On top of this survey I got one of my friends Matt to test my level (who was on my game design course at college level) for 15 minutes to see what they thought, as someone with plenty of experience in games but never having played any Unreal Tournament before. Having a twisted perspective from someone familiar with shooters, just not this game in particular is nice to have. This is what he said: "I really enjoyed the constant chaos of the map. I am familiar with shooters but not unreal tournament so I enjoyed learning how different weapons and power ups worked. I think it would be good if there were more spawns other than the main tower as when you spawn it's easy to lose damage straight away and you only start with a pistol meaning there is an unfair advantage. I enjoyed the variety of environments with the towers and how they had different layouts and how they corresponded with the theme of the tower. I liked the check pattern of the towers as it is an interesting stylistic choice. Aesthetically I liked the earth towers interior as I liked the contrast of luminous mushrooms against the darkness of the towers cave like interior, I didn't spend much time in there as I didn't always find many enemies inside. I like the few secret areas I found especially the one which you get to via the main tower as the weapon is a one use only so you can't really abuse it (if you chose to you would have to wait a long time for the cool down of the weapon respawn)." -Matt Hale
These answers have given me incredible knowledge on the options and perspectives of the multiple people who played my game. Overall the response was so much better than the last group feedback I did, without any major bugs or issues being frequently brought up (besides the easily amendable one I mentioned below), and with absolutely no way to get out-of-bounds or into any unintended areas (which is helped by the fact that getting potentially out of bounds will lead to a player falling to their death. Following this feedback I made a huge amount of changes to streamline the experience and fix any bugs and errors. Here are a few of my efforts below:
Firstly a big issue I had was leaving one of the player spawns in the now closed-off upper section of the tower. Because I had sealed it away due to it being an unneeded part of the stage, I had made the rookie error of leaving a spawn location there by mistake. I'm glad this was discovered whilst testing the actual game, as usually when I test in editor I use the 'play from here' function, often abandoning the pre-set player spawns I've made. Speaking of spawns, because the majority of people spawn in and around the main tower, it made the middle section incredibly chaotic with a huge emphasis on spawn-killing, which is a very frustrating element in a fast-paced deathmatch game. To amend this I proceeded to place 4 spawn locations in every tower to spread everyone out and make the map more populated, but not deserted, making a total of 25 spawn points, giving the map more variety and randomness in spawning whilst discouraging spawn-killing (as it's less likely someone will appear at any one place). Plus my feedback indicated a huge range of responses regarding to the finding of enemy players, and this links directly to how much time they spent playing in either the main tower or smaller outside ones. I did this spawn rearrangement for every tower except fire, since because it's incredibly dangerous as an area to navigate that causes damage over time, while also including some very strong and exclusive weapons/power-ups, this location I feel is best reserved as a prime high-risk high-reward location for players to venture to themselves.
I got a few recommendations, both by Matt and people like Tom in my feedback, to keep the coloured checker grid patterns on the towers, as it fits to a very nice aesthetic choice. So I changed the Earth Tower from a previous rock texture I'd used back to yellow, but decorated with rocks instead for it to still embrace the theme alongside the other towers. This way they all keep their kiddy and colour-coordinated themes, whilst also having different pieces of decor on them to represent that specific element. Here's a tower comparison:
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One other issue Ben M found via testing was in the secret area containing the Redeemer. He found because it was a relatively safe space including the game's strongest gun and health pick-up, it provided a very 'campy' and safe playstyle where players could stay there for the whole game. To combat this I added a firey particle effect covering the whole platform where you slowly take 10 points of damage a second. This encourages the player to take the weapon and leave quickly, and since it also has to recharge fully each time the player spawns, they have to have been alive for a while before they're able even to collect it when they go, adding a nice layer of balance.
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Lastly I fixed numerous other quality of life issues to make the game level more enjoyable to play, from fixing bounce pads (such as one in the Lava Tower) so that it's impossible to kill yourself while flying. I also ensured that the bird particle effects don't clip through walls by lowering/raising them respectively, as it was rather jarring to behold. Another thing I did was fix the stairs in the central area so that they booth lead directly up to a higher vantage point, while making the area much more fun and easier to navigate by being more inter-connected, giving my level a much better flow channel. A final and smaller detail picked up on was the entrance to the Earth Tower, since the positioning of the shadowy dropped ledge made a few players think they'd fall to their death. To remedy this I placed a few of the glowing mushrooms from inside the cave outside both on the path and wall at eye-level to the player when they're approaching the entrance, allowing them to instinctively know they should jump off the ledge. He's a screenshot showing what I mean:
Now I feel that my level has reached a complete stage, I can finally write-up my critical analysis in my presentation. I feel that my level has developed a ton since it's original conception, considering on the first play-test it was a chaotic mess that would have been hilarious to play as an adventure game, but not as a deathmatch stage due to the sheer chaos, I feel my stage has improved a ton and is now much more streamlined and balanced, whilst also including all the silly quirky gimmicks I set out to create. Here's a final image depicting my finished level after all this progress and feedback, and personally I'm very proud of what I've managed to accomplish:
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