five individual play testers. Two were done by one member of the team, I personally conducted two play tests and one more was completed later on. As the team received feedback we documented as such so it may be put into the final document. This was important as we needed to submit the document but also helps us to target common error points in the game. This included feedback regarding the user interface and common bugs both game breaking and inconveniencing. The team then took to the document and polished it up, although it closely resembles our previous document, the beta code document includes level 2 diagrams and modified level 1 content.
As referenced above, I focused on creating the documentation that will have been submitted alongside the beta code. This meant I needed to take an analytical approach, analyzing almost all aspects of Dark Ages. Playing through it multiple time to better understand the way different areas are connected and how different challenges are presented. I m proud to say, the document looks superb if I do say so myself. Its a wonderful display of attention to details, writing ability and clarification of many design points. After finishing the document, our animator had wonderful ideas for a potential level 3. He went into the document and documented those ideas alongside sketches. This area - aptly titled "Envisioned Features" - includes those features we had planned to build but did not have the capacity to do so. Below I will share a number of images from the document. I m quite proud.
(Due to formatting errors, I will leave the images at the very bottom, sorry).
For potential challenges I have identified, I believe executing the trailer and polishing any bugs will be our biggest challenge. With a deadline of a single week, it will be a tight fit, but one I know we can squeeze through. The trailer will need to capture bits of the narrative to entice players to play the game, but not give enough away to spoil it. More importantly, I personally believe the trailer needs to capture the tone and ambiance of the game, the horror, the hopelessness and more. Those are key selling points.
Go team.
Above you can see the manner in which I adjusted images to fit into the document. Beside, you can see the hierarchy clearly designed to make reading easier.
