Playtesting on the 3DS

2011-08-14

Yesterday we went out on a field trip to Skövde University to set up a playtest and invite some game students to try our new 3DS games. Many of us at Ludosity went to this uni ourselves, and I'm very fond of the place. So this was a wonderful opportunity to reconect and meet some of the newer students. It was very fun and hope to return soon and do it all again! This was the first time we went public with our new title Alien Chaos. That's the title for the follow-up to Mama & Son: Clean House that we released for XBLIG a while back. We have revisited that universe once again (third time now), and have added a wealth of new features, aswell as redesigning some core features. In the original there was a dynamic relationship between Mama and her Son, and that was so central to the gameplay that you could never play with just one character. You either had to team up with a friend in co-op, or let the AI take over. [caption id="attachment_1454" align="alignleft" width="400" caption="Fredrik enjoying some Alien Chaos!"][/caption] In redesigning for the 3DS we had to change some stuff around. Some because of the format, and some things because of time restraints. Initially we wanted to keep the dynamic co-op gameplay on the 3DS, but that meant either doing networked multilayer or AI, or both. Neither was within our time budget so we prototyped new gameplay using only one charcter - Really Shooter. What we found out though, was that this change actually enchaced the game.While the dynamic co-op was novel and fun, the (slightly) more traditonal gameplay of our new game is more long-lasting, less confusing, less annoying, and just plain fun. We still have all the cleaning up and recycling that is the series staple, only it's just one guy who's doing it. And it just works. Our playtesting went great, and we got some very nice feedback. We will return in a couple of weeks for another round, and we hope the game will be even better then! See you there!