End of Production Bug Review

Today mark's the last day of trimester and the last day of production for Spatha (Previously Trials of a Gladiator). Unfortunately there were still a few bugs in the game which showed up in testing so today's blog is a review on the bugs in question.

Body Block Bug (Game Breaking Score 10/10, Fixability Difficulty 9/10)

Above is a simulated image of the bug as I could not in fact repeat the bug myself [witnessed by myself and others].

A body block in this game means when two players occupy the same square, they "bounce" back into various surrounding squares depending on their original move. This particular bug occurs when one block is stationery and the other moves into its square. Once the body block starts, both squares jam and the rest of the players' commands fail to function. Then on the next command one or both blocks refuse to move. Now the cause of this is hard to pinpoint due to the fact I have been unable to replicate it but I believe it's a fundamental issue in how the players are controlled. To give a quick run down, each player has their own Player Controller script but separated from this is the Body Block function and the State Manager. The Body Block function is static and runs through only once (called by Player 1 only) and this then restarts the Player Controller sequence in both players. I think that what should have been programmed is either a Player Manager that sits on an empty gameObject and controls both players instead of two players running themselves (this has the added benefit of an easy to manage grid system) or a divided Body Block function run individually by each player that only runs that player.

I have my suspicions this is caused by the fact the person staying still completes the movement loop almost instantaneously while the other player still has to wait but because the Player Controller sequence gets restarted at the same time, both player's get restarted early. Then when the move gets restarted, it throws an error because both movements are stays and this shouldn't occur.

I rate this Game Breaking score at 10 out of 10 due to the fact the game is unplayable after the fact. I also rate the Fixability Difficulty at 9 out of 10 because the exact cause is unknown and the only solution at the moment is to rebuild the movement system which is terribly time consuming.

No Adrenaline Gain (Game Breaking Score 3/10, Fixability Difficulty 9/10)

[No picture for this one due to inability to replicate the bug and difficulty simulating it, but witnessed by both Kyle and I]

Adrenaline in this game is a resource gained by potions and most movements (there are exceptions) and can be used in Actions (Basic Attack, Guard, Power Attack, Counter). Without adrenaline a player cannot defeat the other player nor defend itself from the other player's attacks (if the player is in range).

This bug occurs seemingly randomly where movements don't generate the adrenaline they were supposed to and no adrenaline was gained. It is extremely unclear as to why this is. And the circumstances are dubious. I rate this bug as Game Breaking score of 3 out of 10 because the issue only ever lasts one turn or two and the game is still playable afterwards (if the player didn't die in those turns). It has a high rating of 9 out of 10 for Fixability Difficulty because the cause is completely unknown and we don't even know where to start on this.

Off-Centre Grid Movement (Game Breaking Score 6/10, Fixability Difficulty 8/10)

[Sneaky Back Stab from Same Square] [Witnessed by Kyle]

Our game is played on a chessboard-like grid and movements and commands run on which way the player is facing and how many squares the other player is away. When movements don't lock onto the grid squares, cheating can occur.

The cause of this bug is once again unclear. As I was not present when the bug was witnessed, I can only speculate on the cause. I do believe however that the cause does lay in how the player lerps from one position to another. It appears from the pictures I was sent that the lerp didn't actually finish for whatever reason. I rated this bug at 6 out of 10 for Game Breaking Score because the game is still playable and can be finished, only one player has an unfair advantage. This received an 8 out of 10 for Fixability Difficulty because I was unable to witness it happening and don't know the exact circumstances to the bug and will have to spend hours trying to replicate it then find the cause, then fix the bug which makes it not-an-easy fix.

Potion Failure (Game Breaking 2/10, Fixability Difficulty 9/10)

[No picture as I was not there to witness it and cannot replicate it]

Potions in the game are used to boost Health and Adrenaline more than what would occur normally in a single turn. When potions don't work when expected it can feel like the game cheated you but an entire game can be played without potions so it's not entirely game breaking.

For this bug I'm not even exactly sure what it is but I was informed that the potions were faulty and I think they mentioned that they pressed one potion and it used another. As I am unaware fully of what this bug is, I give it a Fixability Difficulty of 9 out of 10. Because the game can still be played in its entirety without potions, I give this bug a Game Breaking Score of 2 out of 10.

So to summarize, there are four major bugs currently in the game which will all be difficult to fix but only one is completely game breaking, with other bugs playable but less than ideal. Thanks for reading!