Deadlocked Demo is now Released!

With the demo release of Deadlocked, here is a summary of our thoughts on working on this project so far and a reflection on them.

What we learned during development?

With this being our largest project so far, undergoing a full development cycle from ideation, prototyping to pre-release and now, we learned a vast number of things. The key takeaway in the first part of the process was learning to avoid strongly clinging to one idea, and on the contrary test out various things during the ideation and prototyping process. In this as well its important to mention that if you have an idea it is also important to pivot around in different views, such as thinking how you would think the idea would work, or how you think it might not work and trying both options. This led to our final prototypes which deconstructed our initial idea of a grafitti FPS parcour game, which led to one of the prototypes being the idea of deadlocked.

Another important think we learned, which keeps re-appearing is to lower your scope. In the initial prototyping ideas our scope was quite high, and even in later stages of developing deadlocked, thinking of adding more mechanics and feature. Once we lowered the scope, we worked first more efficiently and also our game became more polished as a result. Its important to also keep in mind to not lower the scope too low, as you won't be as motivated and won't push yourself to new further limits.

The importance to allocate more time to playtesting was also learned during this process as this sparks new ideas in how to improve the game in various ways. Without these playtests we wouldn't have added some features present in the current game such as the input buffer or other in-game effects. Playtests also showcase what players find more enjoyable to play and experience. Having said this to not fully change the vision of the game its important to also acknowledge what you personally think is better for the game .

From a technical side of things we learned better programming techniques and optimisations as well as how to better improve our level design process using tools such as Figma.

What went well and not so well?

First of all lets cover what went well. Playtests for the game went incredibly well with overall reception being extremely positive for the game in regards to mechanics of the game and the overall aesthetic. The only complaint in this department would have been more criticism but this went very well. The development after the first prototype and the vertical slice was also smooth as we had high motivation and drive to work on the game. This was especially to do with the design of the 3rd  level in the game, which turned out to be the most appreciated level.

Regarding things that did not get so well, a few things can be pointed out. The initial prototyping phase was quite a nightmare for us, as our first few prototypes were pretty rough and didn't receive that much excitement or enthusiasm. Another was towards the end of development for the demo release. By this time, with work on other projects and the overall end of 2023 brought a lot of burnout. This greatly slowed down the development towards the end with how tired we were, but we persevered nonetheless.

Closing Thoughts and Whats set for the Future

Overall this project was very fun to work on, and will be worked even more on in the future. The main goal for the future right now is implementing online multiplayer, along with creating more interesting levels and adding a few additional mechanics.

In regards to future projects and how we would approach them differently would be definitely allocating more time to playtests. Playtests really opened our eyes to more ideas and helped show us what to drop off, as well as what to further work on, so the importance of playtests will be definitely incorporated into future works. Another aspect would be to create as many small prototypes at the start of the project, rather than  just writting ideas on paper. Having actual builds of games really shows what ideas work, and which ones don't, thus giving further guidance on what to pursue and potentially work on.