Third Party Assets
I used the original assets from the ID software .PAK file from my paid version of Quake, which originally I included in my packaged map. After researching though I wasn't allowed to distribute these files however luckily the quakespasm client that runs the mod is able to use the original Quake assets without me including the assets in the package folder.
I also used .wasd from Quaddicteds archive: https://www.quaddicted.com/files/wads/
I adjusted the lighting in the main cave because it was very bright at the top, which I didn't thinkmade sense so I gave the lights at the top a lower wait and the ligths at the bottom stronger wait. This created more definiton in the walls at the top, making the cave feel more enclosed. The lava was more apparent and somewhat domineering now that the light contrast was more sharp.
I added some more detail to the rock formations with these smaller blocky sections, to breakup the big squares and make the forms more organic to visually reinforce the cave environment.
I changed Cave B a bit, I made the actual cave bigger since the pathways were still a bit small for the AI to fit through and I wanted to give the player more manouverability so I opened up the small crevice by the gold key. This made sure the player didn't immediatley get backed into an inescapable corner by the shambler when it drops down.
I realised as I was adjusting the lighting that I could use the torches a little more deliberatley to denote the secrets better. I copied this from Sandy Petersons who said he used "markers" wherever he placed secrets. I thought this technique was effective because it asks the player to take account of their surroundings and be observant.
I was confused with the trigger secret because on the wiki it says there should be a wait key, which would allow the secret to be retriggered however this wasn't the case in engine so to resolve the issue I copied what I did with the skeleton booby trap and left the door open. I felt like this made sense anyone because once the player has discovered a secret they can't really discover it again.
I spent lots of time looking on the quake wiki at the different key / value pairs and noticed this health key on the button. I knew that there is functionlity to activate the buttons by shooting them in the game however I didn't realise what this key was for until after reading it no the wiki.
I realised from other doors I'd made in the levels that you could set them to never close again. I was unsure at first as to how to fix the issue of the player possibly getting stuck in the room with skeletons without making it so the skeletons can activate the door. I tried various different triggers and adjusting the key value pairs however I realised that setting the door so it just doesn't close again was the best solution.
I noticed as I was scrolling through all of the entities that there were these ambient noises. I tested them all and found this drip track that was perfect for the cave environment. When I put it in it really added to the believability of the environment.
I also added windy ambience near the sky sesctions where the cave is dug out, which again adds to the believability and is a nice contrast to the dripping in the hosile areas reinforcing that the man made tunnels with the elevators are "safe" or "rest" zones.
It's good that a few different people mentioned the level structure and player choice afforded by the hub structure. When I was watching player's I noticed after getting a certain weapon but dying in a cave a player would sometimes go back get the weapon from one cave but turn around and enter the other cave, which harks back to my inspirations from the puzzle box dungeons of zelda and animal well. Even when a player dies their exploration is rewarded by finding a different type of weapon so they're building out their mental model of the map and coming up with their own pathways around utilising the various affordances.
I found the 2nd persons comment about creeping around in cave C interesting because there's no actual button to creep in the game so that is an experience entirely created in the users head from the atmosphere and clostrophobic shape of the cave. I imagine this adds to the intensity of the situation making it more impactful and meaningful.
Frustration is important to ask about because if a player is too frustrated they might not continue to play and might indicate that something is unbalaced.
Following on from questions 2, 3 and 4 the fact that none has said that the level in general felt too difficult or the enemies felt disproportionatley strong, this strengthens my argument that the level isn't too difficult and therefore unbalanced.
I did notice frustrating moments where the player kept trying to push buttons however it wouldn't recognise for some reason so I will change the button to activate when shot at. I think this makes the most sense anyway since the player does this is Quake sometimes and because the guns are a players main form of interaction.
I didn't realise that if the player walks into the cavern with skeletons they wouldn't be able to get out when the door shut. This might be a difficult fix since I think triggers can be triggered by enemies so its not a simple case of putting an activation trigger on the other side but this is an important thing to fix.
With regards to the level being too small, I do think it could be bigger particularly in Cave A however since there are caves on the other sides of it, it would be quite difficult to move everything around. The platforms can't just be expanded either because that would blolck sightlines between the player and enemies on different elevations. The other persons comment about getting stuck in the elevators and hallways is something I noticed a few players experience. I could expand the hallway sizes and take a look at the platform since a lot of player's were getting stuck on it. Given that only one person had an issue with Cave A and the difficulty to fix this issue I don't think it's a priority to fix right now however the small sample size for this playtesting session could hide that it would be a bigger problem than is presented here.
For questions 5 and 6 I wanted to measure how well the level met criteria 1: How well does the level make the player feel as though they’re playing a true Quake map.
Everyone who said they'd played Quake before agreed that the level mimiced their understanding of a Quake map either extremely well or somewhat well so the map meets this criteria well.
However, I should've added in a qualitative question with a text response to find out why some people put somewhat well instead of extremely well.
For question 2, 3 and 4 I wanted to guage how balanced the level felt and specifically how well the level meets criteria 2: How well does the player feel the hostility of the environment.
From Q2's responses it seemed there could be more opportunities for the player to heal and gain ammo. I noticed also when watching players that they would often run out of ammo. Especially when getting another weapon that used the same ammo type the player would run out quite quickly so I need to give players more opportunities to find resources, which I could use as rewards for finding a new weapon or area.
Althought similar to eachother the reason I added Qs 3 and 4 was to measure difficulty. However, I specifically wanted to know the relation of difficulty between the player themself and the enemies. After doing this and reading back through the feedback I'm now realising that I should've had more of a general question to measure how difficult the players felt the level was in general because from Q3 and Q4 I don't know if players are unhappy with the disproprtionality. From my research Quake is known as a challenging game so I don't think the discrepancy in strength is necessarily a bad thing. I think if the average responses for the player were more Level 1 - 2 I'd be more concerned however there are reasonable factors that could be contributing to the player not perceiving themself as very strong. About half of participants haven't played Quake before so it could be that the player's skill level could be impacting their perception, I noticed a lot of players standing still a lot whereas it tends to be better if you play more aggressivley and move around more. The theme of the level is that the environment itself is hostile so it could be that the player is referencing their strength against both the enemies and the environment. Most player's gave the level a couple of goes without me telling them to even after dying multiple times so I don't think difficulty in general is a big issue.
After noticing that none could beat the shambler in Cave B I realised I would have to change this though.
[WK 11-13] Playtesting Feedback and Polish
Gathering Playtest Feedback
For the first question I was trying to guage how well my level was meeting criteria 3: How well does the level communicate a mine environment even if the player has never been to a mine in real life.
For some reason some people didn't complete this question so the feedback might not be reliable. I have had lots of people say to me in person that it looks like a mine however I can't be sure that those people haven't been influenced by me telling them what it is.
Changes from responses
In Quake the secrets are mostly all positive containing health and ammo packs. After playtesting I realised I needed to be more generous with the health and ammo packs. Somebody asked if there were any secrets to find, to which I realised there was only one secret that would help the player. I decided to make add one or two more "nice" secrets since there needed to be more health and ammo packs and they reward the player for exploration.
In Cave B I had the same issue with the first skeleton surprise boobytrap where the player could get trapped but I couldn't place a trigger on the other side because the monsters could activate it. Since I wanted to add more secrets I placed the trigger deeper into the cave and added this small section in the back with ammo and the supernail gun. I changed the skeletons to a monster dog because the skeletons would block the players exit and since they kept respawning in between the door opening it was impossible for theplayer to get out. The monster dog also jumps out at the player which is a lot more thrilling.
I couldn't get the teleport function to work however I had this idea to have the monsters come through the portal as if they're invading to defend their hold on the mine. I'd seen someone make a fake glass window the player could walk through so I went back to the quake wiki to look at the different class types. I noticed there was this ilusionary class that allowed entities to pass through it. Some of the textures move around like the sky texture and I found this blood texture so I decided to use it because the movement gives the impression that its active or "live" since the portal texture wasn't working for some reason. At first I made this secret doorway behind the portal that the enemies would pass through after the shambler died as if they were coming out of the portal however a major issue was that the enemies couldn't see the player through the portal so they wouldn'tleave the crevice.
I thought I could trigger them with audio somehow however that wasn't working so I was looking through the entites list again and noticed triggers that said monster jump and push, I tried these as well but the enemies just ended up killing eachother as they were forced into one another.
After being stumped I found a teleport trigger. I struggled to understand how it worked at first so I looked up a tutorial from dumptruck_ds on it. Althought you can't spawn multiple enemies to the same point at the same time I tried triggering one to teleport after one had died and that worked. It works really well because the VFX reinforces the notion that the enemies and coming though the portal.
I addeed some text to pop up along the way to promote the narrative of reinforcements being sent in to prevent the player's reclamation!