This week, we focused on testing for our project. We have spoken more in depth about testing results, and how we plan to change our project in a separate development log, so this dev log will primarily focus on an area of our game we would expand upon if given enough time  and resources to transform Asphodel into a full scale project.  We have slowly realized that asphodel is an extremely ambitious project for our 6 week development period, and compromises have had to been made on several aspects of the game, one of those being story, specifically story pacing.

When presenting players with more than just a simple story or objective, it is important to pace your game and it's story. Introducing new story beats can help to keep a player hooked, but overwhelming them with information that isn't properly fleshed out, can lead to players becoming disinterested or feeling overwhelmed.

For a fully fleshed out and expanded version of Asphodel, we'd ideally have 3 different acts or sections of the story which is a typical story structure found across many different types of narrative , and each of these would introduce new gameplay elements to help keep things fresh and have the player actively involved with the story.

Act 1 would focus on familiarizing players with the settings, and unique gameplay mechanics. An introductory cutscene between the player character Shelly, and the controllable character on the ship Collin, would setup that the characters are stranded in deep space, and that they will be rescued if they can fetch a data sample for the mysterious GM corporation.  Players would focus on exploration, and learning to use the camera control mechanic. While environments wouldn't contain any enemies,  objects placed around the scene (such as corpses, broken objects and bullet decals) would communicate that something isn't quite right. Exploration on the Asphodel would help to establish a sense of tension.

Act 2 would then introduce enemies,  and shift the focus from exploration to interacting with enemies (either  by avoiding them or taking them down).  This would add a steady challenge to the game, and present the core  challenge to our game. To avoid the game becoming  too easy, there would be multiple enemy times, with one large enemy that could only be incapacitated or scared off temporarily.  Attentive players would be able to find collectables and  other environmental clues to suggest that the management for the GM Corporation knows more than they are willing to reveal to the player. 

Act 3 would have the aliens the player has been encountering take a back seat, and the fact that the GM corporation knows more than they were letting on would be explicitly revealed. After receiving their data sample, GM would alert the characters that they never had any intentions of saving them, and were using them to get what they wanted. Focus would switch to finding an alternate way to repair the original ship. and security robots would be sent out, giving the player a new enemy to worry about, forcing them to learn how to deal with a new enemy. At the climax of act 3, the player would be forced to make a difficult choice, something that we potentially envisioned as either having to leave one of the characters behind, having to sacrifice the characters to kill off the dangerous creatures aboard the ship, or potentially even revealing to the player that Shelly had actually been working against the character on the ship all along.  Having a narrative shift at the end of the game will help the story to resonate with players, as a twist reveal or difficult choice will leave them second guessing other narrative events throughout the game. 

Acts 1 and 2 would be designed to build up tension, and capitalize on it to make the player feel like they're in serious danger of being killed, but never facing impossible odds. With the reveal that GM is willing to betray them, act 3 would focus on a sense of frantic panic, hopefully instilling a feeling of walls closing in around the characters, with things seeming more and more desperate, before climaxing with one last twist or player decision to finish the events of Asphodel off.

Thorough work would have to be put in to the game's writing to ensure that story elements are communicated clearly, and that the acts flow together without leaving the player with thematic whiplash. Additionally, if there is a twist ending, care should be taken to provide subtle hints, so that the player doesn't feel completely blindsided.  Voice acting would be ideal to help communicate the story as well, as players who struggle with reading, will not feel overwhelmed with large blocks of text.

Overall we feel that further development of the story and pacing could have significant impacts on gameplay and the overall theme of Asphodel, and that if given enough resources and time, it would be an important area to focus developing.