We’re getting pretty close to the home stretch now. There are only a few weeks left before our big debut at PAX Australia, and there is still plenty of work to get done.
We’ve been working hard to get everything looking as pretty as possible, and cramming in as many cool effects as we can.
Some of the cool new things we’ve included are new look level exits, new level transitions and reworked controls to simplify the player’s experience.
(Sorry I don’t have any cool gifs this week. I’ll work on getting stuff ready for next week promise!)
We had another playtest at Bar SK last Wednesday as part of their WIP Wednesday show. We had a bit of a short notice to be part of this, so we didn’t have a brand new build ready to go.
But it was still a great night and we had some great feedback from the people who came through and played Level Squared. There were two other Swinburne games there for the same night, Unbond and Marballed: a pretty hefty Swinburne crew!
Some good things that I took away from our playtest:
- We set up a build at the start of the night, and exited out of it at the end. There were no restarts, reboots or reloads required. Our game is stable!
- For the most part (with a couple of exceptions) people were able to pick up the game and play it, without any interaction from us. The game communicates how to play it well enough that we don’t need to explain to players what to do.
- We’re getting better at our elevator pitch – but there’s room for improvement.
And things that we still need to work on:
- Some of our puzzles still need refining. The were a couple of notable places where players were getting stuck – these seem to be related to areas that require a fairly precise solution, but where it is pretty easy to get it wrong. These areas aren’t fun, and they aren’t particularly challenging, so they need to be worked on.
- As a team, we need to get better and drawing people in to play our game. We are all a bit introverted so don’t want to be reaching out to players to draw them in.
But overall, this was another successful outing for Level Squared!
And lastly, I went to Alterconf last weekend. This was a tech and gaming conference that focuses on marginalised voices and issues. It was a really nice change to be in a conference (especially one on tech and gaming) that wasn’t a room full of white dudes! And the topics covered by all of the speakers were super interesting and important too.
You can follow that link above the see all of the speakers and the topics that they covered. Some of the topics included:
- Alayna Cole on Plurisexuality and Playersexuality. (Alayna shared her talk on twitter – you can see it here).
- Creatrix Tiara on the impact that visas can have on work and travel in the games industry.
- Susannah Emery on a game she is creating that deals with domestic violence.
For a good follow along with the talks on the day you can read through Maize Wallin’s tweets over the course of the day. Start here: https://twitter.com/MaizeWallin/status/911397304942264320 (also follow Maize, they’re great).
All of the talks had content warnings where appropriate and the entire mood at the talk was super positive and inclusive. I met and talked with a bunch of people and had a really enjoyable day. And it was so great to hear from people that are not always heard from talking about issues that are not discussed anywhere near as much as they should be.
I would recommend attending the next Alterconf!