Documentation and User Guid


Concept Comparison

To begin the final documentation for MotoMadness, I would like to begin with a comparison of the initial concept statement versus the current state of MotoMadness.  In the original concept statement, MotoMadness was described as a "2D motorbike riding themed puzzle solving game", and i am happy to announce that this is still true for the final version!

The first core game concept that was laid out was the requirement that the player collects all key objects within the map before they are able to finish the level.  In the final version, this also still holds true. The collection of key objects was implemented via requiring the player to collect literal keys from around the level before touching the end game object (Hot sauce bottle) in order to finish the level.

The original concept suggests that there may be traps or state modifying objects that the player may encounter during play-through of a given level. This was successfully implemented with the inclusion of 6 state modifying game objects. these objects are listed as follows:

1. Heart: + 1 life.
2. Key: Required collectible.
3. Hot Sauce: End game object.
4. Red potion: Slow time by 50% for 10 seconds.
5. Green potion: Invert gravity on the bike for 15 seconds.
6. Skull: Insta death!

Perhaps the most risky statement made within the original game concept document was the inclusion of a "race against the clock" feature. I was unsure at first how difficult this would be to implement but it was definitely a must have feature and was eventually implemented within the game without too much effort.

There was not any major changes from the initial framework of the game laid out in the concept statement as i purposely left out some features that i was not entirely sure would be possible within the time i had to develop the game. One such example of this was the "flip" where the player could press a key and the bike rider would rotate 180 degrees on the X axis to face the opposite direction. While the controls and the changing of the drive wheel was easy, the rotation part was not. In the end this feature was only partly implemented without the "flip". 


Game Testing Feedback

Once the majority of the game was fleshed out a game testing session was run where i had the opportunity to observer people playing MotoMadness. Some testers had played MotoMadness before the testing session and some were first time players which provided a good spread of skill sets to observe. Data was collected from each tester by having them complete a quick questionnaire and providing them with the ability to offer some anonymous feedback. 

To summarize the results of the testing session:
1. 50% of players found the point of the game to be very obvious and the other 50% were on the fence.
2. All players found the controls were somewhat easy to use.
3. All players said the visual style was consistent.
4. All players agreed that the game play was enjoyable.
5. 75% of players thought the different pickups were interesting and 25% found them not too interesting.
6. All players found the difficulty of the sample level to be a little on the hard side

Players seemed to like the overall game play style with a fairly even spread of people enjoying different components such as the elastic suspension and the sound of the bike. Players generally did not like the camera and the background rubber-banding (which was a bug at the time of testing). Almost all players agreed that the difficulty could be lowered on the test level. The only bugs the players commented on was the background shaking.

My observations:

During the testing session the most obvious issue was the difficulty, although players said in the questionnaire that the difficulty was a little hard, i did not observe any players actually finish the level.  As this was just a sample level i did not change it as i had plans to create several levels with increasing difficulty. However, as players found the sample level to be difficult, i included it in the final release as the last level of the game. 
My second observation was the camera issue, as players fell from a platform the bike would often "outrun" the camera to the point of the bike no longer being visible until it hit the ground and the camera could catch up. To fix this issue i increase the follow speed of the camera and increased the follow prediction amount.


Game Assets

Below is a list of all game assets and their function in MotoMadness. All the names are a simplified versions of the actual assets name. Below each asset list is the source (where applicable) of each asset.

General Assets
  • Font - just a font for the in game text.

Font: https://www.dafont.com/revamped.font


Player assets
  • Head, upper arm, lower arm, torso, upper leg and lower leg - Make up the rider
  • Bike frame, tire, suspension material for forks and swing arm line renderers - Make up the motorbike

Motorbike: https://www.clipartmax.com/png/full/163-1638100_dirt-bike-clip-art.png
Motorbike Rider: https://creazilla.com/nodes/69073-motocross-clipart

Level Assets
  • Terrain top, terrain fill and terrain bottom - Make up the sprites that are applied to the sprite shape that forms the terrain chunks.
  • Mushroom 1, 2 and 3, board 1 to 6, bush 1 and 2, dry grass, stone 1 to 4, tree 1 and 2 - Make up the level detailing assets.

Terrain: https://www.gameart2d.com/free-platformer-game-tileset.html
Detailing Assets: https://raventale.itch.io/


Pickups
  • Key - Is the object that the player must collect.
  • Heart - +1 Life.
  • Skull - Instant death.
  • Red potion - Half time for 10 seconds.
  • Green potion - Invert bike gravity for 15 seconds.
  • Hot Sauce Bottle - End game object.

Icon Pack: https://kickpixel.itch.io/50fantasyicons


Parallax Background

All assets below make up the parallax background effect.

  • Ground
  • Trees and bushes
  • Bushes
  • Hill 1
  • Hill 2
  • Huge Clouds
  • Clouds
  • Distant Clouds
  • Background

Background Assets: https://raventale.itch.io/


User Guide

The final version of the game still keeps the original name MotoMadness, The concept has also remained the same which is to play as a motorbike rider in a 2D world where you must navigate through each level, avoiding (or not) pickups and collecting keys in order to complete each level with the best time possible. The controls have only change in that there has been additional controls added as development progressed. The controls are as follows:

  • W - Accelerate.
  • S - Brake.
  • A - Rotate Left.
  • D - Rotate Right.
  • Space - Change direction.

Below is a bunch of images that show each game screen the the user may encounter:

Main Menu

Level Select

High Score Screen


General Game Play

Got High Score

Game Over

Files

MotoMadness1.2.zip Play in browser
Oct 10, 2021

Leave a comment

Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.