Success

We think some of the things that we succeeded in this game project include: originality of the game's static resources and animations, the overall concept of the game, and the design of the featured interactions.

First, the originality of the game's static resources and animations. We worked much harder than the previous project to make the game's overall resources original. Not only did we make original character sprites, but we also made a lot of attack animations for the characters, as well as original music and sound effects. The character attack animations are very important. We have five characters, and each character needs three different move animations and five different attack animations, so the overall workload is quite large, but we made all these animations perfectly. These resources are very important to our overall game style.

Secondly, the overall concept of the game was designed. In terms of character design, we designed a lot of different characters. They each have their own abilities, but also have some unified style. For example, MTA police and Graffiti are two Subway characters of the same type. In addition, BingQi Lin's design is also very successful, his normal attack is a wrestling action, and his special attack is to make ice cream fall from the sky, very interesting.

Last but not least is the design of the special interaction. Our Map as Level Selection received a lot of positive feedback during the beta testing. These special interactions were used as cherry on top to further improve the overall quality of the game.

Challenges

In terms of the challenges encountered in this project, we feel that there are two main factors: collaborative development and enemy AI.

First, regarding collaborative development, we need more effort and better task allocation. This time we had four people in the team, which added an extra level of complexity compared to the previous project. We didn't have a very clear level split in this project, so it was a challenge for our collaborative development due to the game itself. In the actual development process, for example, changes to Virtual Control that need to be made in each Level may conflict with the work being done in that Level. In addition, we had done so much preparation on the design side that we found that a lot of fun features could be very difficult to implement, which led to errors in the overall project schedule.

In addition, the Enemy AI was very difficult to design. Since we have only two characters in the battle, the player and the enemy, we need a more complex enemy design. We need to make the enemy perform various complex functions: normal attack, combo attack, movement, special attack... One of the difficult points is when to make the enemy launch a normal attack. It would be very unnatural if the enemy made a normal attack based on random probability. Therefore, we add a determination of the effective attack range, and if it enters this range, the enemy will start a normal attack. In addition to this, we also need to deal with a lot of details.

What We Learned

One of the most important things we learned is that no matter how simple the design and mechanics are, they become exponentially more complex in practice. 

We need to plan our tasks more rationally. During our testing phase, some features were not fully completed, leaving many elements that could not be open for testing. The design of our game mechanics is inherently complex, involving different characters and flexible level selection. Therefore, during development, we need to advance these progress step by step. We need to break down the tasks and progress more later on, when we are working on complex projects. We also need to split up the different tasks. This will allow us to realistically estimate the amount of work and the expected completion time. These elements can be met to help us complete the project efficiently and quickly.

Future Revisions

Our future optimizations are in the following directions: more complete game components and modes, richer character features.

First, we can add a Characters Unlocked Mode or Infinite Mode. For now, we only have a few levels of Arcade Mode. This means that, after people pass the level, the game is less replayable. If there are different modes, and if people can add them flexibly, it will make the whole game more playable. If there was a Characters Unlocked Mode, then we could even add an online matchmaking mode.

In addition, we can add more character characteristics. Currently, although different characters have different attack patterns and characteristics, there is no quantitative representation of the specific values. We can add information to the character display, so that people can see the character's attack and defense values. In addition, we can add more sound effects and special stories to enrich the game.