Ultimate Wybel Challenge - Lessons Learnt On Game Design

For those who still don't know what this event is about.
Details are here: https://forums.wynncraft.com/threads/176997/

So as you guys know, Ultimate Wybel Challenge just ended!
There are joys, there are tears.
But all in all, I believe everyone had fun.
Seeing everyone so dedicated, working together as a team, strengthening the community spirit! That is one of the goals for this challenge.

Through this event, I learnt some really important lessons when comes to Game Design, which I will go in depth, and might be useful for those who dreams to be a Game Designer one day.


1: The importance of prototyping a game idea
Please no hate, but this event was not tested by me at all. I was only accessing some possible locations that the Wybels can go to. I thought this challenge is rather impossible. But after this I'm glad to say Ultimate Wybel Challenge is possible!

This challenge started out as a guild event to bring Nibbles to as far as possible. But seeing how my guildmates brought Scotch and Seafoam along, this gave me an idea for this community challenge, hence Ultimate Wybel Challenge was born.

This challenge is intended to be very difficult, and made slightly easier if played with a team and good planning. @Nyam team had a really solid plan. Although its sad to see their wybels die to the Molten Height demons just 50 blocks from victory.

There are many things that will not go according to plan when coming out with game concept ideas, like the mob totems, originally intended to increase spawn rate of mobs, got too overpowered that it got nerfed many times.

It is important to prototype out an idea to see how it goes. Like it? Keep it! Don't like it? Try a new idea. Since Version 2 of the event will be coming soon, there will not be anymore prototyping since the Version 1 can be a prototype of it. But again, prototyping is important. When comes to the execution/development stage, it will be too late to scrap a bad idea.

There are a few things I feel this challenge was messed up. Which I will go into the next few parts.

But 3 of them i will like to discuss.
@Aarontti team: The submission screenshot issue, I did not expect the cluster of wybels stuck together and hide the 3 wybel's names. And that caused so much disputes.
@Nyam team: Close to destination but wybel died. Still had to accept Molten Height as Rodoroc.
@motoki1 team: Same issue as @Nyam team, but for Sky islands. I ended up spending more LEs than intended for this event.
As you can see in the above 3 examples, it's important to access the site and imagine the end results, which is the 3 wybels at the destinations, as well as the process to get there. But this is most accurate through prototype testing.

2: Balance difficulty to rewards
Originally the locations are Bantisu Temple, Rodoroc and Wybel Island. The rewards are 32 LE, 64 LE and 96 LE respectively.

I never thought of the players going through by Jofash Dock, that's why Wybel Island has the highest price, due to the distance players have to travel. But then I realised Bantisu Temple became the hardest among the 3, but has the lowest reward! That's why Bantisu Temple got removed in the end.

Bantisu Temple was so difficult because of the ranged mobs like Phoenix and Trolls, but also the maze-like nature of Canyon of the Lost. Again, this was originally planned that the players will go through Canyon of the Lost, hence going back to Part 1 about Prototyping.

Replacing Bantisu Temple was Fruma Gate, which is too easy for the amount of prize money (32 LE).


3: Game Ux (User Experience)
Game Designer and Game Ux Designer are very different roles! Game Designers are the ones who come out with an idea, concept and mechanics. But Game Ux Designers are the one translating the ideas for a player, essentially coming out with ideas in the perspectives of the player. You can check out Extra Credit's recent video about Game Ux Design.

So about this Wybel Challenge, I had 2 cases.

@motoki1 team: Wybels glitched through the half slabs in Sky Islands, essentially losing the run because the wybels couldn't get back up.
@LarzLapiz team: Wybels tried to kill mobs in Sky Islands, but fell into the void with them.

The trouble about Wybel Challenge is that, if the wybels die or server crashes/restarts, well you're back to square 1, so this is kinda the challenge.

Starting back to Square 1 is a problem not possible to tackle, due to the wybel's AI and glitches and stuff, but there are ways to minimise that! Hence there's a need to access each part of the areas to check if there's any places for potential glitches. It's hard to see a team took 3 hours to get the wybels to one place and all wasted because of glitches.

Some potential fixes can be giving players more freedom to choose their wybels destination spot, and prizes will be dependent on the difficulty of the area.

-----------------------------------

The above lessons can be applied to other community events! Event for giveaways. It's just how you can apply them.

Thanks for reading :)
No Tl;dr unfortunately :)

 

tbh who would waste hours trying to get a bunch of wybels to a certain location

takes a "special" kind of person, i guess

 

it's about determination I guess xD

 

if one person fucking says it

i'll flip my shit

 

Good job!
A thread to remind everyone about the true meaning of the community events.
I hope you keep up with that :3
Also for Version 2 of this event, I now see there's some need to research things up. Well good luck on that.. I might.. be able to help you, so please ask me anytime.

 

it's about determination I guess!!
How you feel now?

 

Seeing the prizes fills you with determination.

________________________________

There's always that one guy who doesn't get the reference.

 

nahhh. me, @Ragersgottagame and @Madib00 had lots of fun :)

right?

 

The only problem I see is that the 90% of the time you're wasting on travelling the ocean with no challenge but only boring keyboard pressing
I'd say maybe rework on the idea next time so the challenge can be exciting and (difficult) the entire time :)
But the idea itself is very novel

 

I got close to wybel island aswell :^<

 

Ok I might try version 2. It sounds no-life, which is my second name. (Stag no-life REDACTED)

 

The bribe helped

 

I remember this as a guild event - the discord was going nuts with screenshots of nibbles lol - D_D kept yelling at nibbles xD

 

It was fun the first three tries, but after that...

 

Ha...ha...ha..ha...ha

PTSD