Hostile Mars Devlog 17!
Game Playtesting
Thank you to everyone that helped playtest Hostile Mars!
This past weekend the alpha build was undergoing playtesting by the Discord community and I feel it went pretty well. Aside from all the small bugs and cleanup tasks, the build is relatively stable.
The playtesting build only included the first Stage of the game, which includes all of the scrap and junk items that serve as an intro to craft items, explore the environment, collect materials, and the item progression.
I plan to release the public demo here in the next week. If you are interested in the demo, come join us on Discord. It is the easiest place to provide feedback and/or bugs.
https://discord.gg/Xd88eF8Teg
For the Demo, the second stage of the game (the core gameplay loop) will be added to the build. This includes Machines and Automation.
Playtesting Results
This last round of playtesting marks the 4th playtesting of the game. I am a big believer that playtesting is the key to a successful game. It is a good idea to have a goal or target of the playtest, and this time it was the first stage item progression and enemy waves.
Feedback comes in different forms, bugs, requests, annoyances, and enjoyability. The most valuable feedback is negative feedback and what seems cumbersome to the player.
Positive feedback is great but not extremely valuable outside of knowing which key features the players really enjoy, which can help shape design decisions.
The most valuable feedback is what players hate, what annoys or confuses them, and what they think is a bug that is actually intentional.
Usually, the player will provide what they think the problem is along with their pain points of the playtest, but the solution most of the time is something much different. It could be something as simple as an added sound effect, a different screen shake, or a different color.
I always try to provide a survey for players after they play to ask questions about what is being tested specifically, which I plan to do with the Alpha Demo initial playtesting.
New Enemy Types
Ball Bot
A new ground enemy was introduced in the alpha build, the Ball Bot (for lack of a clever name). They are the first Paragon ground enemies that are encountered in the game with a simple laser attack.
It is important to recognize that the different types each have their own strengths and weaknesses against player defenses. For example, ground-type enemies take much more damage from the spike trap, which hover enemies take more damage from the scrap launcher.
New Legacy/Wildlife Bots
A few legacy bots made their way into the build so that we can begin testing the interactions with random encounters while the player is exploring.
The Alpha Demo
As mentioned earlier, the alpha demo will be released and will focus more on the core gameplay elements that make up Hostile Mars. I would love for you to try it out for yourself, so if you are interested come over to the Discord.
https://discord.gg/Xd88eF8Teg
I have a survey for anyone that decides to play the demo, so please fill the survey out if you can about your experience with the game and your experience with other builders like it.
Take Care,
-Jake