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Game Jam #2 - Van Helsing (PART 5) - Reflection

 

Logo by Nicolas Katsis

And with that, Van Helsing is done! It is available to download here for anyone to play. But now it's time to sit back and reflect on the project and how it went.

Overall, I think it went really well. 3 / 4 of us were really interested and invested into the project, each devoting a lot of time and commitment towards it. From talking with my teammates, we all share the same sentiment that we'd really have liked more time to continue building and fleshing out the game. We see a lot of potential in the concept. 

From a technical point of view, there are definitely elements I would change or improve if we continued to develop this:

- One of the bigger points would be in the zombies; Currently, upon spawn, all zombies move towards the player, which makes it rather easy for the player to jump over the amassed horde and then beeline it to the exit. If I had time, I'd have implemented a system wherein zombies that are not close to the player roam aimlessly and only begin to track the player when nearby.

- Another change would be to brighten the non-illuminated screen. Rather than pitch black, I would probably argue for a Terraria style setup where the background and static level are entirely visible but enemies and other interactive elements are not. I feel arguably this would actually be more tense than a completely black background as the player would not know what is and isn't visible, adding tension as anything could be hiding there.

- A smaller change would be to the lampposts, as the player is supposed to be able to get on top of them, but they are just a couple pixels too high. Either the lamppost needs to be shorter or the rocket boots need a bit more power in them.

- Next, the collision boxes for the statues, lampposts and any other elements we might've added in due course need a lot of improvement. Again, drawing parallels to Terraria, I think the best way to implement these would be in a one-way collision wherein the Player can fly through them from below but land on them from above and be able to fall back through by pressing S (down). This would prevent an issue I noticed when watching people play in that they would attempt to jump underneath a statue and hit the collision box, which would stop them from escaping the zombies. Since the boxes are invisible, there is no way for the player to know they are there as non-developers. It is an oversight on our part and a good example of why play-testers are important, since developers know too much about the inner workings of the game to be able to play it with a user's eye.

- Afterwards, the Menu and other screens need aesthetic improvements, as they do not fit well with the main game. A HUD is also required to convey player health and ammo capacity.

- On the subject of ammo, I would definitely like to revisit the idea of a secondary weapon (i.e. the shotgun), especially as more diverse enemies would likely be introduced.

 - Finally, we would almost certainly expand, improve and increase the number of levels available, likely going back to an early concept where the Graveyard was level 1 and Van Helsing would progress through the map each level, entering the Mansion in level 2, cellars in level 3 and so on. Another concept that we would likely revisit is a win condition where the Player has to kill all the applicable enemies before they can reach the exit.

And of course, throughout all that, general tweaks to ammo capacities, Rocket boot fuel, jump height, reload times and other variables would need to be made to ensure a challenging but fun experience.

In conclusion, I am very happy with the outcome. Both from a creative and technical perspective. I feel the concept is solid, and that I have learnt a lot about programming in general and in Godot along the way.

Regarding Godot, I very much like the engine (on the 2D side atleast). I feel it is simple to learn and intuitive for new users, with technical concepts that make a lot of sense (scenes, trees and nodes). While it is in no way perfect, I definitely look forward to returning to it again in the future, especially to try out its 3D engine.

However, I do not think I will use it for the next jam as it is not well recognised in the industry and I need more experience in those popular engines (those being Unreal Engine and Unity) and their languages (C++ and C#). But as said above, I look forward to returning to it one day, maybe for non-academic projects.

- JDM

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