Masterion Evaluation

Miguel Matos

Revision: 0.1.16

Development

Throughout its development the game has changed several times. We decided it was best to iterate through several versions of the game trying to continuously collect useful and insightful feedback regarding how the game mechanics felt and how things look, whether it is something technical or something visual. We decided to not follow a strict way of development and instead opted for iteration upon iteration.

From the beginning of the development of this game we decided the game was going to be multiplayer. This presented a massive challenge for me as I coded everything and doing so provided us with several challenges throughout development which we could have avoided if we decided to make the multiplayer localized (same device multiplayer) instead of multiple devices and over the internet. However, I am glad we decided to go with multiplayer over the internet as it allowed us to develop the game we have.

From developing this game I have learnt the importance of good communication in a team as well as how crucial playtesting is throughout development. I have learnt that communicating my goals and progress continuously with my partner in this project was very beneficial to the project in the long-run. This paired with good documentation of all development helped avoid and fix problems as well as increased working efficiency. Furthermore, the continuous use of playtesting throughout the whole development of the game proved crucial in shaping our game as well as in identifying any problems with the build (design and mechanics).

There were some design ideas we had which had to be scrapped as we realised there wasn't enough time before our deadline to achieve everything, we therefore made the right call to focus on one specific gamemode to develop.

There were some issues I had to battle, specifically compatibility between different devices, as well as networking issues (most of the issues originated from networking in general), not to mention the fact that for a mobile game, there are several things which need to be heavily optimized in order for the game to run smoothly, something I quickly learned when testing the first prototypes.

Overall, I feel we did a good job in managing the sheer amount of tasks we set out to do with regards to the development of our game. We were able to implement most of the things we had in mind for this timeframe of the project.

Present

Currently the game is in a good starting point, by this I mean there are still many things to be improved among which are networking optimizations with a high priority and visual feedback improvements making the first time interaction with a player be as seamless and intuitive as possible.

In its current state the game has some noticeable issues. All issues we are aware of and found through playtesting are documented at the end of this document.

The game is in a playable state and players can have fun while playing it. It is however, significantly more fun when both players are in constant verbal communication (together in person or through a VoIP platform).

According to the Game Design Document we developed I would say we are on schedule and have achieved the Playable Online Game milestone. Therefore, I feel there are still many things to be improved in the game before we reach the Release milestone of our project and actually publish the game.

At this point, further playtesting and debugging will give us a more accurate list of all the issues which need addressing as well as consequent improvements and fixes to the known issues will make the experience of playing the game more enjoyable as it will run smoother and the mechanics will work as intended.

This being said, I am happy with the current progress made in the game so far, as it is engaging, fun, has intuitive mechanics and is also visually appealing.

Future Plans

The next milestone for this project will be to prepare the game towards being published. However, there are still many issues which still need to be addressed before doing so, fixing the already known issues/bugs will be the expected starting point for future development.

Besides fixing what we already have identified as current problems with the game, we would like to add sound effects and more gameplay options such as more purchasable items in the shop like barriers, as well as character upgrades and different enemies.

We have also roughly planned for the game post release, adding monetization via ads for rewards, as well as player experience levels and upgradeable player buffs which would be unlocked with player experience levels and ingame money obtained from playing.

Some of those above mentioned additions will be added in future updates to the game, after proper playtesting and others even before the game is published. This is something we will have to discuss and define properly before publishing the game.

I am looking forward to developing this game further to the point of proper commercialization and release.

Known Bugs/Issues

Visual

COMMON

• Some of the projectiles sink into the floor, the bottom of the effect gets cut.

No Solution Found

COMMON

• Projectiles will show on top of the player’s health bar and not below.

No Solution Found

COMMON

• Some UI elements may get cut on the new iPhoneX due to the odd screen shape.

No Solution Found

UNCOMMON

• Projectiles instantly delete themselves on impact (making the smoke instantly disappear instead of fading).

No Solution Found

UNCOMMON

• If the Mechanic dies inside the radius of a turret in the broken state, the turret will be healed regardless of the player being alive or dead.

No Solution Found

UNCOMMON

• When in the Game Over overlay, after pressing the Main Menu button the counted wave will show +1 than the actual score (it won't count towards the actual saved highscore).

No Solution Found

Network

COMMON

• If the first player to select a class (therefore creating a room/server) selects Defender, while ingame there will be unintended network events such as the turrets not losing health.

Solution: The first client to select the class will select Mechanic and the Second will select Defender

COMMON

• If the player leaves the game in the background the connection to the server relay is lost and there is no way of reconnecting.

Solution: Restart the game client

COMMON

• On the menu, once clicked on the start button, when going back to the main menu, the photon server will disconnect and there is no way of reconnecting again.

Solution: Restart the game client

COMMON

• Once a potion is collected there are 2 displays of the green text effect instead of 1.

No Solution Found

COMMON

• When the player hits an enemy there will be more displays of damage effects than actual hits.

No Solution Found

UNCOMMON

• Some projectiles do not despawn properly and will stay on the same place on the screen for some seconds before being forcefully removed by a timed script.

No Solution Found

UNCOMMON

• Projectiles will shoot away from enemies once they die instead of despawning on collision.

No Solution Found

UNCOMMON

• Projectiles from the remote client will not reach the enemy in the master client (which controls damage, therefore not registering those hits).

No Solution Found

UNCOMMON

• When shooting extremely fast, most projectiles will not damage the enemy.

No Solution Found

UNCOMMON

• The game will start lagging with many turrets (roughly around 7 or more).

No Solution Found

UNCOMMON

• Enemies will glide away from the player as if they were being timed out.

No Solution Found

RARE

• When purchasing a turret, sometimes the price is deducted and the green/red square indicating valid/invalid object placement will remain unresponsive and it will not let the player place the object.

Solution: Buy another object in the shop and it should fix the issue

RARE

• The player suddenly loses connection to the photon servers and the “screen will fall” rendering the game unplayable

Solution: Restart the game client

RARE

• When the enemy hits the player the player will die almost instantly.

No Solution Found

RARE

• There is a maximum number of concurrent users which can play the game simultaneously, this limit is currently 20

No Solution Found