Town White Box and Testing

Initially a whitebox of Scrap Town's streets was made without any colours and asked 10 students to navigate through it using teleportation points.

The feedback from 8 players for improvements included:

- Was hard to differentiate the buildings with gray colour (base colours added)

- Some Parts felt claustrophobic

- Players wanted to be able to go between houses and use them as cover instead of just being in the middle of the streets (telepoints between alleys added)

- Some also suggested having narrow streets for the easier parts as it wouldn't be as hard to aim, then have open spaces once the player is used to the mechanics. This is something we are considering and will test.

We applied colours using Joe's colour schemes and changed teleportation points so that it felt like players were zig-zaggin through the streets and placed some down alleys so they could use houses as cover. We also placed proxy barrels and crates in the streets as cover.

These are the base colours for the buildings. If player feedback is positive, these will be used when texturing.

Open Windows block the view on some houses when taking cover in alley ways. We will have to ensure their placement is taken into consideration when building the final houses. 

Changes were applied (colour added, players can go between some buildings, teleport pads now make the player zig zag through the streets instead of going in a straight line) and the level was tested again with 10 players:

- open windows blocked the view when using houses as cover, so we will need to change some of the models.

- Cover such as barrels and crates have to be almost overlapping the telepoint's edges so that the player feels snugly protected by them. Otherwise, if the player spawns on a telepoint and the cover is too far away, it feels too exposed.

- Alley ways that can't be used as cover need to be clearly inaccessible, so blocked by game props that feel natural.

- Discussion needed! - should there be one single set point on the telepoints to ensure the player always spawns in the exact same place so we can take this into consideration with enemy and cover placement.

- We will be able to see in to houses so much more now. We may need assets for house (beds, cookers, ladder, rugs)

- No comments regarding level feeling claustrophobic, but more testing needed.

- No comments stating players unable to distinguish between buildings, colours may have fixed this but more testing needed.