First of all, why are we going to do a play testing?
As developers and especially as players we want Anarky to be an immersive, dynamic world where players can find different forms of entertainment and interaction with other players. This will only be possible if during the early stages of development of Anarky we do play testing and with the feedback we make the necessary adjustments so that the game meets expectations.
To achieve an entertaining, immersive and varied world we must test:
Audio quality and its contribution to immersion
The audio for us is as important as the graphics, every user interaction with the game must give an audio response and this response must be satisfying.
The audio must not be repetitive to the point of exhausting the user and leading him to turn it off, it must also be immersive, making the user feel that he is interacting with a living world that has its own rules.
For us, audio has turned out to be a bigger challenge than expected and we want the best possible audio with the resources we have, so we hope that you during play testing will help us find that balance.
Graphic quality and stability
Graphically Anarky seeks a balance between artistic style and minimalism. The purpose of this combination is to create worlds where the graphics are immersive but maintaining a graphic style that allows Anarky to be compatible with most devices.
Some devices support shadows better, some have issues with lights, some have issues with draw distance. To make a multiplatform and crossplay world it is necessary to make decisions at the graphics level where some special effects are sacrificed in order to maintain compatibility.
Another important factor at the graphic level is stability, as activities are added and the number of objects on the screen increases, drops in FPS can occur. This makes the experience less immersive in addition to damaging the fluidity of the experience.
weather and day and night cycle
As it is a virtual world, we will progressively add a weather system and a day and night cycle that will have an impact on some activities in the virtual world, and will also have an effect on some NPCs.
We want the weather to help with variety in experiencing the world, to add some radomness to the activities. Just like it happened in some games from the early 2000s where it was necessary to arrive at a specific time at a building in order to find an Easter egg.
an intuitive world
Initially our idea was to add tutorials and other types of resources to try to teach the player how to navigate and understand how Anarky works. But Anarky is very complex, filling every corner of a help message or a tutorial can be very annoying. Our goal is that through play testing we can develop intuitive ways for the player to teach them how to navigate and use the full potential of Anarky, giving the user freedom to learn at their own pace.
activities and mini games
Anarky is all about video games, for now it is empty, but from our side we will be adding special activities in the form of minigames, easter eggs, references to other games, collectibles, and entire games within this world.
In addition to this, we are developing a system so that users can share their own games and activities, thus adding more things to do in this world.
Customization of spaces and avatar
An important feature of Anarky is personal spaces like your room. In Anarky’s residential buildings there are rooms and each room will have a unique owner, once occupied no one else can live there.
The room can be customized with furniture, decorations and other customization options that we will add during play testing. Each user will be able to visit the rooms of others, they will not be able to modify anything if they are not the owner of it.
Added to this in each room you can change the appearance of your avatar using the skins menu available in different parts of the world.
Gameplay and controls
In order to meet the goal of being an immersive and satisfying game, we must pay close attention to the controls and their response to user input. These aspects will be tested during the alpha and we will be adding platforming and other activities that require the use of special abilities to reach some easter eggs and minigames.
The social aspects
Anarky is above all a way to share with other users in an asynchronous way, this means that every modification you make to the world will be reflected in the game of all the players. You will never be alone in Anarky and we will always provide different methods to share content within this virtual world.
During the alpha we will be implementing more and more methods to share content adjusting it to the feedback of the play testers.
The economy
As in any open world, there will be an economy that will allow users to acquire all kinds of items to be used when customizing the room, skin, to buy special vehicles, etc.The way to get this currency will be through interaction with the world, being an active user you will receive daily rewards in game currency to be spent later on whatever you want.
This is by far one of the hardest things to implement in the game so it will be added later in Anarky’s development.
The store
The Anarky store works by allowing each user to have their own display where they can offer products such as skins, furniture for the room, music, sound effects, game sprites, games, etc.
Everything in the store will be sold in in-game currency.
For those who want to make real money, an internal currency exchange system with real currency will be implemented. but as we mentioned above, the economy is one of the most difficult points to implement, so the exchange of internal currency for real currency will not be available yet.
What you will see at the start of play testing
At the beginning of the play testing you will see an empty world with no NPCs, no activities to perform. This is intentional, the main purpose during this stage is to improve controls, camera, menus, navigation and intuitive learning.
As the feedback from the play testers teaches us how to improve all the most basic aspects of the game, we will be able to implement activities and minigames. Every week we will make improvements and implement more activities to the game until we reach the point where all of the above is implemented.
We hope that as play testers you understand this and be patient, your feedback is important as it will tell us the direction to take during development. That is why Anarky will start with the most basic, to not waste energy developing things that the end user will not like.
Play testing Launch date
Anarky will be released on September 11, 2023 as a closed alpha only for those who fill out the form below. As play testers you will be the first to test the game and will be part of the development of the project, Together we will make Anarky the best world possible.