The 3Rs Postmortem
What went well? | What did not go well? | What would you do differently? |
The trash classifications went well. There were no bugs (we did not find any regarding that), and the art is straight to the point. | People did not like the constant repetition of the game especially with it being in the same order (hazardous, compost, recycle) | Randomize the levels, so players do not know what is coming next. For instance, compost, recycle, compost, hazardous, etc. |
The changing difficulty as player progressed was nice. Most enjoyed the hard level. | The early levels are less fun and challenging. The easy level was way too long. People were confused why they lose in the beginning. | Adding more features in the game, make it more fun. Make the hard level appear faster. |
The user interface art was really cool. People like the consistent blue button theme and space background. | Some did not like the overall color of the game and how repetitive the art was. Buttons are always the same art and same items for trash. | Focus more on the different trash variety rather than making the ones people already knew, or make options where players choose. |
People like the explosion effect and particle system when they click on the trash items | There is no sense of urgency, or dangerous aspect in the game. Layering was a bit off. Bottom item gets detected when clicked on top. | Be more intuitive and clear on the game instructions (how you win and fail) before the level begins. |
Localization went well. There were people who played it in Chinese, and it was consistent throughout the game. | We used images instead of text (since itch web build did not support Chinese text), and some of the images were a little stretched and pixelated. | We would use the same canvas size (1920x1080) for all the text and just size them differently based on what they are used for. |
Player preferences to save progress went well. Players can load or start a new game in the menu. It also saves the language they previously played. | Progress is saved when they clicked next level rather than when level is completed. The check and x button was not intuitive in showing check is to load and x is for new game. | Create new and load game buttons to replace the check and x. Save the progress when level is completed not when next level starts. |
Jiaxin: What did I learn?
I learned that a good team communicates progress and shares asset more frequently both in person and on discord. It is important to have an organized team, so each person can know what the other person is working on to avoid having the same asset twice.
Programming-wise, I used the enums and singleton system I learned last prototype in this game to track the trash count, level difficulty, and item types. It is probably bad practice, but I got too excited and had most of my functions in the GameManager script (around 400 lines of code). The other scripts just calls the functions in that script.
I learned that you can use event trigger component to track player actions rather than manually coding them even if they are not buttons.
Lydia: What did I learn?
As a team, I learned that keep things organized is important. Keep the files organized will speed up the whole progress when each of us is sharing our progress.
Individually, I designed and studied the role and importance of UI in games. Our more experienced team members guided me on what should be included in the UI and I also learned from tutorials and sources online. I've learned that UI can have a big impact on the overall feel and user experience, yet I still have so much to learn. For example, Some playtesters reported the beginning levels are confusing. To solve that we could design a more intuitive game instruction before the level starts. Or it be more clear to the players if we change certain text and functions in the UI.
Xiaowen: What did I learn?
I learned that team communication is very important, especially for keeping up with works for the team and have everything turn in on time. Also, I learned that showing teammates the progress of the works is important, which we can give each other feedbacks on what is going well, what needs to be changed in the middle progress instead of having to change the end product of the work. That could make our works more efficient.
I did the arts for the trash items and some visual effects for the team, I learned that I should had kept the art style consistent. The way I outlined and create shadows for the items seems a little not organized, but is a good thing that player could tell what the items are in most cases.
I learned from researching for sources on garbage classification, which I got to know things like battery is sort to harmful trash. I also looked for a few Unity tutorials on particle systems and shared those to the team, now I knew more about what I can do with the particles, yet I still get a lot more things to learn.