Final Mechanics Experimentation

Sketching on paper, Experimenting, fine tuning mechanics in the process, thinking about how they can work and combining them, and scripting the behaviors. 

Of course choosing which mechanics to focus on meant that a lot of the past puzzle experiments would not be used. They were a useful part of the research and decision making process.

In order to begin experimentation, I made sure I had all the features I wanted, though to a very basic level, coded and working. This included a place holder for the grappling hook, scripts to move platforms for their own behavior and grapple sections. For a climbing place holder I would change the jump value. Once I had these in place I put together a quick example puzzle in unity too see how they could work. 

This involved pulling a few blocks down in order to create the puzzle to the end.

From there I moved on to making paper designs in order to create something interesting and fun, testing the potential of the mechanics, and putting together something that would work. With our character's settings and grappling hook length. From there I went on to creating them in unity, making small transitional changes along the way, and then asking for and responding to feedback.

Combination Puzzle

This puzzle is one where I was experimenting with all the the mechanics together, however the mechanics at this time were not far refined.

It created a section with two routes through, one of which was much easier than the other, however it was a good test, I learned some interesting this from this however the design itself did not work too well and was not too fun. I feel it could have worked better with a bit more fine tweaking and could have potentially been a puzzle, however there are a lot of design aspects that were not thought about at the time as it was only an experiment and it was not too fun. I just took from it what worked well and moved on.

Grapple Puzzle

Again with two paths, this was a puzzle to test how the grapple could be used if you could pull object, which you could then leave at any point in order to create paths. The result quickly lead on to deciding that grappling should be instant, as it was less likely to have bugs, and wasn't really slow and boring, like this was. Out of the two options, instant grappling was definitely better, this also did not fit the overall vision of the experience as the player would be forced to slow down too much and it involved far too much back and fourth. The limited grapple length also create a problem for this option.

Warp Puzzle

The warp mechanic that I wanted to involve was something that I had not really seen before, so I decided to find out what I could do with it. This puzzle involves a lot of resetting the positions of platforms in order to create the path ahead, and thinking about where you leave them, and the player can always see what they were affecting. The design was fun and along the right tracks, however had some problems and was perhaps too ambitious. I learned some very useful things from this and ultimately decided this mechanic could be effective when used carefully and sparingly.  It also looks pretty cool, which helps.

The feedback and the experience I received from creating these experimental puzzles using our main mechanics then gave me a much clearer and focused mind when designing the areas we want to include in our game.

Whilst working on each of these, I was also tweaking and experimenting with the code of the mechanics, to find what would work best both in terms of creation and game play. Some flaws over time became apparent and were tidied up to an extent, other changes were aesthetic, thinking about what gave the best feel to the player.

I tested different speeds for the grappling side by side in order to find what had the best feel, I also tested between a one-shot grapple and a continuous pull prior to making the decision mentioned above. A fast and instant grapple worked best, but not so fast you can't see it.

I also experimented with the idea of pulling a block out of a wall and through physics having everything above it fall down and create a path. This was too difficult for the result and I eventually decided that with what we were aiming to have in the scene, it wasn't a priority. A section similar to this using animation probably would have been better.

These experiments then helped greatly in designing the final areas.