Moai Game Jam Build Postmortem

Summary: Moai was a success! People genuinely enjoyed the game, with some even saying they would pay to play more. The puzzle elements seem to have landed well. Players are enjoying the scooter, the visuals, and the audio immensely. Overall I am very happy with Moai’s performance. 

The Good: People loved the vibe of the game. The music, pacing, and visuals all seem to work harmoniously with each other. Players who were determined to solve the puzzles seemed to understand them and complete them most of the time.

The Bad: Some players desire more camera control and find the existing controls limiting. The lack of input when in mid air seems to also be a common complaint. Players have praised the foresight of calling the professor to get unstuck, however it seems as though players are perhaps getting stuck more than they should be.

The Ugly: It is very easy to exploit the end game mechanics to give you the final answer and the outcome you desire without actually playing the game. Also for players who choose to dive fully into this iteration of Moai, most are finding it difficult to understand where they are, where they have been, and where new Moai may be. These two issues must be addressed  in a full release.

Solutions: 

• Lack of camera control: Add a look around feature to the right stick. Ensure this feature is not actually required to play or beat the game.
• Lack of air control: Allow the player to have some control over their character at a reduced rate.
• Players getting physically stuck on terrain: Rebalance the max slope limit of the character controller. Smooth out some areas and make some other areas steeper. I think this issue relates more to polish than an intrinsic engineering / design issue.
• Understanding where the player has been: This is going to need to be tackled in a multitude of ways:
  • First, add more distinct visuals to the island. As it exists right now, the whole island is very one dimensional in regards to its visuals. There are no landmarks to help you identify where is where.
  • Second: name these landmarks or the regions in which they exist, and place signs in the world to point the player to them.
  • Third: create a map the player can open. Update this map with icons when a player has discovered something. Show a marker where the player currently is.
  • Fourth: leave tire tracks in the world, so the player can precisely see where they have been in an area.
• Players don’t know where to find Moai: In addition to the map, a new tool should be added: the Geiger Counter. This tool will pick up trace signs of radiation from the stone the Moai are constructed from. The player will need to be within a certain range for it to work. This will operate similarly to a combination of the shrine detector in BoTW and the signalscope in OuterWilds.
• Players can exploit the endgame: This requires a fundamental change to the game mechanics. I believe the that current requirement to find the tribe that carved the most Moai should be removed. It effectively gives the player 3 guesses to beat the game. Instead perhaps a mechanic that would require the player to assign each Moai to a tribe accurately would be better. It would result in a complexity of (# Tribes ^ # Moai). So  20 Moai, and 4 Tribes would result in 1,099,511,627,776 possibilities. Nobody is guessing that any time soon.