I feel that while I was not able to achieve everything I originally intended to when creating my game level demo, my project has still been a success. I managed to implement at least one of the key features that I originally planned to include (the stamina game mechanic). I also managed to create assets with a consistent art style, which I feel is an improvement from my previous work. This also gave me the opportunity to experiment with an art style that I hadn’t used before. As well as this, I had the opportunity to learn more about coding from my teachers, and while I still don’t feel particularly confident with coding on my own, I feel that I have improved my skills at it.

I feel that my final product does meet the expectations for the genre. I intended to create a sort of scavenger hunt, which would involve collecting various items from around an outdoor environment. The environment within my game is an outdoor environment and has collectable items around it for the player to try and find. These items include various plants, fungi, animals, and rocks, much like what I described in my pre-production posts. I also based a lot of my environment and artistic decisions on the survey results I collected during my pre-production phase in order to try and design the in-game environment in such a way that more people would like it and enjoy exploring it. My original intentions had been to try and make the project as accessible as possible, and this factored into my artistic choices to an extent too. I wanted to create an environment that was easy to navigate, as well as being accessible for those with visual impairments. A bright colour scheme works very well for this, and also happens to be the most popular of the options in my survey, so that’s what I chose to use. Unfortunately, this meant sacrificing some accessibility with regards to players who are prone to migraines and seizures, as these can be triggered by bright colours. I also didn’t want to make my environment too complex and crowded, as this can be overwhelming and stressful for some players, however I also wanted to know what kinds of environment people would prefer to see within the project. In the end, the most popular option was a mixed environment, with some crowded areas and some less crowded areas. Once again, this is the option I chose to use within my project, and I feel that it worked quite well.

I attempted to get some feedback regarding my project and what people thought of it, however so far I have only managed to get five responses which can be found at the following link:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/stories/SM-7SSXFC5L/

From my survey results, it seems that the final product meets the expectations of the audience, however I was unable to get responses from many of the people I originally had responses from during my pre-production stage. This means that I have not been able to get an accurate representation of the opinions of my target audience. I intended to ask people within the disabled community about their opinions on my final product, however I have yet to receive any responses from them. A couple of people said that they would be unable to test the product due to the colours being too bright, however I need to ask for their consent to publish their comment on my blog.

While the product doesn’t meet my original expectations, I now feel that those expectations were too high. The main reason for this is that I overestimated my ability to work for extended periods of time without losing focus – something tat can be very challenging when you have cognitive dysfunction and “brain fog”. Working for too long and trying to push myself to concentrate can lead to worse brain fog, making it increasingly more difficult to focus and complete my work. This meant that I had to reduce the number of tasks that I needed to do and reevaluate my expectations and plans regarding my project. There were some days where I was unable to work due to illness, however I mostly managed to catch up by doing work on evenings and weekends when I was able to pace myself better. I also found planning the tasks I need to do at the beginning of each week helpful for keeping me on track with my work. I also had some setbacks with my work due to teachers being away and lessons being cancelled due to various circumstances, meaning that I couldn’t get some of the help I needed with certain tasks. I was able to ask the teachers later on and quickly catch up with the work, however this wasn’t ideal as it lead to me feeling that I was behind and therefor becoming stressed as a result, which once again makes my brain fog worse and affects my ability to work. Another thing that helped me was the encouragement I received from my peers. I didn’t actually work in a team with other students, however I had a lot of encouragement from them regarding how well I was doing with my work and whether I had done enough. This helped to motivate me as well as to reduce the amount of stress I experienced throughout the project.

If I were to attempt a project like this again, I would want to try and implement the features I originally planned to include, however there are also other features I would like to include, such as options to change the brightness, customise the controls, etc.

In the responses to my feedback survey, some people mentioned that they would have liked the game to have more levels and a screen that shows up when you complete the levels. This is something I would work on if I had the opportunity to develop my project into a full game. Perhaps the different levels would be set in different environments, and, fitting with my original ideas, different levels could feature different mechanics to simulate various chronic illness symptoms. I would also have liked to have worked on sounds for my project, such as different footstep sounds for walking on different materials, and potentially noises for when the player is close to a collectable and when the player picks up the collectables. I feel like this would have added to the overall experience for the player, while also making the game more accessible to visually impaired people. This was also something that was suggested by one of the respondents in my feedback survey. Another respondent said that it would have been helpful to have instructions at the start of the game demo, which is something I would have implemented if I’d had more time. Adding a tutorial level would potentially have been a good idea, since this would allow the player to get used to the controls. Having a pause menu with instructions in would also be a good idea to help players who have memory problems. The same respondent also noted a couple of flaws in my project that others missed, such as a small areas behind the mountain where it’s possible to fall off the map. This suggests to me that I needed to test my project more thoroughly, which is something I will take into consideration for future projects. I also received some suggestions for features that I hadn’t originally thought of, such as adding some kind of visual or audio cue (or both) for when the player collects an item. If I’d had the time to implement the audio features that I originally planned to, there would have been sounds emitted by the objects, and when the objects were collected, the sound would stop, which would serve as a sort of audio cue, however I rather like the suggestion of having a separate audio cue as well as visual cues since thing would be more obvious to the player, as well as more accessible for deaf and hard of hearing players. 

From the fact that the respondents to my survey wanted more levels, I would guess that they enjoyed the game, since someone who didn’t enjoy it presumably wouldn’t want more levels. The other comments regarding what people liked about my game also suggest that the overall experience for the players was a positive one. Because of this, I would consider my project a success, as I have managed to create a game level demo that was enjoyable for the players and included multiple of the features that I wanted to have within it.