We did an initial test of the Co OPERATION demo and got some great feedback for how we can improve the game. We’ve been working away to fix those issues and are now gearing up towards a second demo play test! 🎉
What did we find?
The main issues we found were with players connecting and disconnecting to the game - we need to work on a way for players to rejoin a game easily if they drop out for any reason.
There were lots of fun bugs 🐛! There were a few patients spawning where they are not supposed to 😅 And at one stage, one player threw medicine to another, who threw a patient to them and the patient then disappeared! 💨
We also realised that nowhere have we included the backstory, so Josh has been working on that and come up with this!
Josh’s progression from sketch to finished comic strip
New action buttons
We found that some of the action buttons that players use to programme their moves were a little confusing so Josh gave them a makeover! Even though Josh usually sticks to 2D art, we all thought the 3D effect on the arrow looked cosier and squidgier so we went with that. We want our game to be cosy and squidgy so it fits 🧸
Here’s an example of some of the spruced-up button art.
Action buttons for throw and moving in one direction
Modding
Our modding tools are really coming along ⚒️ with lots of exciting new features from co-founder and programmer Rupert that make it easier to write and test your custom Lua scripts. This includes the ability to control players and run scripts in our level viewer! Joe (fellow programmer) added some new UI that visualises & lets you change the current game phase 💫
As you can see in this video, the Lua scripts in our Co OPERATION game package mean that changing the phase can cause new patients to spawn and health to reduce ❣️ But change a few lines of mod code and something entirely different could happen . . .
Clipboards
How do you know what medicine to give your patients? We now have some handy clipboards which show you 😊
Design a poster
Last month we ran a poster design event. We asked our Discord community for ideas for posters that could feature on the walls of our in-game hospital world. We had some great ideas and Josh has turned them into these!
The first idea came from James and the second from JFarceur (apparently this angry parrot is a thing in Canada) - thanks to both of them!
Then Shaz added them into the game world and they turned out looking like this! 👇
Universities
We’ve been working with three different universities 🎓 to help test the modding abilities of the platform we’ve developed called MultiTurn!
We have students from Plymouth Uni who are working on a new mod of the game as we speak. Shaz has been working with students from Norwich who are also testing the modding code. And a researcher from Basel wants her students to evaluate Co OPERATION from the point of view of self-determination theory, or what really motivates people to play a game 🥕
We are really looking forward to seeing what these students come up with. Shaz (game/level designer) is especially excited to play a mod so he can play new content internally with the team (that he didn’t design!)
If you want to also be an early stage modder and/or play the next demo (due to be out in Dec some time?) then you can join our Discord.
An amazing co-operative throw-chain!
See you soon,
Shaz, Julia and the MFG team