Devlog 14: Received 2nd Round of Feedback and Implemented it.

What have I accomplished:

I went to my coding club and asked fellow Godot/Unity enthusiasts to test my game!

Here’s basically what they said…

• They couldn’t find the tunnel entrances
• The Radio Messages don’t stand out enough
• Make the Flashlight brighter (again…)
• Add some sort of Sonar Scan circle thingy on the periscope - make it more useful rather than a wall of text
• Make the main menu brighter, can’t see the submarine
• Do not exactly know the initial objective of the game/where to go
• Make Arrows or hints to show player what to do in Finale sequence
• When the player escapes through the tunnel, add some decorations make it less boring.

Additionally, I got a 2nd round of feedback from my Dad…

He said the UI is much better, less cluttered and the flashlight is better as well as the other features, but he has some more feedback.

• He wants a minimap, so he can see where to go because he is lost and does not understand the compass heading.
• He wants a clearer font for the submarine UI as the current one is too blurry for him
• He wants me to put radioactive trifoils on the missiles

So onto how I implemented their feedback

• I made some vines on blender, I did it fairly quicky i didn’t bother putting it on Lapse.

So, I implemented the vines with a glowing green shader, so it is easily visible to the player. I placed them in paths leading to the entrance and tunnels, so player knows where to go.

As for the radio messages I added a yellow flashing border around them to attract player attention.

As for the flashlight, I just cranked the energy up to like 50+, did the job pretty well.

I added a sonar scan because the testers believe that the beacon signal is too generic and not really helpful, thus making the periscope itself not useful. In order to improve this, I added a sonar scan, the circular map that actual submarines use. After looking at some tutorials, checking documentation and reddit posts, I realized that I just have to somehow convert my prior knowledge of polar coordinates and convert them into game code. After a while, I got the red dots (sea mines) to appear on the map when the player presses the scan button (x).

Additionally, using groups, I got the warheads to come up as yellow dots on the sonar map.

The main menu was an easy fix, just had to increase the energy of the light.

As for the initial objective, I made an animation where the camera shows the player where the warheads are located and the journey they have to take, it like shows the whole path so the player has some knowledge of knowing if they are going on the right path. Also just added another hint telling the player of the direction (80-90° East.)

As for the Finale sequence, I just added a spinning arrow that points to the warhead signalling that the player has to ram it with their hull. Additionally, there are radio messages telling the player what to do.

When the player escapes, I added a tall, enclosed tunnel with hanging vines for the player to escape through. Makes the game design much more intentional and doesn’t confuse players into thinking they just broke through the map.

For the minimap, I used a SubViewportContainer with a camera being referenced to the actual SubViewport Node. The camera is in Orthogonal mode, and just facing down on the player 30metres away. The input is being displayed on the SubViewport.

For the submarine font, I changed some of the colors so the font stands out more and becomes more CRISP and changed the font so the player can easily understand what’s on the dashboard.

Another quick and easy fix was the radioactive logos. Just got a MeshInstance3D and slapped the texture on there and stuck it on the side of the warhead.

This is probably the last devlog until submission.