Development Log Postmortem

Successes:

The main success of this game was that we were able to fully develop the mechanics we wanted to include in the game. Most notably the primary game mechanic we built was the player toggling the platforms on and off in order to proceed past obstacles. In addition, we were able to make other small mechanics including obstacles that kill the player and double jump. Another success of our game was the level design since we were able to build it around the platform switching mechanic.

Challenges:

One of our main challenges was getting the player’s movement to work properly and to make sure it did not feel floaty. We were able to fix the floaty player movement by removing the original dash mechanic and replacing it with a double jump mechanic. We also had issues making sure the difficulty ramp was smooth since originally a few of our levels were far too difficult. To solve this we rearranged some levels and redesigned a few portions to make them more straightforward. In addition, there were a few challenges in maintaining the GitHub repository and fixing issues after merge conflicts. Overall we were able to get past most of the issues we faced during the development process.

What you learned:

 During the development of this project, we all learned a lot about Unity and how to work collaboratively on a Unity project without serious code conflicts. We primarily learned about Unity as we wanted to add unique mechanics to our game like the platform activation and spawned rock obstacles. In addition, we all were able to improve on our understanding of version control with Git as we worked on consistently pulling code and pushing code when a feature was completed. In working with Git we also learned how to handle merge conflicts and edit code so that multiple features could be integrated properly with each other.

Possible future revisions:

There are many possible features that could be added to the game in order to improve the experience. Adding a point system either through pick-up objects or shooting targets could make the player feel like they were making clearer progress through the game. Another expansion could be to have powerups that the player could unlock for a certain amount of time through random pick-up objects. This could allow the player to gain access to increased speed, higher jumps, or other advantages. Overall possible future improvements would add more variety to the game and make it more engaging.