Devlog #2

I recently conducted my first round of playtesting for my game with about half of the mechanics and map built in place. The build I presented had a few buildings to walk around in, an open plaza, the ability to fire from your gun, a health and ammo count, some fires to put out, and one citizen to rescue. From the playtesting I conducted, I was able to realize that some extra details could potentially be added to the player's move set, such as the ability to crouch and using that to enter trickier spaces to rescue people, and whenever the gun is fired, there could be a small knockback effect that sends the player back a short distance. This could be an extra factor to consider when deciding whether to use the firetruck to put out fires with its inherent higher cost of ammo, or use the playable character which doesn't use as much. From the feedback of this playtest, I've started to incorporate more buildings and trickier situations to consider in the level design. 

My process for designing this game, and coming up with how the levels should be structured, is that I first come up with what the core gameplay should be, in this case, the third person firefighting. After that, I build the story and levels around that concept, often looking to other sources of media for inspiration, like books, music, and other games with mechanics that could be interesting to put a new spin on. The gun mechanic was inspired by the way it was set up in Resident Evil 4, and the layout of the town was partially inspired by the way my own hometown is set up. From there, I often tend to listen to music to gain ideas for how certain events and challenges should be set up, and once playtesting is conducted, I go back and reiterate based on the feedback. This continues in a steady cycle until the game is finished, and from the feedback I got in this session, the game has gotten past the halfway point towards the final goal.