Reflection #1

My project “Starch at the End”, is a digital game made with Bitsy. I wanted to make something simple and start off with a program that’s easy to use so I could get my ideas playable as soon as possible, but it still took a lot of time to create the necessary sprites, rooms, and other features to make the game functional. Generally, the playtesters had fun and liked the atmosphere and colors of the game, as well as the custom dialogue features Bitsy offers. I used the wavy and rainbow text features to give the sprites more personality since the art accompanying them was quite limited. Meeting “Bonanza”, the bunny-shaped Leopard was one memorable experience among the playtesters, and seeing how they would opt to ignore the rude flower when it also asked the player for freshwater was really interesting. The dialogue and its customization also served a functional purpose for marking what was interactable or what the player needed to collect.

My mother was confused at first during her playtesting since she doesn’t have much experience playing adventure games, but making the collectible freshwater dialogue in the same color as the sprites signaled to her that she could interact with something else in the world to get to it. My older sisters had relatively little issue getting through the rooms to bring back freshwater to the flower, though one of them noticed a small error where you can get unlimited water and repeat the flower’s last dialogue. I also noticed that the sprite flowers weren’t always immediately read as sprites considering the amount of detail I put into the background. One playtester walked past both flowers entirely and didn’t interact with the flowers until visiting the other two rooms and getting confused. I think a small how-to-play option would be beneficial, or a mandatory room at the beginning with a sign sprite that gives a small list of controls would also help some players less familiar with digital games. Bitsy is somewhat limited in what I can do with menu screens though, so if I do make another digital game, I may either try to work around that issue when expanding on this game or try out a different game maker. Based on the overall feedback, ordering the sprites and the beginning position of the player in a more readable fashion would help improve the player experience, and I would personally go back in and place another small sign just for extra clarity without overdoing the tutorials.