The Lethal Deal Vertical Slice is Finished! - Lethal Deal Development Log 7

It's been a hot minute! In between finishing University, getting a job in the games industry, going to UK Games Expo 2022 and more, it's been difficult to find time to write about it all. However, I am back and doing some blogging and if you want to download the finished version of the vertical slice for Lethal Deal, head to the itch.io page here!

This isn't the last post regarding Lethal Deal, as we have recently been to Game Republic and I want to talk a bit about that experience. We have also just submitted the game to The Rookies 2022, so that could also be another blog post.

However, to cap off development I thought it would be a good idea to mention what I am proud of and what I wish I/we could have done better on the project. 

What am I Proud of?

• How well the team has worked together during the 12 week development process.
• I got more familiar with the art and programming processes, which will intern improve myself as a designer.
• That we really tried to be innovative with this game. The reason why an FPS Deckbuilding game doesn't exist, at least in mainstream games, is because it is really difficult to design for. I think we did a great job at capturing the vision in this vertical slice. 
• The use of iterative development through the use of user testing.
• The advanced movement in this game has great game feel. Myself, along with a lot of other user testers, could just slide and dash and clamber around the main arena in Lethal Deal for ages and still find it satisfying. 

What could be Improved?

• I'll go into more detail about it in a different post, but Game Republic made me realise that sometimes it's better to sacrifice a bit of vision in order to hook players into a game earlier. This game takes a lot of time to develop and to shine, and that was very apparent during Game Republic where judges only had five minutes to see your game.
• More design iteration on the card play aspect of the game could have been helpful. Essentially, it has stayed the same since day one, outside of changes made to the actual cards.
• Less tutorial level areas and more arenas. We decided to cut arena two out of the game (the second arena after the first one you complete before the boss) and instead focus on making quite a long tutorial section. The aim for this was to use VO to tell a story and to introduce players to mechanics. Firstly, we didn't get VO in in time, but secondly, I feel like a quick introduction to action, followed by some lore, and then into the second arena might have paced out better.

Conclusion

Like I said earlier in the post, I will continue talking about Lethal Deal, but for now I'd like to conclude by saying the project was amazing to work on as a designer. To have so many talented people in other fields aiding me to do my job was an amazing experience. As a team, we are going to be developing for the GMTK 2022 game jam and maybe more over the summer, so stay tuned for updates!