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Knock Off: Reflection

With the project complete, now comes time to reflect on its development and evaluate what went right and what we could have done better. First and foremost let me say that I am pleased with the game we created here. I went out of my comfort zone and designed light-hearted casual party game with a focus on accessibility and simplicity, a far cry from the dark and gritty or sarcastic and satirical hardcore games I tend to favour. Our programmers also really stretched themselves here, implementing fully functional 2v2 online multiplayer with a lobby system into this third-person shooter-platformer. This project is also very contemporary. Games have become more and more mainstream in current years and those that dominate the public zeitgeist such as Fortnite, Fall Guys, and Among Us tend to lean towards bright, cartoonish settings.


Unfortunately, as with most games, the game that was designed was much larger and more ambitious than the demo is able to show. I designed a plethora of weapons, obstacles and movement abilities which we sadly did not have time to implement. If implemented, these would have elevated the game from a simple but fun shooter to something really unique. These features would have given it the feel of a highly mobile third person shooter with physics puzzler inspired combat. The power up system I designed also didn't make it into the demo. This would have demonstrated an understanding of game economies and provide a good amount of variety to the gameplay.


All in all though, this module has been a great experience. I had a lots of fun and gained lots of great knowledge collaboratively creating my first online multiplayer game. This process has given me great confidence in creating online multiplayer games in the future and stepping out of my comfort zone to design games of many kinds. This project has also taught me to not limit my scope so much. Even if something may not get implemented, design it anyway, you never know what will make it in or come in handy at some point. Working with my team has also really honed my documentation skills as I had to very clearly communicate vast complex systems to them.




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