Last week was mostly trying to fit in as many finishing touches to the Volcarnage Island as I could before an indie play testing meetup on Wednesday.  New features eventually went on hold as I tried to improve the claw picking up cars, and it still needs some work. Also, I tried to lock down changes earlier and do testing beforehand for a couple hours, which paid off for the most part.

I would say, it was the most successful showing of Carpoon yet in terms of number of people playing it and the amount of time they played it for. Part of this might have been getting a good spot with not as many games on display. Another factor is a positive feedback loop, where if people are playing the game, people are seeing others play it and can get a sense of the game. Carpoon's title screen is static at the moment, and doesn't really communicate what the game is except for the "Twin-stick car harpooning & recycling action" pitch. 

From the event, there were a few key points that I saw or were suggested by players:

1) "Hold" R-Trigger for the harpoon

Considering I didn't even mention this to a couple of players that suggested it, the feedback was good confirmation that holding down the right trigger while grappling with cars is the way to go. Last month, I found that the harpoon was sticking in walls with this setup, but after the meetup, I managed to stop it from testing collisions when it's on the way back to its tow truck.

2) Auto-aligning the Tow Arm when there is no right stick input

Received this suggestion from an experienced game designer and it made sense so I added ASAP. Makes playing the game easier for newcomers and looks better. One drawback if you don't use the right stick is that there is no drifting when attached to walls. Later on, I'll tweak some of the harpoon aiming for longer shots.

3) Players weren't respawning at times (Missed in testing)

Players have two objects in Carpoon: Player Data that always exists and Player Truck that can be destroyed. Before the event, I had swapped the oPlayerData object from teleporting back to the truck spawn point to a smooth transition with movement due to a jarring camera shift otherwise. However, some players weren't respawning unless someone harpooned their truck and moved them a little. 

Turns out, there was this code fragment from before when I was working on deactivating collisions to go up to the volcano pushing the oPlayerData back down! A bonus is that I removed some of the other collision events it had from before when it was still ghost eyes with tears and Carpoon should run faster.

4) Clearer Team Setup in Volcarnage Level

Keeping track of six colours on a two-side map isn't easy! I have to either limit the team sides to red & blue, or someone make the environment a base colour of one truck along with highlight colours from the second. Another option may be to add an arrow to direct where the player should go back to, or put the trucks in the UI by their score.

5) Co-op: Keep slow cars in-bounds

Found it's no fun waiting for a slow car to loop around the world in four player match. If cars are slower, I may have them stick to the playable area. Maybe even for all cars. Also, if there's been no car harpooned for a while, I may add the last car to the camera tracking to have it on screen.

Co-op, while great as a starting point for players to try Carpoon, is also harder to keep track of everything with four players. Scaling up the number of cars in each wave might get around this. Also, some players treat co-op like versus at first and go after each other - I may have to make that clearer or add more incentives to work together.

6) Consider cursors for everyone in the menu

Cursors for everyone is more of a "gravy" feature but when everyone controls the menu simultaneously, mistakes can be made. Cursors along with holding a button for half a second to confirm selections should get around that. After all, Smash Bros. must do that for a reason!

Keeping on top of play testing and feedback while moving  the game forward can be difficult, but is well worth it for iteration and shaping the game along the way. At this point in development I know finishing is still a ways off, but at least I feel that I can see the finish line as a tiny speck in the distance!