Thanh Tieu and Ana Nguyen
Previous with Houston Taylor, Zoe Clute, Asher Hensley
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Overview
ISPS (InterStellar Postal Service) is designed to immerse players in the workings of a functional package delivery business. Through gameplay, we aim to show how speed, accuracy, and money influence the flow of packages through sorting centers and delivery systems, ultimately getting them to their destination.
The game guides players through a short narrative, two mini-games, and a longer development process structured in levels. The story introduces Bebop, an alien who is starting her own postal business, and Cinder, her mentor, who provides tutorials and advice throughout the game. In the first mini-game, players sort “labeled” packages into bins, and each properly sorted package becomes part of the second mini-game, where players shoot the sorted packages from a ship to receivers while avoiding obstacles. As players sort and deliver, they earn money that can be used for upgrades or research. Research unlocks new planets with more challenging package quotas, expanding the player’s business.
The game’s progression revolves around increasing the speed and accuracy of sorting and delivery, which generates more money and allows for further upgrades. This creates an “upward spiral of success” as players gain more resources to improve their systems.
We hope players feel the challenge of increasing difficulty, the thrill of discovery as they unlock new packages and planets, and the satisfaction of progressing through the game’s systems. With cute characters, interactive gameplay, and an engaging story, players will experience both the complexity of running an interplanetary postal service and the fantasy of building relationships across the galaxy.
Iteration 1
Based on feedback from our previous version and playtests, we implemented several changes to improve the overall quality of life in the game. The sorting mechanic was updated to function as a queue, allowing for smoother gameplay. Controls were adjusted, shifting from mouse clicks to keyboard inputs to align with player preferences. To enhance feedback and immersion, various sound effects were added: a popping sound when a package is correctly sorted, a lower sound for incorrect sorting, a shooting sound when firing packages, a popping sound for successful deliveries, and distinct sounds for hitting or shooting asteroids. We wanted to see if our sound and control choices enhanced the gaming experience. We also made it so that the delivery receiver sprite would change based on planets. We also made sure the screen size would scale.
The changes we made based on early playtests really helped improve the game’s clarity and overall feel. Players loved the new sound effects, like the popping sound for successful sorting and the distinct noises for hitting obstacles, which made the feedback more satisfying and clear. Switching the sorting mechanic to a queue and moving from mouse to keyboard controls made the gameplay smoother and easier to navigate.
That said, there’s still room for improvement. Some players were confused about the purpose of research and development and wanted clearer explanations for upgrades, like showing effects such as “+1 health.” Movement speed compared to package speed felt off to some players, and they suggested moving the trash bin to the middle to make sorting less frustrating. There’s also a need for better tutorials to explain mechanics like dying or shooting specific targets, and the laser hitboxes could be a bit bigger for smoother play. There was also confusion on why they were shooting packages at the cows and not the rocks, as is more familiar with galaxy shooters. Our playtester also wanted the continue button to be more obvious and not at the bottom after scrolling for upgrades.
Iteration 2
For this iteration, we put the trash bin in the middle of the sorting game. We also made both the sorting minigame and delivery minigame accelerate as time passed to keep it engaging. We also made more aesthetic changes like our own button and dialogue sprites. Since the in-class test was relatively short, we wanted to test the state of overall gameplay balance.
Moving the trash bin to the middle of the sorting game was successful, as it made the flow smoother. The acceleration in both the sorting and delivery minigames kept things engaging. While our tester was initially confused that they could deliver multiple packages to the same receiver, they soon cheered it as a feature as it made them feel like they “gamed” the system. Our playtester was initially confused on what research and development was and how to unlock the next planet. Once they would continue rolling on research and development even though they haven’t explored the next available planet, simply because they enjoyed the gatcha system. However, there’s still some confusion, like “I shoot them to the cows?,” showing the delivery minigame instructions could be clearer. Balancing is a big issue—once the third planet unlocked, players could buy all the upgrades way too easily, but even with max upgrades, the last planet felt impossible to beat. Upgrades were $80 max when players were earning thousands by the third planet. Bugs, like the package queue breaking when players hit the max hand limit, also need fixing ASAP. Moreover, our player was able to go into debt because the fuel cost was more than they had made. A few UI tweaks, like matching the start button in the delivery tutorial to the designed sprite and fixing the money text box size, would also polish things up.
Iteration 3
We also addressed an issue in the delivery game by scaling the shooting speed to match the acceleration. Previously, as the minigame sped up, receivers moved faster, but the shooting speed remained static unless the player bought an upgrade, which disrupted gameplay flow. Additionally, we (finally) replaced the cow sprite on the first planet with a dinosaur sprite and introduced a new dinosaur-themed planet that matches the mentor’s starting planet colors. We also added a “+1” animation that would pop up when a player would sort a package correctly as visual feedback. We also increased the cost of upgrades. Furthermore, we added shadows of planets into the main hub so that players would know that they had to unlock more planets, and locked the start button until the player could afford the fuel costs of the planet. We also added music to the main menu, hub, and minigames.
We also made it so that reputation would affect the money made, so that when a player maxed reputation, they could earn double the amount of money at that planet, forwarding their progression in the game. Conversely, when a reputation is botched they would earn half at that planet.
We decided to enhance our best features by making the gacha system even more engaging. Previously, feedback from the upgrade bar was minimal when players purchased research and development, but now we’ve added a full gacha animation and sound effects to make the experience more rewarding.
In addition, we finally added both a tooltip and corner popup to upgrades so that players could get more information about an upgrade as well as acknowledgement that an upgrade was bought. For example, when a player would buy the hp upgrade, it would explicitly say what the new hp is. There was also quantitative information about an upgrade in the tooltip as well.
Moreover, we saw that players were locked around the same score of around 20, capping at 30 even after buying all the upgrades. While upgrades improved quality of life, the timer in the sorting game capped player scores. To address this, we implemented a new mechanic to spawn a clock that would drop in the sorting game. This clock would allow players to extend the time in the sorting game by 5 seconds. To balance this, we also made it so that the timer would decrease by 2 seconds if a player missorted. The time to spawn would decrease as players progressed through planets.
The reactions were full of energy, and we got some great feedback on how the game felt and where it could improve. There was extensive use of the tooltips, and none of the upgrades needed explanation like in previous tests. The new clock dropping mechanic was well received and the consequence of missorting was fair (*missorts* “-2 seconds. Okay, cool”). The gacha system and animations were once again endorsed. Our playtester loved the intuitive +1 indicator for sorting, and there were a lot of fun moments—like cracking knuckles before sorting, humming to the music, and punching the air after a successful gacha pull. But there were a few hiccups too—like the font inconsistency in the delivery game score and confusion on the upgrade screen because the scrolling was not obvious (Wait, I can scroll?”). The sorting speed also felt a bit slow in later phases of the game as our playtester became more experienced, noting it needed a boost for a smoother experience. The game’s difficulty balance raised some eyebrows—one player mentioned the fourth planet felt impossible to beat, even with max upgrades, and others wished there were faster box spawns in the sorting game and a clearer explanation of the quota. Some feedback was to match the hitbox to the top of the package stack (stretch goal, right?) rather than waiting to hit the character, and wanting more visibility on how to use lasers. After unlocking the third planet, we asked if our playtester would like to stop and wrap up, but they were determined to finish the game, and continued playing for a grand total of 40 minutes.
Iteration 4
While the new clock mechanic was well received, we wanted players to be able to get even higher scores to feel a sense of achievement. To encourage this, we increased the spawn rate of both the additional clock, increased the base speed for both the sorting and delivery game based on the planet, and increased the spawn cap of packages, so that near the end it was more dramatic of an increase in spawning. This would make it so that players wouldn’t feel like they were waiting for packages to spawn, but could experience a rush at the end. This playtest(s) would focus on balancing the game further.
Our playtester had lots of fun trying to best their score, holler “Time!” whenever they saw a clock spawn. While their score was around 20-something in the starter planet, they were able to get to 217 by the last planet! We learned that giving them more speed and time allows them to have more agency and higher scores as they progress to higher planets. Through several iterations we were able to settle on an acceptable spawning rate and acceleration for the minigames.
We also tested to see the progression between planets. We didn’t want players to feel like they had to grind so much between planets, but also had to play it at least one time in order to progress. It took around 2-4 rounds between each planet to obtain enough money to pay the fuel costs for the next planet, in between spending on upgrades.
Even after achieving the highest score in game thus far, the playtester still couldn’t beat our impossible quota, so we tested several times between different playtesters and averaged the score, then made an assumption on what the expected upgrade progress to determine new quotas.
Final changes
We addressed some bug fixes like floating point errors, updating the quota to be the packages delivered * multiplier based on upgrades (rather than just the raw score). We fixed some text sizing, hitboxes, and dialogue sizing. We made it more obvious when a player couldn’t afford the fuel costs of a planet, by highlighting the fuel costs green and red depending on if they could afford/not afford the costs. We also added a best score tracker for both the sorting and delivery game.
Some features we wanted to add, but were unable to:
- A dash in the sorting game for enhanced gameplay
- More obstacles/levels for the delivery game (rock walls, rocks encircling the receivers, more crazy rocks and receiver movement in general)
- Narrative and dialogue when unlocking new planets
- End narrative and dialogue
- Matching sprites between planets
- Making options actually options like lowering sound and stuffs
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Sound credits:
- arcade bonus alert : https://mixkit.co/free-sound-effects/arcade/
- Hovercraft Race Day by Origami Repetika, source Free Music Archive, license CC BY
- Scaling The Ivory Tower by Origami Repetika, source Free Music Archive, license CC BY
- Music in the background from https://www.FesliyanStudios.com
- Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):
- https://uppbeat.io/t/kevin-macleod/bit-shift
- License code: CGY6MUQNJRMEQZVS
- https://void1gaming.itch.io/halftone-sound-effects-pack-lite
- https://mixkit.co/free-sound-effects/game/
