Evaluation of game creation process

Evaluation - Supermarket Slaughter

Review by a friend:

I recently got the chance to play a game my friend Charlie has been making for college, at first I was expecting something more basic but it is vastly the opposite, the following sections state why.


Graphics:
To my surprise quite fantastic, although I'm aware everyone on the course uses the same software this game executes it with tremendous effect. From the mist at the very opening to the sheer darkness of the mall regardless of your flashlight, the tone is set from the very beginning and scares are rife throughout. I was terrified and I play horror games regularly. The only slight niggle as far as the graphics and software are concerned is I once managed to get stuck between some scenery and a clown which would not let me out which was somewhat frustrating.


Sound: Creepy laughter, footsteps in the dark and loud, brutal clown attacks are to name but a few unnerving items in the sounds list, I would hate to play this with headphones. The first time I played a clown hit me from behind and made me scream like a girl. Sound by far is the biggest influence to the atmosphere here, the right amount of creepy sounds comes together with the visuals to deliver a genuinely freaky experience.


Gameplay: Overall I'd rate the gameplay as 8/10 because this is a very polished experience, although it has some minor visual flaws I was really scared by this game. If I was to add anything I'd say a gun perhaps, just because a form of self defence would be helpful I feel. Highly recommend to any horror fans. A great game Charlie well done.

Changes made

Throughout the game creation process i made a lot of changes to the original ideas and plans for my game. One of the minor changes was the name of my game, which changed from 'A night of laughter' to 'Supermarket slaughter', this being a minor change to the game that was due to the relocation of the game with the new name better suiting it. Another change made during the initial design process was the map, as you can see from the images below my map changed from a large forest setting into a smaller, more concise supermarket layout. This was done as creating such a large open world would take much more time, and would be harder to create than the supermarket design. If i was to have more time, i would of continued with the forest idea as it was the original concept for the game, however i do not regret to choice to create a supermarket instead and i am very happy with the way it turned out.

Other changes to the game came from technical issues that i could not fix, such as the blueprints not working to allow for the projectile of the gun to kill the enemy. This became a big task for me, and since it wouldn't work it rendered one of the biggest elements of my proposed game, the killing of the AI to be useless. Without this i felt the current game i was creating could not be finished to an acceptable standard and therefor decided to create a stealth game, that relied on the player thinking outside of the box instead of charging in and killing the clowns. This helped add to the horror genre of the game, which made the player feel powerless to defend themselves, instead only being able to run from the clown.

From feedback i have had from my game however people like the stealth aspect, and enjoy the horror that the game provides. Alongside this a death counter was created from the people who tested my game, and from that i learnt that most people struggled to complete the game in one turn, which is something i was happy about as it meant the game wasnt too easy, and wasnt too boring that players didnt want to keep trying. This was something i was happy about, however players found that the silence of the clowns made it hard to know where they were when attacking from behind, and found that they would die randomly at times from the clowns sneaking up with no indication of their presence. This alongside the few bugs in the game is something i will work on further so that the game becomes finished with minor/no errors.

In conclusion i am happy with how the game turned out, and i am glad that i have created something that is seen as a game also with my own assets being used. I have many things to still improve and work on, however the whole process has been very fun and i am excited to continue work to better the game.