Personal Post Mortems are brief self evaluations of projects I’ve worked on. They’re focused on my personal design goals, design successes/failures, and my takeaways.
My Role – Lead Designer
- Designed combat system, character attacks, core mechanics, AI, bosses, upgrades, minigames, and progression
- Directed level designers, character animators, and battle scripters
- Implement character attack data, voice over
- Develop, and communicate, and maintain project vision
Personal Design Goals
- Design a combat system that:
- Allows for extensive, free-form combo exploration
- Emphasizes the license’s transformation concept
- Is intuitive and satisfying for young players
- Design AI, game objects, and systems that:
- Interact interestingly with combat
- Provide level designers with inspiration
- Motivate and direct the development of the company’s combat engine
- Never mandate using specific aliens for progression
- Motivation to choose an alien should be internal
- If the player never wants to change characters, something is wrong
What went well
- Combat system was well received by playtesters
- All 14 playable characters felt unique in combat and platforming
- Basing each character’s attack design off enemy trajectory sequences lead to combat that was dynamic, varied, and unique to that character
- Forcing players to transform when unlocking a new alien reinforced transformation input and encouraged experimenting with the new alien
- Voice over successfully used to accentuate meaningful moments in gameplay and kept characters lively
- When transforming mid-attack, automatically performing an attack with the new alien lead to smooth, interesting combos.
What didn’t go well
- AI did not provide enough variety
- Too many walking AI
- Poor gameplay feedback for:
- Hidden dart traps – Players took hits without seeing the source
- Smart bombs – Exploded too quickly upon reaching the player
- Activation platforms – Mismatch between mechanics and visuals
- Character upgrades – Some had no visual feedback
- Elemental attack types – Went unnoticed in gameplay
- Final Boss – Unclear when this boss is vulnerable
- Not all super attacks were equally satisfying
- Several upgrades rendered other mechanics impotent
- Inconsistent unit sizes between DS and 3DS versions lead to much bug fixing and unintentional level variation
- Lack of repeat playtesters meant no data on experienced players
- Upgrade unlock menu was near impossible to understand
- Accelerometer minigame was neither fun nor related to the core gameplay
Lessons Learned
- Varying only attack design in AI is not enough – explore as many ways to differentiate them as possible
- Standardizing the distance units across all platforms makes life easier
- Target playtests at new features to uncover poor feedback
- Upgrades should change the way the player views game challenges rather than make mechanics insignificant