Iteration Alpha 5

Alpha 4 was released and has already seen some playing time in a public server. The server, which just test custom levels, provided a recorded demo file of the game for me to watch and get an idea of how other players play the level. It is a wonderful tool to analyze what exactly is happening with the level.

Playtest Results

Have you ever watched a sporting event and found yourself yelling "WHY!?!?" over some mistake they made? Well I have. First and foremost I noticed that people tend to "follow the leader" and the start of a game round. Of the two paths to take from the spawnroom, literally the entire team chose only one. The Blu team chose correctly and were patiently waiting for the gates to open and the round to start. The red team on the other hand chose incorrectly. Instead they all ran out toward the control point and spent the entire time wondering around like a lost child. Eventually they found it.

The other major problem was the lack of obvious changes made by capturing the middle CP. People just didn't understand what happens when they capture it or when time runs out. I think I'm going to have to add an extra layer of minor tweaks, hopefully to the extent so that it clicks with people. I do have the suspicion that it will likely never click with a player on the first play through. It might take 1 or 2 extra play sessions for players to figure it out.

Changes made for the Alpha 5 Release

The idea of level design and alpha releases is to improve the gameplay from release to release and to also add basic improvements to the map. Whether it be a whole new stage added in, tweaks of health and ammo locations, added or improved art assets, or redesigning of sections, the changes made from release to release are a crucial part of the design process.

My goal is to at least add the final stage (stage 3) to the A5 release of the map. This stage has honestly been troublesome during the initial design phases. I struggled with its overall design concept. It was a case of wanting to do something different than Valve, but keeping it similar enough that it kept with the 3rd stage design norms of Payload race. Valve's "plr_pipeline" 3rd stage is a very simple and straight forward map. Both carts run along parallel tracks, two massive hills sit between the starting position and the final goal at the very top and far end of the map. The matches go quite quickly and generally the first to make it up the first hill has a massive advantage and usually wins. Possibly the biggest characteristic of the map is that it is wide open and nearly the entire cart path can be seen from the vast majority of locations in the map.