Reel it in!
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Reel It In is a chaotic 1v3 couch multiplayer game where players use a fishing rod to pull, push, and sabotage each other!
Gameplay
Our restrictions for this game was that it needed to be a couch co-op game. The inspiration came from the niche minecraft mechanic where you can hook other players with the fishing rod and pull them towards you.
The goal for our game was to avoid snow balls fired by a cannon that is controlled by one of the players. When a player gets hit by the snow ball the cannon player and the field player swap places.
Play testing is key
One big lesson I learned is PLAY TEST, PLAY TEST and PLAY TEST. In the second week we already had a working game. In hindsight we should have done a play test. If you are working on a project your mind gets fixated on one thing. Without external feedback we didn't realize that the game wasn't fun enough. After we worked on the game for 7 weeks the project was already past prototyping but it still didn't feel right. The reeling was clunky and the goal was not clear.
Our solution was to do a play test. We found multiple issues with game design. We wrote down all the problems so we could discuss it with the team. I convinced the team that we needed to do a big change. This is never fun as you are throwing away work. Check out the dev log week 7 quite the turn. After some more play testing we got the fun factor in the game.