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Nine0Wands1 year ago(+1)

There are a bunch of submissions and I wanted to give feedback to everyone, so I'm going to list some strengths and weaknesses that I perceive from the GDD's in this challenge (take with a grain of salt, I recognize the challenge this jam theme + time limitations, especially during a holiday weekend).

Strengths: I really liked that you added a mood board to establish visual style. I LOVE that you included this description of integrating this game for Twitch streaming! I think it's a popular and fun option, and I think that would make this game 1000x more playable/popular.

Weaknesses: I think given the length of the doc, you could have found ways to make this more concise. There are a lot of sections that don't have a lot of information written or you describe a section as not applicable or that you don't know enough about it. It might have been better to consolidate formatting or eliminate sections that were not relevant. I also would have liked more diagrams. It's a document, but diagrams are super instructive and can eliminate large descriptive chunks, while getting the same info across. This would be especially helpful when discussing core loop or other technical aspects of the game.

There is some uncertainty in the document that ideally would have been resolved before submission, such as what the actual genre was meant to be. I think from a technical stand point, I would need some further clarification/meetings to figure out how we wanted to implement this game. I also (personally) didn't like that the document was sometimes written in first person, but this is absolutely my preference, I don't know how many people would care about that detail.

Overall, I think this would be a fun game to play!

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themaka1 year ago

Hi Nine,

Thanks for the feedback. The mood board was added at the last minute, partly to get some content that showed the idea of how the "characters" could vary and partly so I had another reason to play with Midjourney. However, as Gwen mentioned, they don't actually match the art scheme for the game (top-down) and so probably would have been better left out.  I should have booted up one of my many tower defense games and grabbed some screens.

I was already thinking of something to add more interactivity between streamers and viewers, a more social and less passive connection, and this GDD theme forced me to sit and think about it instead of just idly wondering what I could do.

I agree that the document was too long, and I adhered to the template too much. As I've said over in the Discord, I'm frustrated I didn't take the time to add a few simple diagrams (especially since I required them from my students).

When you mentioned the actual genre, do you mean I should have tried to define it in text?

I'm not following the comment about first person. Can you elaborate?

Thanks!

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Nine0Wands1 year ago

Hey Maka,

I actually tried to not read any other comments until after writing my own, so I would only give my first impression, but Gwen made a very good point. I suppose I was thinking that the aesthetic was more what you were hoping to convey, since in the GDD you mentioned that it didn't fit the perspective you wanted. If that's the case, then I think it would be helpful to an artist to convey the a stylistic stand point (immediately I  would think character requirements would include being rounder/squishier, more muted palettes, quirky/cartoony physical proportions, with my very limited art knowledge). You could have also shown some examples of things in the correct perspective, but my hunch would be that you'd find an artist who could translate that stylistic guide into what you wanted (ideally). 

I will stand by my adoration for your Twitch integration idea. Learning that it was something that you had to sit and think about more thoroughly makes me feel like that was the whole point of this exercise, and you understood the assignment. It's both a good thing, especially in a multiplayer/party game and a good way to stretch your design muscles.

I think you did a good job under the constraints, so I wouldn't worry too much about what you didn't get finished in time. When I mentioned the genre, I did mean the listed genre in section 2.3 Genre. You have a lot of possibilities listed with question marks, which created some uncertainty for me. One reason a lot of elevator pitches reference other games is to help others immediately understand how a game is going to work, the same would have been true for this section: if you reference well known genres as the building blocks for your game, people will have an  image in their head about what sorts of mechanics might be in the game. The most successful examples in this section would be "Tower Defense Battle Royale" and "TD-survival-like" which immediately gave me ideas of what to expect in the gameplay section.

About the first person thing...it's very nitpicky, but most of the doc is written in third person, "The player creates paths..." but in the audio section it switches to first person, "I don't know" or "I'd like to find." I can't disclaim it enough, it probably doesn't matter, but it caught my brain like a sock on a floorboard nail.

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themaka1 year ago

Ah!  I see what you meant by first person now.  I also use second person in quite a bit of it -- switched around too much.

For the genre, I wasn't sure what it would be called, so I was suggesting possibilities for the name. None of what I had quite made felt right, and I still haven't found something I like.  For that matter, I went poking through what was listed as Tower Defense on Steam and the tag there seems to cover way more than I'd have thought. 

Thanks again!

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