Project Postmortem

What went well

The challenge of the game is well balanced, not too hard, not too easy,  but allows the player to master it and improve their high score. The rotating platforms also function well, rotating smoothly.

What to improve

One thing I'd like to improve is the three lives system. The player has three lives, with one being taken away every time a colour enters the wrong zone. I would like to improve it by coming up with a more creative way for the player to lose to replace it. One idea that I had was a meter that starts filled, but decreases when a colour enters the wrong zone, and slowly refills after a successful streak of guiding colours into the correct zone. This way, the player will only lose if they are consistently failing, but also allows the player to make up for the occasional mistake, instead if punishing them regardless.

It may also be a good idea to add a feature that swaps the positions of the coloured zones after scoring a certain amount, this could add a further challenge to players that consistently score highly.

Bugs and issues

A bug I encountered was with the game's physics. Occasionally when a colour interacts in a certain way with a rotating platform, it can either get stuck in it, shoot off rapidly in another direction, or both. I reduced the likelihood of this bug occurring, but have been unable to completely fix it. I researched possible solutions to help, but I found that it may also be a problem with Unreal Engine's physics.

Design choices and iterations

Initially, there were no barriers separating the different zones, but it quickly became apparent through playtesting that it felt unfair if the player rotated a platform the correct way at the correct time, but the colour would bounce into an incorrect zone. Also, the original idea for the game was the the player would control a circle that would follow the mouse, and the goal would be to guide colours into the correct zones by hitting them with the mouse. However, after playtesting, it appeared that this cause quite a few bugs with the physics of the game, and the rotating platforms became the alternative.