Research
Survey
I created a survey early on in my project to see if some people who i sent the survey to could give me some feed back on what i have planned, if some ideas are good or could be improved on and if they could suggest some things that i could research to try and help me further in my game.
Question 1
I asked what screen resolution most students screens use at home, these could be both monitors or TV's and the results show that 1920 x 1080 is the common screen resolution they all use at home wish is standard HD.
Question 2
I asked what games people could recommend that i should look at for my own game research. A lot of the games that have been recommended are game i have played, Bioshock, Saint Row 4 and Scott pilgrim: the game. I will do some research into these games to see how the mechanics and designs are as well as the use of sounds.
Question 3
I asked what kind of TV shows or Films from the 1980's and 90's that had a demographic for teens and young adults. Some shows i have heard of like Buffy and F is for family. One of them is new one i haven't heard of so i will look into it but F is for family is based in the early 1970's and is about two decades from the 90's which i am mostly focused on because its the decade my game is focused on.
Question 4
I asked would a game set in the 1990's and have a black and white art style would would work? Also of the responses were unsure until they have seen game play or didn't think it would not work for a game. I should of asked a question why as a follow up to see why people where unsure. Hopefully with the game testing results i could prove to people that this style could work for my game.
Question 5
I asked would people like to see a progression system such as leveling and level up rewards such as boosted stats for the player. Most the results came back as "yes" which shows there is interest for a progression system in my game. I want to make it simple for the game and i can ask if they like the progression system to my game in the game testing survey.
Question 6
I asked about having a large open map which the player can explore, interaxct with objects and go inside stores and talking and interacting with objects inside those stores. This was a major feature to my game as i feel having a large map with things for the player to do would be nice and would break up the constant fighting in the game.
Everyone awnsered yes to the idea which helps me want to add it in more. i do wish i left a space belwo this question why people would want this feature but i will raise this feature in my play testing survey.
Question 7
I wanted to know from the planned features i wanted for each of my stores, such as objectives or objects the player can interact with, look like the could work inside of my game. The multiple awnsers could be clicked for this question depending on what ideas sounded good.
A lot of awnsers liked the ideas for most of the set locations and features listed here. I can add each of these locations to my game by popularity from this survey, first with the 100% responses to the arcade which has only 20%.
I could of added a following question asking if any other features these stores could use or why did people choose these locations and features over others.
Question 8
I asked how could enemies could be found by the player across the length game. Most votes went to finding enemies at key locations such as hideouts and alleys which i could label as danger zones.
Idling around the streets was votes second which would be another way i could implement enemy locations exsept if they spawn in the middle of streets i would need to think about their placement outside key buildings and difficulty.
Spawning enemies in random places wont be easy to balance as it would be unfair for the player as enemies could spawn infront or behind in large numbers. I feel making spawn point for enemies that respawn after a certain time or when the player enters or exits a level will make it easier for the player to play the game and not worry about an impending fate.
Question 9
I
I asked what option features they would like to have control of when they run the game on a home computer. i looked at other game both AAA games and indie games on websites such as amour games and looked at the options both types of setting they allow the player to change.
Above alot of people voted the change the screen type: windowed and full screen and also to change the style of the game from not just black and white but another "shader" (an overlay colour (possibly red and black?)) . I need to do some research into both fo these as looking at construct 3 and options, as far as i know you cannot change these while the game is active, its a feature reseved for developers when creating a game on the contrsut 3 engine.
I know how to mute sounds and music inside of construct 3 from my last project and something like a mute sound or mute msuic button should be easy to implement. But advanced options like changing screen size, resoluion and shaders might be an issue because consturct 3 is very simple by designs and i can only program what the software gives me. - i miss GameMaker for this reason alone, the freedom to do more with code.