SFX Changes Everything

Today consisted of community engagement in terms of getting people to test my game and give me feedback. The feedback I received played a crucial part in the development of the game as it was clear that it was needed.

The first change I did was implement on-screen text called “Objectives” and moved this to the right-hand side of the screen. Under the objectives contained the original “Keys” text, however, instead of it just saying “Keys: 0” I changed it to “Keys: 0/3”, which gave a better indication to the player how many they’d be searching for. In addition to this, once the player had found all the keys, the text would change to “Find the door to escape” which informed the player to know the next objective. This gave the game more direction as when testing it felt more of aimlessly roaming around the map until you figured out how to beat the level.

The next feature I added was making the world darker and using light around the player to make the area around the player easier to see.

To add to this effect, I added fog to restrict how far the player could see, however, this came with an issue as previously mentioned I had only applied the particle effects to the ammo and health, this made finding the keys virtually impossible unless you checked every corner! Thankfully, this was a quick fix and I just added a yellow particle effect which can be seen through the fog and lures the player to it.

No particle effect with fog:

Particle effect with fog:

Lastly, I added a sounds effect for when the player enters the level, and for when the player is being attacked by a zombie. If a zombie kills the player, then a dying sound effect will play. I feel like sound effects are a good portion of what makes a horror game good, especially when it scares the player!