Devlog 10/21/2020 - Dylan Valev

For the past week, the Dough Deep team really focused on our feedback from playtesters. During playtesting, we received a variety of critique, but what stood out the most was a concern of mechanical complexity and a timer causing people to worry about missing pieces of dialogue. This was a puzzling problem to solve, for it led us to a fork in a road for the game's mechanics: either focus more on the narrative experience or platforming experience. After some prototyping of different methods of locomotion and each Baked Phases' mechanics, we decided to settle for the narrative experience. As a result, we decided to make each Baked Phases' mechanics to not be mechanically challenging, and instead allow the player to platform with ease. The rationale behind this decision was we wanted to maintain the pressure of the timer, for it was imperative to our artistic statement of how we choose to spend our limited time, and with who. However, when adding complicated and distracting mechanics into the mix, then the message could get lost, and instead simply stress the player out, making them miss a lot of our narrative. For this week's prototype, we implemented the new mechanics for both the Doughy and Oozy Phases. The Doughy Phase had the largest change, pivoting from a rope swing to an automatic pull-and-drag ability to bring platforms closer to the player. This way we maintain the doughyness of the player character, while also making it mechanically more accessible. For the Oozy Phase, we decided to stick with a less overwhelming mechanic of mid-air jumps, so we decided to make the Oozy Phase ability cast a longer bridge for a slower and more methodical platforming experience. With all of these additions, we created a simple level requiring the platforming abilities, and sprinkled in dialogue for the player to read through in the different sections of the game. The intention of this is to see if playtesters enjoy and understand the pacing of the abilities.

For the following week, we will be designing and implementing a thoroughly designed level to make the world more immersive and effectively create a proper greybox for the game's beta. Additionally, we will be implementing UI to better demonstrate the phases and their changes, along with more assets and dialogue for the player to see.