Reflection #2

I made a digital game for this design challenge in Gamemaker Studio 2. I had a lot of fun working in Bitsy for the last design challenge, but I wanted to use a program with fewer limitations this time. To get used to this program, I decided to create a simple platformer with objects you can collect. Originally, there were supposed to be enemies as well, but I ran into some programming difficulties and some trouble learning Gamemaker’s language to create what I wanted within the time I was given. I only had two playtesters this time around, one in class and one outside of class, but both seemed to enjoy playing the game.

My objective of collecting all the small stars was clear enough that both playtesters were able to complete that goal without directly being told, and the mechanics were simple enough to understand. The only issue I ran into was a small gap between platforms in my level design that looked as if the player could go through it when it was actually a dead end. While it did encourage the players to think around the obstacle and get to the next star with a different route, the height of the platform did not make it obvious enough that the player couldn’t have walked through that area. Though I didn’t spend as much time on the art in order to get more coding of the actual game done, sprite height and its relation to the other tiles in the game are still crucial to pay attention to and something I’ll have to keep in mind the next time I either expand on this idea or try another platformer in the future.